1. Dirty Grandpa (Lionsgate, 2,912 Theaters, 102 Minutes, Rated R for crude sexual content throughout, graphic nudity, and for language and drug use, No Tomatometer Score [Only three negative reviews recorded at press time]): Oh, Robert DeNiro, what happened to you? I know that Hollywood isn’t lining up to give roles deserving of you talent any more, and unlike Clint Eastwood and Robert Redford, you have only dallied with the director’s chair. Sure, you have a role in just about any film David O. Russell does, but your careers is now filled with direct to Blu=ray films with the occasional underwhelming theatrical release thrown in.
But, really, is it that bad? Did you have to take this role, as a foul-mouth grandfather who takes his grandson (Zac Efron) down to spring break pretty much against his will? Has it really come to this?
The fact that he’s starring in a second-rate Bad Grandpa is, no pun intended, bad enough. But the fact that this film is so bad it didn’t get screened for critics? Well, maybe we should start mourning for Robert DeNiro’s career.
2. The 5th Wave (Sony/Columbia, 2,908 Theaters, 112 Theaters, Rated PG-13 for violence and destruction, some sci-fi thematic elements, language and brief teen partying, Rotten Tomatometer Score: 22% Fresh [45 Reviews]): Now that Katniss and her cohorts have packed up and called it a day, I’m sure the producers love the timing of this film’s release, coming just months after the last Hunger Games.
This film is also adapted from a dystopian young audiences novel, only this time the bad guys are aliens from the heavens and not an oppressive dictatorship. Either way, I’m sure that the powers that be are hoping that fans of Katniss join fans of the book and make this a very successful film.
The book series will be a trilogy, so if this hits there will be more films. But with that Tomatometer Score, that’s not a given.
3. The Boy (STX Entertainment, 2,671 Theaters, 97 Minutes, Rated PG-13 for violence and terror, and for some thematic material, No Rotten Tomatometer Score [Only three Negative Reviews recorded at press time]): Okay, I know you have to give supernatural horror films the benefit of the doubt and suspend your disbelief, but come on. If you are a nanny and you roll up to a house and the kid they want to watch is a porcelain doll, you leave. End the movie, see ya, bye.
But if the nanny stays, I think just watching the doll would be creepy enough to support the movie. I mean, I could probably write a movie around that. You don’t need to throw the whole “Is it alive?” thing in to make it creepier.
The Walking Dead‘s Lauren Cohan trades zombies in for creepy dolls in this one. Being that this film wasn’t released to critics, perhaps she should have stayed on TV
