Summer movie recap — Good enough, all things considered

Even before the pandemic, studios had been scaling back the sheer number of summer movies appearing in theaters.

In the 90s and early 2000s especially, there seemed to be a major blockbuster for every weekend from the start of May to mid-August, PLUS at least one or two smaller, counterprogramming-type movies.

As blockbusters kept getting bigger and more expensive, however, the large studios stopped gambling as much on original ideas and mid-budget, older-audience-skewing content.

Nowadays, more and more non-franchise movies land on streaming services, with Netflix leading the charge this year with several expensive-but-forgettable would-be blockbusters (“The Gray Man” with Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans, “Spiderhead” with Chris Hemsworth, etc.). Those mediocre titles crashed the overall batting average of this year’s summer movie slate, but you didn’t have to venture out of the house to watch them. At least Netflix can count Adam Sandler’s basketball drama “Hustle” and the animated adventure “The Sea Beast” as quality entries in their expansive library.

The summer’s biggest hit, “Top Gun: Maverick” made mountains of money for three major reasons: 1) A connection to a beloved movie. 2) Lack of competition for non-teenage eyeballs in theaters all summerlong. And 3) It delivered exactly what audiences wanted from a theatrical experience — a fun, exciting adventure fit for a big screen.

While “Top Gun: Maverick” was easily the best of the nostalgia-tinged entries of summer 2022, I personally didn’t mind the other two big ones either. While the script for “Jurassic World: Dominion” deserved the lashing it received from national critics, the dinosaur action (the stuff people go to see in a “Jurassic” movie) delivered about as well as the previous two “World” entries.

The other nostalgia play, Disney/Pixar’s “Lightyear” disappointed at the box office, despite its association with the mega-popular “Toy Story” franchise. Some confusing marketing and overhyped political divisiveness aside, “Lightyear” still came from one of the most historically consistent studios on the planet, and Pixar’s gorgeous animation and nuanced approach to story and character development was apparent in the project. What didn’t work was its warped, shoehorned connection to “Toy Story.” Rename the lead character and you have a pretty good movie.

Anyway, I’d much rather watch “Lightyear” over the summer’s biggest hit with kids, “Minions: The Rise of Gru” a short, pleasant time killer that leaves your brain 30 seconds after it ends. Actually, if I must award Best Animated Feature of the summer, I’ll take “The Bob’s Burgers Movie.”

The superhero-loving general population appeared to be somewhat underwhelmed by both Marvel installments this summer. To me, I preferred the breeziness of “Thor: Love & Thunder” over the messiness of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” which I’d rank as one of the more disappointing entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (at least director Sam Raimi threw in some of his flourishes). “Love & Thunder” worked better, even if it constantly reminded me how much more I enjoyed the previous installment (“Thor: Ragnarok”).

For those with the independent spirit, the summer of 2022 still contained plenty of quality, so long as you knew where to look for it (mostly on streaming). Titles in this category that worked for me included “Emergency” (Amazon Prime), “Cha Cha Real Smooth” (Apple TV), “I Love My Dad” (VOD) and David Cronenberg’s uneven-but-grotesquely-intoxicating “Crimes of the Future” (now on Peacock).

A special shout-out also goes to Hulu for routinely backing some of the most original content in the streaming game, from the funny-and-sincere “Fire Island” to the Emma Thompson showcase “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande.” And while I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the suicide-themed comedy “On the Count of Three” to most casual viewers, I was enthralled by that movie’s delicate tonal balancing act.

One more bit of Hulu praise: Had the gripping “Predator” prequel “Prey” played in theaters, I think audiences would be ranking it right up there with “Top Gun: Maverick” as one of the year’s most essential blockbusters.

Which leads me to my favorite flick of the summer: Jordan Peele’s sci-fi spectacle, “Nope.” Perhaps because of such high expectations prior to release, “Nope” only became a modest box office hit and seemed to divide general audiences (if you believe conversations on Twitter count as the opinions of the general public).

To me anyway, Jordan Peele delivered another expertly crafted mix of thrills and surprising social commentary. Its enigmatic and open-ended approach to the “alien invasion” genre helped me through some of the film’s more opaque plot threads (Gordy!). Maybe it didn’t click together perfectly on first viewing, but I like that it provided a little bit of a challenge to go alongside the undeniable spectacle of a summer blockbuster.

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Tyler Wilson is a member of the International Press Academy and has been writing about movies and pop culture for Inland Northwest publications since 2000, including a regular column in The Press since 2006. He can be reached at [email protected].