Summer Recap in Winter Transission

I just finished my last summer film which was just released last week in Italy, Guardians of the Galaxy. Now I am competent enough to make a summer recap post. To be honest, this summer the films are quite tame. We didn't have anything that's incredibly badass like last year's Pacific Rim. When the top-grossing movie of the summer is a film with a raccoon and a talking tree, clearly something's wrong with Hollywood's blockbusters (or its audience).

Top 3 Films
1. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
This sequel is grand and brave. Parts of the films were communicated in ape language. The story is engaging, emotional and amazing. Apes franchise could easily be so laughable but they kept on elevating the level of this film. Jason Clarke was a great successor to James Franco, but the star is motion capture master Andy Serkis who, with Weta, created the superb Caesar. Toby Kebbell's Koba is equally awesome as well. Matt Reeves also prove himself to be worthy to take care of this franchise after Rupert Wyatt.




2. Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians isn't necessarily a breakthrough film, but it's more like a perfect throwback to the age before gritty summer blockbuster films ala Christopher Nolan. Its fun atmosphere, expansion of Marvel Cinematic Universe and exceptionally well-cast actors definitely helped Guardians of the Galaxy to be immensely watchable. Don't forget the super funny script with amazingly quotable lines. Guardians work because its bravery to take C-list comic material and lifted into A-list. But I wouldn't be too confident to launch another quirky material like this (winking at Inhumans). Lightning doesn't strike the same place twice, otherwise it's War of the Worlds.


3. TIE Edge of Tomorrow & How to Train Your Dragon 2
Edge of Tomorrow (or now titled Live.Die.Repeat) was one of the smartest action sci-fi films ever put on film. With Tom Cruise at his sci-fi best and Emily Blunt being unbelievably badass, it has everything you want in a summer film: action, humor, explosions, famous actors, director with a cred. While How to Train Your Dragon 2 is just beautiful. It's not simply a cash grab film because the first one was immensely popular, it's amazing. The animation has never been better. The voice work is great (Dude Cate Blanchett's in it!). The story greatly expands the world that's established in the first one. It's an amazing work although the film's not as good as the original.

Honorable mentions:
- A sequel to the prequel which actually is a sequel to the original trilogy, X-Men: Days of Future Past which Avenger-ized the X-Men franchise by combining original trilogy actors with prequel actors and eventually erasing the original trilogy timeline and Brett Ratner's contribution.
- The hyper-funny and meta 22 Jump Street. Being a good sequel which base is the relationship between Channing and Jonah while also making fun of themselves, literally.

Most Surprising Film
Lucy
Lucy is Bad Boys meets Transporter meets Limitless meets The Tree of Life. It is a super high concept sci-fi action film starring Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman. It's about a human who's able to access the maximum cerebral capacity after being to a drug. Lucy is a very unconventional Hollywood film. It's surprising for me because it has a great premise and in the middle it sometimes became laughable and finally the ending mind-fucked you. It's fun to see Scarlett Johansson kick ass though.

Honorable mention:
The incredible improvement that is The Purge Anarchy, which is the film I was hoping for in the first one and also it has a great story for a B-movie premise while also setting up things for more Purging.

Worst Film
Transformers: Age of Extinction
I don't think this should be explained in a paragraph. This is coming from a person who enjoys the Shia LaBeouf-led Transformers trilogy. Age of Extinction is Hollywood being desperate. We have Dawn which successfully changed leading actors. We have Guardians that broke the innovation wall. We have an honest, crafted-from-the-heart sequel in HTTYD 2. This film is all the opposite of the films that were just mentioned. It is a lazy, bloated summer film. And what pains me that it still raked in more than 1 billion dollars. It was so bad.