School's out, summer's in, and Netflix is adding a boatload of classic movies to its collection. From all-time greats to critical bombs, here are the sci-fi flicks coming to the streamer this July.
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00:00School's out, summer's in, and Netflix is adding a boatload of classic movies to its
00:05collection.
00:06From all-time greats to critical bombs, here are the sci-fi flicks coming to the streamer
00:10this July.
00:12Second entries in famous sci-fi movie series often go down as highlights, but that's not
00:16quite how things turned out for the Back to the Future trilogy, as 1989's Back to the
00:20Future Part II was actually the least well-received installment by far.
00:28Sitting at 63% on Rotten Tomatoes, the first sequel to Back to the Future brought back
00:33Robert Zemeckis and co-writer Bob Gale, yet critics found that the duo couldn't quite
00:37recapture the magic of the original film.
00:40Some major critics did like the movie, such as Roger Ebert, who admired its chaotic nature,
00:45writing,
00:46"...Back to the Future Part II is an exercise in goofiness, an excursion into various versions
00:50of the past and future that is so baffling that even the characters are constantly trying
00:54to explain it to each other."
00:56Others, however, found that this goofiness didn't turn into a film that was satisfying
01:00in its own right.
01:02The Chicago Reader's Jonathan Rosenbaum, for instance, wrote,
01:05"...By the end, you may feel that you've just sat through a feature-length commercial for
01:08both Part I and Part III, along with a host of other consumables."
01:13Hey, hey, hey, hey, guys, hey, hey, hey, guys.
01:17All I want is a Pepsi.
01:19One of the most divisive superhero films of all time, Spider-Man 3 released with an expectation
01:24that it would close out Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy in spectacular fashion.
01:28To say it let down many fans would be something of an understatement.
01:32Look at little Goblin Jr.
01:34Gonna cry?
01:37Not everyone hated it, though.
01:38There aren't those who maintain today that Spider-Man 3 really isn't that bad, and the
01:42film had its share of defenders even at the time of its release.
01:46Today it has a 63% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
01:49Among those defenders was Salon's Stephanie Zakarik, who deemed Spider-Man 3 as
01:53a vast improvement on Spider-Man 2.
01:56She wrote,
01:57"...Raimi and his co-writers have taken care to give the relationships between the characters
02:01more tangible contours than in the last picture, and the actors give better performances as
02:06a result."
02:07Less favorable was The New Yorker's Anthony Lane, who wrote that the film's problem was
02:11that it handled its key ideas with, in his words, an infantile lack of grace.
02:16He added,
02:17"'People really like me,' our hero says at the start, adding later,
02:21"'They love me.
02:22Not for long, whiny man.
02:23Not for long.'"
02:242009 was a big year for animation, which meant that all too many people overlooked Phil Lord
02:30and Chris Billers' Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
02:33Still, that movie was financially successful enough to prompt a sequel, 2013's Cloudy with
02:46a Chance of Meatballs 2, which, although not quite as well-received as the original, still
02:51charmed critics enough to attain a 71% Rotten Tomatoes score.
02:54The prevailing sentiment among reviewers seemed to be that the second Cloudy, while not the
02:58most necessary sequel in the world, was still pretty fun.
03:02The Dissolve's Keith Phipps argued,
03:03"'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2' works anyway by providing more of the same, and
03:07then even more."
03:09Others, however, were not so impressed.
03:11The A.V.
03:12Club's A.A.
03:13Dowd, for one, wrote,
03:14"'Like too many sequels, this second helping of Meatballs confuses bigger for better, piling
03:19on the action but misplacing much of the original's charm.'"
03:23Although the Back to the Future series hit a bit of a rough patch in terms of critical
03:26reception with the second installment, it still managed to go out on a high.
03:30With an impressive 81% Rotten Tomatoes score, Back to the Future Part III was nearly as
03:35acclaimed as the first film.
03:37It could even be considered the best Back to the Future movie, depending on who you
03:40ask.
03:41Funnily enough, the two great American critics who were on opposite sides regarding Part
03:45II found themselves at odds again over Part III, this time with the sides reversed.
03:51Roger Ebert disliked the third Back to the Future, writing,
03:53"'It's as if Robert Zemeckis, who directed, and Bob Gale, who wrote, ran out of time travel
03:58plot ideas and settled into a standard Western universe.'"
04:01Meanwhile, Jonathan Rosenbaum preferred the movie to its predecessor, saying,
04:06"'This is a good deal more likable than Part II because the product plugs have been held
04:10back and Zemeckis is clearly having fun alluding to his favorite Westerns.'"
04:15The early 2000s was an era of critical hits and flops for comic book movies.
04:19With great power comes great responsibility.
04:24One of the genre's early classics was 2002's Spider-Man, the first ever big-screen Spidey
04:29venture if you can picture that.
04:31While not quite the most acclaimed film in Sam Raimi's trilogy, this unexpectedly soulful
04:35origin story impressed critics with the new moves it brought into the world of superhero
04:40cinema.
04:41No wonder, then, that it enjoys a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
04:45In a glowing review, The Washington Post's Stephen Hunter called the film an exuberance,
04:49a celebration, a hoot, a kick and a half, and waxed poetic about its web-swinging imagery.
04:55He wrote,
04:56"'What Spider-Man gets most and best is the sheer joy of movement and defiance of gravity,
05:01both literally and as metaphor.'"
05:03Even reviewers who weren't as wowed by the spectacle still found themselves taken with
05:07Raimi's focus on the human element.
05:09The Philadelphia Inquirer's Carrie Rickey wrote that,
05:12"'Its super-heroics are gung-hocum beside the saga of one teen's hunger for visibility,
05:17validation, and love.'"
05:19Back to the Future is a true classic of science-fiction cinema, and with a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score,
05:25it still ranks among the genre's finest movies.
05:28Back in 1985, Janet Maslin's enthusiasm allowed her to venture a winning prediction in The
05:32New York Times.
05:34She wrote,
05:35"'Robert Zemeckis handles Back to the Future with the kind of inventiveness that indicates
05:39he will be spinning funny, whimsical tall tales for a long time to come.'"
05:43Gene Siskel also loved the movie, pointing out in the Chicago Tribune,
05:47"'If families could be persuaded to see this film together, it might touch off a long night
05:51of sharing between parents and children.'"
05:53Whoa, this is heavy.
05:56Not all were so enthusiastic, however.
05:59Although her review is counted as fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, the great Pauline Kael took
06:03issue with the film's plays for mass commercial appeal.
06:06She wrote,
06:07"'Despite Zemeckis and Kael's wit in devising intricate structures that keep blowing fuses,
06:12the thinking here is cramped and conventional.'"
06:15There's a case to be made that Spider-Man 2 is the best superhero movie of all time.
06:20At the very least, it ranks among the most acclaimed, and today it enjoys a 93% score
06:25on Rotten Tomatoes.
06:26Spider-Man 2 can also claim the rare feat of having a top critic score that's even higher
06:30than the general score, with 57 of 59 highlighted critics giving it a positive review.
06:36For Las Vegas Mercury, Jeanette Katsoulis wrote,
06:39"'Sam Raimi's reverent realization of Stan Lee's comic book vision makes the fantastic
06:43achingly human.'"
06:45And Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum argued,
06:47"'This triumphant sequel to the hard-to-top 2002 original may be the first great comic
06:52book movie in the age of self-help and CGI wizardry, an entertainment in which both the
06:56thrills and the therapeutic personal growth are well-earned.'"
07:00The Seattle Times' Moira MacDonald, meanwhile, praised the movie's versatility.
07:04She wrote,
07:05"'Take out the love story and you'd still have a nifty action flick.
07:09Delete the special effects and a beautifully acted romance would remain.
07:12Put it all together and, hey, it's going to be a Spider-Man summer.'"