The Movies You Might Have Missed Over the Summer

Summer movies from James Gunn’s Superman to How To Train Your Dragon

Ben Haines, Reporter • September 3, 2025

Images Courtesy of the Creative Commons and Film Studio Media Kits.

CLASSIFICATION CLARIFICATION: In celebration of this summer’s 28 Years Later, we will be classifying each of these movies into three categories. These include SLOW-LOW (the worst of the bunch; these are the films I don’t recommend as worth seeing), SPRINTER (the film isn’t perfect, but still has some stuff going for it), and ALPHA (the best of the bunch; if you haven’t seen it yet, do so as soon as possible).

The Movies You Might Have Missed Over the Summer

The Phonician Scheme (dir. Wes Anderson)

Wes Anderson’s new film about a wealthy businessman, Zsa Zsa (Benicio Del Toro), who reckons with his legacy through a new building project has a very convoluted premise at first glance. But like most of Anderson’s films, it has a simple and lovable heart in it. The film is about a father and a daughter and it has almost as much emotional depth as Anderson’s last film, Asteroid City (if not reaching quite the same heights). Del Toro (Zsa Zsa) and the actress who plays his character’s daughter (Mia Threapleton) are both terrific and are elevated by a terrific ensemble including Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Michael Cera, Scarlet Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, and the great Jeffrey Wright. As for the film’s look, Anderson is playing with new lighting techniques and color palettes and it’s a delicious viewing experience.

CLASSIFICATION: ALPHA

Ballerina (dir. Len Wiseman)

The newest entry from “the world of John Wick” follows Eve (Ana de Armas), a trainee in a ballerina-assassin tribe led by The Director (Anjelica Huston), who was introduced to us in the third John Wick film. Eve’s on a quest as old as time: get revenge against her father’s murderers. Say what you will about the John Wick franchise, but the first four movies (all directed by Chad Stehelski) are undeniably brilliant movie star showcases for Keanu Reeves. Not only do those four films know exactly how to use Keanu and his character, but they understand that it’s the raw simplistic emotions that will make you root for him as he kills over 400 people across four movies. When the cache from the death of his dog in the first film finally runs out towards the end of Chapter Three, Chapter Four correctly makes the decision to root itself in goofy themes of friendship and loyalty that keep you watching. Ballerina doesn’t quite nail that sort of simplicity. Ana de Armas isn’t terrible in the film (although one wishes that she went a little crazier, straying from Keanu’s muted performance), but it’s clear that the film doesn’t know what to do with her character or de Armas as a movie star. Additionally, her goals aren’t especially clear. The film seemingly sets up an arc for her in having a kidnapped little girl (Ava McCarthy) caught up in the action, possibly mirroring a young Eve, but the film eventually abandons this in favor of a more straight-forward revenge plot which pales in comparison to the likes of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Fortunately, after a somewhat lackluster first hour, Ballerina abandons the tired tropes of big city nightclub shootouts and ventures into the unknown with the blustery Austrian city of Hallstatt. Here is where the film truly shines and the action actually becomes compelling and unique. The fights are fun and wintery (you better believe that Eve kills multiple people with a pair of ice skates) and the flamethrower usage is actually astonishing and makes you wonder how nobody was killed (action movies at their best).

CLASSIFICATION: SPRINTER

How to Train Your Dragon (dir. Dean DeBlois)

As I watched this summer’s live action remake of the 2010 animated classic, I slowly began to slump further and further down into my seat. The film follows the same plot as the original film about a young boy named Hiccup (Mason Thames) who lives on a small Viking island plagued with dragon troubles. However, he soon discovers and comes to love a ‘night fury’ named Toothless. It’s impossible to say this new film is terrible, but by the end my engagement was dwindling heavily. If this film refuses to actually engage in crafting anything remotely interesting from the original source material, why should I engage in watching it? After the novelty of shooting on location (a smart move, the island is beautiful) wears off, the film and the audience are plagued with its own existence. Stray too far from the original film and you’re going to piss off a million little boys, but by sticking this close to the original film, what’s left is just something that nobody in their right mind would ever choose to watch over the original. As stated, the film isn’t terrible because it remains so committed to recreating the original film (which is functional), but also because of this it doesn’t make any real impression.

CLASSIFICATION: SLOW-LOW

Materialists (dir. Celine Song)

Off the heat from her last film, Past Lives, which was nominated for best picture, Celine Song returns with a new romance/drama about a matchmaker named Lucy (Dakota Johnson) who is falling out of love with her work and falling in love with a wealthy man named Harry (Pedro Pascal). Meanwhile, Lucy’s ex John (Chris Evans) is in the mix as well, attempting to hide his pervasive love for Lucy. It’s a tender film and although Celine Song’s script’s reach somewhat extends its grasp (it’s not a subtle film), its throwback look (shot on 35mm film) and compelling three leads made me pump my fist in the theater both times I saw it. There should be six of this sort of movie being made a year. It’s a totally simple formula: you get three hot stars with a talented director and make a 20 million dollar movie that easily makes a profit at the box office. It’s a personal story, but also one that can appeal to the masses. Yet, nobody will have the same thoughts on it. Celine Song is a true talent and I fully anticipate this film’s audience and fanbase to grow with age.

CLASSIFICATION: ALPHA

Elio (dir. Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina)

The new Pixar film about a young boy named Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) who dreams of going to outer space and meeting a bunch of squishy new friends isn’t quite as poignant as it thinks it is. However, when the film isn’t preoccupied with adhering to plot formulas, Elio’s relationships with his aunt (Zoe Saldaña) and his new adorable alien friend, Glordon (Remy Edgerly), take center stage and your emotions take over. These are the scenes that make this an enjoyable enough picture that I won’t mind inevitably rewatching with my babysitties, even if it’s not 100% satisfying.

CLASSIFICATION: SPRINTER

28 Years Later (dir. Danny Boyle)

The goal of a director as they get older (as people like Steven Spielberg and Steven Soderbergh have put it) is to maintain their childish sense of imagination, but to also absorb new information and to grow as an adult. Director Danny Boyle is 68 years old, but based on his new film 28 Years Later, he still has the energy of a rambunctious 20 year old. The amount of experimentation with camera movements and new types of visual and practical effects makes for a visceral experience in the movie theater that doesn’t at all look like it was approved or thought up by somebody who qualifies for the senior discount at most movie theaters. Boyle and writer Alex Garland return to their iconic horror franchise not-quite 28 years later, but 23 years later. It’s safe to say that since they both revolutionized the zombie genre with their low-budget not-quite-zombie zombie 2002 horror film, 28 Days Later, a few things have changed in our world. Things have changed in the world of the film as well. Mostly ignoring the events of the last film, 28 Weeks Later (which Boyle and Garland had minimal involvement with) introduces us to a completely new set of characters. At the center is a young boy named Spike (Alfie Williams), who we first see preparing to travel to the mainland with his father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, playing what he plays best: somewhat of a scumbag). His mother, Isla (Jodie Comer), is sick with some mysterious disease that nobody in their village can cure or identify. They all reside on an island that’s perfectly isolated from the outside world and protected from the Infected. Since the last film, Great Britain has become a quarantined area and the mainland is a dangerous area filled with the Infected, who’ve evolved slightly in their different ways. Spike is an innocent 12-year-old, but his father is ready to declare him a man…

READ FULL REVIEW HERE.

CLASSIFICATION: ALPHA

F1: The Movie (dir. Joseph Kosinski)

The big follow-up from Top Gun: Maverick director, Joseph Kosinski, is about a former Formula 1 race car driver named Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) who is convinced by his friend Ruben (Javier Bardem) to return to F1 in order to restore Ruben’s team’s reputation as well as give Sonny another chance to earn a victory. The racing sequences in the film are incredibly shot and the practical vehicles feel dangerous in a way that they probably wouldn’t if they were created in a computer. There’s a real weight to them. However, despite those sequences (which take up a large portion of the film) and despite Kosinski and his collaborators’ attempts to stick to the Top Gun: Maverick (a movie that Steven Spielberg claims saved the movie industry) formula in terms of actual plot, Kosinski and cinematographer Claudio Miranda have a hard time figuring out how to make F1: The Movie feel like an actual movie (despite the tacked-on subtitle). Most of the dialogue sequences are shot as though they’re the beginning of a commercial, and slick, digital, and gray images (as well as the least creative establishing shots of any blockbuster all year) aren’t the most pleasant to look at. Some of these problems even blend into the racing sequences, unfortunately. Pitt has undeniable chemistry with his two coleads, but at the end of the day, F1: The Movie has a hard time sticking with you as well as Top Gun: Maverick might have.

CLASSIFICATION: SPRINTER

Jurassic World: Rebirth (dir. Gareth Edwards)

One thing has become very apparent over the course of the last decade or so: director Gareth Edwards can’t pick a script to save his life. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was almost a disaster if it weren’t for the fact that the direction was spot-on. Edwards somehow managed to combine the magic of old Star Wars’ classical space battles, with on-the-ground battles presented to us with an almost realistic, grounded war film. He achieved both of those things while still managing to make the two of a piece with each other. If only the script didn’t feel so much like fanfiction. 2023’s The Creator had brilliant utilization of practical and visual effects and the set pieces are well-executed—and yet it drowns in tropes and its own lack of substance. Both films were let down by poor scriptwriting. Unfortunately, Edwards’ new film, Jurassic World: Rebirth, is just another instance of this. The film follows a team of experts, led by…mercenary (?) Zora Bennet (Scarlet Johanssen), who are on a mission to an island still inhabited by dinosaurs to get blood samples from the three largest dinos. With them is a family who predictably happened to get thrown into the mix when their sailing trip went awry. The film’s look is actually not terrible and the visual effects are fairly seamless, with the dinosaurs feeling real for the most part (with the exception of the ‘big bad’ whose conceit is so stupid it’s hard to engage with). However, the characterization on the page is so atrocious it’s hard to believe that the film was greenlit with a script like that. The set pieces are fine, but the lack-luster roller-coaster thrills you might get from them don’t make up for the fact that there’s not one sympathetic or memorable character in the whole film. Based on the first scene, I think anybody could easily predict who’s going to die right away, make it until the end, or attempt to make some noble sacrifice (don’t even get me started). Zora’s arc seems like such an afterthought that it feels like it was possibly improvised by Jonathan Bailey day-of. It’s not the worst this franchise has ever yielded, but it will also most likely make you wonder why it’s so hard to make serviceable entertainment starring dinosaurs (or Jonathan Bailey for that matter).

CLASSIFICATION: SLOW-LOW

Superman (dir. James Gunn)

While I was watching Shawn Levy’s 2024 film Deadpool & Wolverine, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “What are we doing here?” Surely this massive film, which ended up grossing over a billion dollars, has more going for it than soulless references and callbacks that even I was having trouble understanding. It genuinely made me wonder if it’s time to put this genre to bed if this is what it has to offer. The most impressive feat that James Gunn’s take on Superman pulls off is that it reminds us of what draws us to superheroes in the first place. The characters are vibrant and it’s a genuine delight to watch all of them. Superman opens with Superman (David Corenswet) three years after he revealed himself to the world and three minutes after losing his first fight to a robot controlled by Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult). It’s impossible to ignore all of the pressure resting on this film’s shoulders: the supposed “superhero fatigue” going on right now, the fact that (in this critic’s opinion) there hasn’t been one good Superman movie since 1978, the fact that this movie is the start of “a new era” for DC films and if it doesn’t go well nobody knows what’s gonna happen. The solution this movie has to relieve this weight is to just have fun. It’s been a while since there’s been a Hollywood blockbuster this sincere, but the result is that you, the viewer, feel almost none of the pressure that Gunn and his collaborators most certainly felt in the development process. Gunn may be currently working at the highest level imaginable in his occupation, but he still makes movies with his friends, which makes them personal and fulfilling to their own themes. This especially applies to Superman. Corenswet and Hoult are surrounded by an incredible ensemble that will make you willing to return to this world for more. The film may be a little overstuffed, but when it comes to 200 million dollar entertainment, it’s much better to be a little overstuffed than a little understuffed.

CLASSIFICATION: ALPHA

I Know What You Did Last Summer (dir. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson)

I know what I did this summer. I watched a lot of good movies…and a lot of bad ones. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s remake/legacy sequel to the 1997…classic (?) unsurprisingly falls into the latter category. The film follows a new group of 20-somethings, all excited about their new lives, who are responsible for an accident (a watered down accident, compared to the original) involving the death of an unseen person. The original I Know What You Did Last Summer (dir. Jim Gillespie) came out in 1997, but the screenplay often feels like a slasher that was written in a pre-Scream era. This is probably because it was. Kevin Williamson the writer of both Scream and the original IKWYDLS (as well as the screenplay for the delightful film, The Faculty) admits that he wrote the IKWYDLS script before he wrote Scream and it shows, for IKWYDLS (1997) follows many of the tropes that Scream has already parodied and subverted. However, due to a decent job by director and iconic performances from a cast including the buzz of a late-1990s Sarah Michelle Gellar, IKWYDLS (1997) has become somewhat of a classic. Watching it now, though, one cannot ignore how formulaic it is. As you might’ve guessed, IKWYDLS (2025) also suffers from this, but it goes beyond just slasher film tropes because the new IKWYDLS is also a legacy sequel, plain and simple. It follows all of the same ‘legasequel’ tropes that Tron: Legacy (2010), The Muppets (2011), and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) pioneered and the script might even feel like it was maybe leftover from 2016. This is demonstrated in the numerous callbacks such as bringing back the characters Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.) from the original. It also features a dream sequence that a new character named Denica (Madelyn Cline, doing her best) has, featuring a de-aged Sarah Michelle Gellar. These callbacks feel incredibly redundant and makes you wonder if the film would function a little better as a standalone if it wants to appeal to a younger audience. The semi-lead of the film is a new character named Ava (Chase Sui Wonders) surrounded by characters one might call one-dimensional, but it feels a little wrong to describe characters who don’t have any personality as one-dimensional. It’s a tale as old as time: the friends gradually get picked off one-by-one until there’s one ‘final girl’ left (although this one has a ridiculous spin on that trope). The film has such little confidence in pulling this off, though, and it’s so self-referential and tonally confused that it doesn’t reach the same base-level heights that almost any other formulaic slasher films have.

CLASSIFICATION: SLOW-LOW

Eddington (dir. Ari Aster)

2020 may not seem like that long ago, but sitting in a theater watching Ari Aster’s new film about a New Mexico sheriff navigating his way through it, I was struck by how little of it I had actually reckoned with. Eddington is here to remind us that it’s not too early to start working through that era in all of our lives. While most Hollywood films of the last five years have taken place in a kind of alternate-reality where Covid never happened, Eddington takes place in May 2020, what many would argue as the height of the pandemic. The, um, “protagonist” of the film is Eddington sheriff Joe Cross (as always, a very chill and normal Joaquin Phoenix), who is disgusted by the mask mandates and ultimately decides to run for mayor of Eddington against the current mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal). Eddington might be a little confused as to what it actually is trying to say, but it makes up for this by nailing what it felt like to actually live through 2020 so perfectly (even if it is a little heightened).

CLASSIFICATION: SPRINTER

Fantastic Four: First Steps (Matt Shakman)

The MCU’s new attempt at FF might play better without any audio. This is due to the film’s “throwback” sort of look (when was the last time you saw this sort of grain and saturation in a Marvel film…never?), the four perfectly cast leads, and with villains like Galactus and Silver Surfer, it would appear as though this franchise has finally embraced the goofiness that the last few attempts at FF have been missing…unfortunately though, Matt Shakman’s Fantastic Four: First Steps is still undeniably an MCU film, for better or for worse. Probably for worse. After the considerably smart move to set the film on an alternate earth (away from all of the pre-established baggage of the MCU), and a somewhat charming and enticing first act, First Steps loses energy. Most aggressively in the third act. While Galactus is fun (he’s a big guy with a purple helmet, what’s not to love?), the final set piece doesn’t offer much in terms of external or internal stakes. All of the central character’s “arks” are complete. And how can we fully buy that a character has just made a noble sacrifice when their name is plainly attached to the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday? First Steps might, at first glance, look like it’s a step forward as much as Superman was this summer, but narratively, it feels more like a step backwards.

CLASSIFICATION: SLOW-LOW

Sorry, Baby (dir. Eva Victor)

Director, writer, and lead actor Eva Victor gives an incredible performance in her debut film, Sorry, Baby. It’s a promising directorial debut feature, but I can’t help but wish the finished product was just a little more memorable. Perhaps if her talents weren’t split up between all three creative processes, the film would stick with us a little more, but alas, distance from the project was not present. This is not to say the film is bad, but it’s frustrating to watch a film with such potential to be great that doesn’t quite stick the landing. Sorry, Baby is centered around a literature professor named Agnes (Eva Victor) who, three years after the fact, is understandably still reckoning with the sexual assault inflicted upon her by her own professor, Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi), whom she looked up to. Agnes lives alone, but she has a cat, a friend who visits her not often enough named Lydie (Naomi Ackie, who already gave one of the best supporting performances of the year in Mickey 17), and her neighbor Gavin (Lucas Hedges), whom she has a flirtatious relationship with. The best moments of Sorry, Baby are the quiet ones with almost no dialogue. It’s a disappointment, in fact, when Agnes spends a scene eating a sandwich with a nice old man named Pete (the great, John Carroll Lynch) and they have a long conversation. Both actors work incredibly well with no dialogue, so why waste it on a scene like this? Nobody would call the film overly spelled-out (the actual assault scene is extremely restrained and effective), but having four soft-spoken scenes has a similar effect as one overly spoken one. And it feels like a waste not to spend that time on Agnes’ relationships with Lydie or Gavin. Regardless of these flaws, I look forward to see what Eva Victor does next.

CLASSIFICATION: SPRINTER

The Naked Gun (dir. Akiva Schaffer)

To say that Akiva Schaffer (of The Lonely Island fame)’s 2025 reboot of the 1988 spoof film starring Leslie Nielsen, only now reimagined with Liam Neeson, is the funniest movie of the year would be an understatement. Because The Naked Gun (2025) is the funniest movie of the decade (so far). It’s initially a little disheartening to realize that the only way an actual comedy can get greenlit and released in theaters by a studio is for it to be a reboot/legacy sequel to a preexisting franchise, but you’ll soon forget all about this because you’re laughing too hard. I won’t spoil any of the bits, but watching the film for the second time (laughed just as hard), I was shocked by how the film’s three funniest comedic setpieces (one involving incantations and a snowman!) happen all back-to-back. It’s a testament to the fact that in The Naked Gun, there are more jokes than there are not. The lines that end with punchlines outnumber the ones that don’t, ten to one. Liam Neeson plays Lieutenant Frank Dreben Jr. (the son of Leslie Nielsen’s character from the original series), who’s investigating a murder and a bank robbery that turn out to be one case. As for Neeson himself, the movie knows perfectly how to utilize his star persona and that’s by not having him play all of the jokes (most of the jokes, anyway) straight. If you were to watch just the performance he’s giving on his face, it’s not too different from the one he’s giving in Taken (okay, it’s maybe a little different, but you get the point). Neeson’s performance, as well as the bits, are elevated by a score by Lorne Balfe (Mission: Impossible veteran), who also cleverly decides to play things mostly straight. It may be another reboot, but The Naked Gun is still undeniably a breath of fresh air. There’s almost nothing better than being in a theater full of people, all laughing their butts off.

CLASSIFICATION: ALPHA

Weapons (dir. Zach Cregger)

A term that particularly pushes my buttons every time I hear it is “elevated horror.” It strikes me as the type of term coined by somebody who’s embarrassed by the type of movie they like to watch/make. Horror movies, just like any other genre, can scare us as well as make us think, regardless of how “high-brow” it is. Adding the “elevated” part does not remove you from the genre that you’re playing in. Somehow, in a genre that doesn’t often get recognized by large awards bodies, a term has emerged that’s more pretentious than most others in film. This is why Zach Cregger is able to get such great results in his films. If I were to guess, I would say that Cregger also hates the term “elevated horror” and that’s why his most recent film Weapons doesn’t run away from simple scares, but sometimes it’s these scares that are the most effective. Everybody knows from the trailer or marketing for this movie the thirty-second pitch: At 2:17 one Wednesday night 17 children got up out of bed and ran into the night never to return. All except one, a young boy named Alex (Cary Christopher) who’s the only boy left in Miss Gandy (Julia Garner)’s class. The monologue that tells us all of that is delivered as voice-over narration at the beginning of the film as we see the children run through the town. Cregger understands that sometimes, you gotta have some sweaty narration in order to get to the good stuff as fast as possible, so any, um, “plot holes” that the audience might take issue with are dealt with in these opening minutes. The rest of the film is split up into chapters, each dedicated to a different member of the town doing their own investigating (or just minding their own business) who all intersect at the end. One of these members is a fantastic (perhaps underutilised) Josh Brolin who plays Archer, the father of one of the lost kids. Sometimes one wishes that Weapons would try a little less hard, (you can feel the overthinking in the camera work), but the highs you get when things come perfectly together in the last twenty minutes might make that strain worth it. Cregger also understands that people are naturally going to be scared of the unknown. It’s a creepy enough premise that any attempt to explain it will inherently make it less so. So by the end of the film, it still feels like there’s more information lying in wait (maybe in a creepy basement) that we’ll never learn. And that’s a good thing.

CLASSIFICATION: ALPHA.

Highest 2 Lowest (dir. Spike Lee)

Spike Lee’s newest “joint”; Highest 2 Lowest, is a modernized remake of Akira Kurosawa’s film High and Low, about an older music mogul (Denzel Washington) whose driver (Jeffery Wright)’s son (Elijah Wright, Jeffery Wright’s real son) is kidnapped by an aspiring rapper (A$AP Rocky) hoping to get some form or recognition by committing this crime. Lee is the same age as Danny Boyle and everything I’ve previously stated about Danny Boyle could also be said about Spike Lee, however, watching the first half of Highest 2 Lowest, it’s impossible to wonder if ol’ Spike hasn’t lost a step or two. It’s extremely melodramatic and Lee shouts the themes of the movie at us as if it’s 1989, but he’s no longer a hip young kid. He’s almost 70. A film that I found myself exceptionally excited about, was letting me down. Until I realized that, of course, Lee had been tricking me the whole last hour. The film is literally about an artist who was once hip, who has now found himself confused about what’s actually important in his work life and personal life. The second hour of Highest 2 Lowest has as much energy behind it as any sequence in 28 Years Later (well…maybe not every sequence) Lee seems alive in the way he’s shooting setpieces and he seems assured in the themes he’s yelling at us (including, but not exclusive to a scene in which a man literally yells at the camera about how much Boston sucks). The film that Highest 2 Lowest is most comparable to isn’t any by Kurosawa, it’s Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis from last year. Megalopolis doesn’t have quite as much switch midway through (which is fine, as Megalopolis takes place in a bonkers universe which is decidedly not our own), but Coppola appears to be grappling with many of the same things that any elderly storyteller would. It’s hard to argue that Highest 2 Lowest is one of the best films of the summer with such an intentionally dysfunctional first half, but it’s still proof that one of our finest living filmmakers can still deliver a pretty decent joint.

CLASSIFICATION: SPRINTER

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About the Contributor

Ben Haines, Reporter