While the year isn’t over yet, we’re only in August now, I figure I’d be a good time to go over some of the movies that I’ve seen so far. It’s August, so there’s about 4 months left in the year which means a lot more movies to come. I haven’t been to theaters since November, because we’re still in a pandemic and I just don’t feel comfortable going to back to theaters yet, so I’ve had to rely on patience and VOD to view new releases. The movies on this list that I’m going to label “The Worst” are still entertaining on a particular. In fact, most of the movies on this list I really enjoyed, but some of them aren’t very good. So, let’s get right to it, shall we?
The Worst – F9: The Fast Saga
For the last couple of Fast and Furious movies, everybody was joking about where the series would go next. The answer that most people gave was…space. I was like, “No, they wouldn’t DARE go that far. That’s just too ridiculous.” Well…they went there. I’m not exaggerating either. Two of the crew take a Piero, strapped to an ACME rocket, and they zoom into space. There were a lot of ridiculous moments in this movie, but the moment they went into space is where they lost me. I should’ve been lost when Vin Diesel’s character drove a car attached to the remnants of a rope bridge off a cliff and crash land on the other side of the ravine, WITHOUT A SCRATCH ON HIM. Look, I appreciate the absurdity of the previous Fast and Furious films. Realistic? Not a chance. But they were tethered to some kind of reality with some kind of physics. In F9, physics clearly don’t exist. The story is unnecessarily complex and Vin Diesel takes the whole thing too damn seriously. Vin Diesel’s been an entertaining actor for years, but as a producer, he’s doing more damage to the franchise than any director or writer. His character is invincible. There are no stakes. Honestly, the Fast and Furious franchise needs to be put out of its misery. They don’t even care anymore.
The Best – Land
Some of the best movies don’t involve big explosions or space aliens. No, the best ones are often intimate in their story-telling that focus on characters above everything else. Land is one such movie. This was the directorial debut of Robin Wright, who is also the lead. She plays a woman who suffers an unspeakable tragedy and decides to isolate herself from the rest of the world to deal with her grief. Not actually knowing how to live off the land proves to be too much for her, until help comes from a local hunter played by Demian Bichir. What you have here is two very broken people who manage to get to know each other and learn to live again. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s also uplifting in many ways, seeing people come to terms with what they’ve lost. While Land isn’t the most original movie, the fact that Robin Wright managed to deliver something so powerful and meaningful is amazing. It’s definitely one that I would recommend to anybody.
The Worst – Black Widow
This is a first for me. For the better part of 11 years, I’ve enjoyed nearly every single on of the MCU movies that were put out, up to and including Avengers: Endgame. Black Widow was delayed because of the pandemic, but ultimately the problems with the movie go way beyond that. I reviewed and I thought that it was an okay movie, with some really good moments and characters, but the rest of the movie was horrendously generic. I liked the family dynamic, especially between Natasha and Yelena, but the major problem with this movie, was that it was completely unnecessary in the world of the MCU. The movie takes place between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, but if you’ve seen Avengers: Endgame, you already know what happens to Natasha. So, it begs the question: Why? Why did this movie get made? It adds nothing really new, except for Yelena and maybe the Red Guardian, but aside from that, this movie is completely forgettable. It’s not the worst movie ever, but it IS the worst MCU movie, and it is not the way to kick off Phase 4 of the MCU.
The Best – Zack Snyder’s Justice League
I know what you’re thinking: Didn’t Justice League come out back in 2017? Yeah, you would be correct. There was a Justice League released back in 2017, but it wasn’t Zack Snyder’s vision. After years of fans demanding it, Zack Snyder was finally allowed to go back and complete HIS version of the film. The result is a 4-hour superhero epic that expands on…everything. Character motivations have changed, visual effects are more refined and the music is different. Not only is the main villain, Steppenwolf, more threatening, it’s made perfectly clear that he’s not the mastermind. No, the film finally gives us Darkseid. While he’s only in the film for maybe 5-7 minutes, his presence is felt throughout, and that changes the dynamic of the story entirely. While people were wary of a 4-hour run-time, it’s paced extremely well, so that those 4 hours don’t feel that long. I’m really happy that Zack Snyder was allowed to complete his vision, as it is a vastly superior film in every way to the 2017 release. Unfortunately, it did come at a high price: 70 million dollars and the job of a studio exec who greenlit the project.
The Worst – Mortal Kombat
Again, this is a movie that actually found to be a lot of fun. The opening 10 minutes and closing 10 minutes are really outstanding as they featured Scorpion fighting Sub-Zero. But the problem is that everything in between is pretty ho-hum. You have a main character that was invented entirely for the film and doesn’t really add anything new to the Mortal Kombat mythology. Raiden’s a bit of a jack-ass, and Shang Tsung is an incredibly weak villain here. Most of the characters outside of Kano aren’t that memorable. Not only that, the editing in this movie is bizarre. The quick cuts don’t make a lot of sense and they muddy would could’ve been incredibly fight sequences. Never mind that the story makes no sense and is riddle with more holes than Swiss cheese, the pacing is all over the place. Yeah, the blood and gore is fantastic and there a lot of Easter eggs for the fans, but for the average movie-goer, there’s nothing in here that’s really worthwhile.
The Best – A Quiet Place Part II
There were a lot of questions that were unanswered by the time the first movie ended. Part II explains how it all started, but it still leaves a mystery of what these things are and how much of the world has been affected. The movie literally picks up right where the first one left off, but it shows how some people have survived. But the knowledge of how to kill these monsters is always on the mind of the audience. The sequel is just as intense as the original, and it ups the ante a bit when we run into some people that aren’t worth saving. Expanding the world to include more than just the Abbotts was a really good idea. By the time this movie ends, you’re still on the edge of your seat. It’s a great movie. AND it’s PG-13, so for all those naysayers that the best horror movies are R-rated: Not so much anymore.
These are some of the movies that I’ve seen so far. I’ve enjoyed most of them to a certain extent, but there’s a lot more to come before the year is out, and I can’t wait. So, the next time you see the final part of this list will be towards the end of December or early January of 2022.