This summer’s blockbusters were surely entertaining but had confusing plot holes. It’s worth paying money if you’re interested in watching long-awaited sequels, prequels and remakes to cult favorite films, but what it comes down to is the execution of the film.

Ocean’s 8

“Ocean’s 8” is a female version of “Ocean’s 11.” The cast, led by Sandra Bullock, was outstanding. Helena Bonham Carter’s role as Rose Weil, a fashion designer with a semi-low self-esteem, illustrates Carter’s acting chops as she does not usually play a role with these characteristics. 

Anne Hathaway also gave an admirable performance as Daphne Kluger. Kluger can be described as a celebrity that needs fluffing. Hathaway is able to make her character’s personality, which combines kindness and “screw you” at the same time, believable.

My only issue with the film is the blatant use of stereotypes. Instead of it being set in a casino, like in the previous Ocean’s films, they adapted it to what I’m assuming the writers and producers might think is more appealing to women: fashion and jewelry. I don’t know if it was because the writers wanted to capitalize on the Met Gala’s impact on media or they were stereotyping women as all liking fashion and jewelry, but while I personally love the two, not every woman does.

They also exploited a few ethnic stereotypes, which was unnecessary, adding nothing to the movie or the characters. Rihanna’s character, Nine Ball, at one point looked like a Jamaican rastafarian smoking weed. Mindy Kaling’s character, Amita, spoke Hindi in the beginning of the film for only one scene, and the language wasn’t spoken again the rest of the film. They didn’t include any other ethnic stereotypes, so why play up certain aspects of these two characters?

Incredibles 2

“Incredibles 2” was “incredibly” average. The film started exactly where the first one ended — the family is at a track meet for their middle son Dash when a new villain pops up, The Underminer. The storylines of heroes not being accepted as a part of the justice system and more vigilantes than anything else was continued from the first film. As for the movie as a whole, it was more or less a straightforward remake of the original film, with a villain backstabbing their partner. The animation on Violet was horrific, as she looked less like a teenager and more like a tired 40-something year-old.

There is a continuity issue as they pretended not to know that Jack-Jack had any powers. In the first Incredibles, it is hinted at that Jack-Jack has powers. At first, the babysitter mentions that odd things are occurring with Jack-Jack on voicemail. The second time is when the villain of the film, Syndrome, kidnaps Jack-Jack at the end of the movie. Jack-Jack responds by bursting into flames to get away from Syndrome. It is clear to the audience that Jack-Jack does in fact have powers and it seems like the family knows too, which makes it odd that in the second film it comes to a surprise that he has powers.

Skyscraper

Think of  “Die Hard,” just in a taller building. “Skyscraper” was Universal Pictures’ way of rebooting “Die Hard” without doing a remake and acquiring the film rights of it because “Die Hard” fans wouldn’t go for it.

In the movie, Dwayne Johnson’s character has an artificial limb. It makes a statement to the public which is that a person, regardless of ability, can do anything, and just because they don’t have a leg or uses crutches or a wheelchair does not mean that they cannot do anything that an able bodied person can do.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

I am a huge fan of the Jurassic film series. The fact that there are people who actually believe Steven Spielberg killed a dinosaur in the 90s for the first film speaks to how genius the movie idea and execution of the idea is. I love that they took the idea of the second island from the second and third film of the original series and continued the storyline instead of a straight reboot. However, they shot themselves in the foot with this sequel. I believe that this could have been used as a third sequel and not a second.

The United States has a hearing on if the country should save the dinosaurs from another extinction event. This would make sense, if the dinosaurs were not on an island that is under the Costa Rican government’s control. It would have made more sense if the hearing was held by the United Nations. Even though the U.S. is a superpower often getting involved in international affairs, I doubt we can go to an island controlled by another country and just do what we want with their animals. Several questions go unanswered such as, why would the United States have jurisdiction there, why doesn’t the Costa Rican government step in, and did they ask the U.S. for help?

There was also a completely unnecessary and unbelievable secondary storyline about clones added. Without spoiling it all, I can only say that they decided to add a partner to John Hammond. I believe they added this character because the actor who played John Hammond is deceased. They made the partner even more delusional when it comes to cloning, as dinosaurs aren’t the only thing cloned. The other clone storyline didn’t make any sense to me and didn’t add anything but confusion.

The First Purge

I haven’t seen any of the other Purge movies, but I know the story line: all crimes are legal for 24 hours, whoever stays on Staten Island gets a huge check and it is a social experiment to let people purge their aggression. However, there are several things I don’t understand about the film, such as in regards to receiving the money — does it matter if you want to commit a crime versus actually committing the crime, How is everything being monitored in real time if the United States doesn’t have a central camera system like the United Kingdom’s CCTV, and why was Staten Island chosen if it’s not exactly the ghetto or the boondocks and there are a lot of nice neighborhoods and condos? This film seemed like it had less thought put into it, and the series is becoming sort of like those final destination sequels; after a while, the storyline gets a bit ridiculous, repetitive and boring.