Well here it is again, the time to make my list of my favourite and turkey movies of 2022 and let’s start with the Turkeys and clear out the trash.
5. Amsterdam: David O Russell returns with his first film since 2015’s Joy that starred Jennifer Lawrence this time has a big all star cast with people like Christian Bale, Rami Malek, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Mike Myers, Michael Shannon and Robert De Niro among others.
And this has a fascinating historical story at its core but the way O Russell tells this story is so haphazard and so messy that more often than not it feels like both a pale imitation of Knives Out where Christian Bale is playing an even wackier detective than Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc but also a sketch comedy where all these big stars are wheeled out like their on Saturday Night Live or something “Tonight its this person, coming up next this person, after the break please welcome this new person” and it goes on and on like this and despite some nice production values in that first half you just sit there waiting for this thing to find any story momentum.
And when it does get around to that historical story that really had me fascinated well it all feels too little and too late the movie has lost you and it feels like you are being dropped into a completely different one to the one you’ve just spent the better part of 70 minutes watching and given recent events in the US I sorely wish this movie had been so much better than it was.
Speaking of movies I wish were much better:
4. Jurassic World Dominion: Now my hopes for this one weren’t overly high, I really only rate the original Jurassic Park film from 1993 by Steven Spielberg and like the Matrix and Ghostbusters really should have been just a one off in hindsight but it was a defining film for that generation so we got a whole bunch of other films including this one.
And given the way 2018’s Fallen Kingdom ended and the time gap between that film and this one it felt like you could go in any direction your heart desires:
- A Mad Max esque direction where the Dinosaurs have taken over the Earth and have asserted themselves as the dominant species with humanity struggling to survive hell you even could’ve gotten Sam Neill to do an opening montage narration about how it all went wrong like the opening of Mad Max 2
- A Planet of the Apes scenario where the humans are now slaves to Dinosaurs (“Get your sticken claw out of my face you damn dirty Raptor”) and the only danger for our cas members is trying to survive that terrible Planet of the Dinosaurs.
Wait a minute, Statue of Liberty/Big Ben/The Sydney Opera House
IT’S OUR PLANET,
THEY FINALLY REALLY DID IT,
YOU MANIACS,
YOU ATE IT UP!
DAMN YOU!!
DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!!
- Or a situation like the animated cartoon Dino Riders where Dinosaurs are the dominant species and the military are going to harness the power of the dinosaurs to fight back and take control of the world giving us awesome T-Rex vs T-Rex action scenes
Think of those possibilities but instead what did we get, a story about fucking locusts, BUGS in a movie where DINOSAURS are on the damn poster but instead most of their scenes are in the various previews for the film and the 147 minute movie you go to see only barely extends those moments and it feels like a damn ripoff.
What also doesn’t help is the return of the original cast and the films villain, Campbell Scott first of all is a good actor and is capable of playing an asshole (he plays a good one in the 1991 film Dying Young with Julia Roberts) but here he plays a boring villain and not much of an asshole and I am so fucking sick of these big movies constantly doing nothing of any sort with their villains.
As for the returning cast members, both Sam Neill and Laura Dern clearly look as though they really don’t want to be there and given this movie’s production was interrupted by the COVID pandemic part of me doesn’t entirely blame them as a movie set was probably the last place they’d want to be at that time as there weren’t a lot of vaccination or medicine treatments then and the script gives their characters no real memorable moments while Jeff Goldblum, Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard were fine but nothing special.
Time for this series to go extinct I think as since 2015’s Jurassic World which took the world by surprise at how well it did this and Fallen Kingdom were not very good at all and at least Fallen Kingdom had some good direction this one doesn’t.
3. Halloween Ends: Ah Halloween like Jurassic World the 2018 reboot made more money at the box office than people and pundits expected and because of that we got a sequel 2021’s Evil Dies Tonight-sorry-Halloween Kills which was laughably bad with its treating Michael Myers like he’s the Terminator to Anthony Michael Hall essentially talking like Kyle Reese from T1 and its lack of scare moments and the constant chanting of Evil Dies Tonight over and over and over again to the point where it became a joke.
But hey a third film was to come and the only way is up right?
WRONG! This was also a bad film, now it wasn’t laughably bad like Halloween Kills was this was just good old fashioned Steak, Mash and Peas bad.
Firstly so much of this movie is focused on this young kid named Corey and I didn’t give a flying fuck about him at all, he comes across as such a whiny, whingey little dipshit that I just want to see Michael Myers kill him so I didn’t have to look at him and instead just read about the words that rhyme with Corey.
Like Gory,
Story,
Allegory,
And Glory of the kind watching him get what he deserves.
Then there is this idea of Laurie Strode writing a book about her experiences with Michael Myers and the trauma that has haunted her ever since but is there any real payoff to the book, do we see her finish it at the end of the film and then her giving a speech about what writing this meant and how cathartic it was to put this all down into words and be able to move on with her life in her remaining years?
No its barely touched on throughout the film and gets no real tangible payoff at all and that also speaks for the supposed final battle between Laurie and Michael which didn’t feel final or definitive at all it just felt like another showdown where Michael won’t really die he’ll come back like all these other horror slasher people do because they carve up the box office well thankfully this one didn’t and I hope this is the last Halloween film ever though the team behind this series is moving on to the Exorcist and save for a glorious Mark Kermode rant I have no interest in seeing it one bit.
2. Morbius: Ah Morbius a movie that I think everyone had more or less written off before it even hit cinemas, delayed from 2020 due to COVID, not a lot of previews for it and starring a man in Jared Leto who is fast becoming a joke given his propensity to be nothing but cartoonish in all of his recent film roles.
Well sorry Columbia Pictures it was not Morbin Time as the kids like to say this was simply a dud, firstly for a movie about the Living Vampire there is barely any blood or horror type kills, its all done with this blue liquid and red goop it looked like from what I saw and it cuts away from any hint of horror moments.
Also this movie like a few other blockbusters released this year was so dark looking, when I was watching it I kept looking at the darkness on the screen and thinking “TURN THE LIGHT ON” and “You know what that is over there, it’s the light switch not a sculpture from a first time artist okay”
And also Leto himself was boring to watch and he clearly wanted this to be his equivalent of the Venom movies with Tom Hardy but at least those films had Tom Hardy’s 115% commitment to the dual personality of Eddie Brock and Venom and it’s never been boring so far hell I’d happily watch a 90-100 minute road comedy of just the two of them on a holiday talking to themselves and getting drunk in bars and sun tanning on a beach with Venom fixing any sunburn Eddie might get I would watch that whereas I don’t want another Morbius movie sorry Jared perhaps you should’ve gotten Super Mario Brothers instead that film would get both brothers for the price of one actor.
And now we come to my number 1 turkey of 2022 and that is no question:
Lightyear: Oh boy oh boy talk about a movie that makes just about every wrong movie a movie can possibly make.
Now this is firstly supposedly the movie that Andy saw in 1995 that made him want a Buzz Lightyear toy well I don’t believe that for a moment because the story here is so dull and maudlin and sombre that any kids that did see it (and given its box office not many did) would’ve probably hated the film and any adults that went with them would’ve also been bored by it all.
Us 90s kids loved movies like Jurassic Park or particularly Independence Day (I myself wore out that video in 1997 and still think of it in widescreen as a different film) this should’ve been much much more in that vein an exciting action sci-fi romp where Zurg launches a full scale invasion of Earth and Star Command led by Buzz has to rally the troops and save the day and the Galactic Alliance.
But it wasn’t that instead we get a semi serious sci-fi story that seems more concerned with time travel and fixing mistakes and those are all good messages but they were boring and boringly told, speaking of which Chris Evans who I love as Captain America I thought would make a good Buzz but does he get to play a noble and heroic Buzz like he did as Cap?
No he plays a dullard that sits around for most of the movie moping and miserable about how he failed everyone and couldn’t complete this one mission and after a while I got so sick of it and I also got very sick of his goddamn sidekicks who aren’t heroic at all their just unfunny slobs that the film throws these endless amounts of jokes at and your laughing AT them instead of WITH them which was definitely the case in the best Avengers moments that utilised humour very well.
And speaking of the films messaging now I am not in any way against family movies having a homily or a moral message in them not at all but all too often with Disney Animation and Pixar nowadays it feels like the messaging and need to be representative (again another goal that I am not in any way against) is coming first and the storytelling and characters and villains are coming second, third and fourth in that order and it is really hurting their films at the box office but also seeing them lose to their rivals in Dreamworks and Illumination who are still proving that animation can still be a viable genre for audiences and I don’t like it I want Disney Animation back on top but if its going to do so it needs to put its priorities into a different order.
Now that the turkey cooking is done let’s turn course to the favourites of the year and this was I think my favourite year of movies since 2018 and it was a rough start to the year for me but after May it picked up steam and never looked back.
But before I reveal my 5 favourites list I wanted to touch on my 2 honourable mentions that were on the list but fell off with the end of year movies coming on the scene:
3,000 Years of Longing: George Miller steps outside of the Mad Max series to give us another strange yet unique film.
And although the previews for this film sold it as another wild ride from the Mad Genius that is Dr. George Miller this movie was more than that for me and I liked it a whole lot more than I liked his last Mad Max film Fury Road.
And firstly this movie had more of an emotional core to it as it is as much a love story between Tilda Swinton’s narratologist and the genie she frees from the bottle he lived in for many many many centuries played by Idris Elba as he tells her the tales of his imprisonment over the centuries.
And in these scenes you get the wild imagination that Miller made his name giving us while also developing this sweet love story between this strange genie and this solitary narratologist content to live on her own and do her work for the rest of her days and Swinton is great as this character and the way a narratologist in this movie weaves history and mythology with storytelling was really appealing to me and it grew on me a lot after seeing it.
Minions the Rise of Gru: I know I know no sensible or right-minded movie fan would dare to have a movie like this on their list.
But it isn’t on my list it just missed out and I had a lot of fun with this movie and laughed a lot out loud in the cinema, the way that Kevin, Stuart and Bob were used was great fun and those characters have lost none of their charm from the first Minions film while Gru is wisely back as the central character this time, this series works best I feel when he is at the centre of it and this movie is better than Minions 1 because of that.
And also the Vicious 6 are really fun villains and it makes me wish along with Balthazar Bratt from Despicable Me 3 that Disney Animation would get back to giving us great villains again, they’ve stopped doing that and I sorely wish they hadn’t as it hurts as a longtime fan of theirs.
Now with those out of the way time to reveal my 5 favourite films of 2022:
5. She Said: This move the more I have thought about this movie the more I’ve liked it and I couldn’t bare to leave it off my favourites list of 2022, the movie concerns Jodi Kantor and Megan Twoey the two New York Times reporters who helped expose decades of abuse by Harvey Weinstein.
Now this movie could’ve gone horribly wrong in the wrong creative hands with multiple sex scenes, an emphasis on the wrong place and the reporters feeling glamorous or being treated like Woodward and Bernstein in All the Presidents Men but director Maria Schrader and screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz don’t do that.
These 2 ladies firstly adapt the book this movie is based on very well by placing the emphasis firstly on the victims and letting them tell their stories in all their messy and at times tough to watch way, as someone who loves dark movies even I winced a couple of times during the interview scenes.
And also Schrader and Lenkiewicz take you into the private lives of the 2 reporters, these 2 ladies who are brilliantly played by Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan were salt of the earth ladies juggling their day job with their young families, Mulligan’s character in particular comes back to work from maternity leave just as this story gets going and has been struggling with post natal depression after the birth of her baby and it makes their accomplishment feel all the more amazing given their background.
And lastly this movie treats Harvey not as an all powerful empresario but as a shadowy Jabba the Hutt type figure who’s reach is long and deep and the film wisely never lets you see his face or his body and after seeing the movie I had to look up the cartoon Mark Knight drew for the Herald Sun of Harvey as Jabba the Hutt from Return of the Jedi, it was a great cartoon that felt very apt after seeing the movie.
4. The Menu: This was one of those films for me that was a nice surprise.
I didn’t expect a lot going into this film but I had a really fun time watching it and it grew on me more and more after I saw it and firstly I have to mention Ralph Fiennes as the chef he is deliciously good in this role and its nice to see him play a villain after doing so many buttoned up gentleman type roles and being M to Daniel Craig’s Bond in his last couple of films as 007.
Also very good is Anya Taylor-Joy as the one guest the chef can’t work out when he sees her in his Hawthorn island restaurant which is catered to down to the exact detail where the chef knows who every guest is and how to cater their meals specifically to them and the way that the courses intersect with the guests was great fun and this movie will make you very hungry for a certain food in particular when its over.
This was definitely a slice of dark twisted fun that took even its own new parent studio Walt Disney Pictures by surprise as I don’t think even they knew what they had in this movie but audiences did and helped make it a surprise success, sometimes some studios can be their own worst enemy at times.
3. Elvis: This was a movie that I was very keen for given it was the new film by Baz Luhrmann who I am a big fan of with his Red Curtain series of Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge as well as his 2013 adaptation of the Great Gatsby (the less said about 2008’s Australia the better frankly.)
And boy did this movie deliver the goods as this was a great time at the cinema and yes its Baz doing what Baz does along with his wife and chief collaborator Catherine Martin but the whole time I was watching this I just kept thinking to myself “Ah Baz, don’t ever change” as I just ate up his direction and editing choices and yes it’s too long and a good 15 minutes should have been cut out but I didn’t care I was really caught up in the film.
And Austin Butler as the King himself WOW what a performance, it’s a hard task to carry a BazMark production and when you do it well like Leo in R+J or Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge it is stardom and success that awaits and here is no exception as Butler carries this movie with sheer utter gusto brilliantly capturing the King of Rock and Roll in all his glory from his breakout younger years to his brilliant live performance of If I Can Dream to his tempestuous relationship with Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks.)
Speaking of Tom Hanks who caught COVID during the making of this movie he’s playing a villain here and while a lot of the time he comes across as a cross between Gru’s Dad and the Penguin from Batman he’s actually not that bad here now he cannot compete with Butler but nobody can and Hanks holds his own well enough.
2. Top Gun Maverick: This along with the number 1 movie on this list were my most anticipated movies of this year, June 25th 2020 we were meant to get this movie but then the dark times the coronavirus set in and it was delayed time and time and time again but on May 25th 2022 we finally got to see this long awaited and delayed sequel.
And my goodness did this movie more than live up its Mighty Wings of expectations, right from the beginning when the logos come up and the theme kicks in those expectations vanished in a puff of jet smoke and then Captain Loggins and the Danger Zone starts blaring on the soundtrack and I was literally fist pumping in my cinema seat talk about setting the mood and servicing the fans right out of the gate.
And firstly Tom Cruise was insistent that much of this movie be done for real as much as humanly possible and the flight sequences especially in the IMAX framing are simply spectacular, awe inspiring even especially the dual climax where Maverick and his flight team fend of SAM missiles and then he and Rooster (Miles Teller playing the son of Goose from the first film) stealing a plane behind enemy lines as if it was out of Clint Eastwood’s Firefox from 1982 is equally gripping.
But this is backed up by an excellent script I feel that was heavily rewritten by Cruise’s chief collaborator of recent years Christopher McQuarrie ticks along like clockwork, no scene or moment feels wasted and the film has an excellent tight pace that gives you the thrills but also allows for time between the characters and the love story and its nice to see Cruise and Jennifer Connelly play older people falling in love plus the film really movingly handles Val Kilmer as Iceman in a scene that shouldn’t have worked but does so wonderfully well.
But lastly I have to talk about the new group of Top Gun pilots and they are different to their 1986 counterparts but no less memorable, I particularly love Glen Powell’s Bagman (Hangman), Monica Barbaro’s Phoenix and Lewis “Son of the President” Pullman’s Bob they along with Jon Hamm’s Cyclone, Charlie Parnell’s Warlock and Teller’s Rooster are a great group that you love to watch either succeed for Maverick on their dangerous mission or have Maverick throw egg all over their faces for doubting he still do it, in an era where so many sequels fall flat on their ass this sequel more than delivered the goods.
As did another big sequel and my favourite film of 2022:
Avatar the Way of Water: James Fucking Cameron.
That’s all I need to say for the intro because when I was sitting in the cinema watching this I just kept thinking “How does he do this?”, “I wish I knew how he did it” and “I wish there were more making movies like him” as this movie was simply a stunning achievement that like Aliens and Terminator 2 far exceeds what was done on the first film.
And firstly the visual spectacle here is simply remarkable, once more we find ourselves in the world of Pandora and this time visiting the ocean lands of the Metkayina Clan and they are amazing with their Maori esque facial tattoos to the stunning underwater motion capture work to the reems of life and creatures that exist in those lands and ever since seeing the film I have been feeling that Pandoraitis effect that people felt after seeing the first film in regards to the Whale characters the Tul’Kun and when the Whale watching season returns next year I will be eager to see the real life Whales come home as they swim south.
But also I think this time the storytelling was a lot better here in large part thanks to co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver coming in to share the workload with Cameron on this front and wisely Jake Sully is not the focus here, his children are and they are a great young group from Britain Dalton’s Lo’ak to Sigourney Weaver’s Kiri who has a mysterious past and even Jack Champion’s Spider a human child left behind on Pandora who feels heavily inspired by the Feral Kid from Mad Max 2.
Also Stephen Lang as Quaritch once more is an excellent villain, he was great in the first film and he is equally good here and he and his squad get their own Avatar bodies and it makes them fierce opponents for Jake and his family and the last hour of the movie is spectacular with huge scale action, riffs on the Abyss and Titanic and battle scenes that leave everyone else in the dust, this and Top Gun Maverick not only should be the standard for sequels but also for blockbusters in general.
These 2 films show how movies of this kind can and should be done, they should be the standard film fans accept from now on as everything else just feels like small scale bananas compared to these and I am so fucking sick of sitting through so many big films that either look dark and dreary or cheap in terms of their effects, that sacrifice good storytelling and the importance of their villain for cheap fanservice and nostalgia baiting and just treat the movies as just constant teases for what’s to come, it isn’t good enough anymore and it shouldn’t be good enough from now on not after what Avatar and Top Gun which to be fair has those nostalgia and fanservice moments but does them very well.
And so that is it another movie year comes to a close and it was a big one to say the least we saw movie going really come back this year and set the scene for a big 2023 in the cinema with lots of movie goodies for audiences to come back for in a way they can’t get at home on their TV and although there are causes for concern such as COVID and the broader unknown of how these movies will turn out to be I for one am very excited for what’s to come and let’s do this list all again at the end of next year.
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