Images courtesy 20th Century Fox.
New offering Alien: Covenant slightly underperformed and week-three holdover Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 had another strong showing, to the end that Covenant earned the weekend’s top spot by just a $1.5 million margin. Teenage romance adaptation Everything, Everything was the only other movie to earn more than $10 million- Box Office Mojo
Decoding what “franchise fatigue” really means — “boring movies-” WIRED
Images courtesy 20th Century Fox.
5/10 Watching Alien: Covenant, it’s hard not to think about the death of cinema, as director/producer Ridley Scott recently described with a remarkable lack of self-awareness. Like the edema, back pain and noxious bad breath of advanced renal failure, the telling symptoms of this process are all present here.
In 2104, the “Covenant” carries more than 2,000 colonists to the distant Origae-6. A poorly timed solar flare blasts the ship seven years out from its destination, triggering emergency wakeup procedures for the 15-man crew. While making repairs, they discover a signal coming from a planet just three weeks away from their current location, one perfect for colonization that everyone had bizarrely missed while looking for new homeworlds. They detour to investigate, and discover the apocalyptic Doctor Moreau freakshow that is the aftermath of Prometheus.
Images courtesy 20th Century Fox.
Prometheus is probably the most famously bad movie in recent memory.
Well, no, there are a lot of people who would pretty condescendingly disagree with that. Maybe it’s the most often defended bad movie in recent memory?
The worst good movie in recent memory. Yeah, that’ll do. Prometheus is by far the worst good movie of the past several years.
On the eve of the film’s followup, it’s time to break down some of the arguments in its favor and why they don’t hold up to scrutiny.
Image courtesy Walt Disney Motion Picture Studios.
As expected, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 continued its reign over Mother’s Day weekend with $65.2 million. It will be interesting to see how it fares against Alien: Covenant this weekend- Box Office Mojo
The MCU’s first offering, Iron Man, was humor-heavy, but it was Guardians of the Galaxy that really made Kevin Feige and company push for laughs in their movies- Reuters
Guy Ritchie’s $175 million King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, on the other hand, absolutely crashed and burned, pulling in just $15.3 million — compared to industry estimates coming into the weekend of just $25 million, which still would have constituted a massive flop. The film was initially pitched as the first of six King Arthur movies for Warner Bros.- The Guardian
Arthur gets a wonderful visual analogue for his hero’s journey through Excalibur. The political power he rejects is reflected in the extreme physical power the sword grants, and his relationship to his own ambitions is mirrored by his relationship to the sword throughout the film. Photos courtesy Warner Bros.
8/10 King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is careening toward a disastrous reception, and that’s a shame, because it’s awesome.
After betraying his brother, Uther (Eric Bana), King Vortigern (Jude Law) rules England with an iron fist. His cruel kingship is challenged when Arthur (Charlie Hunnam), a London brothel bastard, draws the sword Excalibur from its stone, a devastatingly powerful enchanted blade that only answers to the king of England. Arthur rejects the crown, wanting only to return to the slums, but is pushed by Sir Bedivere (Djimon Hounsou) to help overthrow the evil king, who’s already gone to the trouble of burning Arthur’s old home anyway.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword weaves a strange and compelling spell. To describe the movie in one word, it’s ominous. There’s a keen sense of impending doom from the first scene onward, one that coexists with writer/director/producer Guy Ritchie’s signature light-heartedness. Though it has plenty of action, this isn’t an action movie — it’s a well-disguised thriller, designed to keep viewers on the edge of their seats through moodiness and anticipation.
Reel Entropy 