2012 Summer Movie Roundup: The Winners & Losers
With the gong of Labor Day squarely sounded and the biggest movie coming out this weekend being The Words (yawn), the summer movie season has officially ended. And what a season it was! There were talking teddy bears, sparkling pop stars, superheroes saving cities and even a lame-brained Adam Sandler vehicle. While the Marvel men of The Avengers walked away with boffo box office ($620 million domestically), let us not forget the stirring achievements of Beasts of the Southern Wild. And although Battleship was the most noticeable film to be sunk and skewered, other big-name (and equally forgettable) fare also went belly-up, like a certain Johnny Depp vampire flick that barely remains nestled in our memory.
So what were the biggest winners and losers of this summer's cinematic offerings? Was Taylor Kitsch or Channing Tatum the ultimate stone-faced leading man? Who wore it better, Jermaine Clement or Guy Pearce ("it" being transformative makeup)? Did animation dominate music, or vice versa?
So what were the biggest winners and losers of this summer's cinematic offerings? Was Taylor Kitsch or Channing Tatum the ultimate stone-faced leading man? Who wore it better, Jermaine Clement or Guy Pearce ("it" being transformative makeup)? Did animation dominate music, or vice versa?
Check out our match-ups to see who and what were the victors of this year's summer movie slate:
UNPROVEN COMEDY STARS VS. RELIABLE COMEDY STARS
Who would have thought that, by the end of the summer, folks like Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler and Sacha Baron Cohen would be looking up at the guy who created Family Guy? With his directorial debut Ted, Seth MacFarlane made an effortless jump from the small screen to the multiplex and rode a filthy teddy bear (which he voiced) to a even filthier profit ($384 million domestic gross with a budget of less than $85 million). Game-changing comedy hits used to be old hat for the stars of Meet The Parents, Happy Gilmore and Borat, but all three struck out with their respective 2012 offerings The Watch, That's My Boy and The Dictator. Steve Carell's Seeking a Friend For the End of the World came and went, and even Johnny Depp couldn't scare any Pirates of the Caribbean fans into seeing his Dark Shadows. Next up for MacFarlane is a Saturday Night Live hosting gig and more film opportunities, while his seasoned competition heads back to the drawing board.
WINNER: Unproven Comedy Stars
CHANNING TATUM VS. TAYLOR KITSCH
2012 was supposed to be the Year of Kitsch, with the former Friday Night Lights heartthrob headlining three major film releases. But after John Carter was a historical bomb in March, Battleship somehow sunk even deeper two months later, and Savages wasn't enough of a hit to wash away the mud caked onto the rising star. On the other hands, Channing Tatum stock continued to quietly rise, thanks to a pair of early 2012 successes (21 Jump Street and The Vow) that led into the strip-tastic surprise hit Magic Mike, which grossed $133 million domestically. If you thought Tatum was ready to relinquish his Soft Features And Rock-Hard Jawline crown, this summer made you reconsider.
WINNER: Channing Tatum
FAMILIAR ANIMATION VS. FAMILIAR MUSIC
There was a new Ice Age, Madagascar and Pixar movie (Brave) this summer, and, in a result that was shocking to absolutely no one, all three franchises performed incredibly well. Moviegoers were less enthusiastic to embrace time-honored music as quickly as their old computer-designed stand-bys, though: the film version of Rock of Ages found none of the 80s geeks that supported the Broadway musical, and neither Katy Perry: Part of Me nor Step Up: Revolution set the box office ablaze. Even Whitney Houston's final film role and a powerful Jordin Sparks performance couldn't stop Sparkle from underperforming. If a song wasn't being whistled by a cuddly little creature, audiences didn't want to hear it.
WINNER: Familiar Animation
CHARLIZE THERON VS. KRISTEN STEWART
The female stars of Snow White and the Huntsman watched their careers travel in polar directions upon the June 1 release of their fantasy blockbuster. One week later, Theron put another hit under her Oscar-winning belt when Prometheus hits theaters, re-establishing the veteran star as an ambidextrous team player. As for K-Stew, the Twilight star had no time to consider her Snow White momentum when her face was plastered on every issue of Us Weekly. While a Robert Pattinson-less Stewart picks up the pieces of her PR nightmare, Theron gets to enjoy a career resurgence that started with her acclaimed turn in Young Adult last year.
WINNER: Charlize Theron
BANE VS. THE LIZARD VS. LOKI
The ultimate villain showdown: who was the best baddie from The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man and The Avengers? The choice is easy: as the masked madmen spoiling all the fun of Gotham City, Tom Hardy gave Christopher Nolan's Batman franchise a compelling extension of the Joker's nihilistic chaos. Both The Lizard and Loki are fine, but not nearly as important to their respective movies—The Amazing Spider-Man would have been just as enjoyable if Andrew Garfield was pitted against the Green Goblin, the Loki was never any sort of match for the super-friends of the Avengers. With Bane proving to be a crushingly strict nemesis to the Dark Knight, Nolan's final Batman opus was given a ruthless black hole to call its own.
WINNER: Bane
JORDIN SPARKS VS. RIHANNA
Both pop stars tried out the silver screen this season, and while neither Sparkle nor Battleship struck box office gold, Sparks came out of her acting turn unscathed, while Rih has been banished to "Worst Acting Performances By Music Stars" Internet lists forever. As one of the main stars of a disastrously underperforming board game adaptation, Rihanna found stale dialogue in a hopeless place, and seemed as wooden as her co-stars Brooklyn Decker and Taylor Kitsch. Meanwhile, Jordin Sparks may not have been able to guide her vehicle to huge success, but the American Idol star remains as likable as ever after honoring Whitney Houston with a show-stopping tribute at the Billboard Music Awards and sharing emotional moments with the press about how the late, legendary singer served as her mentor. Sparks sounded great as always in Sparkle, and although she cannot conjure movie magic yet, she's off to a respectable start.
WINNER: Jordin Sparks
PRESIDENTIAL SUPERHEROES VS. NON-PRESIDENTIAL HEROES
So, remember how Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was going to change the way American society viewed its 16th president? Well, that didn't really happen. The genre mash-up self-combusted at the multiplex, earning just $16.5 million in its debut weekend, while Brave earned four times as much over the same three days. After helming the decidedly terrible but successful 2008 action flick Wanted, director Timur Bekmambetov certainly stumbled into a dud with this adaptation of the cult 2010 novel. For those unlucky enough to see Vampire Hunter along with (or, yikes, instead of) the season's biggest action hits, at least Steven Spielberg's upcoming fall drama Lincoln will restore the Great Emancipator to his rightful, vampire-free place in history.
WINNER: Non-presidential superheroes
GUY PEARCE IN CRAZY MAKEUP VS. JERMAINE CLEMENT IN CRAZY MAKEUP
Both actors donned some far-out facial features this summer, with Pearce turning into an elderly man for Prometheus and Flight of the Conchords, Clement morphing into the sinister alien Boris for Men in Black 3. But whereas Clement riffed on his goofy charm as an adversary of Agents J and K, we still have no idea what the heck Pearce was doing in Prometheus. Why even cast Pearce as the calculating Peter Weyland when you could have casted an actual senior citizen whose face didn't look like it was melting off? It doesn't help that (spoiler alert!) the reappearance of Pearce's character in the third act of Prometheus completely shuts down the sci-fi flick's momentum, creating a plot twist that only leaves more unruly twists in its wake. We wished that the MiB guys could drop a neuralizer on us and make us forget that Guy Pearce was part of Prometheus.
WINNER: Jermaine Clement in Crazy Makeup
INDIE ENSEMBLE COMEDIES VS. MAINSTREAM ENSEMBLE COMEDIES
A quick scan of the summer's multi-star comedy offerings would yield disappointing results, as What To Expect When You're Expecting, The Watch and Madea's Witness Protection failed to win critical or commercial favor. But look closer and you'll find a few everlasting gems, including Wes Anderson's heartfelt Moonrise Kingdom, which sketched winning characters out of Bruce Willis, Bull Murray and Frances McDormand; To Rome With Love, the rollicking id to Woody Allen's European superego, Midnight in Paris; and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, your mother's favorite movie of the year, which offered a deep bench of older stars like Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson and Maggie Smith. They may not have been as ubiquitous as the four stars of The Watch plastered on every subway ad for months, but these quieter pieces of teamwork proved to be much more memorable.
WINNER: Indie Ensemble Comedies
HEROES VS. HEROINES
Sure, ham-fisted hits like The Expendables 2 and The Avengers had basically one female character of note. But between the title character of Snow White, Hushpuppy in Beasts of the Southern Wild, Noomi Rapace's kick-ass scientist in Prometheus and the defiant Merida of Brave, summer 2012 belonged to the independent women like no other action-packed season before it. Even the bro-heavy smashes—The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Avengers —greatly benefited from the presences of Anne Hathaway, Emma Stone and Scarlett Johansson, while some flicks with no compelling female characters failed to gain traction (looking at you, Total Recall). One year after Bridesmaids became a domestic smash, girl power was in refreshing demand in the dramatic fare of the season.
WINNER: Heroines
