Barbaros Gökdemir wrote: Popcorn movies of the summer season!

The summer of 2025 is shaping up to be a busy one for moviegoers. Every week, we see a multitude of films across a wide range of genres being released. Hollywood is once again dominating movie theaters this summer with blockbusters, with a flurry of often entertaining but occasionally raucous superhero, zombie, and dinosaur films. In the shadow of these big-budget films, we're also getting the chance to watch a wide range of "artistic" productions from ambitious directors Celine Song and Ari Aster, Darren Aronofsky and Danny Boyle. From romantic films to horror, action, and comedy, there's a wide selection of films to appeal to all audiences.

Trying to keep up with all these films is sometimes tiring, but mostly enjoyable. Especially since some of them leave me with unexpected tastes .

In this week's article, I'm focusing on blockbusters we can catch in theaters during these hot summer days. Next week, I'll discuss films I consider more "gentle" and "artistic."

I wish you a good viewing in advance.

The 2025 summer season opened with The Final Reckoning , the final installment of the Mission: Impossible series starring Tom Cruise. As someone who loves action movies and never misses a Tom Cruise film, I've enjoyed following the series for years. However, in recent years, especially after director and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie joined the franchise, I've noticed that the plots have become somewhat forced and tedious. In reality, audiences expect a clear set of these films: tight action scenes tied together by a simple yet clever storyline.

Don't get me wrong, the film delivers on its promise of action scenes. The plane scene in the final quarter is particularly breathtaking. However, I think McQuarrie sometimes pushes the envelope too far with the storyline, overemphasizing the "whodunit" scheme he employed in The Usual Suspects (1995) to emphasize the film's espionage aspect. As a result, we're left with a dialogue-heavy, meandering, and endlessly boring film.

Still, adventure lovers and die-hard fans of the series won't miss the film. After all, Cruise and McQuarrie are creating something quite special in action cinema.

If you enjoy high speed and tension, especially if you're interested in car racing and Formula 1, the F1 movie starring Brad Pitt is a must-see this season. We remember director Joseph Kosinski from Top Gun: Maverick , released two years ago. Frankly, I found that film quite successful, and I thought the Mission: Impossible series needed to follow a similar scheme to overcome its aforementioned tedium: Don't overwhelm already good action scenes with complicated plots and give the audience what they want. And if you can add a little comedy, all the better!

The film follows middle-aged Sonny as he returns to the Formula 1 circuit and, in the process, confronts the modern, the young, and the new. In the 1990s, Sonny was a highly successful and promising F1 driver, but a serious accident prevented him from achieving his dreams. Thirty years later, a struggling company preparing for an F1 race contacts him, asking him to help save the day. His unconventional tactics, eccentric personality, and unruly defiance of the rules will force the team to rebuild everything.

An F1 movie manages to do many things simultaneously in terms of viewing experience. First, it keeps you glued to your seat with its beautifully shot race scenes. Second, with its clever dialogue and characters, it manages to take what might seem like a cliché to a whole new level and completely throws you off balance. Many films were made with this style, especially during my upbringing in the 1980s and 1990s. A lone soldier leaves the army, but despite his age, the army needs him and calls him back. (See Top Gun: Maverick. ) The recalled soldier masterfully overcomes all the obstacles he encounters throughout the film and emerges victorious. Take the Rambo movies, for example!

But life isn't so easy for Sonny; we often see him struggle, struggling to keep up with the times and losing ground to technology. Similarly, we see characters we expect to be young and open-minded struggle to adapt to critical situations and, as the grown-ups say, need to make a living from scratch to succeed.

The third aspect of the film that I think succeeds is its comedy. Of course, it's not a comedy, but it's written with a quick tone and manages to present the character conflict, which essentially unfolds through dialogue, in an entertaining way.

On top of all that, watching Brad Pitt on the big screen is always a lot of fun.

Jurassic Park fans who enjoy experiencing dinosaurs on the big screen won't miss the seventh film in the series , Jurassic World Rebirth . A standalone sequel to the Jurassic World trilogy, which concluded in 2022, the film stars Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey. The film is directed by British director Garreth Edwards, known for his work in 2016's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story .

The film picks up where the previous film in the series, Jurassic World Dominion , left off, with a new cast of characters. Dinosaurs are now a part of our world, and humanity is slowly learning to live with these ancient creatures. A major healthcare company needs blood samples from three different dinosaur species to develop a new drug that could extend human lifespans. To do so, they recruit a former soldier, a paleontologist, and their team. The team's perilous journey to reach the dinosaurs also leads them to uncover shocking research long hidden from the public.

Frankly, the film falls short of mediocre performance due to its mediocre script, poorly written dialogue, and woefully underdeveloped characters. We're watching a film with a weak cause-and-effect relationship, characters changing their minds at will, and rushing back and forth.

However, the film, with its strong animation design and visual effects, manages to fully deliver on the dinosaur experience and action scenes. At least from my perspective, I can say I had a decent two hours. Of course, I should also mention that I'm a huge fan of dinosaurs in my daily life.

A quick note before closing this film: In these days when artificial intelligence is advancing at breakneck speed and pushing the cinema industry into deep debates, I think that these kinds of films will fall under the auspices of artificial intelligence production.

Such animation-based projects with simple scripts could easily be realized in the very near future with AI technology, completely without a director or even an actor. The abundance of such films, produced quickly and at low cost, will likely devalue the genre somewhat and potentially push audiences towards different productions.

We're also inundated with superhero movies this summer. DC Comics will be captivating the imagination with Superman , while Marvel will be captivating the imagination with Fantastic Four: First Steps . Both studios are rebooting their familiar characters with new directors and star casts. These films are a starting point, and their box office success is crucial. However, whether sequels will follow and how studios shape their futures will depend on their box office returns.

You can watch both films in theaters throughout July.

In closing, I'd like to briefly mention another significant aspect of the summer of 2025 for American cinema. Steven Spielberg's Jaws , released in 1975, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. The film, which successfully drew audiences to theaters during the hot summer days of its release, is considered a kind of prelude to the "blockbuster" tradition that has endured to this day. In this respect, Jaws helped Hollywood studios and producers clearly understand the changing sociology of America, the habits of young audiences, and the relationship between cinema and the growing new towns outside the city, leading to the transformation of summer into an ideal season for movie theaters. This is why the 1970s are so significant for American cinema and blockbuster films.

A newly restored copy of the film, specially for its 50th anniversary, is being released in August both in the US and Turkey. There's another pleasure in watching old films in theaters; I highly recommend not missing Jaws .

See you next week!