A recap of all the movies this past summer had to offer
Alexandra McArver
The summer of 2019 has now fully come to an end, but retrospectively the summer was a great one for entertainment, especially movies. Many motion pictures were released this summer and more than half of them have already been forgotten. The trailers may have caught your eye, but most of the movies themselves clearly did not. Looking back on the movies of this summer may seem useless, but soon all those movies will be on Netflix or On Demand.
Something new about the selection of movies this summer is the number of blockbusters focused on musicians. This trend started with the release of Rocketman, a movie based on the life of singer/songwriter Elton John, followed by Yesterday, a romantic comedy about a man that wakes up from an accident only to learn that the famous 1960’s band The Beatles never existed. August followed up with the release of Blinded by the Light, a musical comedy set in 1987 that follows a teenager who becomes obsessed with the music of Bruce Springsteen.
This summer was also blessed with the release of Toy Story 4, starring the breathtaking voice of Keanu Reeves. Woody and the gang embark on a road trip with their new friend Forky (voiced by Reeves) until their journey takes a detour and Woody ends up reuniting with an old friend, Little Bo Peep. No spoilers, but many sophomores were disappointed by the ending.
On July 2, the long-awaited release of Spiderman Far From Home arrived. This was the second, and hopefully not the last, installment of the Spiderman franchise in Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The MCU started out the summer with the release of Avengers Endgame, one of the most anticipated movies of the decade. It broke box office records across the world. Far From Home is a continuation of Peter Parker’s story after the events in Endgame and was meant to lead into the next era of Marvel movies that will be coming soon.
This summer also featured not one, but two Disney live-action remakes. The first movie is Aladdin, which featured a genie that was slightly less terrifying than in the trailer. Although many were not thrilled about Will Smith playing the newest version of Aladdin’s genie, the movie made a smart choice in deciding to change his character instead of trying to make Smith compete with the classic genie performance by the late Robin Williams. “Aladdin was okay, but kind of disappointing compared to the original movie,” said sophomore Kate Schaefer. “I love the songs and Jasmine’s actress was amazing. The genie was also awesome. Overall I liked it.”
The second Disney remake this summer was The Lion King. The remake was released 25 years after the original. The world has had 25 years to mourn Mufasa’s death and now Disney decided to remake it so it looks more realistic. Many people were excited by the new cast of the remake, which included Donald Glover, playing adult Simba, and Beyonce who voiced the adult Nala. Overall, the movie did very well in the box office grossing $496 million in the U.S. alone.
One of the most anticipated releases of this summer was the newest Quentin Tarantino movie. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. This movie had an almost three hour long run time and was not loved by many T.C. Williams parents due to the excessive amount of violence featured in the movie. “It was a fantastic film, one of Tarantino’s best movies to date,” Sophomore Brett Medley said, “Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio gave amazing performances and cameos by other Tarantino actors make the film that much better.”
One of the last releases of the summer was the next movie in the Fast and Furious franchise, Hobbs and Shaw. This movie got very mixed reviews from students. “It was funny for four seconds, but I could not tell if it was meant to be outrageously unrealistic or not,” said Sophomore Skylar Foley.
