Summer 2013 review- down and out

This list revolves around the films that may not have been bad, but still didn't do well in terms of box office results.

The Lone Ranger

Gore Verbinski is already well known for making long action films and the Lone Ranger doesn't stray from the path of tradition. This saw Armie Hammer (the social network) playing the titular character despite the posters and trailers focusing on the big star; Johnny Depp.

Luckily the films itself doesn't focus more on Depps take on Tonto, the rangers faithful partner. Hammer and Depp have great chemistry and the action set pieces are visually stunning and rather breathtaking, but even with all its advantages it still didn't win over the American box office. It has done better in Europe, but it didn't help that it had opened opposite despicable me 2 in America, which is much more family friendly. So far the film is set to be a nine figure write-off for Disney and poses the question, are westerns worth making anymore?

After Earth

M.Night.Shyamalan should probably rethink his career and go back to making clever supernatural thrillers, instead of making what is probably the biggest disappointment of the year. This film has the premise of a video game and acting that would be better in a straight to DVD Steven Segal movie. Will Smith plays a soldier who is emotionless to eradicate fear, which just seems like a sell out idea for bad acting, Jaden Smith plays his son (surprise surprise) who wants to be just like his father. 

This is basically a pass for the actors to show no emotion and be neutral. This just makes an uninteresting film with really unlikable characters. It doesn't help that Will Smith helped direct this movie  as he may as well of included his son in making the film and force out the director who is the only one who knows what he's doing. In the US this only took around £60 million and in the end only took around a quarter of a billion worldwide, which is a fairly bad result for a will smith film.

Red 2

The sequel to the slightly average action flick red is probably more entertaining, but not much of an improvement on the last. This lack of enthusiasm is caused by two reasons. One is the two new additions to the movie (Hopkins & Zeta-Jones), who both seem to be unnecessary and get incredibly aggravating as the film goes on, which brings me to my next criticism. Mary Louise Parker is probably the most annoying character of the year as she bothers Bruce Willis constantly about having another "adventure", but fumbles at the opportunity.

For a film that seemed like a great opportunity to improve on the franchise, Red 2 staggers its way to being about average, which corresponds with its box office results. This film has been released worldwide for around three weeks and has not yet broke the £100 million mark, this is not a good sign for this now almost dead franchise.