The summer's biggest flops are that movies that either come in below our expectations, such as Magic Mike XXL starring only Channing Tatum and without Matthew McCopnaughey and Steven Soderbergh behind the camera, or confound us no matter how hard they try to inspire, such as Tomorrowland, which whisked us away but told a confusing, groundless story that didn't stick to a theme before hitting us over the head with a green message. The last movie to have this kind of green message was James Cameron's Avatar, but it wove its theme into the story. Brad Bird's film with George Clooney also had no memorable lines and imported resolution cliches toward the climax. A fistfight wasn't what you expected from a movie about the future.
It's also easy to pile on major misfires, but also time to look at why these stories didn't stick. Pixels was previewed for months, and as I attended middle and high school in the '80s, I could've, should've been in the marketing cross-hairs. Friends and I still weren't inspired. It looked like what it was: big budgeted, star-studded skits with videogames, which only go so far. The original Tron had characters and a premise that was duplicated by the uber-successful Matrix films. This thing looked like a huge skin deep skit. I (and many others) have yet to see Aloha or The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the latter of which had an awesome trailer; it looked inspired, which is more than a few listed above.
It's also easy to pile on major misfires, but also time to look at why these stories didn't stick. Pixels was previewed for months, and as I attended middle and high school in the '80s, I could've, should've been in the marketing cross-hairs. Friends and I still weren't inspired. It looked like what it was: big budgeted, star-studded skits with videogames, which only go so far. The original Tron had characters and a premise that was duplicated by the uber-successful Matrix films. This thing looked like a huge skin deep skit. I (and many others) have yet to see Aloha or The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the latter of which had an awesome trailer; it looked inspired, which is more than a few listed above.
