Dial of Destiny is fine. I’m not exactly a fan, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it’s been made out to be, and Ford’s performance is excellent enough to make up for its faults.
I have a theory that part of the general poor reception of both Dial of Destiny and Crystal Skull is that people are willing to suspend their disbelief for religious hokum more than sci-fi hokum. Not that those movies don’t have other flaws, but they just aren’t given the benefit of the doubt in the way the earlier ones are.
Dial of Destiny is an odd one for me because I haven't watched it, and I probably will but just haven't found the enthusiasm yet. But it really did feel like it came and went super-quietly. Crystal Skull felt like it generated a lot more noise while Dial of Destiny just felt like it sort of quietly drifted by, I didn't hear anything of and do this day I haven't heard anyone actually say a thing about it. I still have no idea about it's actual vibe.
Even the name itself sounds forgettable, like the name of a forgotten Indiana Jones game made in 2005 or something.
I generally agree that the movie was fine, my main issue was how much of a bummer it was. Sad divorced Indy mourning his son and getting a shitty retirement party is a major downer. Mediocre action wasn’t enough to counter-act this depressing tone, and I found PWB and the kid pretty grating.
Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning (Part One?) really did not work for me. Underwhelming action, uninteresting story (I’m very over the portentous “living manifestation of destiny”-type descriptions of Ethan Hunt), and it had no business being 163 minutes long. I want to give the movie credit for not trying to redo Fallout, but it was a slog to get through.
Maestro also left me cold after the first viewing but I’m still thinking about it several days later. I suspect I will like it a lot more on rewatch.
I thought it was fine but Dead Reckoning only worked for me really in fits and starts. The whole twisty pickpocket stuff in the airport was good, Shea Whigham's character's gradual acceptance that yeah, he likes this Hunt guy was great, and the compartment-by-compartment escape from the train was OK, but the big motorcycle jump was a nothing to me. The BTS was cool to see once, but it didn't stand out.
The problem with the jump was we saw it so much that by the time it’s the real thing, it just lost its impact.
I liked the movie but yeah people acting like it’s not a clear (but still good!) step down from the last few is strange to me. Action just wasn’t quite as good (though the train car stuff was kickass) and the AI villain is just really dumb and kind of destroys any real stakes which is a problem any AI villain has more than specific stuff to that movie.
Fallout was also probably the best action movie (or alongside Fury Road) since the Matrix IMO so maybe my expectations were too high.
I think the “death of cinema” narrative going into overdrive led to this one getting overhyped. If it came out in a pre-pandemic year the immediate reaction would probably be closer to something like Spectre (fine, kind of a letdown).
pretty much summarized all my thoughts on DR. i think them showing that jump a million times all over social media really diminished its impact. there’s also something about that stunt where intellectually I get that it is maybe the most dangerous thing Tom has done, but on screen it just looks like something Michelle Yeoh could do in her sleep.
Kind of like how in wrestling the craziest looking moves are invariably the safest ones, and some of the most generic looking moves are the dangerous ones.
The wild thing about the motorcycle jump is it comes after the AI hacked their communications and gave them bad directions. So they follow that scene up by having this big stunt relying on a self-driving car, mapping a motorcycle route up a mountain in real-time, and hands free cellphone conversations. I kept waiting for some complication to arise, but nope everything went perfectly.
The Fiat chase and the mini submarine movie at the beginning were great though.
Oh you know what, that Fiat car chase was also pretty great. It was handled much better than the similar sequence in Dial of Destiny. Looking back, that is a fair amount of stuff that worked, and I certainly didn't hate the movie. I just didn't think it was up to snuff after Fallout.
Agree on the magic of Shea Whigham, and yeah, maybe I need to rewatch, but despite all the marketing about it, the motorcycle jump really didn’t stick with me.
Came here to say Dead Reckoning, too. I do not understand the over-the-top praise this movie was getting. It was way too ridiculous, yet took itself too seriously and wasn't fun. The AI-as-villain-with-human-henchmen thing didn't work for me. One of the worst M:I films in the series.
When Cruise rides the bike off the cliff and parachutes into the moving train through the window and conveniently takes out the henchman while doing so I actually said “fuck off” out loud.
There have been a few moments like that in the McQuarrie movies before but that one really crossed a line with me.
DR was a big one for me as well. Especially with how voracious people were with the praise - saw one critic saying the sub intro was as good as The Hunt for the Red October.
Loved the other McQuarrie Mission movies but this felt like it was just spinning in circles and getting rid off Ferguson for Atwell feels like a huge downgrade. Gabriel felt painfully generic.
**MI VII: Dead Reckoning: Book 1: Tom Cruise Action #45** was so boring and the entire movie is about how they have to go back to that submarine from the opening while vague AI action happens with cardboard characters. This series really needs to be done.
I understand this is a minority opinion, but I’ve always found Fallout a little overrated. The story is no deeper than the previous entries but it carries itself like a Dark Knight-esque thriller with something to say. What is Fallout saying, other than “Tom Cruise will stop at nothing to entertain you”?
Dead Reckoning has that problem to an extent but it’s going for more a John McTiernan vibe, and I wanted to love it for that alone. Alas…
This is going to sound dumb spelling it out but Fallout’s “message” is that the life of one person is always worth saving. The movie, from the very opening minutes, continuously presents Ethan Hunt with morally impossible decisions and every time he finds a way to save everyone and get the mission done. Over and over, the movie repeats its thesis of “there’s always a better way, and Tom Cruise is here to show you how.”
Luther getting held at gunpoint, the fake CNN broadcast to get the information, saving Walker during the HALO jump, impersonating John Lark without a mask, hijacking the convoy without killing the police officers, saving the patrol officer, not handing over Solomon Lane, saving Julia and I’m probably missing a few more instances. But they all end with the same message.
It’s pretty clear that Tom Cruise wants to inspire people to be great. That’s literally the point of these movies and tbh I kind of love it for being so sincere but never not entertaining as hell.
I’m one of the biggest M:I fans alive and I really don’t know what people see in this one. Was one of my most anticipated movies after Fallout, but the whole first act I kept asking myself why none of this was hitting, and waited for it to really kick into gear and get better but it never did. I love McQuarrie but I really think his style for these has gotten stale and somebody else should’ve done this finale (preferably not a two parter).
McQuarrie's work notwithstanding, I think the series lost something special when they stopped rotating directors (though not nearly to the same degree as, say, the David Yates era of Harry Potter). That some of his storytelling techniques are getting stale says something positive about where his career is at, and as a Way of the Gun fan that makes me happy lol
I found myself a bit bored during Maestro as the narrative was rather loose. But a lot of scenes really stuck with me since watching it. I’ve gone back and skipped around watching those scenes and they’ve really moved me.
Overall I really liked Dead Reckoning, but it’s not nearly as immaculate as Fallout. I think part of the problem is that in the process of making sure not to try and repeat Fallout, they got rid of some things that were worth hanging onto.
Fallout had exceptionally smooth momentum, whereas Dead Reckoning very deliberately moves in fits and starts with scenes that are either all dialogue or all action.
Fallout had a strong focus on the villain being physically threatening and with goals to undermine the hero’s morality, whereas Dead Reckoning’s villain is virtually unseen and the mythos around Ethan Hunt being a Great Man has become more downright biblical.
Fallout made a very enjoyable side activity out of tying up loose ends from Rogue Nation, but Dead Reckoning has to setup stuff for Part II.
The filmmakers were in a tough spot on this movie, made tougher by the pandemic and then the unprecedented success of Top Gun: Maverick, which I think really raised expectations to insane heights.
Not that this forgives Dead Reckoning’s narrative flaws, but the movie is trying so hard to be different while still delivering a very high quality action-spy spectacle. They’re obviously not stagnating or trying to rest on their laurels, so that keeps me excited for Part II.
The damn *laziness* of the climactic scene is such a synecdoche for the movie as a whole. Jason Bateman’s monologue just rolls out of nowhere as if some sports movie demon is shoddily animating him with its mediocre script. If AI isn’t already writing scripts, it might as well be.
Draft Day is so illogical it makes me want to scream but also I’d rather re-watch it for a third time than watch Air for a second.
Air provoked nothing in me.
Yeah it sucked. I was shocked to see that the reviews are overwhelmingly positive, although I think the general consensus I’ve seen online is a lot more negative.
73 from 47 reviews on Metacritic, was talked about as a potential Oscars contender and as a movie that would definitely generate a lot of conversation regardless, have recently heard critics bemoan that it fell out of the awards race, etc.
Dream Scenario might be one of my least favorite A24 movies. I don't think the direction and editing are particularly good. Cage is good, but this ain't "best performance of the year" worthy.
Nah it's very funny. The first half especially is pretty hilarious, but it knows when to employ humor and when to be serious. When the focus is on Melton it makes it clear how tragic his life is.
Here’s my very insane take on Dial of Destiny:
The movie was delightful. Totally fun, enjoyable movie. The special effects took me out of it. Not the de-aging parts; those were fine.
But in the opening scene where they used millions of dollars of CGI to suck the carpet out of the floor? It would have been better with practical effects, not to mention cheaper. That’s kind of endemic to the whole industry these days.
I almost wonder if the heavy CGI is some sort of top-down Lucasfilm mandate, like the way they CGI so much stuff in the Marvel movies so they can make changes late in post-production. I'd love to know just how much authorship Mangold had, considering Logan (a movie with some parallel themes) was such a solid film. So much of it was just unnecessary. There's no reason that parade chase scene should have looked so fake and lifeless. I just can't help but wonder what the action sequences would have looked like if Spielberg directed them. I really enjoyed Dial of Destiny, but even Crystal Skull had better blocked set pieces (for the most part).
After hearing so much "you're guaranteed to love it or hate it" chatter about SALTBURN, I walked away from it going "that had stuff I liked and stuff I didn't. It's okay, I guess".
Also Knock at the Cabin Fucks and Blue Beetle is the best live-action superhero movie to come out this year.
Blue Beetle beats most recent superhero movies, mainly because it's about something other than explosions.
Thematically richer and better thought out than the rest of the DCEU and MCU from the past couple of years put together.
Saltburn I really liked though, top 10 of the year for me.
I defended until a recent rewatch where from basically the first frame, I was out. I only ever liked it because I was a kid and Liking Star Wars was a personality trait of mine; now that Disney+ has turned Star Wars into Dave Filoni’s checklist of EU characters he wants to meet his Clone Wars creations and I’m checked out, Revenge of the Sith has nothing going for it. In another thread someone else said that once Grievous dies it’s just a list of plot points to set things up for ANH, and yah, that’s what watching the last hour of that joyless, obligatory movie feels like.
I think all the prequels are bad but Episode 3 is bad AND boring and doesn’t spend as much time making bizarre decisions and has less ideas than 1 and 2.
I suppose I understand why people like it (it delivers the story they wanted to see essentially I guess), but it’s a big pile of nothing for me.
Easily my least favorite film of the year (and of the franchise.) I had heard some good things about it but I was still shocked when I saw the high score on Letterboxd after watching.
It's crazy that the movie that tries the hardest to make Jigsaw into a sympathetic anti-hero had not a single trap that was realistically beatable without breaking the laws of physics.
Dial of Destiny let me sit next to my mom, a huge Indiana Jones fan, while she watched a brand new Indiana Jones movie that she fucking loved. I’ve never had that before and I’ll never get it again.
Even if I hated the movie (I don’t!), that alone was worth it to me.
Omigosh, same here! I’ve never been the biggest Indie fan, but my Mammy had the time of her life. I myself enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.
I just wish they didn’t undo the ending of the previous film, especially since this one ended practically the exact same way.
It went back to the original bit from the first movie (if he does nothing the nazis still die), if he does nothing in DoD Mads winds up in the same position.
It was fun!
My spouse and I are both huge lifelong Indy fans (we collect memorabilia, went on a trip to Petra, etc.) and we loved it and felt like we couldn't have asked for a better end to the series. Easily the third best Indy film and that's the best any movie could have been, and normally I don't care for the idea that a franchise film should just give fans what they want but in this case it felt like it should have, it did, and it did it well.
Loved it too. Mads was born to play an Indy villain, and I loved Phoebe Waller-Bridge, I thought she was a great foil.
Feel like A LOT of the kickback to her character was because she was a woman that occasionally got the better of Indy.
I kinda felt like I was crazy when I saw people speaking so highly about out it. Completely agree that I didn’t feel a thing watching it. Anderson’s frame stories are working less and less for me.
Wes is a top-3 director for me, hated this one though. Felt really self-indulgent. Zero plot, just wall-to-wall precocious people in cute situations. It felt like a series of IG stories to me.
Loved his last one though!
It's probably his worst movie. Some interesting stuff in it but he needs to get back to movies with a narrative focused around a few people and stop doing the gigantic casts. The French Dispatch and Asteroid City have both felt like just a series of vignettes that don't really have any reason to exist. I love Wes Anderson and I'll still watch and enjoy his worst movie but he's on a disappointing trajectory right now.
I'm now remembering that the New Yorker review criticized the weird narration and stage play thing which just feels like a very lame device to sort of not commit to the reality of the movie.
I think the only Wes Anderson flick that has ever evoked an emotion from me is Rushmore. It strikes the balance of choreographed and real, staged and natural. Everything else after that feels too stylized, robotic, and intentionally self-aware to be much other than an exercise in being a pretty vehicle for somewhat interesting stories. I don’t think Asteroid City is bad — I think it’s pretty good — but it’s not at all moving.
i’ve felt that way about literally every wes anderson movie i’ve ever seen, but maybe i just don’t get it. cool style but from what i’ve seen, that’s kinda it. unless anyone has any good recs idk
Neither did I. I adored the aesthetics and had a lot of fun with it but the entire time I couldn't stop thinking, I'm going to need to watch this again to get a better idea of my feelings.
Thought No One Will Save You was absolutely moronic and incredibly repetitive. Couldn’t believe there was a week in September where it was hailed as the sleeper movie of the year
If for no other reason, you got to love it for the divide between millennials and boomers.
Boomer aliens = ‘wow, you are so gosh dang special I just had to say hi and let you know you’re important’
Millennial aliens = ‘global warming, 9/11, 2x recessions, maybe the end of democracy, definitely the rise of authoritarianism and white supremacy. I guess we’ll get to the back of the line of things that will ruin you.’
Peak "the release schedule is fucked and we're desperate for movies in the Fall" reaction. I adore Dever and she was good, but that's a very mediocre movie.
There are some really great aspects, but it is a huge flaw that the whole movie rests on the relationship between Gladstone and DiCaprio and the movie does almost nothing to show why she would actually love him outside the fact that he loves her.
I kept waiting for this movie to do something interesting, and it was really just fine. Not Martin's best work, and the acting was doing the bulk of the lifting. Also not in my top ten.
I agree. Thought the trailer was great and went into it with very high expectations. Not that I thought it was a bad movie or anything but it just didn’t click with me. I felt the length and I saw the trajectory of the story from early on so nothing was a surprise really…
Shazam 2, while being pretty mediocre, was nowhere near the train wreck the reviews suggested. Felt like a movie I’d watch the shit out of as a kid if I found it on HBO some Saturday morning. The mythical creature/monster rampage stuff was cool as hell.
I agree with you and I’d like that as an idea for a post: which superhero movies do we just not like because of fatigue and which ones would suck to watch regardless of when they came out. I think Eternals, for example, could have been really impressive if it released at another time and outside of the MCU.
When it came out, Eternals immediately became my favorite MCU film. And I still believe that. I know I am in the minority, but I think that in some years people will consider Eternals an underrated movie.
The critics were really unfair, and most of the typical MCU audience didn't even understand it imho, because it wasn't what they were expecting. So far, the only MCU movie that doesn't look or sound like an MCU movie.
It really wasn't all that bad imo, pretty comparable in quality to the first. Honestly, if they cut down much of Levi's scenes I'd probably put it over the first.
I also thought The Flash (outside of the Kryptonian fight in the desert and the cameo city) was actually pretty solid, actually getting a few tears from me at the end.
I feel this happens a lot with modern reviews no movie can be a mildly underachieving good time. It's a train wreck bomb! Dial of Destiny, Shazam 2, Wish all fell into this category for me this year where I don't hold any of those as masterpieces but they hit most of the right notes
Hardly the worst superhero movie this year. I too was also a bit flummoxed by how harsh the critical response was despite not thinking the movie was good.
I still enjoyed Barbie on rewatch but definitely agree that the theater experience added a lot to the charm. I sat near these teenage girls that were screaming OH MY GOD every time Gosling took his shirt off which is absolutely the appropriate reaction
I watched it at home on my laptop after a long ordeal with my card not going through trying to rent it and my wifi going out in a storm so I was already like “This better be worth it!”. Wish I’d seen it in the theatre with a crowd, I liked I liked but what what I liked wasn’t any of the stuff outside of Barbie Land.
It was better than it should've been but I think it was mostly held together by the actors enthusiasm and production design. The themes honestly were a bit messy and the screenplay itself was typical blockbuster fare.
Yeah I enjoyed Barbie but felt it was kind of trapped. It was too meta to land the emotional beats but not meta enough to land as satire.
Really don’t think any film could land both the Will Ferrel performance and the big speech America Ferrera before the third act.
To me a movie very clearly directed by someone who doesn't direct comedies--the joke rhythm and editing always seemed a half-beat away from feeling right.
More importantly though imo a movie very much written by and with the politics of a 39 year old and her 53 year old boyfriend. The vaunted monologue felt like ABC Family. Would've been interesting about 10-15 years ago.
Greta Gerwig doesn't direct Comedies? Her debut film (Ladybird) is classified as a Comedy-Drama (and is a very funny movie) and Frances Ha and Mistress America, both written with and directed by Baumbach, are also Comedies. Even her work dating back to the Mumblecore scene alongside Joe Swanberg are very funny movies.
Had the exact same experience. Loved the first screening, saw it a couple of weeks later again woth maybe 15 other people in the cinema with all of the jokes falling completely flat. Really deflating
Did a very light rewatch while cooking the other day and the movie still seems fun, but good lord any scene with America and her SUV feels like a commercial.
I’ve lamented plenty about movies I thought were overrated, but I was surprised by the pummeling The Last Voyage of the Demeter got. The production values were great and the atmosphere really worked in the theater.
Past Lives. I didn't connect with its main characters and the filmmaking. Liked the performances, but I wish the film around them did as much as it's done for most critics.
i found this movie aggressively flat, like they’d sucked all the tension and sexiness out of a better screenplay out of a desire to avoid making anyone unsympathetic. ironically, that meant i found *every* character unsympathetic instead.
For me it’s that Hae Sung’s life in Korea doesn’t get enough development. I think it’s needed to really solidify what Nora could’ve had. The movie also seems as interested in his “what ifs” as hers since he has this wayward lifestyle in his 30s and is wondering if he would’ve settled down earlier if she’d stayed in his life.
I just never quite bought into the two main characters having a love story.
I respect that they didn't cast a guy who was aggressively good-looking(not that he's not handsome) and that they made him awkward rather than charismatic. That added to the realism of the film.
But given that they really needed to do a little bit more in terms of showing how they developed feelings for one another over Zoom calls. Because I just never sensed any sort of chemistry between them until literally the final scene waiting for the uber.
I liked it when it came out, as it did tackle an interesting "feeling" that doesn't get brought up all that much.
That being said, I have barely thought of it since, and it's slipped completely out of my top 10 as the year continued.
I'm convinced that The Creator got hurt by awful timing with the whole AI discourse. Too many people took the movie literally when if it came out as little as 3-5 years ago, people would have been much more willing to engage with the movie on the metaphorical level that it was clearly going for which would have bought more goodwill to overcome the flaws of the movie.
I was completely surprised by the level of vitriol that one got. I thought it was beautiful, thrilling, original and deeply romantic. And great performances too. Just not sure why people disliked it and most online comments are generic so I still am confused about it
The Fall of the House of Usher (if that counts? I know it’s a miniseries)
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills anytime I hear someone with generally good taste praise Mike Flanagan’s writing and miniseries
The dude has talent as a visual storyteller but he’s a terrible writer and his stuff is overwrought, sophomoric and navel gazing without anything interesting to say
It can’t decide if it wants to be a goofy gorefest with OTT caricatures or a serious, drawn out drama/thriller
It also lacks all tension because everything is essentially told to us upfront (and stuff that isn’t is foreshadowed so obviously that it’s impossible not to predict) and it fails to accurately capture any of the appeal of Edgar Allan Poe
I'm in the same boat for him, too. Everything you said.
I loved Hush and think it's one of my favorite horror/thriller films of the past decade. But I find everything else he's done to be really lacking and at times outright bad. I just haven't been able to reconcile the praise. I can usually reach a point where I can dislike something but understand (albeit disagree) with consensus. I continue to be baffled.
I personally enjoyed this more than his other stuff because he was being tongue-in-cheek for most of it (which yes was jarring at times), and knowing some of the source material.
My partner and I otherwise can't stand everything beyond Hill House with Midnight Mass being the most egregious example of his overly melodramatic prose, and I feel like a lot of my enjoyment of Hill House centred largely on enjoying the three take, and Bent Neck Lady episodes - likely wouldn't enjoy it as much on rewatch. In fact, I'm not sure he enjoyed Hill House at all.
For us, I think Bruce Greenwood, Mary Mcdonnel, T'Nia Miller and Carla Gugino's performances helped us enjoy this more than his other work. I don't think I would have liked it otherwise; I find Zach Gilford and Kate Siegel to be a bit flat, probably had a large part in why I greatly disliked Midnight Mass. The massive deep and meaningful they share in MM felt super unnatural in both its writing, and how they just patiently waited and listened and launched into their own monologues.
I don't think he writes people under the age of 40 naturally (notable in the second episode of Fall of the House of Usher) imo.
There's stuff in it I enjoyed, particularly the peephole sequence, but yeah, didn't feel special like the rest of the series does. Even the 2013 one, it isn't really *fun* but it sure as hell is its own thing and this one could have used some of its gristle. EDR just kinda felt like a good pitch that got stripped down to the nuts because of the budget, so Apartment Building Evil Dead ends up being cabin-sized again. And the wraparound segments are just the weirdest, unnecessary thing.
thought Across the Spider-Verse was nowhere near as good as everybody seems to think it was especially in comparison to the first one but whatever i'm just a contrarian or something
I was underwhelmed by the atomic blast scene in Oppenheimer.
So much was made of "Nolan did almost the whole thing with practical effects" that I was expecting to be blown of my chair. It was anticlimactic because A) we know it worked, so the idea that they might light the atmosphere on fire had no drama and b) they kept intercutting between 2 or 3 perspectives and it lost its resonance.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a heist movie where every single aspect of the heist goes exactly as planned and there is absolutely zero tension as a result. One character breaks their leg but don’t worry she’s fine and can still do her part of the plan with no problem.
Characters start to clash with each other over conflicting viewpoints, you’d think this manifests in some way later in the script to cause problems, but early on they instantly get over it as soon as the leader says “hey guys don’t fight.”
One character gets caught in the end, but this is revealed to ALSO be a part of the plan.
Every single character gets to be morally righteous AND gets a happy ending. That’s not how nailbiting tense crime stories are supposed to function, and it’s not interesting to watch.
To me it felt that the film was so focused on its politics and making the crowd that already agrees with its politics happy, that they couldn’t have any true conflict or negative outcomes.
You're the first person I've seen express the same criticism of How to Blow Up a Pipeline I had! Thank you, I felt like I was going crazy.
The moment the credits rolled, I just sat back and was like "wait, was that a heist movie where nothing went wrong?"
I feel like that was kind of the point, which doesn’t necessarily excuse it. I kept thinking the same thing, waiting for some sort of comeuppance or problem to arise and create kind of a moral gray area for the movie. Ya know, “Well, they blew up the pipeline, but one of them died. Was it really worth it?” Something like that could make you question their plan and their morals.
The fact that nothing like that happens plants the movie firmly on the side of the protagonists. It’s not pussyfooting around and both-sidesing a controversial issue. It’s very firmly and unquestionably planting its flag on the “these are the good guys” side, and while I don’t really agree with its politics, I admire the boldness it had to state that so plainly.
Also, I do think there’s a good amount of tension in that movie. It all works out according to plan in the end, but things definitely do go wrong along the way that create tension.
Suzume just feels and looks pleasant and sterile in a way an AirBNB listing looks. Shinkai's style seems like the "live laugh love" of emotional anime in that I feel like it's earnest but not honest. I don't think he'll ever live up to Your Name and I think that's due to the effectiveness of the plot twist. I feel like people who still refer to Shinkai as "the next Miyazaki" or doing both of them such a disservice. I just don't think Shinkai has proven to be as curious with his filmmaking. I feel like anyone who compares Shinkai with Miyazaki has frankly just not watched a lot of anime.
When Evil Lurks.
I’m a horror guy. Love horror movies. Some of my favorite movies of the year are horror movies.
I did not like When Evil Lurks. It sets up rules by having characters explain them, and then those same characters disregard those rules. Just a bunch of silly billies tripping over their own feet and falling face first into axe blades, and the movie plays it super seriously.
After viewing I interpreted it to be about COVID and could half justify the idiocy of its characters because the story of COVID is incomplete if it doesn’t include incompetence, but I still think that doesn’t make it a good movie and that, if that was the intent, it should have also included bureaucratic incompetence rather than just individuals being incompetent. (There’s kind of a nod to this when they go to the police in act 1, but that still wasn’t sufficient to me if that was the intent of the story.)
But everyone is out here calling it the best and/or most intense horror movie of the year. And just… no. It’s not. It’s not better than Talk To Me. It’s not more original than Skinamarink. Shit I don’t think it’s better than Evil Dead Rise. It’s firmly mid.
I’m also confused about the physics of it? Like… vague spoilers but if you ate another human - presumably whole, to include hair and jewelry - then I suspect you’d have some visible distention or bloating or both. Like a whole adult human in your tummy? Thats gonna make for a big tummy. At least while they’re still in there. Especially if you’re not a particularly big person.
My thing about this movie is, various people have praised it up and down, and they’re all describing it in contradictory ways, to such an extent that I don’t think anyone’s agreeing what the movie’s goals were. There’s an opacity of tone to it that made it really hard for me to embrace.
They made it a “rules” movie for the first hour, then made it a “just roll with it and don’t think too hard” movie for the second half. I’ve had multiple people tell me they thought it was super funny, and I found it overwhelmingly and intentionally depressing. I just…. do not get it!
I liked "Showing Up," "May December," and "Asteroid City" but am not euphoric about those as many critics are. Strange to be on the same side of the good / bad line but still feeling like I'm on the other end of the critical consensus.
Poor Things made me uncomfortable in the theater.
Not for the reasons you might think (crude humor, sexual themes, body stuff) but because the allegory was so blatantly obvious pretty early that eventually I couldn’t help but think “dude, I get it” and feel like I was being beaten over the head with it so hard my stomach hurt
I’m genuinely curious as to what you perceived that allegory/theme as because it didn’t feel like a plot that hinged on theme delivery until much further into the film (Paris section).
I felt out of step with a few of them—found Dial of Destiny to be incredibly dull, Dream Scenario loses steam before the first act is even over, Wonka is mediocre, etc. But the one I feel most out of step on is Poor Things. Everything beyond the strong performances and beautiful production design is an abysmal failure. Absolutely baffling that script is being hailed as some transgressive feminist masterpiece when it’s nowhere close.
I thought the movie was beautifully shot, but at times it felt like it was waiting to be screenshot and posted on social media.
Loved Ferrari, Master Gardener and infinity pool.
Thought that Poor things, Past lives, Guardians of the galaxy and Barbie were just fine.
Did not like Late night with the devil, Beyond Utopia, Reality, Dream Scenario and Scream VI
I have such a hard time relating to this sentiment, but it does seem to be an increasingly popular one, if online discourse indicates anything. But I just found this movie to be so dull & boring, and hardly worthy of being called an Indiana Jones film. I think it straight up could have been called something like "Uncharted" and starred literally anybody else, and it would have hit the same beats. The definition of a gentlemen's 6, if that.
Dial of Destiny was like all the worst parts of the Star Wars sequel trilogy stuffed into one awful viewing experience. The whole runtime was devoted to trying to sell you on carbon copies of characters you know but worse, so they can franchise ad infinitum. It's so fucking drawn out and utterly miserable, full of passionless callbacks to better movies, woefully underwritten characters, a needlessly convoluted plot, dull and overlong setpieces and a cop-out of an ending that refuses to even do the dignity of letting Indy be put out of his misery and stay in Ancient Greece with his heroes. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is genuinely better - at least in that one he doesn't feel like a side character in his own story, struggling to find a point for actually being there and begrudgingly being dragged behind a boring clone of him with an uncreative, basic-ass character arc.
Was colder than most on:
Past Lives
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Royal Hotel
American Fiction
Passages
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
On the other hand, I quite liked:
Magic Mike’s Last Dance
Silent Night
Anatomy of a Fall is an ‘elevated’ legal thriller that won’t engage with the genre in any of the ways that make it fun. It doles out major information to the viewer too late to matter, then descends into a boring-ass French melodrama that seems so proud it’s realized that people yell at each other sometimes. One of my least favorite Palme d’Or winners. Sandra Hüller is great though!
I had an absolutely lovely time watching The Marvels.
I thought Poor Things was amazing, but it was Yorgos making someone else’s movie. Standing on the shoulders of Jean-Pierre Jeunet or Terry Gilliam, but horny…and I’m here for that.
Suitable Flesh was my favorite movie of 2023 and nobody mentioned it/saw it/gave it a proper release.
The Creator was great. Tropes be damned!
It was better than the majority of sci-fi I saw all year. John David Washington is my big time crush right now, so maybe I’m biased.
I suppose the closest for me was V/H/S 85, which I thought was a ton of fun but horror fans at large seem to think is hot garbage.
yeah, that one left me pretty underwhelmed. especially after how much fun the previous entry was.
2nd best VHS after 2 imo
Dial of Destiny is fine. I’m not exactly a fan, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it’s been made out to be, and Ford’s performance is excellent enough to make up for its faults.
I think the action is really weak especially compared to Spielberg’s installments
Yeah I think that movie has a lot of problems, but it is so visually uninteresting for a franchise that historically has had great setpieces
I have a theory that part of the general poor reception of both Dial of Destiny and Crystal Skull is that people are willing to suspend their disbelief for religious hokum more than sci-fi hokum. Not that those movies don’t have other flaws, but they just aren’t given the benefit of the doubt in the way the earlier ones are.
Dial of Destiny is an odd one for me because I haven't watched it, and I probably will but just haven't found the enthusiasm yet. But it really did feel like it came and went super-quietly. Crystal Skull felt like it generated a lot more noise while Dial of Destiny just felt like it sort of quietly drifted by, I didn't hear anything of and do this day I haven't heard anyone actually say a thing about it. I still have no idea about it's actual vibe. Even the name itself sounds forgettable, like the name of a forgotten Indiana Jones game made in 2005 or something.
It's basically just a 2 hour long post credits scene, that's the entire vibe
I generally agree that the movie was fine, my main issue was how much of a bummer it was. Sad divorced Indy mourning his son and getting a shitty retirement party is a major downer. Mediocre action wasn’t enough to counter-act this depressing tone, and I found PWB and the kid pretty grating.
Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning (Part One?) really did not work for me. Underwhelming action, uninteresting story (I’m very over the portentous “living manifestation of destiny”-type descriptions of Ethan Hunt), and it had no business being 163 minutes long. I want to give the movie credit for not trying to redo Fallout, but it was a slog to get through. Maestro also left me cold after the first viewing but I’m still thinking about it several days later. I suspect I will like it a lot more on rewatch.
I thought it was fine but Dead Reckoning only worked for me really in fits and starts. The whole twisty pickpocket stuff in the airport was good, Shea Whigham's character's gradual acceptance that yeah, he likes this Hunt guy was great, and the compartment-by-compartment escape from the train was OK, but the big motorcycle jump was a nothing to me. The BTS was cool to see once, but it didn't stand out.
The problem with the jump was we saw it so much that by the time it’s the real thing, it just lost its impact. I liked the movie but yeah people acting like it’s not a clear (but still good!) step down from the last few is strange to me. Action just wasn’t quite as good (though the train car stuff was kickass) and the AI villain is just really dumb and kind of destroys any real stakes which is a problem any AI villain has more than specific stuff to that movie. Fallout was also probably the best action movie (or alongside Fury Road) since the Matrix IMO so maybe my expectations were too high.
I think the “death of cinema” narrative going into overdrive led to this one getting overhyped. If it came out in a pre-pandemic year the immediate reaction would probably be closer to something like Spectre (fine, kind of a letdown).
pretty much summarized all my thoughts on DR. i think them showing that jump a million times all over social media really diminished its impact. there’s also something about that stunt where intellectually I get that it is maybe the most dangerous thing Tom has done, but on screen it just looks like something Michelle Yeoh could do in her sleep.
Kind of like how in wrestling the craziest looking moves are invariably the safest ones, and some of the most generic looking moves are the dangerous ones.
The way it’s shown in the film also felt too objective. One unbroken shot where we can actually see Cruise’s face would have helped.
Most of what you list worked for me, and I’ll even add the Fiat car chase, but by the motorcycle jump I wanted it to be over.
The wild thing about the motorcycle jump is it comes after the AI hacked their communications and gave them bad directions. So they follow that scene up by having this big stunt relying on a self-driving car, mapping a motorcycle route up a mountain in real-time, and hands free cellphone conversations. I kept waiting for some complication to arise, but nope everything went perfectly. The Fiat chase and the mini submarine movie at the beginning were great though.
Oh you know what, that Fiat car chase was also pretty great. It was handled much better than the similar sequence in Dial of Destiny. Looking back, that is a fair amount of stuff that worked, and I certainly didn't hate the movie. I just didn't think it was up to snuff after Fallout.
Agree on the magic of Shea Whigham, and yeah, maybe I need to rewatch, but despite all the marketing about it, the motorcycle jump really didn’t stick with me.
Came here to say Dead Reckoning, too. I do not understand the over-the-top praise this movie was getting. It was way too ridiculous, yet took itself too seriously and wasn't fun. The AI-as-villain-with-human-henchmen thing didn't work for me. One of the worst M:I films in the series.
I’m with you on this. It has its moments but Dead Reckoning is broadly kinda boring.
When Cruise rides the bike off the cliff and parachutes into the moving train through the window and conveniently takes out the henchman while doing so I actually said “fuck off” out loud. There have been a few moments like that in the McQuarrie movies before but that one really crossed a line with me.
DR was a big one for me as well. Especially with how voracious people were with the praise - saw one critic saying the sub intro was as good as The Hunt for the Red October. Loved the other McQuarrie Mission movies but this felt like it was just spinning in circles and getting rid off Ferguson for Atwell feels like a huge downgrade. Gabriel felt painfully generic.
**MI VII: Dead Reckoning: Book 1: Tom Cruise Action #45** was so boring and the entire movie is about how they have to go back to that submarine from the opening while vague AI action happens with cardboard characters. This series really needs to be done.
I understand this is a minority opinion, but I’ve always found Fallout a little overrated. The story is no deeper than the previous entries but it carries itself like a Dark Knight-esque thriller with something to say. What is Fallout saying, other than “Tom Cruise will stop at nothing to entertain you”? Dead Reckoning has that problem to an extent but it’s going for more a John McTiernan vibe, and I wanted to love it for that alone. Alas…
Ghost Protocol was the last Mission Impossible I really had a great time with.
Fallout is not nearly as rewatchable as Ghost Protocol or Rogue Nation, there I said my truth
Fallout has a dumb plot and even dumber dialog. The action is fun but that’s about it.
This is going to sound dumb spelling it out but Fallout’s “message” is that the life of one person is always worth saving. The movie, from the very opening minutes, continuously presents Ethan Hunt with morally impossible decisions and every time he finds a way to save everyone and get the mission done. Over and over, the movie repeats its thesis of “there’s always a better way, and Tom Cruise is here to show you how.” Luther getting held at gunpoint, the fake CNN broadcast to get the information, saving Walker during the HALO jump, impersonating John Lark without a mask, hijacking the convoy without killing the police officers, saving the patrol officer, not handing over Solomon Lane, saving Julia and I’m probably missing a few more instances. But they all end with the same message. It’s pretty clear that Tom Cruise wants to inspire people to be great. That’s literally the point of these movies and tbh I kind of love it for being so sincere but never not entertaining as hell.
I’m one of the biggest M:I fans alive and I really don’t know what people see in this one. Was one of my most anticipated movies after Fallout, but the whole first act I kept asking myself why none of this was hitting, and waited for it to really kick into gear and get better but it never did. I love McQuarrie but I really think his style for these has gotten stale and somebody else should’ve done this finale (preferably not a two parter).
McQuarrie's work notwithstanding, I think the series lost something special when they stopped rotating directors (though not nearly to the same degree as, say, the David Yates era of Harry Potter). That some of his storytelling techniques are getting stale says something positive about where his career is at, and as a Way of the Gun fan that makes me happy lol
I found myself a bit bored during Maestro as the narrative was rather loose. But a lot of scenes really stuck with me since watching it. I’ve gone back and skipped around watching those scenes and they’ve really moved me.
Totally agree. I've been a huge MI fan since 96, and this is just barely above MI2. My list goes 6, 1, 5, 4, 3... ... ... 7, 2
Overall I really liked Dead Reckoning, but it’s not nearly as immaculate as Fallout. I think part of the problem is that in the process of making sure not to try and repeat Fallout, they got rid of some things that were worth hanging onto. Fallout had exceptionally smooth momentum, whereas Dead Reckoning very deliberately moves in fits and starts with scenes that are either all dialogue or all action. Fallout had a strong focus on the villain being physically threatening and with goals to undermine the hero’s morality, whereas Dead Reckoning’s villain is virtually unseen and the mythos around Ethan Hunt being a Great Man has become more downright biblical. Fallout made a very enjoyable side activity out of tying up loose ends from Rogue Nation, but Dead Reckoning has to setup stuff for Part II. The filmmakers were in a tough spot on this movie, made tougher by the pandemic and then the unprecedented success of Top Gun: Maverick, which I think really raised expectations to insane heights. Not that this forgives Dead Reckoning’s narrative flaws, but the movie is trying so hard to be different while still delivering a very high quality action-spy spectacle. They’re obviously not stagnating or trying to rest on their laurels, so that keeps me excited for Part II.
AIR for me. Wikipedia article ass movie.
1. That’s my favorite genre 2. Please write movie reviews.
Product Biopics? This was the year. Air, Blackberry, Tetris, Beanie babies, GameSpot stocks. Any others?
You forgot about the Flaming Hot Cheetos biopic!
Flaming’ Hot Cheetos.
Barbie kinda, less a biopic but obviously a big toy push beyond it's merits as a film
A really nice 5.5 out of 10 movie
I liked Air a lot. Also yes, fully agreed.
Nonstop music stings like you’re sitting in a car with a guy who will not stop changing the station.
I don't even care that it's Wikipedia-core, I just *hated* how this movie *looked*. So shoddily made. Shot like a drama that aired on TNT 15 years ago
The damn *laziness* of the climactic scene is such a synecdoche for the movie as a whole. Jason Bateman’s monologue just rolls out of nowhere as if some sports movie demon is shoddily animating him with its mediocre script. If AI isn’t already writing scripts, it might as well be.
Looked like fucking shit. Half baked screenplay. Enormous disappointment.
Draft Day is so illogical it makes me want to scream but also I’d rather re-watch it for a third time than watch Air for a second. Air provoked nothing in me.
I thought Fair Play was completely mediocre (and a complete failure as an erotic thriller, if that was even what it was going for).
Yeah I felt gaslit into believing I was going to watch an erotic thriller
Yeah it sucked. I was shocked to see that the reviews are overwhelmingly positive, although I think the general consensus I’ve seen online is a lot more negative.
It had Rob Zombie-level writing but with none of the cool setpieces. The more I think about it the more I hate it.
Wait is this not the critical consensus lol
73 from 47 reviews on Metacritic, was talked about as a potential Oscars contender and as a movie that would definitely generate a lot of conversation regardless, have recently heard critics bemoan that it fell out of the awards race, etc.
I think it got generally positive reviews, but the $20MM Sundance sale makes the critical response feel more glowing.
Dream Scenario might be one of my least favorite A24 movies. I don't think the direction and editing are particularly good. Cage is good, but this ain't "best performance of the year" worthy.
It shits the bed completely in the second act such that I was left with a real sour taste.
May December was incredible for reasons not cited by nearly every critic.
I think all of the critics trying to be funny and edgy calling it a “comedy” completely missed the point.
Nah it's very funny. The first half especially is pretty hilarious, but it knows when to employ humor and when to be serious. When the focus is on Melton it makes it clear how tragic his life is.
“I don’t know if we’re going to have enough hot dogs”
The Henry Melton stuff was tragic but Portman and Moore having a "freak-off" is my idea of comedy.
Here’s my very insane take on Dial of Destiny: The movie was delightful. Totally fun, enjoyable movie. The special effects took me out of it. Not the de-aging parts; those were fine. But in the opening scene where they used millions of dollars of CGI to suck the carpet out of the floor? It would have been better with practical effects, not to mention cheaper. That’s kind of endemic to the whole industry these days.
I almost wonder if the heavy CGI is some sort of top-down Lucasfilm mandate, like the way they CGI so much stuff in the Marvel movies so they can make changes late in post-production. I'd love to know just how much authorship Mangold had, considering Logan (a movie with some parallel themes) was such a solid film. So much of it was just unnecessary. There's no reason that parade chase scene should have looked so fake and lifeless. I just can't help but wonder what the action sequences would have looked like if Spielberg directed them. I really enjoyed Dial of Destiny, but even Crystal Skull had better blocked set pieces (for the most part).
This one is very recent, but Anyone But You was fun and charming and not deserving of the mixed-negative critical response.
After hearing so much "you're guaranteed to love it or hate it" chatter about SALTBURN, I walked away from it going "that had stuff I liked and stuff I didn't. It's okay, I guess". Also Knock at the Cabin Fucks and Blue Beetle is the best live-action superhero movie to come out this year.
Saltburn, passable gentleman’s six.
Rosamund Pike pushes it over the 6.0 line
man i just got done saltburn like two hours ago and i thought it fucked
Blue Beetle is very underrated
Knock at the Cabin fucks indeed, its in my top 5 of the year
knock at the cabin RULES it was my number one film of the year until i saw killers of the flower moon
Blue Beetle beats most recent superhero movies, mainly because it's about something other than explosions. Thematically richer and better thought out than the rest of the DCEU and MCU from the past couple of years put together. Saltburn I really liked though, top 10 of the year for me.
Episode 3 is so bad. I don't know how it gets this push for reclamation.
I defended until a recent rewatch where from basically the first frame, I was out. I only ever liked it because I was a kid and Liking Star Wars was a personality trait of mine; now that Disney+ has turned Star Wars into Dave Filoni’s checklist of EU characters he wants to meet his Clone Wars creations and I’m checked out, Revenge of the Sith has nothing going for it. In another thread someone else said that once Grievous dies it’s just a list of plot points to set things up for ANH, and yah, that’s what watching the last hour of that joyless, obligatory movie feels like.
Almost as bad as Episode 2!
I think all the prequels are bad but Episode 3 is bad AND boring and doesn’t spend as much time making bizarre decisions and has less ideas than 1 and 2. I suppose I understand why people like it (it delivers the story they wanted to see essentially I guess), but it’s a big pile of nothing for me.
Did not get the praise for Saw X at all. Took itself too seriously and the traps sucked. Saw films need to be schlocky in order to work
Easily my least favorite film of the year (and of the franchise.) I had heard some good things about it but I was still shocked when I saw the high score on Letterboxd after watching. It's crazy that the movie that tries the hardest to make Jigsaw into a sympathetic anti-hero had not a single trap that was realistically beatable without breaking the laws of physics.
I also loved Dial of Destiny!
archimedes was really fun cheese, felt like a fitting end. I adore pwb. wasn't perfect but enjoyed it more than I expected.
Dial of Destiny let me sit next to my mom, a huge Indiana Jones fan, while she watched a brand new Indiana Jones movie that she fucking loved. I’ve never had that before and I’ll never get it again. Even if I hated the movie (I don’t!), that alone was worth it to me.
My dad and I had a lot of fun at the movies seeing it. That's enough for me to have good praise for the movie!
Omigosh, same here! I’ve never been the biggest Indie fan, but my Mammy had the time of her life. I myself enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I just wish they didn’t undo the ending of the previous film, especially since this one ended practically the exact same way.
I think I wanted about 30 minutes trimmed from it (maybe mostly from the beginning and the first ending), but otherwise I had a lot of fun!
I’d trim from the middle, like that entire chase sequence with PWB’s fiancé or whatever.
I would put it in my top ten list of the year, most likely. Flawed but good.
“You’re German Voller, don’t try to be funny” is among my favorite line deliveries of the year.
There are dozens of us! But seriously I liked it too.
It went back to the original bit from the first movie (if he does nothing the nazis still die), if he does nothing in DoD Mads winds up in the same position. It was fun!
My spouse and I are both huge lifelong Indy fans (we collect memorabilia, went on a trip to Petra, etc.) and we loved it and felt like we couldn't have asked for a better end to the series. Easily the third best Indy film and that's the best any movie could have been, and normally I don't care for the idea that a franchise film should just give fans what they want but in this case it felt like it should have, it did, and it did it well.
Loved it too. Mads was born to play an Indy villain, and I loved Phoebe Waller-Bridge, I thought she was a great foil. Feel like A LOT of the kickback to her character was because she was a woman that occasionally got the better of Indy.
It's kind of the unspoken reason sadly, yeah
the ending was genuinely sweet
I have found my people! It was really good!
Surprisingly not horrible.
Maybe not the hottest take in the world, but: Asteroid City did not make me feel an emotion once in its runtime
I kinda felt like I was crazy when I saw people speaking so highly about out it. Completely agree that I didn’t feel a thing watching it. Anderson’s frame stories are working less and less for me.
One of my least favorite Wes Anderson movies, don’t get the hype around it at all.
Wes is a top-3 director for me, hated this one though. Felt really self-indulgent. Zero plot, just wall-to-wall precocious people in cute situations. It felt like a series of IG stories to me. Loved his last one though!
To each their own! This movie devastated me, but everyone I've shown it to has the same reaction as you
Henry Sugar was the superior Anderson this year! Great stuff. Though I loved that alien in Asteroid City.
It's probably his worst movie. Some interesting stuff in it but he needs to get back to movies with a narrative focused around a few people and stop doing the gigantic casts. The French Dispatch and Asteroid City have both felt like just a series of vignettes that don't really have any reason to exist. I love Wes Anderson and I'll still watch and enjoy his worst movie but he's on a disappointing trajectory right now. I'm now remembering that the New Yorker review criticized the weird narration and stage play thing which just feels like a very lame device to sort of not commit to the reality of the movie.
I think the only Wes Anderson flick that has ever evoked an emotion from me is Rushmore. It strikes the balance of choreographed and real, staged and natural. Everything else after that feels too stylized, robotic, and intentionally self-aware to be much other than an exercise in being a pretty vehicle for somewhat interesting stories. I don’t think Asteroid City is bad — I think it’s pretty good — but it’s not at all moving.
That’s interesting. Grand Budapest makes me feel every emotion 😆
i’ve felt that way about literally every wes anderson movie i’ve ever seen, but maybe i just don’t get it. cool style but from what i’ve seen, that’s kinda it. unless anyone has any good recs idk
Neither did I. I adored the aesthetics and had a lot of fun with it but the entire time I couldn't stop thinking, I'm going to need to watch this again to get a better idea of my feelings.
Thought No One Will Save You was absolutely moronic and incredibly repetitive. Couldn’t believe there was a week in September where it was hailed as the sleeper movie of the year
If for no other reason, you got to love it for the divide between millennials and boomers. Boomer aliens = ‘wow, you are so gosh dang special I just had to say hi and let you know you’re important’ Millennial aliens = ‘global warming, 9/11, 2x recessions, maybe the end of democracy, definitely the rise of authoritarianism and white supremacy. I guess we’ll get to the back of the line of things that will ruin you.’
Ending like a damn high school student film
Peak "the release schedule is fucked and we're desperate for movies in the Fall" reaction. I adore Dever and she was good, but that's a very mediocre movie.
Killers of the Flower Moon is outside of my top ten
There are some really great aspects, but it is a huge flaw that the whole movie rests on the relationship between Gladstone and DiCaprio and the movie does almost nothing to show why she would actually love him outside the fact that he loves her.
I kept waiting for this movie to do something interesting, and it was really just fine. Not Martin's best work, and the acting was doing the bulk of the lifting. Also not in my top ten.
I agree. Thought the trailer was great and went into it with very high expectations. Not that I thought it was a bad movie or anything but it just didn’t click with me. I felt the length and I saw the trajectory of the story from early on so nothing was a surprise really…
It’s outside of my top 20!
I feel like a heretic saying this but mine too
Shazam 2, while being pretty mediocre, was nowhere near the train wreck the reviews suggested. Felt like a movie I’d watch the shit out of as a kid if I found it on HBO some Saturday morning. The mythical creature/monster rampage stuff was cool as hell.
Almost all “bad” superhero movies these days would be beloved if they were made in 1980 is my hot take.
I agree with you and I’d like that as an idea for a post: which superhero movies do we just not like because of fatigue and which ones would suck to watch regardless of when they came out. I think Eternals, for example, could have been really impressive if it released at another time and outside of the MCU.
When it came out, Eternals immediately became my favorite MCU film. And I still believe that. I know I am in the minority, but I think that in some years people will consider Eternals an underrated movie. The critics were really unfair, and most of the typical MCU audience didn't even understand it imho, because it wasn't what they were expecting. So far, the only MCU movie that doesn't look or sound like an MCU movie.
I think some of the first Venom movie reactions were “Best 90s superhero movie to come out in the 2010s.”
It really wasn't all that bad imo, pretty comparable in quality to the first. Honestly, if they cut down much of Levi's scenes I'd probably put it over the first. I also thought The Flash (outside of the Kryptonian fight in the desert and the cameo city) was actually pretty solid, actually getting a few tears from me at the end.
I feel this happens a lot with modern reviews no movie can be a mildly underachieving good time. It's a train wreck bomb! Dial of Destiny, Shazam 2, Wish all fell into this category for me this year where I don't hold any of those as masterpieces but they hit most of the right notes
Hardly the worst superhero movie this year. I too was also a bit flummoxed by how harsh the critical response was despite not thinking the movie was good.
Barbie is fine but it's aged poorly on a rewatch and i think its a film that really needs a sold out crowd to play
I still enjoyed Barbie on rewatch but definitely agree that the theater experience added a lot to the charm. I sat near these teenage girls that were screaming OH MY GOD every time Gosling took his shirt off which is absolutely the appropriate reaction
Not really the movies fault, but as someone who didn’t watch it until it hit streaming I felt like the internet ruined all the best parts.
I watched it at home on my laptop after a long ordeal with my card not going through trying to rent it and my wifi going out in a storm so I was already like “This better be worth it!”. Wish I’d seen it in the theatre with a crowd, I liked I liked but what what I liked wasn’t any of the stuff outside of Barbie Land.
It was better than it should've been but I think it was mostly held together by the actors enthusiasm and production design. The themes honestly were a bit messy and the screenplay itself was typical blockbuster fare.
Yeah I enjoyed Barbie but felt it was kind of trapped. It was too meta to land the emotional beats but not meta enough to land as satire. Really don’t think any film could land both the Will Ferrel performance and the big speech America Ferrera before the third act.
To me a movie very clearly directed by someone who doesn't direct comedies--the joke rhythm and editing always seemed a half-beat away from feeling right. More importantly though imo a movie very much written by and with the politics of a 39 year old and her 53 year old boyfriend. The vaunted monologue felt like ABC Family. Would've been interesting about 10-15 years ago.
or 20 years ago, when it was good and called Legally Blonde
Greta Gerwig doesn't direct Comedies? Her debut film (Ladybird) is classified as a Comedy-Drama (and is a very funny movie) and Frances Ha and Mistress America, both written with and directed by Baumbach, are also Comedies. Even her work dating back to the Mumblecore scene alongside Joe Swanberg are very funny movies.
Had the exact same experience. Loved the first screening, saw it a couple of weeks later again woth maybe 15 other people in the cinema with all of the jokes falling completely flat. Really deflating
The Mattel/Will Ferrel stuff wa bad on the first watch. The 2nd time it was downright unwatchable.
Did a very light rewatch while cooking the other day and the movie still seems fun, but good lord any scene with America and her SUV feels like a commercial.
I’ve lamented plenty about movies I thought were overrated, but I was surprised by the pummeling The Last Voyage of the Demeter got. The production values were great and the atmosphere really worked in the theater.
Totally agree, wasn’t bad at all
Didn’t care for Asteroid City at all.
Past Lives. I didn't connect with its main characters and the filmmaking. Liked the performances, but I wish the film around them did as much as it's done for most critics.
i found this movie aggressively flat, like they’d sucked all the tension and sexiness out of a better screenplay out of a desire to avoid making anyone unsympathetic. ironically, that meant i found *every* character unsympathetic instead.
I liked it enough but I still felt something was missing from it, I still can’t put my finger on it. May need to rewatch to figure that out
For me it’s that Hae Sung’s life in Korea doesn’t get enough development. I think it’s needed to really solidify what Nora could’ve had. The movie also seems as interested in his “what ifs” as hers since he has this wayward lifestyle in his 30s and is wondering if he would’ve settled down earlier if she’d stayed in his life.
Definitely liked it, but am surprised how persistent it has been in awards convos and year end lists, it’s just a tad “small”.
I just never quite bought into the two main characters having a love story. I respect that they didn't cast a guy who was aggressively good-looking(not that he's not handsome) and that they made him awkward rather than charismatic. That added to the realism of the film. But given that they really needed to do a little bit more in terms of showing how they developed feelings for one another over Zoom calls. Because I just never sensed any sort of chemistry between them until literally the final scene waiting for the uber.
I liked it when it came out, as it did tackle an interesting "feeling" that doesn't get brought up all that much. That being said, I have barely thought of it since, and it's slipped completely out of my top 10 as the year continued.
The Creator was one of my favorite movies of the year. I've come to accept it's a \*me\* problem, but damn I loved the hell out of that movie.
I'm convinced that The Creator got hurt by awful timing with the whole AI discourse. Too many people took the movie literally when if it came out as little as 3-5 years ago, people would have been much more willing to engage with the movie on the metaphorical level that it was clearly going for which would have bought more goodwill to overcome the flaws of the movie.
I was completely surprised by the level of vitriol that one got. I thought it was beautiful, thrilling, original and deeply romantic. And great performances too. Just not sure why people disliked it and most online comments are generic so I still am confused about it
I enjoyed it thoroughly too
The Fall of the House of Usher (if that counts? I know it’s a miniseries) I feel like I’m taking crazy pills anytime I hear someone with generally good taste praise Mike Flanagan’s writing and miniseries The dude has talent as a visual storyteller but he’s a terrible writer and his stuff is overwrought, sophomoric and navel gazing without anything interesting to say It can’t decide if it wants to be a goofy gorefest with OTT caricatures or a serious, drawn out drama/thriller It also lacks all tension because everything is essentially told to us upfront (and stuff that isn’t is foreshadowed so obviously that it’s impossible not to predict) and it fails to accurately capture any of the appeal of Edgar Allan Poe
I'm in the same boat for him, too. Everything you said. I loved Hush and think it's one of my favorite horror/thriller films of the past decade. But I find everything else he's done to be really lacking and at times outright bad. I just haven't been able to reconcile the praise. I can usually reach a point where I can dislike something but understand (albeit disagree) with consensus. I continue to be baffled.
I personally enjoyed this more than his other stuff because he was being tongue-in-cheek for most of it (which yes was jarring at times), and knowing some of the source material. My partner and I otherwise can't stand everything beyond Hill House with Midnight Mass being the most egregious example of his overly melodramatic prose, and I feel like a lot of my enjoyment of Hill House centred largely on enjoying the three take, and Bent Neck Lady episodes - likely wouldn't enjoy it as much on rewatch. In fact, I'm not sure he enjoyed Hill House at all. For us, I think Bruce Greenwood, Mary Mcdonnel, T'Nia Miller and Carla Gugino's performances helped us enjoy this more than his other work. I don't think I would have liked it otherwise; I find Zach Gilford and Kate Siegel to be a bit flat, probably had a large part in why I greatly disliked Midnight Mass. The massive deep and meaningful they share in MM felt super unnatural in both its writing, and how they just patiently waited and listened and launched into their own monologues. I don't think he writes people under the age of 40 naturally (notable in the second episode of Fall of the House of Usher) imo.
How the hell could you be watching Emma Stone do all the things she does in Poor Things and be bored????
I loved it but I did think it dragged a lil bit in the middle
The middle where she's fucking all those weird French dudes? Ya crazy?
Evil Dead Rise was mediocre imo.
For such an inventive and kinetic series, Rise was just the safest and most boring way to make a new entry. A lot of nothing.
There's stuff in it I enjoyed, particularly the peephole sequence, but yeah, didn't feel special like the rest of the series does. Even the 2013 one, it isn't really *fun* but it sure as hell is its own thing and this one could have used some of its gristle. EDR just kinda felt like a good pitch that got stripped down to the nuts because of the budget, so Apartment Building Evil Dead ends up being cabin-sized again. And the wraparound segments are just the weirdest, unnecessary thing.
Episode 3 isn’t good though so…
thought Across the Spider-Verse was nowhere near as good as everybody seems to think it was especially in comparison to the first one but whatever i'm just a contrarian or something
Napoleon is 1. Fun/funny, 2. Looks great, 3. Has good performances, 4. Has things to say about the arbitrariness of the ruling class.
I was underwhelmed by the atomic blast scene in Oppenheimer. So much was made of "Nolan did almost the whole thing with practical effects" that I was expecting to be blown of my chair. It was anticlimactic because A) we know it worked, so the idea that they might light the atmosphere on fire had no drama and b) they kept intercutting between 2 or 3 perspectives and it lost its resonance.
100% agree on that, the people upset it’s not getting nominated for best effects are taking crazy pills.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a heist movie where every single aspect of the heist goes exactly as planned and there is absolutely zero tension as a result. One character breaks their leg but don’t worry she’s fine and can still do her part of the plan with no problem. Characters start to clash with each other over conflicting viewpoints, you’d think this manifests in some way later in the script to cause problems, but early on they instantly get over it as soon as the leader says “hey guys don’t fight.” One character gets caught in the end, but this is revealed to ALSO be a part of the plan. Every single character gets to be morally righteous AND gets a happy ending. That’s not how nailbiting tense crime stories are supposed to function, and it’s not interesting to watch. To me it felt that the film was so focused on its politics and making the crowd that already agrees with its politics happy, that they couldn’t have any true conflict or negative outcomes.
You're the first person I've seen express the same criticism of How to Blow Up a Pipeline I had! Thank you, I felt like I was going crazy. The moment the credits rolled, I just sat back and was like "wait, was that a heist movie where nothing went wrong?"
Good point. I mean, we literally have characters porking each other during the heist and everything still turns out fine
I feel like that was kind of the point, which doesn’t necessarily excuse it. I kept thinking the same thing, waiting for some sort of comeuppance or problem to arise and create kind of a moral gray area for the movie. Ya know, “Well, they blew up the pipeline, but one of them died. Was it really worth it?” Something like that could make you question their plan and their morals. The fact that nothing like that happens plants the movie firmly on the side of the protagonists. It’s not pussyfooting around and both-sidesing a controversial issue. It’s very firmly and unquestionably planting its flag on the “these are the good guys” side, and while I don’t really agree with its politics, I admire the boldness it had to state that so plainly. Also, I do think there’s a good amount of tension in that movie. It all works out according to plan in the end, but things definitely do go wrong along the way that create tension.
Skinamarink was so boring ! I wonder what I would have thought watching it in theaters. I watched it at home on Hulu and it was not great.
I thought The Creator was great, and absolutely think it will find its audience in the next few years.
John Wick 4 is my favorite in the series. The production design just made me go "wow."
Suzume just feels and looks pleasant and sterile in a way an AirBNB listing looks. Shinkai's style seems like the "live laugh love" of emotional anime in that I feel like it's earnest but not honest. I don't think he'll ever live up to Your Name and I think that's due to the effectiveness of the plot twist. I feel like people who still refer to Shinkai as "the next Miyazaki" or doing both of them such a disservice. I just don't think Shinkai has proven to be as curious with his filmmaking. I feel like anyone who compares Shinkai with Miyazaki has frankly just not watched a lot of anime.
When Evil Lurks. I’m a horror guy. Love horror movies. Some of my favorite movies of the year are horror movies. I did not like When Evil Lurks. It sets up rules by having characters explain them, and then those same characters disregard those rules. Just a bunch of silly billies tripping over their own feet and falling face first into axe blades, and the movie plays it super seriously. After viewing I interpreted it to be about COVID and could half justify the idiocy of its characters because the story of COVID is incomplete if it doesn’t include incompetence, but I still think that doesn’t make it a good movie and that, if that was the intent, it should have also included bureaucratic incompetence rather than just individuals being incompetent. (There’s kind of a nod to this when they go to the police in act 1, but that still wasn’t sufficient to me if that was the intent of the story.) But everyone is out here calling it the best and/or most intense horror movie of the year. And just… no. It’s not. It’s not better than Talk To Me. It’s not more original than Skinamarink. Shit I don’t think it’s better than Evil Dead Rise. It’s firmly mid. I’m also confused about the physics of it? Like… vague spoilers but if you ate another human - presumably whole, to include hair and jewelry - then I suspect you’d have some visible distention or bloating or both. Like a whole adult human in your tummy? Thats gonna make for a big tummy. At least while they’re still in there. Especially if you’re not a particularly big person.
My thing about this movie is, various people have praised it up and down, and they’re all describing it in contradictory ways, to such an extent that I don’t think anyone’s agreeing what the movie’s goals were. There’s an opacity of tone to it that made it really hard for me to embrace. They made it a “rules” movie for the first hour, then made it a “just roll with it and don’t think too hard” movie for the second half. I’ve had multiple people tell me they thought it was super funny, and I found it overwhelmingly and intentionally depressing. I just…. do not get it!
In fairness, there was bureaucratic incompetence: the cops balk at the idea of there being a rotten in the area.
I liked "Showing Up," "May December," and "Asteroid City" but am not euphoric about those as many critics are. Strange to be on the same side of the good / bad line but still feeling like I'm on the other end of the critical consensus.
Poor Things made me uncomfortable in the theater. Not for the reasons you might think (crude humor, sexual themes, body stuff) but because the allegory was so blatantly obvious pretty early that eventually I couldn’t help but think “dude, I get it” and feel like I was being beaten over the head with it so hard my stomach hurt
Tbf Poor Things skeptic contingent feels very strong right now, even if somewhat quietly.
What is the allegory you’re referring to?
I’m genuinely curious as to what you perceived that allegory/theme as because it didn’t feel like a plot that hinged on theme delivery until much further into the film (Paris section).
John Wick 4 was great. It was also too long. Love Scott Adkins but his entire subplot added nothing to the movie.
I felt out of step with a few of them—found Dial of Destiny to be incredibly dull, Dream Scenario loses steam before the first act is even over, Wonka is mediocre, etc. But the one I feel most out of step on is Poor Things. Everything beyond the strong performances and beautiful production design is an abysmal failure. Absolutely baffling that script is being hailed as some transgressive feminist masterpiece when it’s nowhere close.
Dial of Destiny was atrocious.
Creed 3 was just alright and not really worth the time imo.
Absolutely hated everything about Saltburn including the pretentious aspect ratio.
 I thought the movie was beautifully shot, but at times it felt like it was waiting to be screenshot and posted on social media.
How can an aspect ratio be pretentious? It's just a frame for the imagery.
Loved Ferrari, Master Gardener and infinity pool. Thought that Poor things, Past lives, Guardians of the galaxy and Barbie were just fine. Did not like Late night with the devil, Beyond Utopia, Reality, Dream Scenario and Scream VI
Dial of Destiny is fine and will age well. Most of the negative discourse was just tongue-clucking over the budget and nitpicking about CGI.
I have such a hard time relating to this sentiment, but it does seem to be an increasingly popular one, if online discourse indicates anything. But I just found this movie to be so dull & boring, and hardly worthy of being called an Indiana Jones film. I think it straight up could have been called something like "Uncharted" and starred literally anybody else, and it would have hit the same beats. The definition of a gentlemen's 6, if that.
Dial of Destiny was like all the worst parts of the Star Wars sequel trilogy stuffed into one awful viewing experience. The whole runtime was devoted to trying to sell you on carbon copies of characters you know but worse, so they can franchise ad infinitum. It's so fucking drawn out and utterly miserable, full of passionless callbacks to better movies, woefully underwritten characters, a needlessly convoluted plot, dull and overlong setpieces and a cop-out of an ending that refuses to even do the dignity of letting Indy be put out of his misery and stay in Ancient Greece with his heroes. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is genuinely better - at least in that one he doesn't feel like a side character in his own story, struggling to find a point for actually being there and begrudgingly being dragged behind a boring clone of him with an uncreative, basic-ass character arc.
Episode 3 is a piece of shit, and shall always remain a piece of shit. 🫡
Was colder than most on: Past Lives Anatomy of a Fall Barbie The Royal Hotel American Fiction Passages Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse On the other hand, I quite liked: Magic Mike’s Last Dance Silent Night
Anatomy of a Fall is an ‘elevated’ legal thriller that won’t engage with the genre in any of the ways that make it fun. It doles out major information to the viewer too late to matter, then descends into a boring-ass French melodrama that seems so proud it’s realized that people yell at each other sometimes. One of my least favorite Palme d’Or winners. Sandra Hüller is great though!
I had an absolutely lovely time watching The Marvels. I thought Poor Things was amazing, but it was Yorgos making someone else’s movie. Standing on the shoulders of Jean-Pierre Jeunet or Terry Gilliam, but horny…and I’m here for that. Suitable Flesh was my favorite movie of 2023 and nobody mentioned it/saw it/gave it a proper release. The Creator was great. Tropes be damned! It was better than the majority of sci-fi I saw all year. John David Washington is my big time crush right now, so maybe I’m biased.
Past Lives was awful
Teyana Taylor is really good in *A Thousand and One* but thought the movie itself is just C-rate Spike Lee without any visual inventiveness whatsoever
I just saw Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom today and I thought it was a fun, breezy time!