Keanu, Keegan Michael Key, Jordan Peele

In Theaters This Week (4/29/2016) – Ratchet & Clank, Mother’s Day, and Key & Peele

Jennifer Aniston, Mother's Day
Each Thursday we look at what is going to be coming out in theaters this weekend, show you the trailers for the big releases, predict the box office winner and just generally give you enough of a carrot to pull you through the rest of the work week.  April 29th is the last of the calm before the NEXT Disney blockbuster to drop (Captain America: Civil War), but there are three new wide releases in Keanu, Mother’s Day and Ratchet & Clank.  

Ratchet and Clank
Your best bet this weekend is if you’re a fan of the comedy team of Key & Peele, whose Keanu, is getting respectable reviews.  As near as I can tell, the plot involves a cat and drug dealers, but good movies have been made based on less.  Gary Marshall directs a star-studded timely comedy in Mother’s Day, which was at 14% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of publication.  Your other option has not been released to critics for review (unless a Star Wars film NEVER A GOOD SIGN).  I think it’s safe to say that Ratchet & Clank isn’t going to be the film to break the video game adaptation curse.  Essentially, this is a dumping ground week before the juggernaut of the Marvel Cinematic Universe rolls into town and begins printing money.

Keanu (Key & Peele, R, 1hr 40min)


Mother’s Day (Jennifer Aniston, Julia Roberts, PG-13, 1hr 58min)

Ratchet and Clank (Paul Giamatti, John Goodman, PG, 1hr 34min)


HOW DID WE DO LAST WEEK?
KT picked Disney’s The Jungle Book to remain on top for a second week, and the film pulled in another $61.5 million.  Word-of-mouth and repeat business are keeping the film’s momentum going.  Waaaay behind in second place was The Huntsman: Winter’s War, which opened with a paltry $19.4 million (Lifetime record 6-2).

WHO WILL WIN THE WEEKEND?
Disney’s The Jungle Book should make it a hat trick unless Key & Peele’s cult following swarms the theaters, but I don’t think it will be enough to stop Mowgli & Company.
King Louie, Mowgli, Christopher Walken, Neel Sethi, Disney's The Jungle Book

 

3 thoughts on “In Theaters This Week (4/29/2016) – Ratchet & Clank, Mother’s Day, and Key & Peele”

  1. Now that we know that Disney is capable of remaking its classics in style, what do you think about Tim Burton’s Dumbo?

    Personally I don’t think Burton has lost it. For every Alice and Charlie there’s a Sweeney Todd or Frankenweenie. My best guess is that these days, he makes big films that are guaranteed not to fail, so that Hollywood will let him make the darker, more personal stuff. It’s the only explanation for why Burton (of all people) did not explore the subversive darkness of Lewis Caroll and Roald Dahl. But Dumbo is so in line with his familiar preoccupations that I’m thinking it might be OK. The Jungle Book was so good that a new era might be nigh.


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    1. I remain skeptical. We don’t need Mary Poppins 2 or another Jungle Book, though Jon Favreau is returning. There’s a reason most people don’t know there’s a second Jungle Book. Burton….I don’t know. I just don’t see how Dumbo justifies a live-action film or what Burton can bring to it to make it unique. Favreau managed to take Neel Sethi and put himself in the mind of a child at play and draw such a natural performance from him. Burton Burtonizes things. What does a Burtonized Dumbo do for us?

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      1. I am going to play the devil’s advocate. There are plenty of Mary Poppins stories that did not make it into the classic movie. As long as this new film is based on those, and isn’t a remake, what is the problem?

        And Dumbo = Edward Scissorhands. A social outcast who uses his deformity to make his art. Everyone complains about those crows, but I always saw them as disenfranchised characters who recognized a fellow disenfranchised character, and decided to help him out (they’re also the smartest characters in the movie; they come up with the idea for the feather, and check out the extremely clever wordplay in their song). Plus there’s Pink Elephants on Parade. That song is a nightmare LSD trip. The characters can’t get drunk anymore in our current climate, but nothing is preventing them from dreaming the sequence.

        Also it’s high time that Burton made a movie that was actually set in a circus. Can he give us something as wacky and dark as the original? Perhaps not. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to see him try.


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