We made it. One of the biggest, craziest summers in motion picture history, packed to the gills with blockbusters, independents, reboots, remakes, franchises and sequels. Together, dear readers, we made it all the way to the end, and now the time has finally come to take stock, and remember what was awesome, and what just sucked.
Check Out: Crave Presents The 50 Worst Movies of the Decade (So Far)
So join us as we consider all the films that came out between May and August, and single out the best of the best, and the worst of the worst. It was a season of surprise hits and disappointing failures, in which women stood out as the most exciting heroes of the year (finally) and audiences finally shied away from a superhero yarn. It was a season in which dinosaurs ruled the Earth and comedians swam in poop. It was a weird handful of months.
These are Crave’s picks for The 10 Best Movies of Summer 2015, and also the ten worst. Make of them what you will, and start recuperating now, because there’s less than a month until Oscar season begins in earnest….
The 10 Best Movies of Summer 2015 (and the 10 Worst):
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
The 10 Best (and 10 Worst) Summer Movies of 2015
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10th Worst: Hitman: Agent 47
Far from the worst video game movie ever made, but still a dopily plotted and forgettable action throwaway, Hitman: Agent 47 deserves some credit for Rupert Friend's ongoing, mostly successful efforts to give his one-dimensional character a bit of substance. That he almost succeeds is a minor miracle.
Image via 20th Century Fox
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10th Best: The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
The spy caper The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is that rare exercise in style over substance which actually works out. Guy Ritchie's slick direction, a non-stop barrage of beautiful production design and a cast of charmingly snippy characters made this retro reboot a delightful, but superficial summer treat.
Image via Warner Bros.
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9th Worst: Pixels
Adam Sandler toned down the grotesque bullying for Pixels, an incredibly generic action comedy about a team of loser video game nerds facing off against real-life incarnations of Pac-Man, Centipede and Donkey Kong. The film shamelessly panders to nostalgia geeks but gives them nothing in return for their ticket money, other than an excuse to sit in an air-conditioned theater. At least it was relatively harmless.
Image Via Sony Pictures
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9th Best: Jurassic World
Jurassic World is dumb, but it's the good kind of dumb, in which nobody pretends that they're in anything more important than an expensive popcorn movie, and the action sequences are tremendous. The plot sucks and the characters are lame, but they're not undermining anything emotionally or dramatically significant. They're just running from dinosaurs, and then the dinosaurs fight each other, and then everyone goes home happy. We'll take it.
Image via Universal Pictures
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8th Worst: San Andreas
CGI destruction was not enough to save this dumb disaster thriller, in which Dwayne Johnson abandons his important life-saving job, steals a helicopter that could have been used for vital rescue operations, and saves his own family at the cost of who knows how many other lives. Bad dialogue, stock characters and an insulting lack of context (millions of people die, but what really matters is Johnson's marriage) tear San Andreas down.
Image Via Warner Bros.
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8th Best: When Marnie Was There
Studio Ghibli's last film (for now), is a haunting supernatural fable for introverted little kids, about a shy girl who meets a mysterious friend over the summer, and gets wrapped up in a mystery that goes back generations. Quiet but powerful, When Marnie Was There is one of the most mature kids movies in years.
Image via GKids
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7th Worst: Terminator Genisys
Here's how NOT to reboot a franchise. Terminator Genisys replaced charismatic actors with wooden ones, based its plot entirely on twists instead of suspenseful drama, and then gave away all of those twists in the posters and trailers. Even the action sequences were forgettable. Genisys wasted everyone's time.
Image via Paramount Pictures
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7th Best: Best of Enemies
One of the most entertaining documentaries in recent memory, Best of Enemies chronicles the most exciting debates in television history - complete with witty barbs and constant spite - and then shows us how these events have led directly into catastrophic dumbing down of politics in America. Talking heads Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr. made for great television, and now a great movie, but it just wasn't worth it.
Image via Magnolia Pictures
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6th Worst: Aloha
Cameron Crowe tried to recapture the old magic of Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous, but wound up making a confusing hodgepodge of hackneyed melodrama and sci-fi nonsense instead. Bradley Cooper romances Emma Stone, who plays a native Hawaiian (?), and winds up destroying nuclear weapons with the power of rock. Or something. To paraphrase George Carlin, Aloha didn't know if it was coming or going.
Image via Sony Pictures
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6th Best: Inside Out
Pixar's latest and most ambitious film takes place entirely inside the mind of a little girl, from the perspective of her personified emotions. The conceit is interesting, albeit a little strained, but Pixar utilizes every comedic and emotional opportunity for maximum impact, making Inside Out a very funny, very dramatic, and arguably even insightful experience.
Image via Walt Disney Pictures
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5th Worst: Fantastic Four
Maybe the behind the scenes production squabbles sank Josh Trank's Fantastic Four reboot, or maybe all the gossip boils down to the fact that nobody involved knew how to turn one of Marvel's most beloved comic books into a decent movie. Whatever the reason, Fantastic Four turned out to be one of the worst superhero films, period, stranding an excellent cast in a tedious series of non-events until a lackluster, tacked on conclusion. Fantastic Four is sound and fury, signifying nothing, but without the "sound" and "fury" parts.
Image via 20th Century Fox
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5th Best: Shaun the Sheep Movie
The best comedy of the summer - and so far, the whole year - turned out to be this silent confection from Aardman Animation, about a sheep in the big city, trying to rescue his amnesiac farmer. Shaun the Sheep Movie looks like it's for little kids, but it's excellent fun for anybody who likes to laugh, and its clever, elaborate gags are worthy of comparison to the even classic silent comedies of yore.
Image via Aardman Animation
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4th Worst: Vacation
This uncomfortable attempt to reboot the once-popular Vacation franchise is an episodic nightmare, about a family of ne'er-do-wells who ne'er do anything well and get punished six ways from Sunday for even trying. The gags are vicious, mean-spirited and simplistic, and they repeat themselves over and over again in the hope that eventually they will become funny. Vacation is a tragedy that thinks it's a comedy.
Image via Warner Bros.
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4th Best: Cobain: Montage of Heck
Bloated but powerful, Brett Morgen's documentary about the sad, short life of rock and roll legend Kurt Cobain offers a shocking and hypnotic insight into his life. Cobain: Montage of Heck may evoke sympathy, or even rage, but it has an undeniable impact and ultimately stands out as one of the most engrossing documentaries in recent memory.
Image via HBO Documentary Films
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3rd Worst: The Vatican Tapes
The horror genre hit a nadir this summer with The Vatican Tapes, about a young woman who may or may not be the Antichrist, except we already know she is because that's in the prologue, and the movie takes about an hour to catch up. In the end, the film's complete lack of suspense ruins what could have been a decently scary climax; it's just not worth watching this movie long enough to there.
Image via Lionsgate
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3rd Best: Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
It took five films to get there, but Mission: Impossible finally feels just right. Director Christopher McQuarrie infuses the latest installment with great characters, exciting and varied action sequences, and a playful tone that makes every little task seem like an insurmountable obstacle, ratcheting the suspense up to critical levels. It all just amounts to popcorn entertainment, but this some of the best popcorn entertainment around: Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation entertains, a lot, without ever insulting your intelligence.
Image via Paramount
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2nd Worst: Hot Pursuit
Hot Pursuit is the opposite of funny. This shrieking disaster forces Reese Witherspoon (usually funny) and Sofia Vergara (usually funny) on the road together, but only comes up with ways for the actresses to shame each other, yell nonsense or play off of some truly uncomfortable stereotypes about male sexual ignorance and general homosexual panic. Not only does Hot Pursuit fail to provide laughter, it fails to provide a compelling reason to exist.
Image via Warner Bros.
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2nd Best: The End of the Tour
The End of the Tour may be just one long conversation, but it's one of the most interesting conversations we have ever heard. In this impressive film by James Ponsoldt, David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) tries to get inside the head of legendary author David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel), but together the two authors find themselves shutting more doors than they open, and unable to connect despite their obvious desire to become friends. The End of the Tour is more than a film about writers, it's about the way we all struggle to be honest with one another, and the way we feel when we discover that it's now, finally, too late to do so.
Image via A24
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The Worst: The Human Centipede III (Final Sequence)
It's already made our list of The Worst Movies of the Decade (so far), and with good cause: Tom Six's grotesque third installment in an otherwise intriguing franchise about dehumanization and violence is everything the previous movies weren't. It's shocking for its own sake, it's astoundingly badly acted, and it expects audiences get get off on its viciousness. The first Human Centipede films inspired terror. The third inspires scorn.
Image via IFC Midnight
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The Best: Mad Max: Fury Road
The most visceral, thrilling and remarkable movie of the summer seems destined to go down as the best movie of the year... for now. But whether or not any other film supplants it, Mad Max: Fury Road is a wondrous experience, packed with pulse-pounding action and dynamic characters and a rich world full of engaging detail. The stunts alone would have made this a winner, but the amazing quality of the whole damned production makes Fury Road into a film for the ages.
Image via Warner Bros.
