SUMMER 2026

     It's Labor Day, Monday, September 7th, and summer is unofficially over. Next Friday, Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie comes out, which starts the Fall movie season. The end of summer is depressing even when you're not going back to school. The days start to end early, the weather gets colder, and your next vacation at the beach has to wait a year (unless you're, like, going to Australia for Christmas or something, which you're not). Even doing a review of The Summer Movie Season of 2026 is fairly pointless for me since I didn't see The Odyssey yet (I wanted to like most people, but all of the good seats for the IMAX 70mm run is sold out until it ends on September 16th). The only other movie I haven't seen yet that I want to is The End of Oak Street. Other films, like Masters of the Universe, The Devil Wears Prada 2, and Toy Story 5 I have no true desire to watch. This summer was enormously intriguing if you were a box office nerd. Movie theaters are back! Until the next time a Spider-Man movie comes out, that is. So here's some short reviews of The Summer Movie Season that is now officially over.

HOKUM (May 1): This stars Adam Scott as a suicidal writer visiting a hotel in Ireland that's haunted by a witch. The premise is a good one and it's creepy and has a few good jump scares. The problem is that the witch is barely in it and the script focuses mostly on another villain. The film does have a good, haunted, scary movie aesthetic to it and it's fairly engrossing. I feel like there's a much better film they could have produced with this set-up, though. **

THE SHEEP DETECTIVES (May 8): This is a talking animal murder mystery starring Hugh Jackman and his flock of sheep. The tall bungling buffoon from Succession plays the police chief. I thought this movie would be funnier or something. It's average at best. **

OBSESSION (May 15): This was one of the year's biggest box office smashes and also one of the biggest word-of-mouth hits in recent years (it's also one of the most profitable films in history...it made $263 million domestic). That it's just a typical, horror movie is the most shocking thing of all. High School and college age kids really took to this film for whatever reason, and it actually made more money in its 3rd weekend at the box office than its 1st (a rare feat that few films have done...E.T. and Titanic did it). A sad boy wishes his crush loved him and his wish comes true to horrifying results. This plot has been done before in Rick & Morty and The Simpsons. It's the "Monkey's Paw" plot. I thought this was a good horror movie but nothing particularly extra special. Curry Barker, a Youtube creator, directed this, and all of the talk this summer was how Youtube creators are the future of cinema. Honestly? A few years ago, the Youtube creators the Philippou brothers made a much better horror film, Talk to Me. ***

TOM CLANCY'S JACK RYAN: GHOST WAR (May 20): This went straight to Amazon Prime. It started out as two seasons of a TV show on Amazon, but they decided to come out with a feature length film for unknown reasons. Jack Ryan is played by John Krasinski in this, which is a weird bit of casting. Jack Ryan is supposed to be a top CIA agent that saves the day in various, over-the-top ways. Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford have previously played Jack Ryan. The film has a cool chase scene through the streets of London and a nifty sequence where a glass floor in a skyscraper is shattered, making characters hang on for dear life. Mostly, though, the film is pretty dull. *1/2

STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN & GROGU (May 22): This was the first Star Wars film since 2019. It wasn't a giant box office success, probably because it's basically just an elongated episode of the TV series that ran for two seasons. It's entertaining but nothing revelatory. My problem with this film is the atrocious assault of special f/x that make a chunk of this film look like I'm just watching a Pixar film or something. There's a Jabba the Hut character in this that made me think I was watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Is this movie supposed to be a merging of cartoon and reality? You know, they made a puppet for Jabba in Jedi and it looked awesome. God Forbid they do it again so I'm not looking at an awful, fake cartoon creature on my screen, completely taking me out of the film. Other than that, the film is an enjoyable romp. **1/2 

BACKROOMS (May 29): This was the 2nd horror film this summer that was a box office smash directed by a Youtube creator. This made $81 million in its opening weekend and $197 million domestic. The premise is basically that there's another dimension you can inadvertently enter that's a labyrinth filled with otherworldly creatures. The first hour of this is fantastic but the second hour enters ultra-weird and disturbing David Lynch territory, which I don't think a lot of young fans liked (everyone hated the ending to this). The big, bad, evil villain creature at the end is a disappointment and not particularly scary, which kind of ruins the film. Kane Parsons, a 21-year-old Youtube creator, co-wrote and directed this, but I think the big story was the casting: this is an indie horror film, but they got a serious actor and Oscar winner (Chiwetel Ejiofor won the Best Actor Oscar for Twelve Years a Slave) and a serious actress and Oscar nominee (Renate Reinsve was nominated for Sentimental Value) to star in it, which definitely helped the film. **1/2

DISCLOSURE DAY (June 12):

SUPERGIRL (June 26):

THE INVITE (June 26):

MINIONS & MONSTERS (July 1):

EVIL DEAD BURN (July 10):

SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY (July 31):