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agentnico · 4 months

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Top 10 WORST Movies of 2023

For every good movie there’s always a dozen stinkers, and 2023 brought out a lot of turkeys, and I’m not referring to all the poor birds that ended up in our bellies this Christmas season. It’s become a tradition for me every year to do a top 10 best and worst movies of the year list, and I tend to leave the top 10 best list till later as I catch up will the awards potentials, however with the bad list I get right on into it. There are of course many bad movies this year I didn’t see, as I don’t actively seek out to watch the bad ones, but I have heard that these following haven’t been the best: Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, The Marvels, Indiana Jones 5, Shazam: Fury of the Gods, Expend4bles, Children of the Corn, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey…… damn, a lot of films got a bad rep this year. Yet I have 10 other ones that I’ve seen that I thought were crap. Don’t worry if a film you loved ends up on this list, it will simply mean your opinion is wrong and your have to live with that. With that in mind, here’s my humble list of the shit-fest Hollywood had to offer in 2023…

10) ANT-MAN & THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA - Everything that is wrong with the current state of Marvel is exhibited on full display here. Lacking a sense of direction and exploiting the idea of the multiverse just for the sake of it, the movie is a dud. It feels like whilst trying to focus on going bigger and bolder, the movie lost the sense of fun that elevated the earlier instalments in the tiny hero’s franchise. Paul Rudd is still as charming and likeable as ever, however the introduction of Kang as the next MCU Big Bad is pointless seeing as this big baddie can be defeated by a bunch of ants. Don’t make no difference now anyway with Jonathan Majors losing the court case, but who in the first place thought “oh yeah, Kang is a badass who killed many Avengers, but a giant head of Corey Stoll should weaken him no problem”. Look, there’s no sugarcoating it - this movie is bad. Also, Bill Murray appears in this because…?

9) THE BEANIE BUBBLE - Zack Galifianakis without any facial hair is truly a sight to behold, but that’s not enough to make this fluffy yet bland behind-the-scenes look at the famous Beanie Babies toys even remotely interesting. It’s as if this film can’t bear (thank you) to show the creepier side of these toys, as this should have been a more darker and messed up tale, especially with the lightly implied institutional sexism. Oh well, that’s that then.

8) WE HAVE A GHOST - If ever there was a movie that fit more to the phrase “Netflix & Chill” then this is it, as you will be too busy banging your partner or your sock than caring about a silent speechless David Harbour creeping about Casper-like and being all quiet and mysterious. To be fair he’s the only redeemable quality as the rest of the movie is a mishmash hodgepodge of genres that is neither funny, nor effective in its family drama dynamic. At least seeing Jennifer Coolidge jump out a window was mildly amusing. Mildly. Anyway, where’s that sock?

7) THE OLD WAY - It is truly fascinating that after starring in over 100 films, this is Nicolas Cage’s first ever western. Aside from that mind boggling revelation, this movie comes out with less than a bang. I don’t know, I was hoping for something a bit more mad, especially with Cage’s involvement. Heck, in the movie’s opening sequence Nicolas Cage is introduced with a sprawling Poirot-like moustache, and immediately I assumed that I am in for something ridiculous. However following that scene the movie cuts to 20 years later, and with that both the moustache and the hope for something exciting or weird is diminished to singular unseen atoms.

6) FOOL’S PARADISE - The directorial debut from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Charlie Day (who also writes and stars), misfiring Hollywood satire Fool’s Paradise wastes a strong ensemble cast that also includes Adrien Brody, Jason Sudeikis, Jason Bateman, Kate Beckinsale, Ken Jeong, Common, John Malkovich and the late Ray Liotta. Look, in a way I feel bad about including this film on this list, as you can tell this is a true passion project for Day and one that has good intentions by attempting to go back to the old-school slapstick Charlie Chaplin-era of comedy, with a lighthearted satire on the way the film industry works. In this case the result is neither sweet nor funny enough, and as such it’s an unfortunate misfire, but easily the most disappointing inclusion on this list.

5) GHOSTED - Adrien Brody’s crappy French accent in this movie I could have forgiven, if only I have not seen John Wick: Chapter 4 a couple of weeks prior where I experienced the most delightful Parisian mouthing of Bill Skarsgard’s villain, so now Brody’s French-ish slur sticks out like a sore thumb. What else sticks out is that Ghosted feels like a film from the early 2000s, featuring every cliche of the genre and with a romantic pairing of Chris Evans and Ana de Armas whom share zero chemistry. Their kissing scenes reminded me of that Andrew Garfield/Emma Stone SNL sketch where they don’t know how to kiss on camera, only in this case it’s unintentional. Also featuring a slew of pointless cameos, and I do mean pointless, this is a throwaway campy spy-action flick that is destined to be forgotten.

4) THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER - Billed as the true sequel to William Friedkin’s original horror masterpiece, it really shouldn’t have strived for that. Ellen Burstyn’s return is a waste. For those excited to see her, she’s only in 3 or 4 scenes total, and the creative choices made with her character are such a disservice to the original movie. Without spoiling, it’s a choice that seems to be inspired by the modern woke culture, with Burstyn’s Chris having being studying the art of exorcism ever since the events that transpired with her daughter, and then when questioned about why she herself did not partake in her daughter’s exorcism she blames the patriarchy. The choice of bringing her into this narrative and then what happens to her…it’s basically taking a classic character and making them dumb. I must say though that the only actual shocking moment in the movie comes in a scene involving her character, and though that moment itself is memorable, the build up towards it is so stupid. Also, with the return of Burstyn it comes as no surprise within the movie when a certain other character pops in for a cameo. Does it add anything to the movie’s story? No, it’s just there for cheap fan service. As for the movie itself, the horror hardly works. It’s not scary at all and you really shouldn’t believe in this one.

3) THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE - Yeah, I know, my inclusion of this film on the list will rattle some feathers, but I don’t care, as for any of you pricks out there thinking that stupid “Peaches” song deserves an Academy Award nomination, you guys are stupid and must be high on some very powerful shrooms. If so, I hope you’re having a great trip, but the fact stands that this movie is bad. Simply doing fan service for the sake of fan service don’t make for a good narrative. Me and my friend were bored throughout, as this movie is 100% for kids. There are nostalgic elements to it all, but I do believe that Illumination and Nintendo should have followed more in The Lego Movie’s footsteps and targeted the film for audiences of all ages, due to the fact that many who grew up with Mario are now adults themselves.

2) LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND - So much wasted potential. A long drawn-out slow shuffle to Nowheresville. A movie that offers so many ideas, plot points, and thread lines that are never answered or go anywhere. In Leave the World Behind things are truly happening under the motto “just because” and “why the hell not” and it makes the viewing experience immensely frustrating. Especially when the movie is nearly 2 and a half hours long and the anticlimactic abrupt ending is a slap to your face for wasting your time. Oh, and if I weren’t a fan of the Friends show before, now more so than ever.

1) 65 - Right ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to ask you all so kindly to rise up from your seats and give a humongous round of applause to 65 - the 2023 film to exhibit qualities of a top contender of the worst movie of this year. Look, I’m disappointed as you are. Adam Driver fighting dino-dinos’?! You’d be a madman to not want to see that! However here’s 65′s first mistake: there actually aren’t that many dinosaurs, let alone fights with them. I know right, I can sense the resounding aura of you, my kind audience, in unison thinking “what the f***?”. Exactly, what the fudge indeed. No, instead what we get is a couple of somewhat thrilling dinosaurs interactions, but overall the movie is just Adam Driver and this little girl walking. Just walking. Walking and whistling. Bunch of jackasses.

That’s it - we did it! Now I can happily forget I ever watched any of these and mentally prepare for what wonders of stupidity 2024 will bring to the big screen. As for my Best Movies of 2023 list, don’t worry, it’s a-coming. Still need to watch The Boy and the Heron and Poor Things and then all will be revealed…

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grigori77 · 4 months

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2023 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 1)

30. SICK – the year’s first real horror cinema surprise was also one of its VERY FIRST standouts period, a brilliant little streaming sleeper from Peacock which snuck in under the radar but EFFORTLESSLY captured my attention AND the darker parts of my imagination. Best of all, though, it was SO COOL to see legendary revisionist horror screenwriter Kevin Williamson return to the “big screen” again after spending so long plying his trade on TV – I was VERY MUCH the target audience for Scream when it came out, I just ATE UP his delicious post-modern deconstruction of the slasher genre and its subsequent follow-ups (although Robert Rodriguez’ The Faculty, his fantastic take on alien invasion movie tropes, remains my very favourite of Willaimson’s creations to date), even if it did lead to a fresh sub-genre which, paradoxically, became increasingly tired and toothless as the years progressed. In the end, I think it’s probably A GOOD THING he took a step back – he just needed a chance to rethink things and find a fresh angle to come at the genre … and BY THE GODS has he ever found one with THIS. Interestingly, for Williamson at least, the Pandemic couldn’t have come along at a better time, giving him fertile ground indeed in which to grow a particularly potent darkly comic slasher which EASILY lives up to his masterworks. Taking place in the early days of the original outbreak, when the first Lockdown was just starting, infection alerts and self-isolation were only just becoming a major thing and everybody was PANICKING over how much they really DIDN’T yet know about what was REALLY going on, the setting was already ripe for some pretty intense, chaotic storytelling … so adding a brutal serial killer with a penchant for killing off the idiots who flagrantly flaunted the COVID safety restrictions and purposefully went out of their way to pretend things were the same as normal was a slick move. The main bulk of the narrative revolves around three college kids in some nondescript part of the US – Parker (Blockers and The Society’s Gideon Adlon), a well-off party girl who’s looking to make some major changes in her life, and her best friend Miri (up-and coming R&B artist Beth Million), who go to Parker’s family’s expansive country home to quarantine in comfort, and Parker’s newly-EX boyfriend DJ (Man of Steel and Teen Wolf’s Dylan Sprayberry), who turns up ostensibly to try and patch things up between them but may simply have come for an opportunistic hook-up – who are targeted by a killer who subsequently hunts them during a night of fraught tension, smartly staged stalk-and-slash set-pieces and a hefty dose of Williamson’s characteristic jet black-but-enjoyably geeky sense of humour, which is this time pitched to a particularly sharp edge of biting finger-on-the-pulse satire given the rich socio-political real-life material he’s able to mine here. The small but extremely potent cast are all BRILLIANT, although the film really is DOMINATED by Adlon, who once again shows that she’s destined for GREAT THINGS INDEED in the future with a brilliant turn that runs an impressive gamut from irresponsibly entitled brat to vitally determined survivor once circumstances have fully driven her to take proper responsibility for her childish behaviour, making for a compellingly sympathetic young heroine we find easy enough to root for. It probably helps the man behind the camera is John Hyams (All Square, Alone), son of legendary genre-hopping director Peter Hyams, who shows he’s definitely inherited his dad’s impressive skill by crafting a lean, tight and precise slice of thrilling cinema which takes full advantage of a tight budget and (mostly) a single location, which results in a brilliant little comedy horror gem that I’d heartily recommend folk hunt down on streaming, or at the very least keep in mind for Halloween …

29. HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE – it’s always nice when a sharp little indie banger sneaks in under the radar to place on one of my lists for the year, and this impressive critically acclaimed underdog thriller definitely shaped up as one of the year’s most memorable examples. It’s a very low-fi, gritty down-and-dirty procedural slice-of-life thriller about a motley collection of eco-terrorists banding together to sabotage an oil pipeline in West Texas, focusing almost entirely on this core group of disillusioned youths played by eight uniformly EXCEPTIONAL actors each handing in genuine (ahem) dynamite performances. Ariele Barer (Marvel’s Runaways), The Revenant’s Forrest Goodluck, American Honey’s Sasha Lane and Marcus Scribner (probably best known as the voice of She-Ra & the Princesses of Power’s Bow) are the undeniable stand-outs here, but all of these kids are ON FIRE throughout, showing they’ve got truly BRIGHT futures ahead of them indeed, while Irene Bedard (Smoke Signals) also impresses in a supporting turn as Joanna, an FBI agent who may be onto their plans … the film bounces between the varying points of view amongst the characters, gradually unveiling their motivations to commit a morally complex terrorist act through a series of scattered flashbacks punctuating the planning, execution and aftermath of the bombing itself, with writer-director Daniel Goldhaber (Cam, here co-adapting Andreas Maim’s incendiary non-fiction novel with Ariele Barer herself and Cam’s co-writer Jordan Sjol) weaving a suitably taut and atmospheric slowburn path throughout the flawlessly executed narrative, the film brilliantly building its wire-taut tension to a rewardingly cathartic climax which is as provocative as the challenging subject matter. This is a film that asks some VERY BIG QUESTIONS and delivers some suitably complicated and rightfully TROUBLING answers, a razor sharp piece of indie cinema which definitely deserves the critical acclaim and cult hit status it’s earned …

28. COCAINE BEAR – gods, if EVER there was a true story that seemed TAILOR MADE for cinema, it’s the bizarre tale of Cokey the Bear, AKA Pablo Eskobear, an American black bear that died after ingesting 34 keys of cocaine that were dumped out of a smuggler’s cargo plane over the Tennessee wilderness in 1985. That being said, it’s not a huge surprise it’s taken Hollywood SO LONG to actually get it made, perhaps it’s just TOO CRAZY a concept for it to have been made before now. Ultimately, the film takes A LOT of liberties with the truth to instead craft an entertaining story, but in the end that’s definitely the smart move, simply using the concept as a springboard to craft a gloriously batshit horror comedy with a JET BLACK sense of humour populated by an offbeat collection of quirky characters. Keri Russell stars as Sari, a nurse and single mother who has to brave the woods in order to find her young daughter Dee Dee (The Florida Project’s Brooklyn Prince), who’s playing hooky in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest with her best friend Henry (Sweet Tooth’s Christian Convery) right when Cokey goes on her drug-fuelled homicidal rampage; meanwhile, recently bereaved widower Eddie (Solo’s Alden Ehrenreich) and his best friend Daveed (Straight Outta Compton’s O’Shea Jackson Jr.) are two drug cartel enforcers reluctantly scouring the area in search of their lost product at the behest of Eddie’s overbearing St Louis drug kingpin father Syd White (the late, great Ray Liotta, to whom the film is dedicated); and then there’s hapless but dogged Knoxville detective Bob (the venerable Isaiah Whitlock Jr.), who knows he can bust White if he can just get his hands on the evidence. All three parties converge in the park while the bear wreaks merry havoc in Elizabeth Banks’ third film as a director (after Pitch Perfect 2 and the CRIMINALLY mistreated and overlooked Charlie’s Angels reboot), which looks like it might FINALLY get people to start taking her serious BEHIND the camera as well as IN FRONT of it – this is a proper laugh-riot of a film which is also delightfully non-PC, and it’s liberally peppered with impressively blood-soaked effects to thrill the gore-hounds as well as an impressively well-realised digital animal character in the eponymous drug-addled beastie. The cast are brilliant too, Russell and Ehrenreich both particularly impressing in their respective nominal lead roles while the kids are EXCEPTIONAL (particularly Convery, getting to gleefully overact as one of the most hyperactive-yet-not-irritating kids I’ve ever seen on screen), and it’s both enriching and a little heartbreaking to watch Liotta once again act his socks off in one of his very last film roles; that being said, several of the scenes are thoroughly STOLEN by the irrepressible Margo Martindale, who’s clearly having the time of her life in one of her most gloriously OTT roles as foul-mouthed, much put-upon park Ranger Liz. Ultimately this is a horror comedy where the balance is definitely tipped very much in favour of the laughs over the scares, but that’s fine, because with a concept this batshit bonkers we were always gonna find it too funny to ever be remotely scary, so the end result is one of THE FUNNIEST MOVIES I ran across in the cinema all year, rightfully revelling in its own inherent irreverence. It’s just about the most fun you could ever expect it to be, which is just what you want from a movie about a cocaine bear, really …

27. THE FLASH – oh boy … yeah, this one is gonna be a COMPLICATED talk. This was one TROUBLED project from day one, from the major shake-ups surrounding the Joss Whedon-compromised Justice League film and the subsequent mess THAT unleashed, through the whole conflicting debate over Zack Snyder’s original vision for the DCEU, and then the eventual collapse of the Cinematic Universe itself, this film, originally entitled Flashpoint (which personally I like A WHOLE LOT more, actually, since it really does pay DIRECT reference to the actually storyline they went with) went through a whole collection of incarnations and reiterations and, for a while, it was starting to look like we might NEVER see it hit our cinema screens at all … and that’s without even mentioning star Ezra Miller’s ongoing legal troubles and essential CANCELLING after their continued outrageous, unacceptable off-set behaviour, which looked set to torpedo the film all on its own. Honestly, I have to admit I was MYSELF a little wary going in, not because of these particular problems but more just the prospect of what I would actually do if, in spite of all this, I actually still LIKED IT … unfortunately for me, that was VERY MUCH the case, which is why we’re here in the first place.

But I must forge on, and so I’m gonna just take this film on ITS OWN face value and ignore the external problems … at least until THE END of the review … because The Flash is, actually, pretty fucking GREAT. Barry Allen (Miller) is finally coming into his own as a fully-fledged member of the Justic League, even if this does frequently mean he’s essentially cleaning up the extreme messes left behind when Batman/Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) gets involved in particularly BIG potential world-shattering events, as brilliantly illustrated in the film’s suitably SPECTACULAR opening set-piece, which does a BEAUTIFUL job of not only letting us know EXACTLY what this incarnation of the Flash is actually capable of, but also revealing Barry’s own distinctly unique, offbeat and, frankly, really rather ADORABLE personal style of superheroism. Then the plot itself kicks off when Barry’s father Henry (Ron Livingstone), serving life in prison for the wrongfully-convicted murder of Barry’s mother Nora (Pan’s Labyrinth’s wonderful Maribel Verdu), sees his latest (and, it looks like, FINAL) appeal fall flat due to a crucial new piece of evidence turning out to be useless, and Barry decides he's had enough of ignoring a particularly potent aspect of his superpowers –

the ability to run SO FAST that he can actually GO BACK IN TIME!!! So he races back to the day of his mother’s death and tweaks circumstances so that she survives, only for Barry to then get punted off track before he can return to the present by an unknown entity within “the Speedforce” which then lands him in 2013, just days before Earth’s invasion by the hostile Kryptonian forces of General Zod (Michael Shannon), as seen in Man of Steel. Still with us so far? Yeah, well it gets EVEN MORE complicated, cuz it turns out that, while his mum is now STILL ALIVE, Barry hasn’t got his powers in this universe, which means that he has to reform the Justice League himself in THIS timeline in order to defeat Zod. Except that there are FAR MORE consequences to messing with time than Barry ever took into account set to make things all but insurmountably complicated for him to succeed … beyond this we’re getting into DANGEROUS spoiler territory, beyond the fact that these new developments give rise to whole fresh and very complicated ideas of alternative universes somewhat akin to what the MCU’s already started experimenting with (which is also, actually, something that the DC comics universe does ALL THE BLOODY TIME), which gives rise to whole new incarnations of beloved characters from the established DCEU, some of which HAVE already been revealed in the trailers and beyond, but others not so much, so … yeah, anyway, it’s a glorious MESS of a narrative, but somehow this film does a REALLY IMPRESSIVE job of navigating this jumble in an impressively coherent and breezy way that ultimately makes this a whole lot of fun to watch, actually. Of course, the lion’s share of the praise for this HAS TO go to screenwriter Christina Hodson (Birds of Prey & the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) for wrangling the UNHOLY MESS of development done for the previous incarnations into an actual WORKING script, which was then brought to life with suitably brave and adventurous SKILL by director Andy Muschietti (Mama and It Chapter One and Two), but the uniformly EXCEPTIONAL cast shoulder a good deal of that responsibility too –

Miller may be problematic in real life, but there can be no denying that he is FUCKING BRILLIANT in his signature role, crafting a hyperactive, ultra-awkward social misfit of a superhero that us various underdog kids just can’t help rooting for, while it is a MASSIVE pleasure to get to see MY PERSONAL FAVOURITE Batman return as this AU’s altered version of Bruce Wayne, the legendary Michael Keaton himself again proving why he really is THE VERY BEST VERSION of the character out there (and I will accept NO ARGUMENT AT ALL about that, I swear you can all FIGHT ME on this particular hill upon which I am determined to DIE if I must), and Livingstone and Verdu bring an IMMENSE amount of pathos to their characters throughout which makes it ABUNDANTLY CLEAR why Barry tries SO HARD to save them both, and it’s also great fun getting to see Michael Shannon back as the Big Bad here again, I always really liked this spectacular scenery-chewing version of Zod. For me, though, the biggest win here has to be The Young & the Restless’ Sasha Calle, making her big screen debut as the most impressive and DCEU-consistent incarnation of Kara Zor-El, aka SUPERGIRL, that we could ever have hoped for, she’s a truly AWESOME creation, EASILY as badass as Henry Cavill’s Supes but also a good deal more complex as a character too. Ultimately it’s a shame that circumstances mean that we likely won’t get to see more of her in future projects, much like Keaton’s returning Batman, as they’re definitely the unexpected heart and soul of the film, easily delivering in the most impressively iconic set-pieces and memorable character beats. Indeed, this is SO BLOODY BRILLIANT all round as a film – from its spectacular action sequences, through its frequent gleefully anarchic screwball humour, to a variety of impressive jaw-dropping game-changer twists in the narrative – that the fact that the DCEU itself is officially over and all of this means PRECISELY ZERO in the face of where it’s all going in James Gunn’s incoming Cinematic Universe reboot makes this feel all the more ultimately pointless, which lends any viewing a bittersweet aftertaste no matter HOW enjoyable it all is. I mean granted, it’s NOT perfect (there is, famously, some pretty clunky CGI that ALMOST takes you out of the experience, especially in the climactic sequence when we see the timelines start to collide), but then very few of the DCEU movies HAVE BEEN anyway, and this one still works just fine for what it is. So it may not have any actual VALUE for the series moving forward, but it’s still a really great movie that MORE THAN deserves to be seen for its own merits, and I highly recommend you give it a chance anyway. At least Gunn and co have seen the sense to keep Muschietti onboard for their reboot (namely helming the new DCU’s Batman reboot The Brave & the Bold), and if they’ve any more sense they’ll bring Christina Hodson back for more too …

26. THE EQUALIZER 3 – Director Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington have had a long and extremely fruitful working relationship, from their earliest collaboration on his best-known film, Training Day (which finally landed Washington his long-overdue best actor Oscar, although many of us agree that it SHOULD have gone to him a few years prior for The Hurricane), through the EXTREMELY impressive remake of the classic western The Magnificent Seven, to their most lucrative and long-running collab to date, a series of feature adaptations of a cult classic TV thriller show from the 80s which has now reached its THIRD instalment and STILL seems to be running at full steam with no sign of flagging. Indeed, this just might be THE BEST ONE YET … Washington once again effortlessly delivers a coolly sophisticated, often understated but still typically deeply nuanced turn as Robert McCall, the former special-forces soldier turned SOCOM operative who reemerged from self-imposed faked-death-retirement in the first film in order to deliver bloody retribution for the brutal assault of a young girl, only to subsequently find a new calling as a freelance guardian angel for the weak and powerless who have nowhere else to turn with a dangerous problem. This time round his antiheroic adventures has brought him to Italy, where the ill-fated end of his latest operation sees him near death from a bullet in his back, being nursed back to health in the remote coastal town of Altamonte. It’s here that he finally finds that true peace that’s so long eluded him as he recovers from his injuries, but he finds himself ultimately dragged back into the fray when a

Camorra crime outfit from Naples, looking to expand their operation to new territories, starts trying to exploit the townsfolk that Robert has grown so close to beyond their breaking point … ultimately this is a more slowburn, understated affair than the previous two films, but that actually proves to be this instalment’s greatest strength, allowing us to get closer to our Equalizer than ever before, as well as the people he’s driven to help, which makes this BY FAR the most emotionally investing film in the trilogy, and makes us root for Robert like never before as we wait for him to FINALLY bring the pain to these Mafioso thugs. That dam-break, when they finally come, is as viscerally intense as we’ve come to expect from the series, but thanks to the additional groundwork this time round the kills and cathartic payback delivered feel more satisfyingly substantial, while the film’s greatest pleasures ultimately lie more in the anticipation as Fuqua cranks the tension tighter and we edge further forward in our seats. Once again, the supporting cast all shine through, with Andrea Scarduzio (Colour On the Cross) giving great bad guy as subtly reptilian Mob boss Vincent Quaranta, ably backed up by Andrea Dodero (Thou Shalt Not Hate) as Vincent’s vicious, jumped up thug of a little brother Marco, while Gaia Scodellaro (CentroVetrine) and Eugenio Mastrandeo (From Scratch) deftly show us what’s so worth fighting for in this town as effervescently friendly local café owner Aminah and Altamonte’s principled but pragmatically fair sole Carabinieri Gio Bonucci; the biggest standout, however, is Dakota Fanning as Emma Collins, the smart and dogged FBI agent who ends up tracking Robert down following his involvement in the opening showdown and uncovers a whole nest of previous overlooked criminal chaos. At the end of the day though, this is ONCE AGAIN every inch Washington’s film, the erstwhile star clearly enjoying himself immensely in one of the best and most iconic

roles of his career, although this third instalment looks like it might be the last Equalizer with him in the lead since it becomes abundantly clear that it’s looking to wind things up for Robet’s final adventure in a suitably satisfying way. That being said, there’s definitely room, interest and clear demand for more from both the fanbase AND the creatives here, with the pervading theory being that we may be going back to the early days of McCall’s time with the CIA, in which case the obvious choice moving forward would be to let John David Washington step into his dad’s shoes as young Robert. In truth it’s the only smart choice …

25. ANT-MAN & THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA – coming off the back of 2022’s decidedly hit-and-miss big screen slate for Disney and Marvel’s current flagship property, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, THIS past year’s first MCU release had A LOT of eyes on it. Gods know, I definitely had TWO OF ‘EM … and it probably wasn’t the best title to be laying all this weight on, either – the Ant-Man movies in particular have always been a bit of a marmite property within the larger universe, with as many detractors as fans, which definitely didn’t help things here. If this turned out to be third time unlucky for Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang and the rest, it could spell much larger disaster for the MCU overall, or at the very least signify that the cracks are definitely growing beyond the studios’ capacity to patch ‘em up on the run. So I’ll admit, I went into this one with a whole lot of trepidation … was it unwarranted? Well, being completely honest … not ENTIRELY. Tried-and-tested comedy director Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man films have always been a pretty mad collection anyway, as much a full-blown comedy sub-franchise as the Guardians of the Galaxy movies or Thor under Taika Waititi, but even so they still managed to keep ONE FOOT on the ground even while the rest was set EXTENSIVELY in the Quantum Realm, but this one has somewhat jumped the shark. Granted, part of this film’s particular OTT outlandishness and unabashed WACKINESS is down to narrative necessity – giving too much away plot-wise unfortunately runs the risk of dropping some MASSIVE spoilers, but it’s at least safe to say that the lion’s share of the story takes place ENTIRELY in the Quantum Realm this time, and it’s a place which is A WHOLE LOT DIFFERENT from anything we might have imagined from our very brief visits in Ant-Man & the Wasp and Avengers: Endgame. For a start, it’s A WHOLE LOT BIGGER than we thought it was, and MUCH more heavily populated by some truly WEIRD SHIT … the film also has some major heavy-lifting to do with regards to setting up the Big Bad for Phase 5 and 6 both – Kang the Conqueror (The Last Black Man In San Francisco and Creed III’s Jonathan Majors), a Multiverse-based Thanos level threat we first encountered (sort of) in 2021’s runaway hit first season of Loki. This at least is one of the areas in which the movie definitely SUCCEEDED – ultimately problematic as he may have become since the film’s release, Majors at least did a commendable job of establishing one of the franchise’s most interesting and effective supervillains, a near God Tier Bad Guy who’s clearly gonna give the whole Avengers roster a run for their money when they finally come face to face with him (in whatever recast form he ultimately takes). The plot, such as it is, is pure scrambled bananas, a heavyweight mindfuck it’s best to just DISENGAGE the brain to go with in order to get proper enjoyment

out of – this is definitely a cinematic GUILTY PLEASURE, and trying to take it even remotely seriously immediately draws the eye to a thousand gaping plot-holes and glaring narrative stumbles. At least the patented stunning, primary coloured visuals, winning sense of humour and cavalcade of delightfully wacky set-pieces (the clone-spawning “probability explosion” sequence is a particularly overblown, super-trippy highlight with an unexpected tear-jerk factor built in) are all fully functional and behaving correctly, and the thoroughly endearing cast all deliver admirably with nary an off-note hint of miscasting – Rudd and Evangeline Lilly (returning as Hope van Dyne AKA the titular Wasp) are both still pitch perfect, while it’s nice to see Michael Douglas and PARTICULARLY Michelle Pfeiffer getting to do a whole lot more this time round as Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne, and the glaring Michael Pena-shaped hole is ALMOST filled by a few other quality comedic turns from the likes of deadpan laugh-MASTER Bill Murray and David Dastmalchian (here returning in a VERY interesting but also very DIFFERENT role to what we’ve seen from him here before), as well as a surprise returning face (ahem) from this trilogy’s past. Meanwhile, alongside Majors there are other similarly noteworthy series newcomers who make BIG IMPRESSIONS, from Z Nation and The Mandalorian’s Katy O’Brien (who’s been a growing favourite of mine for a little while now), who’s a completely EPIC badass I wanna see A LOT more of in the future as hard-nosed Quantum freedom fighter Jentorra, to Kathryn Newton (Supernatural, Freaky), making the role of Scott’s now (pretty much) full-grown daughter Cassie ENTIRELY her own, and she’s clearly got a MAJOR future ahead of her in the MCU herself now she’s started carving out her own super-powered secret identity (roll on Young Avengers, I say!). The movie may be another flawed, somewhat unwieldy and occasionally downright CLUNKY beast, but the franchise is still managing to stand up where it counts, and compared to the likes of Thor: Love & Thunder and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever it definitely holds up a good deal better in its own right. Most of all, though, it’s A WHOLE LOT of pure, unadulterated FUN, which is ultimately exactly what you want from a big primary-coloured superhero blockbuster. In the end, it still remains to be seen if the MCU can be clawed back from the brink it’s still teetering perilously on the edge of, but despite all that’s still wrong with it, this is at least a VERY SMALL step back in the right direction …

24. THE PALE BLUE EYE – largely sneaking in under the radar on Netflix to start the New Year off, the latest offering from highly acclaimed indie writer-director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Black Mass, Antlers) is, much as we’d likely expect from such a consistently varied, genre-hopping filmmaker, a strange, unique and deeply intriguing beast of a film. Adapted from Louis Bayard’s well-received speculative fiction novel about a young Edgar Allan Poe aiding the investigation of a bafflingly macabre murder in the US Military Academy at West Point in the early 1830s. Christian Bale returns with typical stoic, intense and magnificently brooding megawatt presence for his THIRD leading man tour of duty for Cooper (after Out of the Furnace and Hostiles) as Augustus Landor, a former West Point graduate-turned misanthropic former detective brought in to lead the investigation into the brutal hanging and evisceration (with additional heart-removal) of a young cadet that’s baffling the faculty and local police, which is soon compounded when additional bodies start piling up. He’s aided in his endeavours by another cadet, the young Poe himself (played to PERFECTION by Harry Potter’s own Harry Melling, continuing his meteoric and deeply impressive rise to prominence with another TOUR-DE-FORCE performance here), while the clues lead to a variety of deeply troubling twists and revelations as well as an intriguing collection of suitably odd and often highly charismatic characters played by the sterling likes of Lucy Boynton, Toby Jones, Simon McBurney and a fascinatingly unusual turn from Robert Duvall, although the real standout here is a truly MAGNIFICENT career-best performance from Gillian Anderson. Cooper piles on the story’s doom-laden gothic atmosphere to great effect throughout while cranking up the slowburn and deeply uncomfortable suspenseful tension throughout, while the plot is nothing short of MACHIAVELLIAN in its levels of ingenious labyrinthine intelligence, dropping an ultimate denouement that you really have to be paying SERIOUS ATTENTION to see coming, and the production design, costumes, period detail and, most of all, the thoroughly MOODY bleak-midwinter cinematography make for a freezing cold but thoroughly rewarding feast for the eyes for the most discerning film-fanatic. Altogether Cooper’s delivered another winner, and I hope he continues to make films this good well into the future.

23. DOOR MOUSE – Avan Jogia may be best known as an actor in fare like Caprica, Zombieland: Double Tap and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, but his debut feature as a writer-director definitely shows he’s got a lot of potential as a genuine filmmaking talent moving forward. This is an edgy, offbeat and enjoyably quirky little indie oddity that CLEARLY doesn’t care to play by anyone’s conventional rules, telling its unapologetically DARK and dirty little story the way IT WANTS TO without ever trying to spell its message out for the viewer. Riverdale’s Hayley Law is, as ever, simply MESMERISING as Mouse, a tough, hard-bitten burlesque dancer looking to make a better life for herself as a comic book creator, only for fate to throw a wrench in the works for her when girls at her club start disappearing under mysterious circumstances. Her resulting investigation leads to the shocking realisation that they’re being kidnapped into a life of sexual slavery, and it looks like she’s going to have to make a bold and very dangerous choice in order to effect a rescue … as always, Law simply OWNS the screen, powering the story along with equal parts guarded bravado and well-hidden wounded vulnerability, and she’s ably supported by the likes of Keith Powers (Straight Outta Compton) as Mouse’s best friend Ugly, the club’s unassuming but VERY capable bouncer, the great Famke Janssen as Mama, the club’s owner and Mouse’s laconic mother figure, and Jogia himself as her ex-boyfriend, local drug-dealing hood Mooney. The plot twists and turns with suitably pulpy skill while Mouse’s comic book bleeds into the narrative through striking imagery and quirky little animated episodes, while the film tackles big, dark themes with an unflinching eye and refuses to deliver easy answers, particularly in the cathartic but suitably JET BLACK ending. This is a hell of a debut for a promising new filmmaking talent, then, and I’d LOVE to spend some more time with Mouse herself if Jogia and Law are willing …

22. SHAZAM: FURY OF THE GODS – it’s interesting that, at least on here, the DC Cinematic Universe (AKA the DCEU) has managed to stand up so well this past year, especially given the recent MAJOR upheavals that have rocked the franchise as a whole. Not least because said Universe is essentially about to get hit with a Hard Reset under the guidance of new DC Studios CEO James Gunn, so none of this even MATTERS any more going forward … certainly this fact has NOT been lost on cinemagoers, who were already starting to pull away when Black Adam came out in late 2022 and subsequently seemed content to STAY away IN DROVES for this one, likely waiting to give it a go in the privacy and safety of their own homes once it hit streaming. In a way this sounded a pre-emptive death knell for the DCEU which I was genuinely sceptical about it recovering from … which is a shame, because 2019’s Shazam! was one of the franchise’s BEST FEATURES, a gleefully anarchic post-modern deconstruction of the overblown superhero antics the franchise largely glorified before while never taking itself particularly seriously but simply playing itself with just the right amount of knowing wink-and-nod. Even more of a shame, then, that this follow-up has proven to be SUCH a performance TURKEY, because it’s JUST AS GOOD as the first one, taking all the lessons learned from the first movie to heart and delivering more of everything that really WORKED once again while trying something new and fresh to expand on this little corner of the Universe with impressive aplomb and consummate skill.

Returning director David F. Sandberg (Lights Out) once again delivers in HIGH STYLE and customary spooky flair as he and returning screenwriter Henry Gayden (Earth To Echo, There’s Someone In Your House), along with Fast & Furious franchise lynchpin scribe Chris Morgan, expand on the adventures of coming-of-age young hero Billy Batson (Andi Mack’s Asher Angel) and his (still unnamed) superpowered alter ego (Zachary Levi), alongside his now similarly gifted teenaged foster siblings, as the Daughters of Atlas – Hespera (Helen Mirren), Kalypso (Lucy Liu) and Anthea (Rachel Zegler), a trio of immensely powerful but (somewhat) morally dubious classical Greek goddesses – come to claim their powers for their own in order to rejuvenate the Tree of Life and punish Mankind for its wickedness. The usual existential high stakes, then. Angel and Levi are, once again, ON FIRE here, the former star of Chuck in particular once again proving what an undisputable comedic MASTER he is while they both deliver MAGNIFICENTLY in the dramatic moments too, while their returning co-stars and sterling veteran support are once again just as great as before, It’s Jack Dylan Grazer particularly getting to really SHINE this time round in a particularly WEIGHTY role that nonetheless once again manages to utilise his own impressive comedic talents to full effect too, while it’s also GREAT to see This Is Us’ Faith Herman get a much more expanded role this time round as the irrepressible Darla; Djimon Hounsou, meanwhile, also gets a lot more to do as he returns as the enjoyably crabby and pompous Wizard Shazam, who’s none too happy with Billy for breaking the staff last time round and setting this all off in the first place. The Daughters, meanwhile, are FANTASTIC antagonists, Liu and Mirren clearly enjoying the opportunity to be flamboyant, majestic and over-the-top in proper Shakespearean

style, while Zegler invests “Anne” with a good deal more moral fibre and complexity as the most sympathetic (and ultimately conflicted) of the trio. Sandberg and co again deliver IN SPADES on the action, atmospherics, gorgeously exotic design and sheer creativity which made the first movie such an unexpected treat, while also delivering more of that winning, sometimes downright SCREWBALL BONKERS humour to keep it entertaining and let you know that, just like its predecessor, this film knows FULL WELL how ridiculous it is and is fully prepared to just OWN IT. The end result is, ultimately, one of the best of the closing slate of DCEU films, which just makes it even sadder to think that they probably won’t continue the story once the franchise reboots.

21. GODZILLA MINUS ONE – as much as I LOVE the new efforts of Warner Bros’ impressively robust Monsterverse Expanded Universe to bring the greatest big screen kaiju of them all to life, I am not even REMOTELY surprised that it took a Japanese writer-director to truly get right down to the heart of the character with what feels like the truest, most respectful and, quite simply, VERY BEST big screen reworking of the classic original to date. Mostly I just count myself lucky I was able to find a showing at my local cinema that I could actually get to – this is definitely one of those features that really does DESERVE to be seen on the BIG screen. Writer-director Takashi Yamazaki certainly has an impressive track record, having helmed the likes of Space Battleship Yamato, The Great War of Archimedes and Lupin III: The First, but even so, this came somewhat out of the blue to not only become a MASSIVE, runaway hit in Japan but also in foreign markets, particularly blowing away western audiences who are universally praising it as one of THE greatest movies of this decade so far. All right … from a purely critical point of view, I may not quite think THAT about this, but this IS an EXTREMELY GOOD FILM, Yamazaki guiding an impressively game cast and clearly deeply committed crew to create a work of rare emotional power and uplifting intensity that tells a breathless tale of the unbreakable power of the human spirit even in the face of HORRIFIC cataclysmic events … a theme which has, of course, remained close to the hearts of the Japanese ever since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which famously directly informed Ishiro Honda’s beloved original. This time round, Godzilla is a pure, monstrous and thoroughly TERRIFYING force of nature throughout the film, a devastating and unstoppable mutated aberration created by the fallout of America’s H-bombs, which is unleashing unfathomable chaos across post-World War II Japan, leading a band of desperate civilians to take matters into their own hands and attempt a desperate stand to stop the horror before all is lost. Ryunosuke Kamiki (probably best known for his years of work as one of Studio Ghibli’s key voice actors) proves a compellingly fallible hero as deeply traumatised failed kamikaze pilot Koichi Shikishima, who finds himself battling internal demons even worse than the monster he’s up against in the real world, ably supported by Minami Hanabe (The Great War of Archimedes) as Noriko, the spirited young adoptive mother that Koichi takes in after returning from the war and forms a tight bond with, Hidetaka Yoshiaki (Always: Sunset On Third Street) as Professor Kenji Noda, the former Naval weapons engineer who becomes Koichi’s mentor, and Munetaka Aoki (Rurouni Kenshin) as Sosaku Tachibana, a former Naval fighter mechanic suffering from his own deep-seated traumas after the War. This is an interesting departure from the classic Kaiju cinema recipe, because while the Big G is definitely a powerful and potent threat that casts a very BIG shadow over events here, Minus One is ultimately less of a monster movie than a movie with a monster IN IT, Yamazaki preferring to focus on the human story and concentrate our attention on the horrors these people have to endure at the unfathomably massive claws of this terrible creature, certainly physical but predominantly mental and emotional. That’s not to say it ain’t suitably potent in the action stakes, EASILY delivering some suitably THRILLING set-pieces while the creature himself and the chaos he unleashes is portrayed with impressively executed visual effects flair … it’s just that, ultimately, this is a film which is much more of a triumph of GREAT WRITING, peerless direction and awards-worthy performances from an astonishing cast. In other words, it’s just a really GREAT FILM, period. Which makes this something TRULY SPECIAL after all, I guess …

#2023 in movies #sick #sick movie #how to blow up a pipeline #cocaine bear #the flash #the equalizer 3 #ant man and the wasp quantumania #the pale blue eye #door mouse #door mouse movie #shazam fury of the gods #godzilla minus one

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