Tenney: Best and worst summer movie picks

Picture a little blue woman, in what I can only guess is the plainest sweater ever with some Harry Potter glasses, just laying on the ground, frowning and slumping around. “I’m too sad to walk. Just give me a few hours.” Feeling sad yet?

The summer of 2015 premiered a consistent stream of fun loving movies including Inside Out featuring the sad, little blue woman above, but not every movie was such a big success like the highly-anticipated sequel Pitch Perfect 2.

Inside Out is about what it would be like inside an 11-year-old’s mind. We find the main characters Sadness (Phyllis Smith) and Joy (Amy Poehler) in Riley’s (Kaitlyn Dias) mind, along with other characters acting as Riley’s emotions. While Riley deals with many challenges of her own, we find Joy and Sadness in quite the pickle as well. Characters like Anger (Lewis Black) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling) might not be the most loved, but they are still well-developed and are unique in their own way. While the movie seems like it may target a younger group of people, it was enjoyable for all age groups.

It is yet another Pixar movie that is both memorable and quotable. With the movie’s hilarious and heartwarming nature, it’s impossible not to melt from the inside out, pardon the pun, from all the love for these amazing characters. Not only was the plot never ending fun and interesting, but the star cast made every moment enjoyable and highly recommendable.

However, even with such a great film like Inside Out, this summer also produced the highly anticipated Pitch Perfect 2. It didn’t quite satisfy the great expectations brought on by the first movie, as it failed to embrace the uniqueness of the first Pitch Perfect, whether it was the lackluster performances or that the new characters just weren’t that interesting.

Pitch Perfect 2 is about all the original members of the Barden Bella’s going through their senior year at college and how they embarrass the country and get banned from performing. To earn their title back, they enter into the Worlds’ competition to earn back the respect of the other a cappella groups and connect deeper as a group themselves. The three new cast members Kelley Jakle (Jessica) , Hailee Steinfeld (Emily), and Chrissie Fit (Flo) just didn’t seem to mesh well with the original cast, and the song selection felt a bit weak. Remembering back to the first movie, all I could do was sing along to every song, but it seemed that this movie didn’t quite have those sing along tunes.

Overall the summer of 2015 was full of movies that brought both tears of joy and sadness, took viewers on crazy adventures, allowed people to express their weirdness without being embarrassed, and brought uncontrollable joy to those who went to the box office.

Ratings:

Inside Out  9/10

Pitch Perfect 2  5/10