2022 So Far

Halfway through the year and it's time to have look back and rank the movies of the year so far. To keep the list manageable I'm only including films I've seen in the cinema. If it ain't here I didn't see it on the big screen.

19. 355

Too stupid to be a serious spy thriller, too boring to be a fun romp. Also, for a film that is supposed to be about agents from different countries coming together, an abundance of lazy stereotypes give it a low key racist vibe. If you are looking for a fun female ensemble action movie check out 2019's Charlies Angels reboot instead.

18. The Matrix Reserection

Empty follow up starts out like it might have something interesting to say but soon settles into the cynical, corporate mandated sequel it mocks in its first act. You'll be begging for it to end long before the drawn out finale reaches its conclusion.

17. Jurassic World Dominion

A plodding script and phoned in performances from the returning cast make this a limp end (please) to the franchise. Had it trimmed down its unnecessary length it might have been worth checking out, for dino fans at least, but at two and a half hours plus there is zero chance you can't find something better to do with your time.

16. Morbius

The good thing about Morbius is that Sony know its a waste of your time so have hacked it down to a slim ninety minutes. The bad thing is they forgot to leave in any character, worthwhile stakes or anything else to care about. Shame as the superhero/horror combo had potential.

15. Scream

Nowhere near enough new ideas to justify dusting off this usually inventive film series. Has a couple of fun moments but making fun of bad modern movie tropes doesn't give you a pass to put them in your movie, it just makes it seem you are making fun of me for watching.

14. Death on the Nile

Once Brannagh's Poirot gets into mystery solving mode it's pretty entertaining but some distracting casting choices and crap CGI representations of places they could have just filmed at for real detract from the atmosphere. Doesn't reach the heights of 2017's Murder on the Orient Express

13. Moonfall

Roland Emmerich, the king of over the top 90's disaster movies, returns with basically an over the top 90's disaster movie. Science and logic go out the window in favour of spectacle and melodrama. Dumb fun if you don't mind you ability to suspend disbelief being stretched to the limit.

12. The Black Phone

Decent thriller that manages to take its time without dragging on and has some excellent performances. Unfortunately, if you have seen the trailer you know pretty much everything the film has in store. Still worth checking out for a couple of breakout child actor performances and Ethan Hawk's creepy serial killer.

11. Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Marvel continue the post Endgame trait of seemingly giving their directors more freedom and Sam Rami's signature is all over this sequel. Plays out more like a Terminator film as the heros are perused by an unstoppable force. Wastes some time trying to build sympathy for a villain that really doesn't deserve any but one of the more interesting Marvel films.

10. Ambulance

Two brothers trapped in an ambulance after a heist gone wrong sounds like the set up for a tight low key thriller. For Michael Bay it's a signal to blow more stuff up. It's one of his most entertaining films in years even though it misses about three opertunities to end better than it does.

9. Uncharted

First of two decent video game adaptations this year, who'd have thought. Tom Holland continues his journey to full on leading man status and Mark Wahlberg is a good foil as his older, more cynical mentor. It might be an inferior Indiana Jones knock off but there isn't much wrong with that.

8. Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Goofy humour for the kids, old video game references for the adults, Jim Carrey for everybody. Not every gag or story beat lands but its refreshing to see an action film aimed squarely at kids with none of the snark and cynicism of a Marvel movie. You'd need to be pretty miserable not to find any of this fun.

7. X

Essentially a 70's grindhouse flick with arthouse sensibilities. Might be a bit slow to get going for some fright fans and too gruesome for those who like more subtle horror but if you stick with it you'll see one of the best and most unique slasher films of recent years.

6. The Batman

By not shying away from the problems posed by a rich guy who thinks beating up the desperate is the best way to stop crime Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson manage to find a new take on the titular character, an impressive feat in 2022. Its long but unlike most lengthy blockbusters the third act doesn't suck so you don't feel your time has been wasted.

5. Top Gun Maverick

80's classics getting dusted off for a modern retread don't have a great record and the chest thumping triumphalism of Top Gun should make it one of the hardest to bring up to date. Incredibly Maverick manages to nail the spirit of the original while adding just enough modern sensibilities and the necessary drop of melancholy. Better than it has any right to be.

4. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

An absolute must watch for Nicolas Cage fans but we'll worth checking out for everybody. You get several different flavours of Cage as he both pays homage to and pokes fun at his legend. A weak action ending is a slight letdown after the masterful character work that has gone before but it scarcely matters when Nic is on top form.

3. The Northman

What do you get when you give $90 million to a history and folklore obsessed autuer indy director? Apparently the answer is a blood soaked epic revenge tale based on a pre-Shakespearian Norse legend. It can be grim at times but is outstandingly shot and acted by people at the top of their game. Director River Eggers apparently disliked how much the studio interfered but the result is his most accessible (although not best) film to date.

2. Nightmare Alley

Bradley Cooper should be too old to play an upstart con man just beginning to try his luck as a carny but he has enough charisma that it doesn't matter and turns in his best ever performance. Del Toro's vision turns what could almost be a TV movie plot into an atmospheric must see. When you have the like of Toni Collette ane Willem Dafoe in supporting roles you know you have quality on your hands.

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once

Michelle Yeoh must deal with a tax inspection, build bridges with family members and save all of existence. You don't want to know any more than that before you watch one of the outstanding cinematic achievements of recent years. You'll gasp, you'll laugh, you'll cry. If you only watch one multiverse movie this year (or possibly ever) make sure it's this one.

Comments

Rooms Got Back

Backrooms was never likely to struggle financially. The last couple of years have taught us that if you can turn Gen Z out, box office success tends to follow. Given the viral subject matter (more on that later) a younger audience were always likely to show up in more than enough numbers to turn a profit on a moderately budgeted horror film. The question facing studio A24 and 20 year old (yes that's right, 20 year old) director Kane Parsons was what to do with the free hit. Do you double down on the premise in order to satiate the TikTok crowd? Or do you layer on the themes and character in order to create an "elevated" horror more in keeping with the A24 brand? It seems they were never quite able to commit to one approach or the other and the final product falls unsatisfyingly in between. For those unaware of the Backrooms phenomenon, it began life as a creepypasta, modern folklore where people share an unsettling picture online and create stories around it. The idea wi...

He-Management

A second Masters of the Universe movie (after the 1987 Dolph Lundgren vehicle) has been on the docket for a long time, with directors from John Woo to Jon M. Chu attached and rights bouncing around various studios. The success of Barbie (another Mattel property) is likely the reason this iteration of the project has finally made it to screens. While a look at what constitutes modern masculinity means it does share a little in common with its pink dappled cousin, it mostly just contents itself with being the most sincerely dumb summer blockbuster you can imagine. Nicholas Galitzine plays Adam, the Prince of Eternia, sent to Earth as a child to escape the skull-faced villain Skeletor (Jared Leto) who has conquered our hero's homeland. Fast forward fifteen years, and Adam is now a friendly Human Resources worker freaking out potential dates by telling them he is the long lost prince to a land of magic and wonder. Finally finding the "Sword of Power" he dropped on hi...

Welcome to Earth

Early on in Disclosure Day a character is told not to, under any circumstances, release the world changing information he has on the internet. For the masses to accept the truth, the reveal must be a carefully orchestrated, communal event. That's because this alien conspiracy thriller is a film about how important it is to tell a story the right way. There aren't many people more qualified to make such a statement than Steven Spielberg. Josh O'Connor plays Daniel Kellner, a cybersecurity expert who has stolen evidence of alien visitation from his employers and is trying to get it into the hands of his colleague, Coleman Domingo's Hugo so they can blow the doors off years of cover ups. Meanwhile, TV meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) is finding she can speak multiple languages, including one that seems to be non-human, and finds herself compelled to find Daniel. Chasing after them is shady suit Noah Scanion (Colin Firth) and his security team. These event...

Rushed Girl

Supergirl is the second film in Warner Bros' relaunched DCU. After the previous iteration fizzled out like a damp firework James Gunn was brought in to oversee a new dawn that promised to focus on quality over quantity and compelling scripts over corporate deadlines. Unfortunately, two films and less than a year in and we already have a movie that has clearly been made to fit a schedule rather than because anyone had a great idea for the character. Milly Alcock plays the titular Kryptonian, or Kara to her friends (not that she has any). Still mourning the loss of her home and family, and disillusioned with life on Earth, she is celebrating her birthday alone on a planet with a red sun. The lack of yellow sunlight hampers her superpowers meaning she can get drunk, but it also means she unable to stop her beloved dog Krypto from being poisoned when bad guy Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts) turns up to steal her ship. With three days to get the antidote she embarks on a mission to hunt do...

Thunderbolts and Lightning, Mental Health is Frightening*

Thunderbolts* takes a bunch of relatively minor MCU characters and scoops them up into a "Suicide Squad" type adventure where they face off against insurmountable odds. Given most of the characters have appeared in TV shows, there is a distinct whiff of Disney+ about proceedings but it is also one of the most solid films Marvel has put out in years. The execs must have known they had something decent on their hands as they waited until a whole weekend after release to spoil the end twist with marketing, as appose to doing it in the trailers. The titular Thunderbolts are : New Black Widow, Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), failed Captain America replacement John Walker (Wyatt Russell), former Winter Soldier turned congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Russian super soldier and Yelena's adoptive father Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ant Man 2 alumni Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and maybe mysterious newcomer Bob (Lewis Pullman). If you follow MCU events you will recognise ...

The Bourne IT

The set up for The Amateur is a well worn one, a man loses his wife in a terrorist attack and goes on a mission of revenge. The twist is, that while Rami Malek does play a man with a particular set of skills, they aren't the ones you would expect. Charlie Heller is a socially awkward CIA cryptographer with precisely zero fighting ability and no experience using firearms. He is though, a technological genious who invented half the agencies cyber security and can track and predict patterns like a computer. When his blatantly shady boss, played with smug glee by Holt Mccallany, refuses to act on Charlie's info about the killers he blackmails him for some training and the green light to pursue the perpetrators himself. The two main questions are, can the mild mannered tech guy thrive in the field and is this twist on the formulae enough to carry a fairly by the numbers espionage thriller? The answer to both is, pretty much, yes. Malek is tailor made for roles like this and it'...

I Got Bombs But I'm Not a Bomber

Oppenheimer posed a tricky question for perennial hit maker Christopher Nolan. How do you make a three hour biopic of a scientist compelling enough to bring in big money? Turns out the answer is to not make a biopic at all. While J. Robert Oppenheimer is indeed the focus of the film it eschews any traditional biopic format, instead serving up what is essentially a heist or even sports movie wrapped up in a courtroom drama. This allows the director to indulge his favourite hobby of playing with time, as the story jumps between two different panel hearings while also covering Oppenheimer's early career and of course the work of the Manhattan Project. This approach works incredibly well with the three hour runtime flying by. In fact, if you go to see this in the cinema you might want to skip the large cola as there really isn't any time when little enough is happening to sneak in a toilet brake. Technically the film is outstanding. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, follo...

Its a Scary World Out There

Three movies into his career and it's clear that Ari Aster is a filmaking mad genius. Quite how much is genius and how much is madness is up for debate. Beau is Afraid, a three hour long, deliberately obtuse endurance test doesn't help answer that question. Main character Beau certainly flirts with madness. In therapy and suffering from some major mummy issues an impending trip to see said mother is the last thing his fragile psyche needs. After a disappearing suitcase and passport lead to him missing his plane the journey becomes an odyssey, reflecting the stages of life and all tinged with Beau's maternal issues. We see everything from Beau's point of view, bringing into question how much of the crazy world is real and how much is the interpretation of mind that is always afraid. Maybe the world outside his apartment really is a semi apocalyptic nightmare or maybe he just feels that way. Perhaps his mother has influence over everyone he meets or perhaps she doesn...

A Barbillion Bucks

Barbie, like The Lego Movie, is a product film based on a product so successful it doesn't need to sell said product and instead uses the guaranteed exposure to tell its own fairly unique story. Barbies of various type live in "Barbie Land" where every day is pink and perfect (for the Barbies at least) . When generic Barbie begins having thoughts about death and experiencing flat feet she has journey to the real world, accompanied by tag along, wannabe boyfriend Ken. Revealing much more of the story would be a bit of a spoiler given how well the marketing has kept the nitty gritty of precedings hidden but it's safe to say the ensuing story is possibly the most meta film ever made. It comments on Barbie's place in the world, some "interesting" missteps Matel has made with the doll, and the irony of the company having an all male board before you even get to the feminist and class culture stuff. Even the movie's casting is meta. Having Margot Robbie,...

There Can Only be One

Trailers for Him had Jordan Peele's name slapped all over them, which is understandable from a marketing point of view. In reality it is simply produced by the"Get Out" directors company, Monkeypaw Productions. It is actually directed by Justin Tipping, from a script he co-wrote with Skip Bronkie and Zak Akers. The prevalence of Peele's name in the advertising means the film is bound to draw unflattering comparisons with his own work, which is a shame as the film has its own merits. Cameron "Cam" Cade (Tyriq Withers) grew up idolising Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans), star quarterback of the San Antonio Saviours. When White suffers a grisly injury during the Super Bowl, Cade's father tells the young fan that real men like his idol make sacrifices for greatness. Fast forward about a decade and a half and Cam is about to be drafted to the NFL, where he is tipped as a potential challenger to White's "Greatest Of All Time" status. When a mascot in ...

Dan Says its Alright

Search This Blog