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Ruk's Top 88 Movies of 2018

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Well, it's been nearly a month now and I feel like I've seen as many 2018 movies as I'm going to, so I might as well get started on this. And to start things off on a positive note... Boy, 2018 sucked, didn't it?

 

Seriously, I know at this point it's more a cliche to say it than anything else, especially since I said the exact same thing for the last two years as well, but that doesn't stop it from feeling true. This year was a rough one. Even ignoring the slow-motion trainwreck that is the UK's Brexit negotiations and Trump just being Trump, I've personally been dealing with some pretty hefty personal anxiety-related issues, (which hit especially bad towards the tail end of the year), a lot of which I still haven't fully shaken.

 

Still, it's not been all bad. I managed to get my Masters Degree, finally got a decent writing schedule together, finished the first draft of a book (even if editing it is still currently going nowhere) and even started up my own author's website. I mean, sure, currently it's a website that's lucky if it gets more than single digit views a week, but hey, gotta start somewhere, right? I also watched a lot of movies in 2018. Like, a lot. 88, to be precise, in case you didn't notice the title. Hence why we're all here.

 

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Yup. All that teeming attentive online audience...

 

See, in case you're new to this, when it comes to the typical end-of-year 'Best Movies' list, I like to do something a little different from the norm. Specifically, rather than just pick a handful of best and worst movies, I instead prefer to rank every movie I saw this year and write up some thoughts on each and every one of them. There are a multitude of reasons for this. It lets me talk about some of the 'middle-of-the-pack' movies that I want to comment on, it lets me highlight some obscure films that other people might be interested, it gives me something different to do than just a generic 'Top' list, whatever the reason it's just something I enjoy doing.

 

And boy, this year was an... interesting one for films, I'd say?

 

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how I'd rank it quality wise. My top picks for the year didn't really initially excite me as much my top picks for last year, admittedly, but I also saw significantly less in the way of bad films than in the last couple of years. Point in fact, I'm still uncertain if my worst movie of this year would make my bottom ten worst of last year (although it's still pretty dire). But whether that's actually because there have been less bad movies or because I've just grown better at avoiding them, I can't tell. Once again, it was another banner year for the superhero genre (don't worry, I'm sure superhero fatigue will set in aaaaaany second now) and I found plenty of interesting animated movies to enjoy, both domestic and foreign. Horror movies made another great showing and there were a surprisingly large number of high profile-ish movies with hefty racial themes that I enjoyed as well. And one not so much. 

 

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I'm not going to name names here, but let's just say it rhymes with 'Breen Brook'.

 

Still, I'm not here to make vagueish and inaccurate generalizations about the year's trends in movies, I'm here to talk about the movies I saw. And I will say I've definitely got a nice mix of movies in here. Some mainstream, some obscure, a lot in the way of animation and horror (as usual), a handful of foreign movies here and there, some blockbusters, some action, admittedly not much drama (not really my thing) but enough to make for an interesting mix. I'll admit, I did end up skipping a lot of the big popular dramas, since they're rarely my thing, so there might be a fair few high profile movies left off the list entirely. For example, I never watched A Star is Born or Roma and don't really intend to because they're not really my thing. On a more positive note, there's probably not going to be as much in the way of controversial rankings compared to last year (where I came out thoroughly 'eh' on the subject of Dunkirk, Blade Runner 2049 and Logan), but it wouldn't be a Ruk list without some controversial opinions here and there. (#45 in particular should get some interesting reactions.)

 

Still, as mentioned, I saw 88 movies this year. And that's quite a lot. Which means I should probably get on with this, shouldn't I? And as much of a forum cliche as it is to use this gif, there's no better way to start this off than by saying....

 

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P.S. Because release dates and festivals are kind of a screwy thing, there are a number of movies that, while technically counting as 2018 films, I actually saw in 2017 and put them on last year's list to match. So the following are not going to be making an appearance. But, for fun, here's where I probably would've ranked them had they made this year's list.

Spoiler


 

 

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88. Slender Man

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You know, from a certain point of view, I’m actually kind of grateful for this movie. Not for anything specific it did, mind, or any greater effect in had on the wider filmmaking world or internet culture, no no. On the contrary, I’m grateful for it because for much of the year thus far it looked like 'A Wrinkle in Time' was going to be my bottom film of 2018. And, as much as I disliked that film, it really didn’t feel like a good fit for the absolute worst movie I saw in 2018, if only because it felt like actual genuine (if misguided) effort was put into it. What I really wanted for the bottom of this list was a nice cynical lazy garbage fire with little-to-no redeeming features that I could just pound on without a hint of guilt.

 

Cue Slender-Man. Easily my least favourite movie of 2018.

 

Now, before I start talking about this film, I should quickly emphasise, I actually don’t mind the idea of a movie about Slender-Man. I know a lot of people have been talking about it as an example of ‘Hollywood scraping the bottom of the barrel again’, but there are a lot of genuinely interesting points to the mythos that could make for an interesting story, whether you take it at face value or attempt a more ambitious exploration about the nature of memetic folklore, akin to something like the original 90's Candyman. Call it heresy if you want but I feel like you could’ve gotten a genuinely good movie out of the material.

 

This was not that movie. This was not even close to being that movie.

 

Honestly, what annoyed me the most about this film was just how lazy it all feels. There’s almost nothing original or imaginative or at all like anyone had put in any worthwhile effort in the entire movie. The characters are either annoying or flat, the scares are predictable and uninteresting (when you can actually make them out in the near-constant darkness), the pacing is bizarre, the plot makes no sense and even Slender-Man himself feels like he could be taken out and replaced by any generic horror movie monster/demon. Heck, he might as well be, since you can barely friggin see him half the time with how poorly the movie is lit.

 

Hell, even the psychedelic freakouts (the main source of horror since Slender-Man barely feels like he’s in the movie much of the time) feel lazy and uninteresting. There’s no real artistry or talent to it, it just ends feels like an amateur film student playing with background filters and animations on his editing software. It’s clearly aiming to be trippy and uncomfortable, but most of the times comes off as people shaking their heads blurrily while scary noises blare at the screen. I think it says something that the most emotional reaction the scares got out of me wasn't horror but was instead an irritated ‘Really? That’s what you’re going for for your big scary freakout? Really?!

 

In fact, from how little we see of Slenderman and from the way the movie plays out, I’m almost 90% certain this was just some cheap demon possession movie script that got Slender-Man half-heartedly thrown in last minute to cash in on the brand name. The first introduction we get to the character and his mythos is almost literally a character just reading from what feels like his wikipedia page. Not to mention the dozens of little doodles that feel less terrifying and more like they raided the internet for fanart they could legally use without permission. And as amusing as that all sounds, it's really not. Because the movie doesn't even have the decency to be the interesting kind of bad. It's just bad and boring and lifeless. 

 

So yeah, to sum up, this movie is garbage. It’s too lazy and stupid to work as a proper horror movie and too boring and uninteresting to work as an entertainingly bad movie. It’s just bad. That’s all there is to it. Fortunately, it’s only uphill from here! Albeit veeery slowly…

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87. A Wrinkle in Time

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Man, this movie was disappointing. I’ve never read the original book that this was based on, but the trailers and premise both looked appealing and I’m a big fan of the director, Ava DeVernay’s previous work and was definitely interested in seeing how she’d handle a big budget effects driven blockbuster.

 

Unfortunately, the answer to that appears to be ‘not very well’.

 

Seriously, this movie was a frustratingly confusing mess. Like I said, I’ve never read the original source material this was based on, but I had no idea what was going on half the time and not in a fun way. The pacing was bizarre, the writing was confused and the movie constantly either took way too long to explain something or just didn’t explain properly it at all. I get the impression that the movie was going for magical and twee, akin to something like the first Harry Potter movie, but just ended up just being really really annoying because it never really explained anything and the main character used to deliver this tweeness, Charles Wallace was… well… really really obnoxious. No offense to the child actor or anything, but the line between ‘precocious’ and ‘irritating as fuck’ is a very thin one and the character jumped pretty heftily into the latter.

 

It’s especially annoying because there is a fair amount of reason to like this movie, in theory. The main actress actually does a really good job with what she’s been given, a lot of the effects are nice and, unlike most lousy blockbusters, it genuinely does feel like effort and passion was put into this. But in a lot of ways, that almost made it worse. With a lazy poorly-made blockbuster, I can just switch off my brain and endure the boredom. But this movie felt like it was trying, which made me kept trying to engage with it, which made it all the more frustrating when it just gave me nothing in return.

 

Like I said in my Slender-Man review, I am rather glad that I didn’t have to put this at the very bottom of the list after all, because I don't really feel like it deserves it. It's not lazy or cynical or hateful and it did feel like most of the people involved in this were trying. But, like I said before, the fact that I actually had some level of expectation for it only really made it worse. Because it’s just plain not a good movie and, even though there are arguably worse movies still to come on the list, it’s hard to say that any of them disappointed me as much as this did.

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86. Gotham by Gaslight

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Hey, remember when DC Animated movies used to actually be really good? Like really good? Good enough that I’d call more than a few on par with some of the better live-action superhero movies? Even to this day I’m a huge fan of the likes of Under the Red Hood, Superman vs the Elite, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights and the Flashpoint Paradox. But ever since Flashpoint and the whole Nu-52 esque rebooting of that universe… Well… they’ve all kinda turned to shit.

 

Point in question? Gotham by Gaslight. A film that watched the really shitty prologue from the Killing Joke animated movie and thought ‘Hey, I bet we can handle gender issues even worse than that movie!’

 

I mean seriously, this movie has the triage of sins of being boring, stiff and actively unpleasant at certain points, especially when it comes to treatment of female characters. Don’t get me wrong, I get it, it’s Batman vs Jack the Ripper, a guy infamous for murdering prostitutes, so I’m not exactly expecting it to be a masterpiece of feminism. But even then, the movie just leaves a bad taste in my mouth with its treatment of women in this film. By and large they’re all barely developed victims, minus Selena who gets maybe a few minutes of competence before becoming an object of lust and a damsel.

 

And again, that's not always necessarily a bad thing... well, okay, it's not always necessarily a movie-ruining thing, but it's particularly bad here because, beneath the surface, it kinda feels like the movie is trying to make some kind of theme or point about female suffering. Things like domestic violence, prostitution, exploitation and male entitlement are all touched upon and the main villain’s whole motivation ultimately ends up being an almost cartoonish hatred of women. But the problem is that the movie never really follows through on it or provides any kind of a conclusion or feels like it has anything actually worthwhile to say on these subjects and, as a result, just comes across as a bunch of unpleasant acts towards women. The main villain particular comes off as almost cartoonish in his misogyny and feels like an attempt to be ‘adult’ and ‘mature’ but comes off as just ridiculous, edgy and immature instead, like he’s a caricature or something. It’s mean-spirited and just plain unpleasant to watch.

 

Plus, it’s also really kinda boring? The idea of a steampunk Batman set in Victorian times is an interesting one, but the story and the writing is just kinda bland and it really doesn’t feel like they do enough with the idea. The only interesting and memorable part of it to me was the three Robins as street urchins working for Batman. That much was kinda neat. The rest is just dull and forgettable.

 

I don’t know if I’d call this the worst DC animated movie and, as far as I’m concerned, it still doesn’t quite reach that same level of ‘What the hell were you thinking?’ as the prologue in the Killing Joke movie, but this was pretty dire and awful to watch to boot. I don’t know how or why DC’s animated movie division lost its way so, but I hope they manage to get their groove back. Because isn’t going to be the last DCAU movie to place fairly low on this list...

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85. Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion I- Initiation

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I seriously cannot believe this got an actual fucking theatrical release near me, even if it was a one-night only screening. Because this was seriously one of the laziest piece-of-shit excuses for a recap movie that I’ve seen in a while.

 

Basically, for those unfamiliar, Code Geass was originally an anime series about an alternate world where Japan is invaded by the Britannian Empire, a world-spanning empire with giant mechs. The original TV series ran for about 52 episodes and was fairly interesting, if flawed in places. This, on the other hand, is an anthology movie replaying the first half/third or so of the first season, with a handful of new scenes to go with it. Now, when I heard about that, I had naturally assumed that they would’ve done at least a little bit of a touch-up, quality-wise, to make this look more worthy of a theatrical release rather than just openly re-using the animation from the TV show.

 

In hindsight, this was incredibly naive of me.

 

Seriously, this movie is basically just the TV show poorly edited into a 2 hour movie. And I don't mean in an 'every shot is identical sort of way', I mean literally I'm about 90% certain they just took the actual low-quality tv footage, clumsily recut it to fit the runtime and called it a day. Ignoring the fact that said cut was cut in a way that destroys the pacing, butchers several important plot threads and all around just looks kinda shitty and of poor TV quality on the big screen. Even the new scenes were fairly disappointing and didn’t add much to the story being told. It’s the sort of movie that made me genuinely question what the hell the point of making it even was. It doesn’t add nearly enough new things for old viewers and new viewers are going to be confused or bored by the nonsensical pacing. It’s just bad and this is coming from someone who actually enjoyed the show when he was young.

 

Needless to say, when/if the next anthology movie hits UK cinemas, I am going to be giving a miss.... Probably. (I have poor impulse control.)

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84. Teen Titans Go to the Movies

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Okay, this one is probably going to be a bit controversial because I know a lot of people out there who really genuinely enjoyed this movie and thought it was great fun. And, to be fair, it’s not like I don’t see why. There’s a lot of great and inventive ideas and jokes about the superhero movie industry and it’s practically jammed full of great blink-and-you’ll-miss-it background easter eggs and gags. So I can entirely understand why other people enjoyed it so. For me, however, I just felt like my personal sense of humour just didn’t quite gel with this movie’s style.

 

Which is basically my polite way of saying I found this movie insufferably annoying.

 

I mean, Christ Almighty, this movie would not shut the fuck up for a single second. It was almost painfully ear-grating in its sheer constant obnoxiousness, like the worst depths of annoying memes and youtube videos being scraped out of the bottom of the barrel and pasted all over the screen. The main characters were the most fucking insufferable shits that I have ever been asked to ‘sympathise’ with and, while I’m no stranger to the idea of a comedically sociopathic protagonist, I would at least like said protagonists to actually be funny.

 

Because the fact of the matter is, I didn’t find anything the actual main story/characters did to be funny. Even shit that entirely should be funny to my personal sense of humour just came off as grating and annoying in the delivery. Going back in time to rewrite various superhero backstories so said heroes wouldn’t exist all so they can get a movie? Hilarious. Do said joke by having an annoying overly long rave party bit on Krypton? Not so much. Even jokes that I thought were hilarious in the trailers ended up feeling unfunny and annoying in the actual movie.

 

Now, I’ll admit I’ve never actually watched the original Teen Titan series or Teen Titans Go, but I was honestly going into this movie expecting to enjoy it. I loved the trailers and the advertising material and the little touches like casting Nicholas Cage as Superman. Hell, I love the very concept idea. A group of fuck-up idiot heroes trying to take down a genuinely capable villain so they can get their own superhero movie because literally everyone seems to have one these days? That’s great. You could get tons of potential comedy from that. But it's all farted away into the wind here with nothing but loud noises and flashy lights.

 

It’s especially galling because you know what is funny about this movie? All the background shit! All the little easter eggs and humorous jokes and signs and background details that got more a few decent laughs from me. I never thought I’d say this about any movie ever, but TTG is a comedy where the background is genuinely funnier than the foreground. More or less the sole reason that this didn’t outright make the bottom of this list is because the background artists and writers are apparently genuinely funny people.

 

Still, I will admit that humour is definitely to some level subjective. And the fact that so many people clearly really liked this movie meant that obviously it definitely hit some of the right chords with them. But I really just couldn’t with this movie. It’s nothing but loud annoying noise, akin to someone jingling keys in your face for an hour, while someone else shrieks in your ear. Sorry TTG fans, but this just was not for me.

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83. Bad Times at the El Royale

 

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Yeah yeah, make your own ‘Bad Times at ‘Bad Times at the El Royale’’ joke here.

 

Seriously though, I legitimately don’t know why this movie rubbed me off the wrong way so much. I really like Drew Goddard’s work, the trailers made it look appealing and I thought this Hateful Eight-esque story of strangers stuck together in a sleazy old hotel genuinely seemed like an interesting idea. And indeed, initially, for the first 20 minutes or so I actually was enjoying myself. The characters and set-up all seemed interesting and I was interested to see where they’d go with it. Yet, by the end of it, I was literally all but begging for this movie to just fucking finish already.

 

If I had to pick exactly what it was that really got on my nerves about this movie, aside from the unnecessarily long length and meandering story, it’s probably that it clearly thinks it’s smarter and more meaningful than it actually is. So many times it feels like the movie all but stops dead in its track so we can go off onto some side story or so some character can give an emotional dramatic oscar bait speech or so we can have another fucking singing number from Cynthia Erivo, who plays the lounge singer Darleene Sweet. And that probably sounds a bit harsh on Cynthia Erivo, she’s a perfectly fine singer, but the movie actively screeches to a halt every time she has to get a song out and they all without exception end up lasting way too long. Fuck, there was a coolass scene involving Jon Hamm exploring the secret spy passages behind the hotel rooms that ends up taking an enormous interlude so she can get a musical number out, which killed like 90% of the pacing and tension in the scene for me.

 

Funnily enough, the thing about this movie is that it’s a Tarantino-esque movie that really feels like it could’ve done with being more Tarantino-esque. More humour or action, more liveliness and sharpness to the pacing and, most of all, more style really would’ve helped this movie feel more than the tiresome slodge it was. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the moment Jon Hamm (who plays the most Tarantino-esque character in the film) dies is the moment the movie starts going downhill.

 

Still, the actors give decent performances and, like I said, I genuinely was engaged with this movie for the first 20-30 minutes or so. But ultimately I just found this movie far too overlong, drawn-out and boring to really enjoy. A Tarantino movie without the things that make said films interesting.

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82. Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel Part 1- presage flower (~this movie has too many subtitles~)

 

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Boy, there sure seem to be a lot of animated films at the bottom of my list this year, don’t there? This is what, the fourth? And it’s not even the last to make the bottom ten. Plus I never even bothered watching Sherlock Gnomes or the Grinch, so they're not going to be making the list at all.

 

To get back on subject though, for those unaware, Fate Stay Night is a fairly popular franchise/waifu simulator in Japan about famous mythological figures being summoned by wizards to fight and kill each other to claim the Holy Grail. Originally starting as a visual novel, it has since gotten sequels(ish), a fantastic prequel series (Fate/Zero), comedic spinoffs, alternate universe stories, video games, numerous anime series (I count at least 6 offhand, 7 if you count Carnival Phantasm) and much much more. All fairly impressive for a series about making King Arthur your waifu.

 

Speaking of anime though, the series got new interest a few years ago when animation studio Ufotable decided to adapt the Unlimited Blade Works path of the original light novel and made it look fucking amazing in the process. Say whatever you want about the actual story, there are legit criticisms to be had, but the fights were almost univerally top notch and looked outstanding. So when I heard that the same studio, Ufotable, was going to adapt the third path of the light novel and cover it through three movies I was naturally kinda hyped.

 

Turns out I really shouldn’t have been. Because as film adaptations go, this is less Lord of the Rings and more ‘The Hobbit’.

 

I mean Jesus, everything feels almost ridiiiiculously drawn out in this movie. I’ll confess to never actually have read/played the original visual novel (although I picked up a lot of the plot beats via osmosis), but I struggle to think that it was this dull. I barely even remember what happened in half of it aside from two of the mains making googly eyes at each other and a lot of emphasis on archery.

 

Now, on the positive side, I will say that are quite a few things in this movie to compliment. Ufotable’s animation is gorgeous, the villains have great designs and looks and, like Unlimited Blade Works, the fights in this movie were genuinely really good. It’s just a shame that it barely feels like there are any in there. Seriously, there’s maybe what, 2 or 3 battles of any actual note (which look great) and 90% drawn out boring lifeless ‘drama’ between the two mains? Seriously Ufotable, I get that battles probably cost more budget-wise, but you could’ve sped up the pacing a little more and maybe added a few more serious confrontations in there, right?

 

Seriously though, this was a disappointment and not a great start to what was a fairly anticipated trilogy to me. Hopefully the pace will pick up some more in the second film, which looks like to have a lot more meat to it, but as beginnings go, this really wasn’t great.

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81. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

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If you followed my 2016 Year’s End list, you’ll know that I wasn’t particular fond of the first Fantastic Beasts movie. To me, it felt like two entirely different movies haphazardly together, each with differing tones, main characters, styles and so on. It was two plots that didn’t fit together and never felt like part of the same story.

 

Well, in some ways, Crimes of Grindelwald arguably does the exact opposite to the first Fantastic Beasts. In that it simultaneously has zero plot and fucking too much plot. I mean seriously, let’s count the plot threads here (which I've put in spoiler brackets because... well... they're pretty spoilerish.

 

Spoiler


  • Newt being forced to pick a side
  • Newt looking for Credence
  • Newt looking for and apparently having a thing for Tina.
  • Newt being banned from international travel
  • Newt previously having a thing for Leta and dealing with emotions surrounding that
  • Newt having a difficult relationship with his newly introduced brother
  • Jacob trying to find and make up with Queenie
  • Queenie wanting to get Jacob to marry her
  • Queenie apparently being seduced to the dark side by Grindelwald
  • Tina investigating Credence
  • Tina investigating Yusuf in an attempt to find Credence
  • Credence searching for his real parents and/or why he was abandoned
  • The Ministry attempting to find and kill Credence (with that one asshole turncoat auror who kills the nanny and then disappears entirely from the movie halfway through.)
  • Yusuf attempting to find and kill Credence
  • Everyone trying to find out if Credence is actually Corvus Lestrange
  • Grindelwald attempting to seduce Credence to the dark side
  • Grindelwald working to establish his power base
  • Grindelwald setting up a big meeting of his followers
  • Theseus and the ministry attempting to find and ambush this big meeting
  • Leta getting married to Theseus
  • Leta dealing with her backstory and dead brother
  • Dumbledore trying to work against Grindelwald
  • Dumbledore being investigated by the ministry
  • Nagini... exists?
  • Nicholas Flamel... also exists?
  • That one assistant of Newt's who appeared in one scene and initially seemed like she'd be important but never appears again... also also exists?
  • Oh, and I think there are supposed to be some Fantastic Beasts around the place as well.

 

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I mean Jesus, fucking Infinity War didn't have that much going on and that had almost 20 movies leading up to it. This had one movie leading up to it. Of questionable quality. And, as mentioned, almost none of these subplots actually get time to be properly developed. Several characters feel like they're barely in the movie most of the time (including Queenie and arguably Grindelwald), several feel like they could be removed outright with no problems (Nagini, Nicholas Flamel, (hell, minus the stuff in the finale, arguably Grindelwald again)), we barely get any convincing insight into most character's motivations, there are obvious editing problems here and there from stuff that was presumably cut or changed and overall the entire thing is a goddamn mess.

 

Hell, I probably couldn't even tell you what the main plot of the movie was, there was so much mess. The trailers make it sound like it's about stopping Grindelwald, but Newt barely interacts with him or his minions or anything even remotely resembling him for most of the movie. Newt's primary motivation for most of the film is finding Tina and then finding Credence and then he stumbles almost accidentally into Grindelwald's big meeting towards the end. I suppose it could arguably be about finding Credence, but he also feels like he's barely in the movie enough for that and he and Newt have only shared about 5 minutes of screentime together in this entire franchise.

 

If you personally enjoyed the movie, cool, more power to you. I just thought it was a huge mess from a spinoff franchise that has been nothing but confused and disappointing.

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Aaaand I'm back. On with the list.

80.  Batman Ninja

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You know, I’ve really got to wonder about this movie. You’ve got a story about Batman and his entire mythos, rogues and sidekicks and all transplanted into feudal Japan, complete with armies and shogunates and ninjas and samurais and even entire fucking feudal castles transforming into giant mechas to fight each other (y'know, like real Feudal Japan). Plus you’ve got some genuinely gorgeous animation to go with it and some great heavily-detailed character designs.

 

So with all that in mind, what I’ve really got to ask is how the hell do you make it all so painfully, mindcrushingly booooring!

 

Seriously, this movie is just plain uninteresting. None of the characters feel like they have any actual... well, character to them and exist mostly to spout off exposition and the most generically flat hero/villain 'banter' possible. Their interaction and adaptation to the Feudal setting is mostly surface level at best and is largely boiled down to giant mech fights. Which really isn't as interesting as you'd think it would be.

 

And honestly, it's that absolute lack of character and flair to anything outside the character designs that really ends up dragging the film down. There's no interest in seeing Batman interact with this Feudal setting because this Batman has no real character to speak of. There's no interest in seeing him try to survive these deadly battles, because he's so flat that you don't care what happens to him and because the battles are so bland to begin with.

 

Honestly, it's almost surreal how much stuff is in this movie that I really theoretically should like, but don't because it's so bland. Giant mechs, warring armies, Batman & co in Feudal Japan, Batman and Joker having a samurai/ninja battle. But it's all done in the most boring way possible that makes you almost immediately lose interest. Well, okay, aside from one moment where Batman gets his own mech that was so out-there ridiculous I'm still not entirely sure it wasn't a fever dream.

 

In conclusion, while I ultimately ended up ranking Gotham by Gaslight lower than this, because I found it personally kind of unpleasant, I do actually think this is an objectively worse film. It takes so many cool ideas and designs and does the barest of minimums with them. I'll admit there wasn't really anything about that I actively despised, like much of the lower films on this list  but that's only because there's too little to really feel any kind of emotion towards. Really disappointing for a movie that received so much hype.

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79. The Nun

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God damn, this movie was such a waste of a great setting. A creepy monastery surrounded by crosses and populated by perpetually silent nuns, one of whom might be a demon? That's a great place to set a horror movie and has a lot of potential for some really tense and creepy stuff. It was a great premise, the monastery looked nice and haunted and for the first third or so I was actually genuinely fairly engaged by the atmosphere provided.

 

Which is why it’s such a disappointment that the rest of the movie resorted mostly to scary Valak faces and loud 'oogedy-boogedy' noises for its runtime.

 

Seriously, this movie actively annoys me with how dull and boring the back half of it was. I wasn't amazingly fond of the Valak climax in the Conjuring 2 and this felt like it took them problems of that and multiplied them by a hundred. There's no slow dread or tension or inventive scares, just a load of wind and dark and Valak making scary noises (albeit 'scary' in the same way that Slender-Man was 'scary'.)

 

It's especially annoying in regards to this film, because every so often I could see moments genuine potential poking through. I already mentioned how the great the setting is, but there are a bunch of genuinely great little scenes and ideas that are just crushed under the tide of uber generic horror monster ‘scariness’ that would make the Haunting remake look embarrassed. For example there’s a great tense little scene where the main character attempts with a bunch of nuns to desperately drive a slowly approaching Valak away by praying which was great and really had a lot of potential. But then everything else about the movie and the finale is just generic, boring and forgettable noise without a lick of genuine tension or actual horror to be found.

 

Really, this movie feels like the sort of project where people went into it bright and happy and filled with ideas and then a third of the way through just got bored and hastily slapped the rest together. And it’s disappointing to see such a fantastic setting and premise go to waste like that. Still, at least we got one vastly superior entry in the Conjuring cinematic universe this year.

 

(What's that? Aquaman doesn't count as a Conjuring movie? Are you sure? It has fish people fucking. I'm pretty sure that's a Lovecraftian thing, right? Fine, whatever.)

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77. Skyscraper

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Hey everyone, it’s Die Hard on a slightly bigger Skyscraper! Just, y'know, without the humour, excellent action, excellent villain, genuine tension, hardship, likeable protagonist (arguably, it is the Rock, after all) and stakes we give a damn about! But hey, the Skyscraper is taller, right?

 

Honest to god though, I barely remember a single fucking thing about this movie. It’s probably the most forgettable action movie I’ve seen all year. The only real thing I remember about it is the one skyscraper leap and that was probably because it was in all the posters and trailers. Dwayne Johnson tries his best, but the writing and the direction and the action is just so uninspired and forgettable that it’s difficult to rank it all that high.

 

Still, I’ll admit I don't recall disliking it all that much, it more-or-less does what it says on the tin. But, as far as these kinds of action movies go, there are plenty better you can find elsewhere. Or just watch Die Hard again.

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I remember Batman: Ninja feeling extremely drawn out and kinda confusing at times. Oh well, at least it looked pretty.

 

And if that Grindlewald list is correct... woof. You could fill a whole 2 1/2 hours with just a third of those plotlines.

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76. Mom and Dad

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You know, this movie reminds me a lot of the first Purge movie. Or at least, it reminded me of the general reception that I kept hearing about it when it originally came out, (since I never saw the movie myself.) Specifically, the fact that this movie has an absolutely fantastic premise (in this case a mysterious signal that makes all parents who hear it want to murder their own children), but rather than take full advantage of the potential craziness that could result, the movie instead narrows its focus way too much and turns what could be something awesome into what feels more like a generic home invasion-esque movie.

 

Now sure, that probably does sound a little harsh but really this was kind of a disappointing movie to me. There’s a lot of genuinely potential you could’ve gotten out of the premise but most of the time, the movie just sticks to this one mostly generic family (and Nic Cage) and their mostly generic struggles and it all ends up feeling far too safe and by-the-book for such an intriguing premise. It’s not terrible, it gets the job done (barely) and there are neat scenes and ideas here and there, but it’s not nearly as good as I feel like it could’ve been.

 

In fact, I’ll even go so far as to add something else onto that. This is probably going to sound somewhat weird, but I feel like this movie would’ve been a lot better if it either took its premise way more seriously… or way less seriously. Because as it is, it currently seems to hold a position of being a little bit of both, attempting to mix some level of realism and drama while also having Nic Cage chew the scenery like a bulldog with rabies. And neither really quite works with one another. As a result the movie ends up feeling too boring to be silly/campy and and too silly to really be dramatic.

 

Fact is, this movie would’ve so much better if it just picked one tone to focus on and stuck with it. Either be a genuinely serious and tense movie about what genuinely could be a very disturbing premise, or go full gonzo black comedy with it and having people punting toddlers into woodchippers and shit, while Nic Cage gibbers in the background. 50/50 ain’t going to cut it.

 

So yeah, TLDR: This movie needed more toddlers in woodchippers. And please don't take that out of context.

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75. Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors

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Good on Marvel for showing that it’s not just DC capable of producing thoroughly 'meh' Direct-to-DVD animated movies this year! (Seriously, why do I even bother watching these anymore...)

 

Honestly, it’s kind of a shame that I was so lukewarm on this movie, because I genuinely do like most of the characters involved. I like Miss Marvel, I like Squirrel Girl, I liked Daisy Johnson when I still watched Agents of SHIELD and the others seemed neat as well. But this entire movie feels more like a subpar animated tv pilot stretched out to feature length (which, to be fair, it kinda is?). And that more or less sums it all up. Subpar writing, meh animation, bland villains, forgettable action, so-so personal conflict, it’s not exactly bad, it's all just kind of... meh.

 

Still, it’s better than Batman Ninja and Gotham by Gaslight, so I guess it’s got that going for it?

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74. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

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Okay, while I'm well aware that any Disney Star Wars mention these days seems to inevitably devolve into squabbling, can I just say how glad I am that Colin Trevorrow is no longer writing/directing Episode IX. Because, while J.A. Bayona was technically the director, the story here has Trevorrow's fingerprints all over it. And needless to say, his writing here is... not good.

 

Now, to be honest, I will confess that I did actually enjoy the first Jurassic World as a guilty pleasure (in spite of its many many flaws), but this movie feels like it picks up many of those problems and makes them even worse. I mean, did anybody really watch the first Jurassic World's whole 'military applications for raptors' thing and think 'Yes, that's the plot thread we want to see developed in the sequel!' A running theme in Trevorrow's writing seems to be that he has ideas, yes, but it doesn't seem to recognise that they're kind of terrible ones and either way doesn't really do much interesting with them. I'd never call Jurassic Park the most grounded of films/franchises, but it tried to have some level of realism to it. This movie has Chris Pratt crawling away from lava and the world's least practical laser-pointer-guided dinosaur that looks almost identical to the Indominus but smaller. Plus there's no flashy T-Rex vs Indominus battle to distract us with this time.

 

It's especially frustrating for me because I really like the director, J.A. Bayona. I've already really loved a lot of his previous films, like The Orphanage and A Monster Calls (my 2nd favourite movie of 2016) and was interested to see what he'd bring to the franchise. And the answer is not much. There are a few greatly directed, tense or emotionally pulling scenes where he gets to shine but otherwise the rest of the film is just too heavily dragged down by the millstone that is Trevorrow's script. I was really hoping for a lot better from him.

 

Still, it's not the worst blockbuster I've seen this year and there were plenty of scenes that I enjoyed on some level. Plus it wasn't really something I was hyped enough about to really feel let down by. But overall, this wasn't really a good film. It had all the flaws of the previous Jurassic World movie and barely any of the strengths to go with. I can't even say I'm at least interesting in where the franchise goes from here because the note in which this movie left off on was just... silly. Ah well, it'll probably all be retconned by Jurassic World 3 anyway.

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73. The Old Man and the Gun

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Whoo! Controversy time! After all, it wouldn’t be one of my lists if I didn’t have at least one highly acclaimed movie near the bottom. At least it’s not a Nolan film this time.

 

Anyway, for those who’ve not heard of this movie, it’s the story of Forrest Tucker, a geriatric old man who went on a bank-robbing spree while in his 70’s. It’s also in large part gotten a lot of attention for potentially being Robert Redford’s last film role (kinda sorta maybe? He was a bit unclear about it in interviews.) And to his credit, he’s perfectly fine in the role. It’s just the rest of the movie that leaves me feeling incredibly underwhelmed.

 

It doesn’t help that the movie is clearly intent on portraying Forrest Tucker as a super great guy in spite of, y’know, all the bank robberies. Almost every character seems to randomly start talking at one point or another about how much of a charming and nice gentleman he is, even when holding tellers at gunpoint, and how he practically seduces Sissy Spacek after one simple coffee conversation because he’s that charming a guy and, y’know, he’s not going all the bank robberies to hurt people, he’s simply doing it for the enjoyment and thrill of the chase and how even the policeman chasing doesn’t hate him and so on. It feels a bit too adulatory for my tastes, especially since I’ve seen most of the same kind of themes handled significantly better elsewhere.

 

Still, I will confess that movie has some good ideas to it. There’s a great little sequence involving Tucker and his gang of elderly robbers managing to quietly rob a bank while Casey Affleck’s policeman character is there, both completely unaware the whole time of the other’s existence. And Robert Redford is kind of a charming son of a bitch. But otherwise, I was just left underwhelmed by the whole thing. The romance is underbaked, the direction needed more energy to it and the script is painfully unsubtle about its themes and ideas.

 

Not the worst final film Robert Redford could’ve starred in, but he’s been a lot better.

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