Happy birthday, America! Or rather, Happy Barbecue and Fireworks Day, as the Supreme Court decided three days ago to essentially kill the republic by declaring the former President a monarch unaccountable to the law. Hey, we had almost 248 years. It was a good run.
In that spirit, I have decided that for this month’s column, I’m going to upset years of precedent and tradition for the sake of a king. There are nine trailers to get through as usual, but for today, I’m going to start off with a bit of surprising and unexpected positivity. In a huge shock to me, what should have been a landslide, stone cold, lead pipe lock for “The Worst Trailer in the World” has instead turned into an unintended second “Redemption Reel,” and it’s all for King Bob!
Also, in another departure from the norms, I’m going to dispense with the usual lengthy preamble. Let’s get down to business, because the heat is on and America is burning!
This is the July 2024 edition of “This Film is Not Yet Watchable!”
Despicable Me 4 – July 3
Yeah, I know it came out yesterday, which means I’m technically late with this column. But hey, the rules no longer apply, so let’s embrace the oncoming anarchy, muthafuckas!
I was certain this would be terrible, and for what it’s worth, it’s apparently middling at best. It sits at 55% on Rotten Tomatoes, down from the 65% it enjoyed from early, cultivated reviews last week. But when I saw the trailer, especially the first one that focuses more on the baby than the Minions (featured in the back half of my video), I was genuinely surprised at how much I was laughing. This hadn’t happened since Despicable Me 2, and every mainline and spinoff entry since just got worse and more painfully cringe.
As it turns out, given its critical score, maybe the trailer editors front-loaded all the good bits, leaving a ton of garbage for those that wind up seeing it (myself included this weekend), but that means that the studio actually did what they were supposed to do. This is a solid sales pitch, emphasizing the humor and action in equal balance, and with the addition of an infant, giving the viewer a sly admission that the Minions’ antics are, well, infantile, as the usual sidekicks get up to the same shenanigans as Gru Jr.
So in that respect, I have to applaud what Universal and Illumination have done here. The movie may end up sucking balls like every entry since the original, but they at least sold it properly. Before this past Monday, I would have bet anything that this would be the most gobsmacked I’d be this year.
Okay, now on to the real crap…
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F – July 3
Oh look, another legacy sequel, and this time Netflix is left holding the bag. Yes, for reasons known but to God, Eddie Murphy returns as the only black man allowed in Beverly Hills. And this time he’s… driving stuff into other stuff. Yeah, that’s about it. Half this trailer is him crashing a helicopter, crashing a snow plow into cop cars (We haven’t had more than an inch of snow since the 1930s, so where the hell did he get a plow?), and crashing a moving can into more cop cars. The rest of it is a terrible remix of the “Axel F” theme song and Joseph Gordon-Levitt sacrificing his dignity while Judge Reinhold grins for a cameo.
Seriously, why do we even bother with this nonsense? Beverly Hills Cop was very much of its time, and there is nothing in the cultural conversation that ever suggested the franchise needed to come back. This is why legacy sequels largely don’t work. We’re given no indication of a need for another entry, no story or character motivation that would justify its existence. And while we do get the occasional gem (Top Gun: Maverick), every time another one of these pops up, you can see the cynicism that comes with such a project, as every second just seems to scream that it was only made to try to cash in on nostalgia rather than advancing anything. This looks no different, and since it’s on Netflix, it makes even less sense, because there will be no box office to point to as an end justified by the means. So again I ask, why?
Space Cadet – July 4
Fuck. No.
This may be one of the most insulting ideas for a movie I’ve ever seen. A young woman (Emma Roberts) who dreamed of being an astronaut as a child but grew up into a party girl bartender applies for astronaut training, has her friend (Poppy Liu) completely forge her qualifications, and she somehow not only gets in but will somehow inevitably succeed and go into space.
What in the actual retail fuck are we doing here?
First off, you’re ripping off the plot of Second Act, and when you’re taking your cues from a fucking Jennifer Lopez movie, you already know you’re doomed. Second, it’s beyond idiotic – and borderline racist – to suggest that some energetic white girl can just fake her way into something and fail upward to the point where she might actually leave the planet. Third, we’re meant to treat this felony-level fraud as something charming and comedic. Absolutely not.
But worst of all, how did NASA sign off on this? Why would they allow their name to be put on a project that basically makes them utterly incompetent? All of this bullshit is predicated upon a desire for “unconventional candidates” and the baffling assumption that frigging NASA would take a résumé purely at face value and not do a basic background check. I’m sorry, but that’s several bridges too far. The idea that our space program would not actually vet an applicant and put someone so woefully unqualified into orbit suggests a lackadaisical stupidity on par with people who think Donald Trump is a Christian.
Do you want Gravity? Because this is how you get Gravity.
Tyler Perry’s Divorce in the Black – July 11
It’s a Tyler Perry movie. You know why it’s here. Selling itself as a gritty drama bordering on a thriller, the film is about an abused wife who gets a divorce, only her ex continues to stalk her. Oh, and because it’s a Tyler Perry movie, the woman can’t just make a positive change for herself, she’s got to find comfort in a different, hotter man, and of course find her value in the church. Just because there’s no Madea doesn’t mean this isn’t the same old shit. It’s not even worth listing the actors at the end of the trailer because they’re people you’ve likely never heard of, and the only name that ever matters in these affairs is Tyler fucking Perry. Hard pass.
Fly Me to the Moon – July 12
I’m torn on this one. On the one hand, the idea of a satire of NASA’s public relations sounds pretty funny. I know this because The Simpsons did it 30 years ago! On the other, this is a big budget, star-studded affair surrounding the most historic space mission we’ve ever done, so there’s a lot more territory to mine, and the likes of Scarlett Johansson, Ray Romano, and Jim Rash are well up to the task of making this hilarious.
What tips this into the down column for me is two-fold. One, I don’t care about any sexual tension between Johansson and Channing Tatum. Every second they’re on screen together in this preview feels like padding and cheap box-checking, like we just can’t have this story if there aren’t hot people having a will they/won’t they moment. The second is that this film posits that a “back-up” staged Moon Landing had to be produced in case the actual Apollo 11 mission failed. This is some bullshit of the highest order, and only serves to give credence to idiot conspiracy theorists, who deserve less oxygen than there is in actual outer space.
This may turn out to be the hit of the summer, but the presentation of the trailer raises some red flags that I just can’t overcome in the moment. We’ll see what happens, but the fact that Jason Bateman was originally slated to direct but then left over “creative differences” with Sony and Apple doesn’t bode well.
Dandelion – July 12
This is one of those movies that I think will be pretty good, but the pitch is off. I love KiKi Layne as an actress. She’s absolutely tremendous, and she looks to be giving a fine performance here.
But here’s the thing. This is just an American version of Once. The relationship dynamics, the timbre of the songs, the side trips and motorcycle rides in the country, it was all done in that 2007 masterpiece, and nothing in this trailer appears to differentiate it, apart from making the woman the struggling musician and having her be of a different race. Maybe that’s enough in a story like this, but it’s still highly derivative.
Also, it’s a bit telling when the first credits listed in the preview are for the songwriters rather than the actors. This suggests that the film will campaign heavily for Original Song at the end of the year, but that the rest of the flick will be largely forgotten.
Lumina – July 12
So… Eric Roberts is going to save us from aliens. Yeah.
My Spy: The Eternal City – July 18
I am genuinely confused as to how Amazon’s market cap was recently valued at $2 trillion, because when they keep throwing money away on garbage like this, it’s truly mind-boggling that the company can remain profitable.
I featured the original My Spy in this column back in 2020, when it was delayed multiple times both due to the pandemic and because it was god-awful. It was so bad that it was pulled from the theatrical schedule entirely, and even when theatres reopened, it remained in limbo until Amazon picked it up. By all accounts, its 49% rating on Rotten Tomatoes is extremely generous.
So of course we needed a sequel, and of course it looks even dumber than the last one. This time, Dave Bautista has a stupid haircut, and his pint-sized sidekick (Chloe Coleman) is a bratty teenager who decides that a choir trip to Italy (just go with it) is her chance to party without a chaperone… even though she’s training to be a secret agent, and somehow Kristen Schaal, Ken Jeong, and Craig Robinson (who are ALL better than this drivel) have to act like this isn’t all terrible. Seriously, the moment that Schaal with a straight face compared Bautista to an avocado (just sitting there getting older and softer) when he’s still clearly in peak physical condition, was painful.
Also, given that this movie is about intelligence work, it’s kind of messed up that it’s subtly spreading disinformation. The central plot involves a bomb being placed under the Vatican, and yet all the branding of the film is of Italy, including the Italian flag on the end slate. Vatican City is an enclave within Rome, but it is an independent nation, not a part of Italy. You can’t expect to get anywhere in intelligence if you’re being actively stupid.
The Abandon – July 19
I should play Portal again. That seems way more fun than this.
***
With that, it’s time to restore order to the universe with “The Worst Trailer in the World.” As I mentioned up above, I thought I had an instant candidate locked down, but I was monumentally surprised. However, the Hollywood Homogenizer has never failed me, and this month is no exception. I may have been flabbergasted by the Minions and Baby Gru, but the plague of legacy sequels continues unabated.
Twisters – July 19
It’s ironic that these films are about disrupting storms and saving people from devastation, yet they keep churning out one shitty recycled idea after another. I weep for mankind.
***
Finally, as ever, we end on a faint glimmer of hope, and this month’s “Redemption Reel.” The title is shared with Despicable Me 4 due to the shock of showing quality in the marketing, but for all intents and purpose, this one is the real deal. Sometimes the honor goes to an independent film that shows quirky promise. Sometimes it’s a prestige entry that might vie for awards. This time, however, it’s pure popcorn fare that we’ve been waiting for with bated breath for years.
Deadpool & Wolverine – July 26
I mean, how could I not? Over the last 15 years we’ve watched the X-Men franchise, Marvel Cinematic Universe, and various spinoffs rise and fall in quality, and then fall so drastically that the entire property is barely watchable anymore, with continued emphasis on interconnected narratives and mediocre shows on Disney+. The one bright spot throughout it all has been Deadpool, with Ryan Reynolds turning his entire career around by giving us two uproariously hilarious, subversive takes on all the comic book movie conventions, providing the snarky, irreverent – yet still loving – R-rated self-awareness that fans had long been craving.
Teaming up with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, who himself had his greatest turn in the R-rated Logan, is an inspired and inevitable move, given all of DP’s commentary on the character and actor over the last two films. There’s even a clever way to incorporate all the multiverse bullshit, as this movie involves a Wolverine from another timeline, one seemingly based on the 90s animated series if we’re going by Logan’s wardrobe, which would be its own brilliant gag.
We’ve been waiting for a third installment in this series for six years, and it’s hard to imagine that it’ll disappoint. And given Kevin Feige’s continued obliviousness to his own highly diminished returns and obsessive need to get everything under one umbrella, this will likely be the last entry in the MCU that anyone will give a shit about,
***
That’s all for this month, folks. As always, I hope you enjoy your time at the theatre, no matter what you see, and given the increasingly dire conditions of our country, I pray you stay safe.
Join the conversation in the comments below! Do you plan to see any of these films? Was I too hard on any of them? What other conspiracy theories do you think will be made into movies? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) and YouTube for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!
I Actually Paid To See This 