Illinois Entertainer August 2016 | Page 14

some of the films being released in August. August 5th AUGUST MOVIE PREVIEW By Lori Vernon Nine Lives A s we begin the final phase of the summer movie season a couple of things have become obvious: presummer releases still hold more weight and monetary impact than anything that has opened since the second weekend in May, and we are officially in a box office slump. With only a few, highly anticipated potential heavyweights opening this month (Suicide Squad, Nine Lives, and the oftdelayed Max Steel), will this summer be a financial flop? Suicide Squad looks to be the prime candidate to salvage the season. According to Forbes contributor Mark Hughes, “Tracking suggests an opening in the range of $115-125 million, which is good enough to make it the largest August domestic release of all time and potentially the 22nd biggest freshman weekend in history as well. That would also make it the fourth-highest opening of 2016 so far, just behind Captain America: Civil War ($179 million), Batman v Superman ($166 million), and Finding Dory ($135 million).” Can Suicide Squad kill it at the box office and save the world? Will it be enough to turn things around for Summer 2016? We’ll know soon enough. Here’s an overview of 14 illinoisentertainer.com august 2016 Suicide Squad Directed by David Ayer, Rated PG-13 "Worst. Heroes. Ever." "In Squad We Trust." "Justice has a bad side…" or so say the taglines for the new adaptation of the DC Comics Super Hero film - and I use the term “super hero” lightly. The Suicide Squad is more a rag-tag band of dangerous, despicable and disparate incarcerated Super Villains with nothing left to lose, recruited by Intelligence officer Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) for a top-secret government mission. Given an arsenal of the latest weapons, the squad is sent off to defeat a mysterious criminal force while also dealing with the diabolical Joker (Jared Leto). We meet Deadshot (Will Smith), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) and a host of other DC stars that soon realize they’ve been chosen not for their abilities, but so that in the event they don’t succeed the government can deny culpability. Realizing they’ve been set up to fail on a mission that will most likely end in their deaths, each member of the team must decide whether or not to stand together and fight. T