Forget Bad Ass; This Summer Was Just Plain Bad

In one of the few negative reviews of Christopher Nolan's smash hit Inception, New York magazine's David Edelstein complained, "I truly have no idea what so many people are raving about. It's as if someone went into their heads while they were sleeping and planted the idea that Inception is a visionary masterpiece."

While Edelstein is almost completely alone in his disdain for Inception upon its release, years from now, upon revisiting the film, I suspect more and more people will approach the film with the same baffled confusion as him. "Why?" they will ask. "Why, in the summer of 2010, did everyone go crazy for Inception?"

The answer to that question has much more to do with the context in which the film was released than it does with the film itself. With all due respect to Nolan and co.'s skills as filmmakers, let's face it, people, Inception is no Dark Knight. Despite its inability to live up the ridiculously high standard set by Nolan's previous film, critics and film-goers embraced Inception because, quite simply, in the summer of 2010, Hollywood gave them virtually nothing else to embrace.

In other words, it isn't that Inception is so good, it's just that everything else around it is so god awful.

Still riding a hysterical high from the money that Avatar brought in, late spring and early summer saw Hollywood begin rushing films into post-production 3D transfers that were never meant to be released in 3D rather than following the example set by Avatar and actually shooting the movies in 3D. The result was films like Alice in Wonderland and Clash of the Titans: unnecessary remakes with poorly thought-out and murky 3D that failed to hide the fact neither were very good films to begin with. Rather than pushing cinema forward into a new era of 3D as so many were proclaiming, this slap-dash 3D reeked of a gimmicky cash-grab, while one of the few films actually shot in 3D, Step-Up 3D, was universally panned.

It's been less than a year since Avatar was released and already 3D has made the transition from novel to annoying.

In a similar manner, the rushed approach in which the Twilight films are being pumped out has led to such a level of over-exposure that Eclipse's release, despite garnering positive reviews, marked the point where a series that had grown from cult phenomenon to mainstream hit moved back to being cult phenomenon. With three movies released in such a short period of time, even the haters seem bored with complaining about Twilight. When the forth film is released, will anyone care?

Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise's Knight and Day opened to virtually no buzz and brought in half of what their films opened at a decade ago, in the pre-Jumping-the-Couch days, demonstrating that the man who was once guaranteed an opening weekend box office gross of $100 million is now anything but.

Speaking of lack of buzz, two much anticipated sequels, Sex and the City 2 and Iron Man 2, came and went without so much as a hum. Also on the superhero front, despite strong pre-release hype, Matthew Vaughn's Kick Ass failed to connect with mainstream audiences the way its creators had hoped it would, and it remained the niche film it was always destined to be. An adaption of the comic book The Losers fared even worse, while virtually no one went to see Megan Fox in Jonah Hex -- a movie that was in theatres for a full two weeks before it managed to break the $10 million mark.

Also failing to see high numbers despite franchise aspirations was Prince of Persia, a fantasy adventure film based on a video game staring action super star . . . Jake Gyllenhaal (?!). Meanwhile M. Night Shyamalan continued his startling decent from a subtle and controlled master of genre to a self-indulgent hack with an attempt at a family-friendly fantasy adventure, The Last Airbender -- a movie that fell flat for audiences of all ages.

In the tradition of their Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre remakes, with A Nightmare on Elm Street Platinum Dunes took a classic horror franchise, gave it a spiffy new shine, and then completely sucked all life and soul out of it.

A Mr. T-less adaptation of The A-Team came and went without anyone much caring either way (other than a much perturbed original Mr. T), while a Robert Rodriguez-produced Predators film, moderately anticipated in geek circles, turned out to be a high-concept low-budget action sci-fi that appealed only to hardcore fans and then failed to please them.

Other than Inception, what has fared well this summer? How to Train Your Dragon, Shrek Forever After, Toy Story 3, and Despicable Me all reached number one at the box office the week of their release. Notice anything similar about those four films?

So, Mr. Edelstein, you want to know why everyone raved about Inception?

Well, unless you're a huge fan of animated family-films, there wasn't anything other than Inception to rave about. Simple as that.

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Comments (2)

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Nina

September 19, 2010

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When you cite all those flops one after the other, it's pretty depressing. At least we got Scott Pilgrim vs. the World at the end of it all.

kevinjohns

September 20, 2010

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Unfortionately, despite being a wonderful film...

...Scott Pilgrim was one of the biggest flops of them all!

Pilgrim has been out for five weeks and has grossed only half its estimated budget!

You can make the best film in the world, but if you are still $30 million dollars behind breaking even a month and a half after release, you've created a huge, stinking failure of a movie.

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