It’s December, my fellow Space Cadets. With the holidays literally right around the corner, now is the time for me to finish off my Best and Worst movies of 2022. The first half of this year was pretty loaded with some really outstanding movies. Here are some of the Best highlights from earlier in the year: The Batman, Top Gun: Maverick, Catch The Fair One, and The Northman, just to name a few. Some of the worst: Morbius, Moonfall, and the Firestarter remake. The second half of this year had some pretty decent highlights as well as some really bad movies. So, let’s get right into it.
The Best: Prey
This was a very unexpected surprise. When it was revealed that Disney and 20th Century Studios were working on a new Predator movie, most fans were skeptical, and rightfully so. The last Predator movie was a complete wreck, and the Aliens Vs Predator movies were nothing special. So, director Dan Trachtenberg and 20th Century Studios decided to take the franchise to the past. 1719 to be specific. The film was also going to be centered around the Comanche people, which was a very interesting idea. Well…color me shocked. Not only was Prey really good, it’s also the best Predator movie since the original 1987 Schwarzenegger movie. Amber Midthunder carries this movie like its nobodies business, and it’s just a hell of a lot of fun.
The Worst: Blonde
There’s no mistaking the fact that the life of Norma Jean, a.k.a. Marilyn Monroe was tragic. From a brutal childhood to a ruthless Hollywood culture, Monroe was exploited to the nth degree. Andrew Dominik’s Blonde could’ve explored some of the woman’s humanity and what she brought to the table, but no…Dominik decided that he was going to focus on her suffering, basing the movie on a fictional account of Marilyn Monroe’s life. I get the intent, but Dominik ended up doing the thing that he criticized Hollywood for: Exploiting Marilyn Monroe. I didn’t review this movie because I felt awful watching it, and I just wasn’t willing to give Dominik the time of day for this rubbish.
The Best: The Woman King
The Woman King is a lot of things: A drama. An historical epic. An action movie. It’s all of those things and more. The movie is centered around an elite unite of female warriors called the Agojie. You would have to read my review of the film, but this is one of the most beautiful movies ever made. Not just in terms of cinematography, but the characters and the story are incredible. On top of that, you have an incredible cast that includes Viola Davis, Lashana Lynch, John Boyega, and Thuso Mbudu. It’s definitely an exciting movie, but it’s also an emotionally charged one. I love movies that tell me about a part of the world and history that I knew nothing about, and The Woman King does precisely that. It’s an amazing movie that has to be seen.
The Worst: Halloween Ends
I love me a good slasher movie. When the reboot/sequel Halloween came out in 2018, it was really good. It was a direct sequel to the original John Carpenter flick. It was intense, fun, and gave us a really bad-ass Jamie-Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode. Halloween Kills was an inferior movie on a lot of different levels, but it delivered on the carnage which I loved. Halloween Kills was one of the most violent main-stream slashers in the last decade. But the whole “Evil Dies Tonight” motif was done to death. Halloween Ends goes out on a whimper, not a bang. Michael Myers is sidelined for most of the movie while a different character takes his place. This was NOT the movie that was advertised, so there is a huge bait-and-switch going on here. The whole movie was just too damn bizarre, and it didn’t make any sense. There’s a reason why it was released on Peacock the same time it was released in theaters. This franchise needs to stay dead.
The Best: Terrifyer 2
Well, we go from one of the worst slasher movies of the year, to the absolute best slasher: Terrifyer 2. The Terrifyer movies are a gore-hound’s dream come true. The first movie was nuts, but the second movie takes it to whole new level of insanity. Yeah, the story’s not the greatest, but we have one of the best villains ever in Art the Clown. Not only that, we also have one of the best Final Girls ever: Lauren LaVera as Sienna. I love movies that use practical effects instead of CGI, and Terrifyer 2 is a celebration of practical effects. It’s a gore-fest unlike any other. If you’re going into it expecting something more than a slasher, you might be barking up the wrong tree. This one is for slasher fans. But I love it.
The Worst: Black Adam
There are disappointments and then there’s Black Adam. This is a movie that should’ve come out 20 years ago at the latest. It is very much a throwback to the more generic action movies of the 90s, and while I appreciate a good throwback, there’s nothing in this movie that I haven’t seen before. Most people would agree. Dwayne Johnson is awesome here. He’s built to play this character and seeing him go Darth Sidious on fools is spectacular. There’s a lot of really good action sequences here, but they’re tied together by a story that is neither compelling nor memorable. Also, the kid is incredibly annoying, and the villain is one of the weakest that I’ve seen in a DC movie. Yeah, this is not a good movie.
The Best: All Quiet on the Western Front
While one could say that a lot of modern war movies are actually “anti-war” films, All Quiet on the Western Front gives very good reasons why war is terrible. This World War I story is told from the perspective of a new gung-ho German soldier who gets sent to the front lines. He gets hit with the ugly reality of war. This movie is hard to watch, and that’s coming from somebody who loves war movies. It’s emotionally devastating. The battle sequences are epic, but they are brutal. The movie’s perspective is that from a German’s point of view, but the movie doesn’t really take sides. It’s destructive for everybody involved. It’s absolutely worth watching at least once.
The Worst: Thor: Love and Thunder
How could a movie like Love and Thunder look so great in the trailers, but go so wrong in the final product? I never thought that I would hate an MCU movie so much. There’s no reason for this movie to be this bad. Thor: Ragnarok was AMAZING. But it balanced its humor with really strong story-telling and character-work. Taika Waititi through all caution to the wind for this movie and it’s the worst comic-book movie this year as a result. Yes, worse than Morbius, which I loathed. I liked specific elements in this movie, but it does everything wrong. Gorr the Godbutcher doesn’t feel like a threat, because you only see him kill ONE god and that was in self-defense. Christian Bale’s performance was great, but he was wasted. The movie focused way too much on the jokes. I wanted to slaughter the screaming goats. This is a terrible movie and it shouldn’t have been.
The Best: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Phase 4 of Marvel’s MCU has been all over the place. Thankfully, it closes out with a really strong movie in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. This one was going to be tough one for everybody involved. Chadwick Boseman’s sudden passing threw a big wrench into Ryan Coogler’s plans for the sequel. While I’m not going to say that Wakanda Forever is a perfect film, it is the best that we could’ve hoped considering the circumstances. The handling of Boseman’s death and by extension, T’Challa’s death was extraordinary. It was an incredibly emotional way to start the movie. The lack of Boseman’s presence is felt throughout the entire movie, but it mostly comes together with some incredible performances by Angela Bassett, Letitia Wright, and Tenoch Huerta as the film’s villain, Namor.
As with any year, there were movies that I didn’t get around to seeing. The year’s not over yet, but the only movie coming out this month that I’m going to go see is Avatar: The Way of Water. What I will see about this year, is that certain aspects of movies have been outstanding. We’ve seen some really amazing performances over the course of 2022 that I feel are Academy Award-worthy. Some of the music in these movies have also been incredible. I’ll be talking about those over the course of the month, and maybe a little into January. Stay tuned.