2015 has been a biggish year for me, cinematically speaking. I saw a lot, and expanded my Bad Movie Marathon to include good movies. As a result, this blog is now pretty much TV and spoiler free reviews, but I also intend it for comment and discussion, such as this review of the year. In order to consider the best and worst films of the year, I'm going to break down the films I saw and look at some of the dominant genres of the year.
Superheroes
The genre of the moment saw the MCU juggernaut roll on, while would be contender Fantastic Four fizzled. Age of Ultron was, for me, a warning against the ongoing escalation in spectacle and scale, and I found the far more personal Ant-Man narrative made a more engaging and appealing film, especially given the promise of increased Wasp in its sequel. With Wonder Woman's turn in Dawn of Justice just around the corner, Marvel dropped a couple of chances to steal a march, but also avoided some easy pitfalls.
Marvel Studios also benefited from the failure of licensed property Fantastic Four, which seems to have been the result of some ham-fisted editing between the trailer and release, and ended up as an extended prologue, a weirdly abbreviated middle act and a big, loud, ultimately fairly meaningless denouement; not unlike last year's Man of Steel. As Zack Snyder decide that people must be bored of seeing how Clark Kent becomes Superman, but really into Jor-el kicking butt on Krypton, Josh Trank decided that the troubled childhood of Reed Richards trumps the discovery and development of the Four's powers, a significant motivation for Doom, or any coherent discussion of the nature of those powers.
Best: Ant-Man
Worst: Fantastic Four
Also ran: Avengers: Age of Ultron
Children's Movies
Specifically, this category is for films I saw with my daughter. The hands down winner in this category is Pixar's Inside Out, a rollercoaster of emotions (literally in some scenes) about the internal emotional life of 11 year old Riley. It's a moving, entertaining, and surprisingly sophisticated exploration of the increasing complexity of a developing psyche and the importance of traditionally 'negative' emotions.
Also from Disney Pixar, The Good Dinosaur is an altogether less successful outing. While it manages the tear-jerking, it scared the hell out of Arya at points (although she immediately asked to see it again, so...) and from its head-scratching central conceit (not becoming extinct, dinosaurs develop an extensive material culture, but undergo no morphological changes over 65 million years, while hominids evolve to roughly canine levels of sophistication plus the rudimentary textile tech that the dinosaurs lack) to its generally downbeat mood is not one I'm looking at seeing over and over. One I may see over and over whether I want to or not is Minions, as Arya loves Minions, although not when they grow super huge. It's not a patch on Inside Out, but has a stupendous soundtrack. Finally, we saw Shaun the Sheep, which was fun, but largely forgettable. I think an amnesiac shepherd became a hairdresser and an animal control officer flirted with a pile of sheep in a jumper? No Wallace and Grommit this one.
Finally, this year's live action Disney offering was Cinderella, a gorgeous beast which, like Maleficent before it, suffers from the unaccountable lack of songs.
Best: Inside Out
Worst: Shaun the Sheep
Also ran: The Good Dinosaur, Minions, Cinderella
Teen Movies
There are definite signs that the teen adventure boom has peaked, although Mockingjay - Part 2 has few signs of flagging. Technically Philip Seymour Hoffman's last film, it follows Katniss through the battle for the Capitol and the last political manoeuvring thereafter, and pulls few punches in the scenes of civilians under fire and in its gut-wrenching climax.
Compared to The Hunger Games, the Divergent and Maze Runner franchises are small beans. Insurgent* suffers from the filmmakers' apparent commitment to making Divergent a stand alone, with several key plot points that really ought to have been mentioned in the first installment, even if only in passing. Still, it's a better follow-up than The Scorch Trials, which purely serves to make The Maze Runner even more confusing, and they're all better than the execrable Seventh Son, the adaptation of The Spook's Apprentice which apparently took several years until the makers felt they'd got it bad enough to release.
Best: Mockingjay - Part 2
Worst: Seventh Son
Also ran: Insurgent, Tomorrowland, The Scorch Trials
Science Fiction
I know SF is a broad church (although in no definition is Broadchurch SF,) but there's only so far I can break this stuff down. The top of my list for the year is another literary adaptation, but The Martian has otherwise as much in common with Seventh Son as it does with Seven Samurai. Adapted from a runaway sleeper bestseller, The Martian is not a perfect adaptation (there are a couple of headscratchy moments and the climax of the film clearly represents the filmmakers losing the internal struggle against the desire for spectacle and simplistic heroism,) but it is a very good film.
Jupiter Ascending is not a very good film. It's actually a lot of fun, but represents an almost criminal waste of talent, money and ideas. When I think of what could have been done with what was available, it makes me almost as angry as Jupiter Jones, accepting the gift of a telescope from a family she is generously maintaining in genteel squalor despite the fact that she could literally and legally buy and sell them all.
Ex-Machina and Chappie both explored the nature of AI, one through a story of human vs. machine depicted as a manipulative battle of the sexes, the other a tale of a rave-rap band/street gang abusing the childlike trust of a cute robot soldier. Neither completely decided whether AI was a good thing or not, but both seemed intent on proving that humans suck. Terminator: Genisys was very much against AI, with the exception of Arnold's grizzled Guardian, and focused more on the nature of time travel, which is always a huge mistake in a Terminator film. All previous entries in the franchise have basically been invalidated, resulting in Kyle Reese being twice his former size and the past thirty years of product fundamentally pointless. It's worse than JJ Abrams verse-killing Star Trek reboot.
For its sins - and it has a bunch - at least Jurassic World doesn't piss all over its heritage. If anything, it loves it too much, with its bad-ass Rex rescue. Also making a new appearance after a long absence, The Force Awakens proves to be the best Star Wars film in about thirty years, and only kills the remaining corners of the extended universe, so it's good to see Abrams learning restraint.
Best: The Martian
Worst: Jupiter Ascending
Also ran: Ex-Machina, Chappie, Terminator: Genisys, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World
Spy Movies
It's been one hell of a year for spy movies; or spy adventure at least, we're waiting until next year for more Le Carre cerebral espionage. We ran the gamut of the subgenre, however, beginning with the deconstruction of Kingsman and finishing with Spectre's reconstruction of Bond.
Kingsman was a disappointment, failing to entirely disentangle itself from the genre it was deconstructing. It wasn't terrible, but still fell short of the year's other offerings. Spectre was also less groundbreaking than it wanted to be, but offered a decently reflective denouement to the Craig era (if it is indeed over.) For me, The Man from UNCLE scored over both by succeeding despite being an obviously ludicrous idea, rather than just being okay off a much stronger premise. I give the laurels, meanwhile, to Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, for daring to be balls to the wall crazy and a genuine ensemble piece despite the presence of Tom Cruise.
Best: Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation
Worst: Kingsman: The Secret Service
Also ran: Spectre, The Man from UNCLE
Other
Similarly, my top pick of films not easily fitting into a genre, or at least not one with any other films in, is Mad Max: Fury Road, which is an excellent film, despite the idea of making another Mad Max film being as utterly cray-cray as Max himself. Aside from its glorious insanity and dizzying production values, the triumph of Fury Road is in being a sophisticated feminist take on the brutal, rape- and abuse-driven, petrol fetishist, post-apocalyptic road duel movie.
Into the Woods (which I think is technically from 2014, but fuck it) was a bold attempt to adapt Sondheim's sprawling fairy tale musical into a movie and it only partially succeeds, largely due to Disney punking out on the darker elements and weirder meta-textual aspects of the second act.
The last two entries in this category might go together in a 'gothic-horror-punk with optional steam' heading, but two films does not a category make. The Last Witch Hunter was a bit of a let down in a lot of ways, but had a flaming sword. Victor Frankenstein featured a lot of good people, but a slight plot and the continuation of the bizarre modern habit of portraying Victor as one of the Hampshire Frankensteins, rather than Swiss.
Best: Mad Max: Fury Road
Worst: The Last Witch Hunter
Also ran: Victor Frankenstein, Into the Woods
Overall, my pick for best movie is between Inside Out and Fury Road. I think the latter is probably the better movie, although I enjoyed the former more, tears and all. Worst movie is Seventh Son, which abandons all the best parts of its source and adds a whole lot more shit.
* Full disclosure - I saw Insurgent on DVD, but it did come out this year.
 |
| Like Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel's best in show was the outsider. |
The genre of the moment saw the MCU juggernaut roll on, while would be contender Fantastic Four fizzled. Age of Ultron was, for me, a warning against the ongoing escalation in spectacle and scale, and I found the far more personal Ant-Man narrative made a more engaging and appealing film, especially given the promise of increased Wasp in its sequel. With Wonder Woman's turn in Dawn of Justice just around the corner, Marvel dropped a couple of chances to steal a march, but also avoided some easy pitfalls.
Marvel Studios also benefited from the failure of licensed property Fantastic Four, which seems to have been the result of some ham-fisted editing between the trailer and release, and ended up as an extended prologue, a weirdly abbreviated middle act and a big, loud, ultimately fairly meaningless denouement; not unlike last year's Man of Steel. As Zack Snyder decide that people must be bored of seeing how Clark Kent becomes Superman, but really into Jor-el kicking butt on Krypton, Josh Trank decided that the troubled childhood of Reed Richards trumps the discovery and development of the Four's powers, a significant motivation for Doom, or any coherent discussion of the nature of those powers.
Best: Ant-Man
Worst: Fantastic Four
Also ran: Avengers: Age of Ultron
Children's MoviesSpecifically, this category is for films I saw with my daughter. The hands down winner in this category is Pixar's Inside Out, a rollercoaster of emotions (literally in some scenes) about the internal emotional life of 11 year old Riley. It's a moving, entertaining, and surprisingly sophisticated exploration of the increasing complexity of a developing psyche and the importance of traditionally 'negative' emotions.
Also from Disney Pixar, The Good Dinosaur is an altogether less successful outing. While it manages the tear-jerking, it scared the hell out of Arya at points (although she immediately asked to see it again, so...) and from its head-scratching central conceit (not becoming extinct, dinosaurs develop an extensive material culture, but undergo no morphological changes over 65 million years, while hominids evolve to roughly canine levels of sophistication plus the rudimentary textile tech that the dinosaurs lack) to its generally downbeat mood is not one I'm looking at seeing over and over. One I may see over and over whether I want to or not is Minions, as Arya loves Minions, although not when they grow super huge. It's not a patch on Inside Out, but has a stupendous soundtrack. Finally, we saw Shaun the Sheep, which was fun, but largely forgettable. I think an amnesiac shepherd became a hairdresser and an animal control officer flirted with a pile of sheep in a jumper? No Wallace and Grommit this one.
Finally, this year's live action Disney offering was Cinderella, a gorgeous beast which, like Maleficent before it, suffers from the unaccountable lack of songs.
Best: Inside Out
Worst: Shaun the Sheep
Also ran: The Good Dinosaur, Minions, Cinderella
Teen MoviesThere are definite signs that the teen adventure boom has peaked, although Mockingjay - Part 2 has few signs of flagging. Technically Philip Seymour Hoffman's last film, it follows Katniss through the battle for the Capitol and the last political manoeuvring thereafter, and pulls few punches in the scenes of civilians under fire and in its gut-wrenching climax.
Compared to The Hunger Games, the Divergent and Maze Runner franchises are small beans. Insurgent* suffers from the filmmakers' apparent commitment to making Divergent a stand alone, with several key plot points that really ought to have been mentioned in the first installment, even if only in passing. Still, it's a better follow-up than The Scorch Trials, which purely serves to make The Maze Runner even more confusing, and they're all better than the execrable Seventh Son, the adaptation of The Spook's Apprentice which apparently took several years until the makers felt they'd got it bad enough to release.
Best: Mockingjay - Part 2
Worst: Seventh Son
Also ran: Insurgent, Tomorrowland, The Scorch Trials
Science FictionI know SF is a broad church (although in no definition is Broadchurch SF,) but there's only so far I can break this stuff down. The top of my list for the year is another literary adaptation, but The Martian has otherwise as much in common with Seventh Son as it does with Seven Samurai. Adapted from a runaway sleeper bestseller, The Martian is not a perfect adaptation (there are a couple of headscratchy moments and the climax of the film clearly represents the filmmakers losing the internal struggle against the desire for spectacle and simplistic heroism,) but it is a very good film.
Jupiter Ascending is not a very good film. It's actually a lot of fun, but represents an almost criminal waste of talent, money and ideas. When I think of what could have been done with what was available, it makes me almost as angry as Jupiter Jones, accepting the gift of a telescope from a family she is generously maintaining in genteel squalor despite the fact that she could literally and legally buy and sell them all.
Ex-Machina and Chappie both explored the nature of AI, one through a story of human vs. machine depicted as a manipulative battle of the sexes, the other a tale of a rave-rap band/street gang abusing the childlike trust of a cute robot soldier. Neither completely decided whether AI was a good thing or not, but both seemed intent on proving that humans suck. Terminator: Genisys was very much against AI, with the exception of Arnold's grizzled Guardian, and focused more on the nature of time travel, which is always a huge mistake in a Terminator film. All previous entries in the franchise have basically been invalidated, resulting in Kyle Reese being twice his former size and the past thirty years of product fundamentally pointless. It's worse than JJ Abrams verse-killing Star Trek reboot.
For its sins - and it has a bunch - at least Jurassic World doesn't piss all over its heritage. If anything, it loves it too much, with its bad-ass Rex rescue. Also making a new appearance after a long absence, The Force Awakens proves to be the best Star Wars film in about thirty years, and only kills the remaining corners of the extended universe, so it's good to see Abrams learning restraint.
Best: The Martian
Worst: Jupiter Ascending
Also ran: Ex-Machina, Chappie, Terminator: Genisys, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World
 |
| Does anyone else feel that tagline demands the addition of 'or go home'? |
It's been one hell of a year for spy movies; or spy adventure at least, we're waiting until next year for more Le Carre cerebral espionage. We ran the gamut of the subgenre, however, beginning with the deconstruction of Kingsman and finishing with Spectre's reconstruction of Bond.
Kingsman was a disappointment, failing to entirely disentangle itself from the genre it was deconstructing. It wasn't terrible, but still fell short of the year's other offerings. Spectre was also less groundbreaking than it wanted to be, but offered a decently reflective denouement to the Craig era (if it is indeed over.) For me, The Man from UNCLE scored over both by succeeding despite being an obviously ludicrous idea, rather than just being okay off a much stronger premise. I give the laurels, meanwhile, to Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, for daring to be balls to the wall crazy and a genuine ensemble piece despite the presence of Tom Cruise.
Best: Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation
Worst: Kingsman: The Secret Service
Also ran: Spectre, The Man from UNCLE
OtherSimilarly, my top pick of films not easily fitting into a genre, or at least not one with any other films in, is Mad Max: Fury Road, which is an excellent film, despite the idea of making another Mad Max film being as utterly cray-cray as Max himself. Aside from its glorious insanity and dizzying production values, the triumph of Fury Road is in being a sophisticated feminist take on the brutal, rape- and abuse-driven, petrol fetishist, post-apocalyptic road duel movie.
Into the Woods (which I think is technically from 2014, but fuck it) was a bold attempt to adapt Sondheim's sprawling fairy tale musical into a movie and it only partially succeeds, largely due to Disney punking out on the darker elements and weirder meta-textual aspects of the second act.
The last two entries in this category might go together in a 'gothic-horror-punk with optional steam' heading, but two films does not a category make. The Last Witch Hunter was a bit of a let down in a lot of ways, but had a flaming sword. Victor Frankenstein featured a lot of good people, but a slight plot and the continuation of the bizarre modern habit of portraying Victor as one of the Hampshire Frankensteins, rather than Swiss.
Best: Mad Max: Fury Road
Worst: The Last Witch Hunter
Also ran: Victor Frankenstein, Into the Woods
Overall, my pick for best movie is between Inside Out and Fury Road. I think the latter is probably the better movie, although I enjoyed the former more, tears and all. Worst movie is Seventh Son, which abandons all the best parts of its source and adds a whole lot more shit.
* Full disclosure - I saw Insurgent on DVD, but it did come out this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment