15. Summer 2001
Best Movie: It was a summer movie only by the virtue of its big-name director — it’s one of the bleaker mainstream movies of its period — but “A.I: Artificial Intelligence” remains the most interesting thing released in the warmer months of 2001. Dismissed by some at the time as a sentimental watering down of what original director Stanley Kubrick would have done, Spielberg’s sci-fi Pinocchio riff has grown in critical stature in the sixteen years since, and rightly so: it’s an ambitious, complex, deeply sad work that sees Spielberg at the absolute top of his game.
Worst Movie: Some stiff competition here, with “Pearl Harbor” as the most obvious contender, but at least that film genuinely delivers some spectacle, however misguided, whereas Tim Burton’s “Planet Of The Apes” delivers not much of anything. Now made to look doubly shit by how great the more recent reboot trilogy was, it’s all just kind of flat and perfunctory, adding little to the original movies except an overwhelming feeling of ‘yes, we are doing this again.’ It’s doubly sad because the film really marked the start of Burton’s downturn: nothing since has really matched up to the work he did in the first half of his career.
And The Rest: The dire state of the blockbuster in the first few years of the 21st century continued with 2001, a year where a few artful, grown-up films caught on with audiences, but the would-be home-run tentpoles mostly disappointed. Nicole Kidman was the woman of the summer, first with Baz Luhrmann’s “Moulin Rouge!,” a surprise hit that felt like a firecracker at the time (even if it’s close to unwatchable now), and later with eerie sleeper-hit ghost story “The Others.” Heath Ledger also got a surprisingly fun star vehicle with the disarming, curiously original “A Knight’s Tale,” and as much as it’s been diminished by sequels, the original “Shrek” remains one of Dreamworks’ best animations. But beyond that, and the solid-enough original “Fast & Furious,” things were pretty dire: “The Mummy Returns” was a big step down from the original and featured the single worst CGI effect in history, “Pearl Harbor” was the wrong director telling the wrong story with the wrong cast for the wrong reasons, “Evolution” was a dire attempt to capture the “Ghostbusters” magic, “Swordfish” was sour sub-Bruckheimer stuff, “Tomb Raider” was a bafflingly bad attempt to adapt the video game heroine, “Final Fantasy” is, not deliberately one of the most terrifying movie experiences you’ll ever have, and “Jurassic Park 3” is, however much you might deride “Jurassic World,” the worst movie in the franchise.
14. Summer 2013
Best Film: Could there be any better signal that this was a lacklustre year than that we reluctantly have to give this title to enjoyable but disposable box office behemoth “Iron Man 3“? Famous now for pissing off as many people as it pleased with its The Mandarin/Trevor Slattery reveal, and featuring a deeply annoying kid, still Shane Black‘s franchise entry was one of the more inventive sequels in yet another year of sequels. Shout out to “The Heat” too, in the mid-budget category.
Worst Film: Slack as it is at the top, the competition is pretty tough at the bottom (and “Movie 43” and “A Good Day to Die Hard” should be grateful they released in Jan/Feb so are ineligible). Really it’s a face-off between Adam Sandler‘s sexist garbage fire “Grown Ups 2” and awful RyRey/Jeff Bridges adaptation “R.I.P.D.” with the former maybe shading it because it actually made money — a lot of money — and therefore threatens the existence of “Grown Ups 3” where “R.I.P.D. 2” will never, ever, ever happen.
And The Rest: The hype-to-disappointment ratio was highest with Zack Snyder‘s “Man of Steel,” a film that was possibly cursed by having such a good trailer and lead-up marketing campaign that it would have been hard for anyone to live up to. Snyder’s lumbering DC film didn’t come close, but things weren’t all rosy in Marvel world either. Despite “Iron Man 3″‘s stellar box office (it placed second that year only to November release “Frozen” and still ranks as the 12th highest-grossing film of all time), the comic giant turned in one of their worst entries, with “Thor: the Dark World.” “World War Z” overcame its production woes to become a sizeable hit, while a jokey Apocalypse arrived twice over, in Edgar Wright‘s oddly bitter (sorry Oli!) “The World’s End,” and the more fun “This is the End” from the Rogen/Franco/Baruchel rat pack. And the White House fell twice, in dumbfun “White House Down” and dumbgrim “Olympus Has Fallen.” Elsewhere, the law of diminishing returns saw certain franchises diminished to almost nothing: “Star Trek: Into Darkness” was incoherent and dull; “The Hangover Part 3” successfully rid us of all fondness for the original; “Fast & Furious 6” was fine-I-guess but in retrospect feels like the franchise drawing breath before the all-out blitz of “Furious 7“; “Monster’s University” was a rare disappointment from Pixar; while “Despicable Me 2: Let’s Get Despicabler” (whose Wiki entry says it received “adequate reviews”) made lots of people very rich, so there’s that. Mid-pile, there was the instantly forgettable “Oblivion”; Michael Bay’s “Pain and Gain” (which some people are trying to reclaim but NOT ON MY WATCH); Baz Lurhman‘s lurid 3D “The Great Gatsby“; self-serious Shyamalarkey “After Earth“; joyously terrible “Now You See Me” (which people suggest one should feel guilty about enjoying but NOT ON MY WATCH); James Mangold‘s first Wolvy movie “The Wolverine” and Guillermo del Toro‘s well-made but pointless “Pacific Rim.” It was also a summer of notable flops, with “Jack the Giant Slayer,” “Oz the Great and Powerful,” “GI Joe: Retaliation,” bafflingly awful YA adaptation “The Host” and the none-more notorious “The Lone Ranger” which certainly is not good, but doesn’t really deserve its infamy, in this of all awful years.
13. Summer 2003
Best Movie: This was one of those summers where a few really, really great blockbusters slightly papered off a lot of pretty crappy ones: of the three greats, “Pirates Of The Caribbean: Curse Of The Black Pearl” might be the best. Few were expecting a Disney adaptation of a theme park ride to be any good, and the franchise has long since been run into the ground, but Gore Verbinski’s original remains glorious summer fun, a true four-quadrant tentpole in the best sense of the world, evoking “Raiders Of The Lost Ark” and Disney classics while feeling like its own beast. Inventive, funny and beautiful to look, it’s so good that you can forgive it the movies that it spawned.
Worst Movie: Sean Connery would later admit that he signed to comic adaptation “The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen” because he’d turned down “The Matrix” and “Lord Of The Rings” having been baffled by them, and figured he needed to get in on some of that sci-fi/fantasy action while still being equally puzzled by the material. One can only assume that everyone else involved had equally good excuses, because Stephen Norrington’s Victorian superhero team-up movie is inexplicably bad. Based on an Alan Moore comic that could have been enormously fun if done with a modicum of faithfulness, it had clearly been developed into oblivion and then poorly executed, with a decidedly D-list supporting cast below Connery, and some truly embarrassing CGI and action sequences. Perhaps understandably, neither its director or its leading man ever made another movie.
And The Rest: The summer did bring two movies almost as good ‘Pirates’ if not more so: Bryan Singer’s franchise-high “X2,” which built on the semi-shaky foundations of his first “X-Men” movie and perfect the formula, and Pixar’s “Finding Nemo,” still one of their most enjoyable and resonant movies. We also have a soft-spot for retro-rom-com “Down With Love,” Ang Lee’s batshit-but-at-least-distinctive “Hulk,” the nihilistic lunacy of “Bad Boys 2,” and Kevin Costner’s late-summer sleeper “Open Range,” plus “The Italian Job” is more fun than it has any right to be. But otherwise, this was a year of disappointing, underperforming sequels, from “The Matrix Reloaded,” the franchise-spoiling follow-up to a classic that only seems bearable because “Revolutions” was so much worse six months later, “2 Fast 2 Furious,” still the worst in that franchise, the almost unwatchable “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle,” the utterly drab “Terminator 3,” and “Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Life,” which somehow manages to be worse than its predecessor.
12. Summer 2014
Best Film: Happily, we’re looking at a year where it’s actually difficult to choose a ‘Best’ for the right reasons: “Guardians of the Galaxy” was a risky proposition that turned out well (though its counter-culture cred has been a bit overstated) plus a trio of well-above-par films, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “22 Jump Street” and “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” threatened to make sequels respectable. But we’re giving the slot to Doug Liman‘s witty, inventive “Edge of Tomorrow” not just because it killed Tom Cruise hundreds of times, but because ‘original,’ non-franchise tentpoles are rare and precious since they tend not to make much money. In other news, “Edge of Tomorrow” did not make much money.
Worst Film: Since no one in the US saw “Mrs. Brown’s Boys D’Movie” (and trust us, you should not remedy that) very little stands in the way of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” being the worst summer wide-release of the year. Mark Webb‘s sequel to the first film with least-beloved webslinger Andrew Garfield, it’s a mess of hinky special effects, an electrified Jamie Foxx, and people in their mid-20s graduating high school. And not in a fun ‘Jump Street’ way.
And The Rest: This was a very weirdly shaped year, when everyone got so wise to the trick of releasing in March (“Noah,” ‘Winter Soldier,’ ‘Amazing Spider-Man 2’) that it left April almost completely empty of high-profile titles, aside from the notable whiffing of Wally Pfister‘s utterly ridiculous “Transcendence.” May, however, gave us solid sequel “How to Train Your Dragon 2,” Gareth Edwards‘ rather dull but very pretty “Godzilla” and the best of the ‘X-Men‘ reboots so far ‘Days of Future Past,’ while small indie “The Fault in our Stars” broke out in a big way, garnering $307m off a $12m budget. We were punished for enjoying these, though, by big ol’ turkey “A Million Ways To Die In The West” which at least had the decency to flop: not so “Maleficent” and June’s “Transformers: Age of Extinction,” the latter being the biggest film of the year, despite being “Transformers: Age of Extinction.” Hope flared again with “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” turning out to be so good and “Snowpiercer” finally making it into theaters, but aside from ‘Guardians’ and the more-fun-than-expected ‘Lucy‘ July was a wash, with far more downs (“Tammy,” “Hercules,” “Sex Tape,” “Magic in the Moonlight,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”) than ups. Which to be fair prepped us for a shit August, with “The Expendables 3,” “The Giver,” “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For” and the horrible “Hector and the Search for Happiness” ceding to early Oscar bait “Wild,” “The Imitation Game” and “Birdman.” 2014 makes a strong case for claiming March for the “summer season,” but giving August away to whoever wants it.
11. Summer 2007
Best Movie: In the summer of threequels (no fewer than six part threes were released, most of which were dire), easily the best of the bunch was “The Bourne Ultimatum.” The Matt Damon-superspy trilogy is amazingly consistent (which makes the downswing on last year’s “Jason Bourne” all the more dispiriting), and on different days, we could pick a different favorite. But ‘Ultimatum’ certainly makes a good case for it. It has some of the best set pieces — the Tangier chase is one of the best action scenes ever, the Waterloo station sequence with Paddy Considine is breathlessly suspenseful — the new additions in David Strathairn and Edgar Ramirez are great fun, and it provides answers in utterly satisfying ways, even if it doesn’t quite have the emotional punch of ‘Supremacy.’
Worst Movie: We’d probably be inclined to go for a tie between “Evan Almighty” and “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry” here. The former, a Steve Carell-starring spin-off to “Bruce Almighty” riffing on Noah’s Ark, is a baffling and uneven movie with no reason to exist. The latter is a nominally well-meaning Adam Sandler/Kevin James take on gay marriage that’s utterly, grimly retrograde in its take on the subject, and almost entirely laugh-free. And co-written by two-time Oscar winner Alexander Payne as well!
And The Rest: The summer of threequels was mostly disappointing, but in a lot of ways, those franchises have gone on to worse things since — “Spider-Man 3” looks like “Spider-Man 2” compared to “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” “Shrek 3” is better than “Shrek Forever After,” “Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End” is overlong and indulgent but still inventive and way better than the films that came after, “Ocean’s 13” is the worst of the trilogy but still fine, and “Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer,” “Live Free And Die Hard” and “Transformers” are all pretty bad, but are wonderful in comparison to some of the movies that followed them in their franchises. But aside from the surprisingly entertaining horror “1408,” Pixar’s wonderful “Ratatouille” and a decent “Harry Potter’ movie with “Order Of The Phoenix,” this was a summer redeemed by comedy, and the Seth Rogen/Judd Apatow teaming in particular, with “Knocked Up” and “Superbad” bookending the warm months (plus the financially disastrous but glorious “Hot Rod” following somewhere in between).