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Hollywood is taking things a bit slow this week, and only giving us one new movie in wide release on Friday. That being said, it’s an interesting one, as it’s the third bigfoot/sasquatch feature we’ve seen released in the last year. Get ready for Abominable.
Just remember, I’m not reviewing these movies, but rather predicting where they’ll end up on the Tomatometer. Let’s take a look at This Rotten Week has to offer.
Dreamworks Animation isn’t quite Pixar or Disney when it comes to pumping out critically acclaimed animated films, but they aren’t all that far off. Some of Dreamworks’ latest include How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (91%), Captain Underpants (88%), Kung Fu Panda 3 (87%) and Trolls (75%). But they’ve also got The Boss Baby (52%) and Home (50%) mixed in. There are a few too many “misses” to really compete critically with the heavy hitters. That makes the arrival of Abominable a bit hard to precisely target.
That being said, Abominable looks like it will clearly land as one of their better flicks based on the reviews that have already been submitted to Rotten Tomatoes. The movie is currently sitting at 86% with 14 reviews posted following a debut at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier in September. Critics seem to appreciate the story of a young girl finding a Yeti on her rooftop, leading to a journey to return him to Mount Everest. Director Jill Culton has another animated movie under her belt in Open Season (48%), but that one was for Sony, and didn’t do so swell with professional reviewers. This one may see its current score dip over the course of the week, but I suspect that the discourse about the feature will stay consistent.
Last week at the box office was a much busier affair, with three new movies in wide release, but overall it was a good week for the Rotten Watch with all three movies falling within 10% of my predictions. That being said, for the first two flicks, considering there were a bunch of reviews in already, I probably should have been within five percent on both. Ad Astra (Predicted: 78% Actual: 82%) got there, and was a critical win. The Brad Pitt-led space odyssey left critics generally pleased. They praised Pitt’s performance as the astronaut seeking cosmic answers, but also lauded the visuals and overall story. The only negatives centered mostly around a “boring” tag, but those were fewer and far between.
Meanwhile, I should have been a bit closer on Downtown Abbey (Predicted: 78% Actual: 85%). I expected the score to drop some over the course of the week, but it really didn’t move all that much. In fact, it ticked up some. The general gestalt of the reviews is that as a standalone movie it is solid, but it’s ultimately geared primarily to fans of the television series.
And finally, Rambo: Last Blood (Predicted: 39% Actual: 29%) just sneaks in to the win zone. This wasn’t looking all that likely, but about four mostly positive reviews in the last 24 hours got the score within striking distance. Critics couldn’t get on board with the retread of the famous franchise. This isn’t all that surprising considering the violent nature of Rambo’s return without the tongue-in-cheek aspect we’ve seen from other well-reviewed killfests (think: John Wick).
Next time we’ve got a big one, as we will be seeing the arrival of Joker. It’s gonna be a Rotten Week!