Not the most original week as the new releases feature a remake, a sequel, and a film based on a true story.
1. Superfly (Opened Wednesday, Columbia, 2.220 Theaters, 116 Minutes, Rated R for violence and language throughout, strong sexuality, nudity, and drug content, Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer rating at press time: 54% Fresh [63 Reviews]): The original Super Fly ranks right behind Shaft as the most influential blaxploitation films of the 1970s, kept in the pop culture consciousness with the help of a legendary soundtrack by Curtis Mayfield.
The franchise was so popular that they were making sequels up to 1990. It’s a mystery why it took them so long to remake the film.
Like the original, this film centers on Youngblood Priest (Trevor Jackson), a cocaine dealer in Atlanta (moved from Harlem of the 1972 film) who is looking to make one last big score so he can retire from the business. But he has a lot of enemies in corrupt police officers, rival gang leaders, and mentors he betrayed that will make that final score impossible to get.
2. Incredibles 2 (Disney, 4,410 Theaters, 118 Minutes, Rated PG for action sequences and some brief mild language, Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer rating at press time: 94% Fresh [167 Reviews]): The Incredibles is often ranked at the top of the list of the best of pretty much any genre it fits in. Animation, Pixar, superhero, comedy, you name it, that film is often named as one of the best of that genre.
And that film ended with the hint of a sequel built into the finals scenes. So why did it take so long, 14 years, to come out with a sequel?
This time, it’s Elasti-Girl (Holly Hunter) who is going out playing hero illegally to try and show the world that they still need heroes. Meanwhile, her husband Bob (Craig T. Nelson) faces the toughest challenge of his life–a teenage daughter hitting adolescence, a baby with a multitude of dangerous powers, and a son learning “new math.”
3. Tag (Warner Brothers, 3,382 Theaters, 100 Minutes, Rated R for language throughout, crude sexual content, drug use and brief nudity, Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer rating at press time: 56% Fresh [105 Reviews]): The plot, which is about six men who have been playing a game of tag for 30 years, might sound like a high concept created solely in the mind of a Hollywood screenwriter. But it isn’t.
This film was based on a true story of a bunch of friends in Spokane, Washington who actually play a game of tag similar to the one in the film. They sold the rights to their story a month after the Wall Street Journal did an article on them.
The film adds conflict by having the game be in danger of breaking up when the one friend (Jeremy Renner) who never got tagged wants to retire.
Next week, dinosaurs have the run of the new releases uncontested. See you then.
