2022 Movie Harvest

And now to line up the movies in a neat little column. As I do every year, I'm ranking all the year's movies I've seen from worst to best. I saw twenty-four new movies in 2022, which is more than usual for me, but there are still a few key films I missed. I really wanted to see Black Panther 2 but an English audio version wasn't playing at a convenient time for me. When it finally comes to Disney+, I'll watch it and come back and plug it into the appropriate spot. But here's what I did see:

24. Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers (my review, Wikipedia entry)

Fans of the original TV series, and of older Disney films and TV series, will find a movie that spits in their eyes and says, "You're welcome."

23. The Seed (my review, Wikipedia entry)

A self conscious imitation of low budget '70s horror cinema, it comes off more as a cheap imitation of more prestigious pastiches by Tarantino and Eli Roth.

22. The Divine Protector: Salt Mistress Begins (Wikipedia entry)

An inoffensive fantasy adventure movie with cheap cgi.

21. Strange World (my review, Wikipedia entry)

The kind of puzzling miscalculation that could only come from a creative team locked in a sound-proof bubble.

20. Thor: Love and Thunder (my review, Wikipedia entry)

The great disappointment of 2022, Taika Waititi, who so deftly handled humour and drama with the previous Thor film, delivered something that totally fumbled on tone.

19. Lightyear (my review, Wikipedia entry)

It's not funny enough to be a comedy and not exciting enough to be an action space adventure. This is another example of a story pulled apart by the conflicting motives of its makers.

18. Glass Onion (my review coming soon, Wikipedia entry)

Daniel Craig grows more charming, and more like Columbo, as Rian Johnson's own super detective. An entertaining cast of supporting characters are introduced with affection that shows Johnson may be softening in his ideological zealotry. Unfortunately, the ending is silly and illogical but presented like the clever solution to a problem.

17. Karada Sagashi (my review, Wikipedia entry)

This Groundhog Day meets It story taps into a young generation hooked on online gaming. Parts of the film are too artificial to work but other parts give us a decent teen drama.

16. Ushikubimura (my review, Wikipedia entry)

A charismatic star and a first act filled with effective supernatural menace are sadly undermined by excessive exposition in the middle act. The third act goes through the motions but all the tension is gone by then.

15. Prey (my review, Wikipedia entry)

In this age of political correctness, I applaud the filmmakers for not allowing ethnic authenticity to stop them from casting the actress they wanted in the lead. There are some fun Rambo-ish moments in the film and the new Predator design is nice but, sadly, most of the action sequences are diminished by bad cgi and the star's hairstyle.

14. Incantation (my review, Wikipedia entry)

A fun, impressively detailed, horror film. It's too reliant on jump scares but the work the filmmakers put into creating a phony cult deserves praise.

13. Barbarian (my review, Wikipedia entry)

A first half built on excellent tension is followed by a second half with many effective qualities. The usual political influences drag the film down a bit but not as much as certain logical inconsistencies in the story. Still, when it works, it works really well.

12. The Batman (my review, Wikipedia entry)

This is the first Batman movie that really doesn't try to push the envelope in any way, staying within the bounds of what Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan proved was effective. It's remarkable that we're so used to filmmakers taking risks with such a prominent IP, The Batman can feel like a bit of a letdown, but, really, it achieves acceptability.

11. Top Gun: Maverick (my review, Wikipedia entry)

A softball, low-stakes adventure story is elevated tremendously by terrific action sequences.

10. Everything Everywhere All at Once (my review, Wikipedia entry)

An inventive concept told in such an engaging way can't be completely diminished by its disappointing finale. Michelle Yeoh is a great lead in a great role here.

9. Pinocchio (my review, Wikipedia entry) Guillermo Del Toro's visually astonishing take on the suddenly popular story isn't nearly as interesting as his take on Nightmare Alley last year. Still, it's a remarkable achievement.

8. Avatar: The Way of Water (my review, Wikipedia entry)

Another visually unique film but what James Cameron achieves is something like a once in a lifetime experience. Even the weak screenplay hardly seems to matter. There are parts of this movie that are absolutely glorious.

7. Turning Red (my review, Wikipedia entry)

A delightful, John Hughes-ish teen comedy that brilliantly transmutes the discomforts and wonders of coming of age.

6. Emily the Criminal (my review coming soon, Wikipedia entry)

A satisfying crime fantasy movie of the Breaking Bad mould. Aubrey Plaza is a scrappy, ruthless anti-heroine and you root for her bad self from beginning to end.

5. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (my review, Wikipedia entry)

I seem to have liked this movie a lot more than a lot of people but some of the discomforts people felt with the plot, especially with the superhero variants, were, I think, just Sam Raimi being a good horror movie director. There were hints, too, of the kind of madness that made Evil Dead 2 a great film. The inventiveness in how both Strange and Wanda used magic was truly refreshing.

4. Crimes of the Future (my review, Wikipedia entry)

It's not David Cronenberg's most groundbreaking film, but it is a return to form and a very welcome one. A meditation on the nature of art and the relationship between the mind and the body, it's of a piece with Cronenberg's lifelong obsession with the blurred line between the two.

3. The Banshees of Inisherin (my review, Wikipedia entry)

At turns delightful and horrific, charming and devastating, subtle and powerful, this deceptively cosy little comedy is a meditation on some of the more difficult to quantify aspects of human need.

2. Three Thousand Years of Longing (my review, Wikipedia entry) A splendid film on the importance of experiencing the fantastic. It's a kind of colourful story very necessary in a world where people are urgently pressured into seeing everything as ones and zeroes.

1. The Fabelmans (my review coming soon, Wikipedia entry)

I really didn't expect this to be my favourite film of the year but, yeah, I have to say it is. The reviews I've read and seen completely miss some of the best parts of it. In a year filled with movies that analyse the nature and value of dreams and storytelling, this one exhibits the most intimate understanding of the concepts involved. It's Steven Spielberg's best movie since Munich and a surprisingly insightful meditation on what it means to be an artist from a filmmaker who's too often looked down upon as being merely entertaining. I have a lot more to say about this movie than any other I saw from 2022 but I'll have to get to that to-morrow.