Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2013

Nice notes. I always got the feeling del Toro was a nice guy - good to have confirmation.

I don't know why "Pacific Rim" did mediocre business. I don't know if I accept the "it's not a sequel/adaptation/known property" argument - yes, those kinds of films dominate the modern box office, but "original films" can still do well.

Maybe it was partly "action fatigue", as "PR" came out semi-late in the summer and viewers had grown tired of big action flicks? The ad campaign probably didn't help, as it made the movie look like some weird mix of Godzilla and Transformers.

As I've mentioned, "PR" disappointed me. I thought it felt generic and not especially exciting, which surprised me given del Toro's talents - and I LOVE that kind of movie. I felt completely underwhelmed by "PR" - forgettable characters, mediocre action...

 

I quite enjoyed Pacific Rim but felt a little more focus on the characters and a little less giant robot action sequences would have helped. I was irritated by how they started to nicely develop Rinko Kikuchi's character then all of a sudden just seemed to drop that entirely when the action kicked in and they never went back to it. The other issue is that most of the plot elements in this film are total cliche and have been seen countless times over the years.

But Del Toro's inarguable prowess as a director helped to keep it entertaining despite the structural issues, and the CGI battle sequences were MILES better than anything Michael "Hack" Bay has ever come up with.

 

FAST 6 HAD THE SAFE...ACCEPT IT.

 

I dunno if you're being argumentative or funny, but it was Fast 5:



http://www.vulture.com/2013/05/could-the-fast-5-safe-heist-happen-in-real-life.html

Fast 5 takes place almost completely in Brazil; Fast & Furious 6 takes place mostly in London and Spain. No question, the movies are so brainless, it's easy to confuse all of them.

Both made huge, huge money. But not enough to offset the losses Universal has had with bombs like R.I.P.D.

 

I opt for funny

 

Around here, it's awfully hard to tell.

 

I really wish Pacific Rim had an extended director's cut. I thought I read that the movie we saw in theaters was shorter than what was initially delivered. I may be misremembering.

 

Nothing Guillermo said at the cast and crew screening would indicate Pacific Rim, as shown in theaters, was anything other than the exact version he wanted released. He talked quite a bit about the genesis of the project (starting when he was a boy in Mexico), his struggles to convince a studio to budget for the kind of picture he envisioned, his decision to personally oversee the 3D conversion because no one else seemed to fully understand what he was hoping to achieve with the process, etc.

Guillermo was quite adamant regarding his desire that viewers didn't apply “postmodern irony” to his tale of Kaijus and mecha. It was actually a terrific talk and added a lot to my kids' and my enjoyment of the film. (Perhaps Pacific Rim would have done better had Warners filmed GdT's pep talk and screened it before every showing!) Anyway, as there seemed to be a veritable sea of cell phones capturing Guillermo's oration, I've got to believe someone has posted it online somewhere.

I don't think there will be a "director's cut" of Pacific Rim… simply because we've already seen it.

 

Man, the editing of that scene makes no ****ing sense. From shot to shot you have no idea where anyone is, how much time has elapsed, or who's who.

 

I don't agree at all. In context, the editing works very well. I don't dispute the whole thing is at a dizzying pace, but you're used to it by the time this sequence comes up, more than 90 minutes into the film, and it does make visual and logical sense.

The script itself makes no sense, but that's another separate problem.

 

Yeah usually I agree that editing on these films is terrible and a confusing mess. That scene looks fine to me though.

 

It reminds me of a Truffaut film.

 

I can't argue about the confused mess that a lot of modern fight scenes have, where they're cut so blindingly fast, you can't figure how where the F each character is, who got hit, who's been killed, who's still standing, and so on. When you have a 7-minute handheld-camera scene with hundreds of 15-frame cuts, it's just dizzying after awhile. But director Justin Lin is very, very careful about this stuff -- I'm impressed as hell with how well he made these films, technically. I think the acting and the story was pretty lame, but everything else was pretty well-done... and though the characters were very 1-dimensional, you cared for them to a point.

 

Yeah not that I like to pile on him, just he's the best example I can think of at the moment since I avoid these types of movies now, but Bay is the first to come to mind.

I remember being excited to see the trailer for Transformers with the big fight on the freeway and thinking "what the hell am I looking at." In that case the design of some of the robots seems to almost even intentionally make them into blurry messes during the action sequences.

 

I gotta say, though, in the last Transformers movie, I was very impressed with the evil robot that cut the building in half like a chainsaw. That one element was the most visually-interesting thing in the movie. I noticed they kind of imitated that in several movies since then. But the story and characters were zip. I don't think Michael Bay's a stupid man; I'm certain he's looked at big, successful films like The Avengers and realized you need more than just flashy effects to carry a film, and a movie like Pacific Rim arguably did giant robots far better than anything Bay has ever done.

 

Not sure if I saw that part of the film.

I enjoyed the first transformers, and unlike most actually enjoyed the second one. The third one though I stopped about halfway through. I just could not take the human storyline he tacked onto the film with the love interest and the parents running around and the whole insane plot of the Decepticons in that movie, I probably could have enjoyed it jsut for the sheer spectacle of it though if not for the humans running around doing silly stuff.

I hope people are realizing story is important that was my major gripe with the films I saw this summer. The same effects filled action sequences in multiple films with not enough story in between.

I've pointed out to people that Iron Man 3 and Star Trek if you kind of make a rough outline of the big action sequences they are almost identical.

Terrorist launching surprise attack from a flying weapons platform hovering outside a location.
Big flying action sequence (they really had to try hard and get all convoluted to get that in Star Trek).
Big ending fight sequence on platforms of varying height.

I marginally enjoyed both films. There is one big difference though that gives the edge to Iron Man 3 the storyline tying it all together was a bit more original and inventive. The big flaw for me is Star Trek made the huge mistake of purposely forcing people to compare it to what in my opinion is one of the most well written science fiction films ever. A film that purposely avoided action sequences and fight scenes, Wrath is all about strategy and dialog. So to me it just makes the rather generic terrorist plot that they plugged the characters into to fill space between the action more obvious. That and relying a bit to much on "Hey look it's a tribble, you guys love tribbles remember."

 

I agree, i am suprised by how much I like Johnson, especially with comedy.

 

I think it's a superficial resemblance at best. A movie like Iron Man is going to live or die on the basis of its characters and story arc, not just the minor plot detail. And in Iron Man 3's case, it made $1.21B this past summer, while Star Trek: Into Darkness made a relatively paltry $466M. I'd argue that each was deserved, and that Iron Man was a far better movie, critically and financially.

 

Let's continue here:

Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2013 (pt2)