The Good and The Bad at the start of summer

Scorecard So Far, Summer 2009

As of June 5th

So far things are actually pretty decent. May was a little rough with only one good movie, Star Trek, but as we approached June, three more fell into place. Last year at this time, we certainly didn't have four good movies. We had Iron Man and Kung Fu Panda, and that's it. Iron Man matches up to Star Trek of this year, and Kung Fu Panda matches up to UP. That leaves us ahead of last year by two movies, Drag Me To Hell and the Hangover. There's one more summer movie of this year that should probably go on the list under the bad heading, although for some reason I think it could be decent. That movie is Angels and Demons. For that one, I'll keep things undecided until I actually see it.

The Good

Star Trek

UP

Drag Me To Hell

The Hangover

THE BAD

Wolverine

Terminator: Salvation

Night at the Museum 2

Land of the Lost

Notice how many sequels, spin-offs, and reimaginings there are. On this list, only 3 out of 8 movies are originals and all 3 of them are on the good list. Meanwhile, things that should have been surefire like Wolverine and Terminator find themselves on the bad list. Just because you have a built-in audience doesn't mean you don't have to impress. Thankfully UP, Drag Me To Hell, and The Hangover don't have that built-in audience, so they have to be good on their own merit. And with Star Trek, JJ Abrahms clearly knows what he's doing.