The summer’s over, we’re back to school and the boredom has begun. Here’s our list of the best and worst movies of the summer. Some movies even made both lists:
The Best
Mission Impossible 2: Tom Cruise. John Woo. More action. Enough said.
Titan A.E.: The plot was not perfect and the characters were not well developed, but the animation was so cool.
Me, Myself and Irene: Jim Carrey gave a great performance in this film as two conflicting personalities. It’s amazing RenM-ie Zellweger was able to put up with it for so long.
Gladiator: Epic battle movie with a standout performance by the versatile Russell Crowe, and astonishingly produced fight sequences that, with any luck, will stand the test of time like Ben-Hur or Braveheart.
Shaft: It doesn’t match the personality of the first one, but Samuel L. Jackson has made his own version of Shaft that is as tough as Richard Roundtree’s Shaft. He’s still one bad dude.
Chicken Run: Anyone who didn’t “run” to see this movie was a fool. There’s a lot of fun in chickens trying to escape from the threat of the ax. When it’s in claymation, it’s even more fun. What could be more fun than having Mel Gibson as the voice of a rooster?
Dinosaur: It wasn’t great story-wise. It was the genius move of combining computer animation with live-action backgrounds that showed the true colors of the film. The music helped too. But the post-asteroid scene looked strangely like the fires from Gone With the Wind.
Small Time Crooks: Woody Allen’s yearly film project came to this piece of work about bumbling thieves looking to make a tunnel that leads under a bank vault so they can take the money. But different circumstances arise. The comedy is great, but Elaine May as a ditsy woman is very annoying.
The Perfect Storm: George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg made a great team in the true story of the ill-fated trip of the Andrea Gail. The special effects made it worth the admission price.
The Patriot: Mel Gibson gave another great performance as he always does in this powerful war epic that made its mark in summer cinema.
X-Men: Great special effects and a perfect cast enhanced this comic-book-based adventure and kicked the comic-book genre into high gear again. Plus, the special effects broke new ground as well.
Scary Movie. It’s the funniest spoof since Airplane and takes intelligent crudeness to an all-time comedic high. By the way, it was the funniest of the summer.
What Lies Beneath: This movie scared the heck out of me because of its great timing in scaring people as well as Harrison Ford’s role.
Nutty Professor II: The Klumps: The sequel to the 1996 smash was great fun with the Klump family being featured prominently throughout the movie, which meant more toilet humor as well.
Space Cowboys: Clint Eastwood’s direction as well as a cast of veterans strengthened this story of four old Air Force coots sent into space to repair a malfunctioning satellite. It really portrayed older people in a new light and showed that they are not useless at all.
Hollow Man: The plot wasn’t great, the ending copped out, but the special effects were fun and that’s what I liked about it. So there.
The Cell: One of the best movies of the summer and the year. Jennifer Lopez gives a stunning performance and the special effects enhance this disturbing psychological thriller.
Bring It On: There was nothing to analyze about this film. It was a lot of fun watching the cheerleaders do what they do the best … cheer.
The Original Kings of Comedy: Having Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer and Bernie Mac together in this concert film makes for many laughs that speak the truth about life.
The Worst
Screwed: This coming from a Norm MacDonald fan, I felt I was cheated out of $7 and 90 minutes in this pointless film with nothing but childish humor and stale one-liners.
The Replacements: Ready, set, hike? More like unoriginal, formulaic and unfunny.
Battlefield Earth: If there ever is a book of cinematic sins, put this movie first on the list. Seeing John Travolta in dreadlocks is as bad as … well, it’s just bad.
Road Trip: The movie had its hilarious moments, but it didn’t come up to the true spirit of actual college road trips. Tom Green made the right decision by staying behind at the college, which makes his performance the best of all of them.
Center Stage: This movie is the true Melrose Place of ballet movies. It is overly dramatic and laden with bad dialogue and wooden acting that doesn’t convey much of the spirit of the art form it is trying to portray
Shanghai Noon: It was Rush Hour set in the old West. That’s bad enough. This movie also made westerns look hokey, which I don’t appreciate, especially since we’ve had some great people from the past make westerns look good, such as legendary director John Ford. Forget the acting in this movie. Just forget the whole movie.
Gone in 60 Seconds: I wish this movie was gone in 60 seconds. The cars acted better than the actors did.
Coyote Ugly: The bar scenes are the best part of the movie, and that’s it. Piper Perabo is cute, but the story is so badly written that I am surprised it even got green-lighted.
Me, Myself and Irene: Here, the comedy is tasteless and laughless in the Farelly Brothers’ latest plotless gross-out. It’s one of the summer’s biggest disappointments.
X-Men: The venerable comic book is destroyed. X-Men fails with flying colors. Its weak plot, lack of action, subpar special effects, little character development, and comic inaccuracy override Hugh Jackman’s breakthrough performance.
The Crew: Touchstone should have jumped ship on this one. There was only one film that got the old-guy thing down very well this summer, and that was Space Cowboys. This film about retired mobsters is ridiculously bad and the humor is ill timed. Plus, it insults senior citizens by portraying them in the wrong manner.
Big Momma’s House: Seeing Martin Lawrence in a fat body suit reminded me of the “exit” sign in the movie theater.
PokM-imon The Movie 2000: I had vowed never to see another movie based on PokM-imon, but being the good brother that I am, I was forced to see this sordid piece of garbage. The animation is still trash, but the plot was a bit better.
Boys and Girls: I’ve had enough of these teen films already. Give them a rest and save us the torture. Please!!!!
Loser: On paper, pairing Jason Biggs and Mena Suvari looks good, but on the screen, it is a total embarrassment. Plus, having Biggs as a small-town Midwestern guy unfamiliar with the territory in New York is sad in its own way. It was sad that I wasted five bucks on this movie too.
The Kid: It’s Disney, it had Bruce Willis, and it stunk. Oh yeah, it had a kid in there, too.
The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle: Another TV cartoon turned into a movie equals another huge, embarrassing failure.
Summer 2000 was disappointing because we didn’t have the excitement of last summer, which included the Star Wars prequel, The Blair Witch Project and the Austin Powers sequel. Usually, a summer holds the high spirits of cinema by bringing out the biggest blockbusters and the biggest stars in films that actually matter. So far, summer 2001 looks like a huge powerhouse of blockbusters with its current schedule that includes Tomb Raider, Disney’s Atlantis, Jurassic Park 3 and A.I., and I do hope that it stays that way.
