1. Let’s Be Cops (Opened Wednesday, Fox, 3,094 Theaters, 104 Theaters, Rated R for language including sexual references, some graphic nudity, violence and drug use): Does this film really benefit from a Wednesday release? It’s not a holiday weekend, and even if it is, this is a dumb comedy. The two extra days of grosses aren’t going to do you that much good against the summer blockbusters, especially when reviews are as bad as this one got.
Ryan (Jake Johnson) and Justin (Damon Wayans Jr.) are two guys who make the mistake of wearing their police officer Halloween costumes out in public after a costume party. The uniforms give the pair a respect they do not usually get, so they take to wearing them all the time. Unfortunately, their fake crimebusting goes awry when they run afoul of some real mobsters.
The film opened to a $5.2 million on Wednesday, which is good, but we’ll see how it does when the films below hit.
2. The Expendables 3 (Lionsgate, 3,221 Theaters, 126 Minutes, Rated PG-13 for violence including intense sustained gun battles and fight scenes, and for language):
What began as a celebration of the action film from the 80s to today has now become even more of a reclamation project for stars that Sylvester Stallone has worked with (Wesley Snipes) and ones he didn’t (Mel Gibson).
The film is something of a generation gap movie, as Stallone’s character, Barney Ross, hires younger mercenaries to replace his older comrades. When a mission goes bad, the new Expendables have to join up with the old Expendables in order to save the day.
A lot of fuss was made over this film getting edited for a PG-13 film, as it in and of itself is a betrayal of the films action movie roots. However, if this is Stallone’s last go around in the franchise, perhaps he wants to go out with the the biggest box office of the trilogy.
3. The Giver (The Weinstein Company, 3,003 Theaters, 94 Minutes, Rated PG-13 for a mature thematic image and some sci-fi action/violence): Adapting Lois Lowry’s 1993 book has been a pet project for Jeff Bridges for a long time. How long? He originally wanted his father Lloyd, who died in 1998, to play the titular role, an elderly man who passes forbidden knowledge down to the next generation. Who plays the role now? You guessed it, Jeff Bridges.
Although the delay might work out in Bridges’ favor. Dystopian tales featuring young protagonists are in right now. Of course, not all young adult novelizations do well at the box office, so that will have to be taken into effect.
The story deals with an ideal society built around sameness, where a council of elders decides everything for their constituents. One teenager, named Jonas, is chosen to become the “Receiver of Memory,” the store of all knowledge that happened before the council took over which is preserved in the event any of it becomes necessary to the community. However, when Jonas receives the memories, he realizes just what his society did and continues to do to keep an ideal world.
