Back Seat Producers

#1 The Conjuring from Warner Bros. opened at #1 with a gross of $41.9 million in 2,903 theaters.  Budget was $20 million.

#2 Despicable Me 2 from Universal fell from #1 to #2 with a gross of $24.9 million (-43.3%) in 3,820 theaters (-183).  Total gross to date is $276 million.  Budget was $76 million.

#3 Turbo from 20^th Century Fox opened at #3 with a gross of $21.3 million in 3,806 theaters.  Total gross to date is $31 million.  Budget was $135 million.

#4 Grown Ups 2 from Sony/Columbia fell from #2 to #4 with a gross of $19.9 million (-52.1%) in 3,491 theaters.  Total gross to date is $79.4 million.  Budget was $80 million.

#5 Red 2 from Lionsgate opened at #5 with a gross of $18 million in 3,016 theaters.  Budget was $84 million.

#6 Pacific Rim from Warner Bros. fell from #3 to #6 with a gross of $16 million (-57.1%) in 3,285 theaters (+10).  Total gross to date is $68.3 million.  Budget was $190 million.

#7 R.I.P.D. from Universal opened at #7 with a gross of $12.7 million in 2,852 theaters.  Budget was $130 million.

#8 The Heat from 20^th Century Fox fell from #4 to #8 with a gross of $9.3 million (-33.6%) in 2,689 theaters (-439).  Total gross to date is $129.3 million.  Budget was $43 million.

#9 World War Z from Paramount fell from #7 to #9 with a gross of $5.2 million (-44.3%) in 2,066 theaters (-937).  Total gross to date is $186.9 million.  Budget was $190 million.

#10 Monsters University from Buena Vista fell from #6 to #10 with a gross of $5.1 million (-51.8%) in 2,186 theaters (-956).  Total gross to date is $249.1 million.  Budget was unknown.

#11 The Lone Ranger from Buena Vista fell from #5 to #11 with a gross of $4.4 million (-61.9%) in 2,273 theaters (-1,631).  Total gross to date is $81.3 million.  Budget was $215 million.

#12 White House Down from Sony/Columbia fell from #8 to #12 with a gross of $1.5 million (-61.1%) in 1,454 theaters (-1,112).  Total gross to date is $68.5 million.  Budget was $150 million.

 

The combined gross of the top 12 movies this weekend was $181.1 million.

Sources:
Box Office Mojo

 

Nick Walker is a Boston police detective with much on his mind. On a recent drug bust, he and his partner, Bobby Hayes, unexpectedly recovered some mysterious gold pieces that weren’t part of the bust. Both of the detectives took the gold without reporting it, and now this deed weighs heavily on Nick. The next day, Nick tells his partner that he’s going to report the gold, but won’t say a thing about Bobby keeping his- and then both are sent out on a major operation. As this operation is going down, Bobby shoots Nick dead. At that moment, Nick believes he is about to get his final judgement, but he’s yanked away and brought before a woman known as The Proctor. Nick has just discovered that he’s dead and The Proctor is the Boston bureau chief of the R.I.P.D., the Rest In Peace Department. The job of the R.I.P.D. is to protect and serve the living from creatures who refuse to move peacefully into the afterlife, known here as Deados.

Nick is made an offer to serve a 100-year term with the R.I.P.D. and he quickly accepts and just as he accepts, he learns he’s to be partnered with an R.I.P.D veteran, old West Sheriff Roy Pulsifer, who’s not exactly thrilled to have a partner. Something’s brewing in the Deado community and now it’s up to Walker and Pulsifer to put a stop to it.

R.I.P.D. is the latest comic book to movie adaptation and it comes to us from director Robert Schwentke, who’s best known for directing another comic-to-film adaptation, Red (which I haven’t seen) and the Jodie Foster thriller from a few years back, Flightplan (which I have seen and the less said the better). I’m a comic book fan, but I’ve not read R.I.P.D., so I can’t really say how faithful this is to it’s source.

If you’ve seen the trailers for R.I.P.D., then more than likely you’ve gotten a vibe off of them that’s a lot like the Men In Black movies. Not knowing the source material, I can’t say if that’s exactly the same there as well, but it’s certainly evident with the film. The whole film is virtually staged and set up just like the first Men In Black movie, but doesn’t exactly have the same style (or it’s own style) with it’s execution, making for a final piece that’s just sort of there and nothing else. Schwentke does a good job of making his main players look really cool (all scenes that you’ve seen in the trailer), but offers up little else. One neat little piece here is that when back in the world of the living, the R.I.P.D. officers have completely different appearances- for Nick Walker, it’s an old Chinese man (played by veteran actor James Hong) and for Roy Pulsifer, it’s a supermodel (played by supermodel Marissa Miller), that little juxtaposition of character types is pretty clever and when it’s used on-screen, it offers up some pretty nice moments, but not enough to really make R.I.P.D. stand out. Even with that, the rest of the movie still feels like warmed-over Men In Black.

I mentioned that Schwentke makes his main players look cool, I just wish it was the same with the visual effects as well. The Deados, when exposed, take on monstrous appearances that definitely feel like CGI models and don’t exactly feel natural to the rest of the movie. This could certainly be intentional, and while I’m not opposed to visual effects that look more theatrical than natural, there’s still something here that just feels a little off.

Ryan Reynolds plays Nick (marking his fourth comic book movie) and Jeff Bridges plays Roy. Reynolds is OK here, but there’s nothing real distinctive about the part. Bridges hams it up as the Old West lawman and not necessarily in a good way. Some of his lines just come off as unintelligible gibberish making me wish he would’ve shown a little restraint with his character. Mary-Louise Parker plays The Proctor, and for me anyway, she’s the really bright spot in the cast, having a distinctive style about her and some pretty snappy line delivery. You wouldn’t know it by seeing the trailers, but Kevin Bacon is in the film as Nick’s former partner, Bobby Hayes and our villain of the piece. Bacon’s serviceable in the part, but again, like so much else in the movie, it’s a by-the-numbers villain.

R.I.P.D. has a few good ideas, but it’s over-shadowed by being too much like Men In Black, and doesn’t do much to really stand apart from that. It’s not a horrible movie by any means, but in comparison to a lot of the other big summer fare, it just comes off as average more than anything else. I do think it’s watchable, but I’d also advise to maybe wait until it hits cable or Netflix streaming to take the plunge.

Ed and Lorraine Warren are investigators of the paranormal. Ed is a non-ordained demonologist and Lorraine is clairvoyant/empath. As the movie starts, they are detailing one of their cases in a college lecture hall and right from the start we’re buying everything that they’re telling us. In 1971, Ed and Lorraine encounter the Perron family little realizing the terror that they’re about to experience.

That’s the broad basic premise of The Conjuring the latest movie from director James Wan who’s best known for the very first Saw film. Wan’s next project is reportedly the next film in the Fast & Furious series but before he gets there, we get to experience The Conjuring a terrific little throwback horror film that really does stand above a lot of recent fare.

Before going into this, I was not aware that the events of this film were based on true events. Now there’s a terrific little crawl at the start of the film that tells us this and it’s great to set up what’s about to happen, but in my case, I figured the statement of being based around true events was the normal sort of hype that you get with this type of movie and maybe with just a little smattering of something that truly happened. Now after the fact, I still don’t know how much of this is true, but having done a little bit of post-research, it sounds like Wan got everything right about the Warrens and the Perrons (and it certainly helps that Lorraine Warren is actually credited as a consultant for the movie- though that can certainly be open to interpretation).

Wan takes his time in setting this one up and paces this similarly to such films as The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror (in fact, there’s a nice little suggestion by the film’s end that the Warrens are being called in to consult about that). It treats it’s subject matter most earnestly and doesn’t indulge in a plethora of skepticism. If anything, the Warrens themselves are the first to point out that many things they get called in to investigate can be easily explained as non-paranormal events, but yet they’ve still witnessed events that are classified as paranormal and thanks to the strong performances (more in a moment) we buy into this.

On the other side, we also buy into the Perron family right from the start. Carolyn and Roger Perron are a hard working family just trying to make ends meet for their family of five daughters. They’ve purchased their house through a state auction and after horrific events start to occur, they just can’t up and leave their home due to financial constraints more than anything else. Even before Carolyn goes to call in the Warrens, they’re willing to chalk up some of the weirdness they’ve encountered as things that can be easily explained, but eventually it becomes too much, and we as the audience certainly feel that.

The Conjuring doesn’t have an overuse of blood and gore and earns it’s R rating more for it’s intense situations. As I said above, Wan is pacing this like classic horror films from the 70s and the way this is executed, it certainly shows that there’s still a lot of gold to mine from that stye of filmmaking (Rob Zombie knows this as well and certainly demonstrated it well in The Lords of Salem from earlier this year, a movie that I didn’t have the time to review properly when it came out, but at least I wanted to shout it out here as it’s something I could certainly stand to watch as a double-bill with The Conjuring). Now there are certainly good visual effect moments here, but they’re used sparingly and Wan relies mostly on just good ol’ suspense-building and characters that you really do care about, though I have to also call out a terrific original score from Joseph Bishara that really does punctuate everything in the right way.

But Wan’s best tools in making this vision an effective one is his absolutely terrific cast. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga play Ed and Lorraine and besides being a couple of my own personal favorite acting talents these days, they really do bring credibility to their parts and have a terrific chemistry together. As I said above, I really didn’t know this was based on true events at the start, and I was sort of looking at this thing as being the potential start of a new horror franchise with Wilson and Farmiga being the continuing players. Their chemistry is so good that I’d love to see them reprise these roles. Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston play Carolyn and Roger Perron and again, like Wilson and Farmiga, they’ve got terrific chemistry together, though it’s certainly a more earthy flavor. Both of these sets of relationships feel very real and they’re aren’t over-dramatized in the slightest.

Shanley Caswell, Hayley McFarland, Joey King, Mackenzie Foy and Kyla Deaver are the five young actresses who play the Perron’s daughters and again, their relationship feels very authentic. Joey King really stood out to me amongst the daughters as Christine Perron with one particular scene where she experiences the horror from her bed.

The Conjuring is horror filmmaking at it’s best. James Wan certainly demonstrated with the first Saw movie that he could make a great horror film of a certain flavor. I thought he did a nice job with the movie Insidious (also with Patrick Wilson) as well, but The Conjuring is a real standout. Wan’s maturity as a filmmaker is certainly evident here and now I’m really looking forward to seeing what he does with the next chapter in the Fast & Furious series as he steps out of the horror/terror genre and into the action genre. Wan’s got a clear-cut vision with this throwback horror film and it’s excellently realized thanks to strong performances from a terrific cast. I really would like to see Wan, Wilson and Farmiga re-visit the Warrens with another movie and certainly the door is open for such a thing to happen. If you’re looking for a little break from summertime big-budget spectacles, well, it doesn’t get much better than The Conjuring. Highly, highly recommended…

#1 Despicable Me 2 from Universal held at #1 with a gross of $43.9 million (-47.4%) in 4,003 theaters (+6).  Total gross to date is $228.4 million.  Budget was $76 million.

#2 Grown Ups 2 from Sony/Columbia opened at #2 with a gross of $41.5 million in 3,491 theaters.  Budget was $80 million.

#3 Pacific Rim from Warner Bros. opened at #3 with a gross of $37.3 million  in 3,275 theaters  Budget was $190 million.

#4 The Heat from 20^th Century Fox fell from #3 to #4 with a gross of $14 million (-43.5%) in 3,128 theaters (-56).  Total gross to date is $112.4 million.  Budget was $43 million.

#5 The Lone Ranger from Buena Vista fell from #2 to #5 with a gross of $11.5 million (-60.6%) in 3,904 theaters.  Total gross to date is $71.5 million.  Budget was $215 million.

#6 Monsters University from Buena Vista fell from #4 to #6 with a gross of $10.6 million (-46.1%) in 3,142 theaters (-597).  Total gross to date is $237.8 million.  Budget was unknown.

#7 World War Z from Paramount fell from #5 to #7 with a gross of $9.3 million (-49.4%) in 3,003 theaters (-313).  Total gross to date is $177 million.  Budget was $190 million.

#8 White House Down from Sony/Columbia fell from #6 to #8 with a gross of $6.2 million (-54.3%) in 2,566 theaters (-656).  Total gross to date is $63 million.  Budget was $150 million.

#9 Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain from Lionsgate fell from #8 to #9 with a gross of $4.8 million (-52.6%) in 892 theaters (+16).  Total gross to date is $26.1 million.  Budget was unknown.

#10 Man of Steel from Warner Bros. fell from #7 to #10 with a gross of $4.7 million (-58.7%) in 2,150 theaters (-755).  Total gross to date is $280.9 million.  Budget was $225 million.

#11 This is the End from Sony/Columbia fell from #9 to #11 with a gross of $2.9 million (-51.4%) in 2,045 theaters (-710).  Total gross to date is $91.6 million.  Budget was $32 million.

#12 Now You See Me from Lionsgate fell from #10 to #12 with a gross of $1.3 million (-54.2%) in 1,536 theaters (-756).  Total gross to date is $113.3 million.  Budget was $75 million.

 

The combined gross of the top 12 movies this weekend was $187.9 million.

Sources:
Box Office Mojo

It’s the near future and the world has seen the rise of giant beasts called the Kaiju that terrorize the planet and the populace. Military forces succeed in taking down the initial beast, but taking days to do so at and suffering devastating losses to life and property. The nations of the world have put aside their difference to fight their mutual enemy and have created their own mechanical monsters that they call the Jeagar, the German term for hunter. The Jeagar are immediately successful in taking down the Kaiju, but now the Kaiju threat is escalating. New and more potent beasts walk the earth displaying powers and abilities that they haven’t displayed before and now, the final shreds of what’s left of the Jeagar stand ready to be the last line of defense for the planet.

That’s the premise to Pacific Rim the latest movie from director Guillermo del Toro who’s best know for his work on the Hellboy movies and films like The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth. This epic love letter to Japanese giant monster movies and anime is without a doubt, del Toro’s biggest film yet and it’s also, at least for me, the BEST movie that I’ve seen this summer.

Last week, I saw The Lone Ranger a film that really could have been a contender had it been in the hands of people that were willing to tell a genuinely heroic story that didn’t feel the need to laugh in the face of it’s source material. Pacific Rim is the exact opposite of The Lone Ranger in every respect; delivering action at great clip while also telling the story of true heroes who believe in their cause and doesn’t for a moment make a joke of it’s inspirational source material, being anime and giant monster movies. If you’re a fan of these things, you’re in for a big treat with Pacific Rim.

The movies characters may seem a little simplistic in comparison to how complicated that they can get in some anime series, but the basics are all here and above anything else, there’s true heart in their portrayals. There’s certainly humor to be had as well, primarily with two scientists who are Kaiju experts, but again, the humor here is true to various anime sources, and it doesn’t laugh at the material but with it.

del Toro has always been know as a great visual stylist with his movies, and I tend to think he’s hit a new peak with Pacific Rim. This is an extremely bright and colorful film even with some of it’s epic night battle sequences. The production design is absolutely first rate; everything here just looks too cool and the visual effects are without a doubt the best that I’ve seen thus far for the year. When the trailers for Pacific Rim first came out, I’d heard some complaints that the battle scenes were just going to be these fast disjointed clips that didn’t give you any scale, but that’s not the case at all with the final product. There’s real scope here and the battles exemplify that at every turn. As first rate as the effects are, again they don’t betray their source and there’s still this feel of watching guys in suits do these battles, but with all sorts of polish that make them truly epic. I chose to see this in 3D and while it’s not essential to see this in 3D, I think it really does enhance the experience. Pacific Rim wasn’t shot in 3D, but del Toro planned carefully for it’s conversion and it’s certainly evident.

The cast is absolutely top drawer. Charlie Hunnam and Idris Elba lead this cast as Raleigh Becket and Stacker Pentecost respectively. Becket’s one of the great Jeagar pilots and Pentecost is the head of the Jeagar program and also one of the great Jeagar pilots of the past. Both Hunnam and Elba are terrific here and it’s really fun to see Hunnam in this sort of heroic role considering that he’s best known for playing Jax on FX’s excellent series, Sons of Anarchy. Rinko Kikuchi plays Mako Mori, who becomes Hunnam’s partner in piloting a Jeagar. Mako’s backstory is the most touching of any in the movie, and Kikuchi does very well bringing it to the screen.

Charlie Day, of FX’s excellent comedy series, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Burn Gorman provide the comic relief as Doctor’s Geiszler and Gottlieb respectively and their performances are just pure fun. Yes, they are the broadest of characters in the movie, but again they are very true to the inspirations for the film. Hunnam’s Sons of Anarchy co-star Ron Perlman (who’s also a perennial favorite actor of del Toro’s, he was Hellboy after all) plays Hanibal Chau, a black market dealer in Kaiju organs and pieces, is also here for comic relief and right in line with Day and Gorman’s performances. The only regret here with Perlman is that it would’ve been kind of cool if there had been a scene with him and Hunnam together just to see them in something different than Sons but all of Perlman’s scenes are with Day. Closing out the main cast, we have Max Martini and Robert Kazinsky as the father/son Jeagar pilot team of Herc and Chuck Hansen. While these guys are support, it’s nice to see a father/son team in a big movie today that doesn’t have the tired and strained father/son issues that you see in most movies. In addition, Chuck Hansen first is against Raleigh Becket even joint their team thanks to Becket’s past, and a rivalry is played with here that in another movie would probably have Hansen being seen as another “bad guy” in the film, but it’s not the case at all here. This is really an excellent cast and they’ve certainly given themselves over entirely to del Toro’s vision.

I’m 50 years old and have certainly been out here reviewing movies for awhile. I’ve seen others say how some movies have made them feel like a kid again and have taken it with a grain of salt, but still certainly appreciating their enthusiasm for the film. Well now I have to eat those words, and basically say the same thing; Pacific Rim made me feel like a kid again and gave us a world full of a huge sense of wonder populated with heroic characters and some of the coolest visuals that you’ll see in a movie all year. When I’ve talked to a few others in advance of this, I’ve seen some eye-rolling thinking that they’re just going to be getting a different flavor of Michael Bey’s Transformer films. I’ve only seen the first of those and that was quite enough, their visual effects were fine, but their human characters were insulting. That’s not the case at all with Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim. This is amazing and inspiring spectacle that I just want to watch again and again and so far, for me anyway, this is the best movie of the year. Do not miss this…