Obnoxious naming of the decade aside, this was tough to trim to only ten (see: honourable mentions) and impossible to then place in any sort of order. So instead here they are, unsorted, with my reasoning for each choice:
Tag: reviews
THE WITCHER s01 (2019)
Takes a bit to come together properly, and in the end mostly establishes itself as a good base for more interesting seasons to come.
Cavill is pitch-perfect as the titular Witcher, the gruff and stoic Geralt of Rivera, and this would have worked well enough as a monster-of-the-week style creature feature show.
Better, then, that there is a whole dense world’s worth of politics and history and intrigue and lore running in parallel to all the magic and monsters, even if the arrangement of the first season sees parallel timelines come across a little jumbled.
If you’re a fan of swords and sorcery this is worth a watch, though be aware that it’s far more unabashedly fantastical than say, GAME OF THRONES is, so your mileage will vary based on your taste there.
Good action, mostly solid effects, brilliantly realised background/landscape artwork.
I liked it, I think it will get much better too. Lots of potential.
WATCHMEN s01 (2019)
Mostly lives up to the impossible task of following on from a legendary piece of graphic fiction.
Takes up in the modern day, following the trajectory of the world that was created after Ozymandias teleported an engineered giant dimensional squid into New York to unite humanity against a perceived common extraterrestrial threat.
Yep, this is a continuation of the comics, not the Zack Snyder film adaptation – because while that is a tonally faithful translation of the incredibly precise graphic novel, there are key mechanical differences that are relevant here that land in spoiler territory.
But even in doing an excellent and clever job of expanding the world, it ultimately only manages to be something of a paler imitation of a superior story that was designed to intentionally be complete in and of itself.
Still, plenty to enjoy. A great modernised take on a classic, well executed social commentary and some good turns. Recommended.
STAR WARS: RISE OF SKYWALKER (2019)
It’s fine.
Certainly not the best STAR WARS film, still not the worst.
Mostly felt like a series of loose ends and by-committee decisions dressed up in some of the most impressive, cool visuals of the whole franchise. The pacing is a mess, especially the first 45min, but eventually it levels out and becomes… fine.
Wastes too much time trying to backtrack over plot points from THE LAST JEDI (a movie which is also just fine, hyberbole aside) and doesn’t flesh out any of the interesting possibilities of The Force which that movie raised.
Adam Driver is great, everyone else does what they can at a breakneck speed through pinballing plot points and inconsequential Macguffins. But hey, it looks mostly fantastic even if everything amounts to a very medium scramble without any real tension or stakes.
People want this to be either amazing or awful and it’s really not either of those. Lucasfilm really should have planned the arc much more, but they did stick the landing even if they fractured an ankle doing so.
THE MANDALORIAN is doing much better, and now that I’m back from vacation I’ll have to get to get back to finishing that one up.
AD ASTRA (2019)
Part CONTACT, part GRAVITY, part 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, part SOLARIS, part INTERSTELLAR… and that’s kind of the problem.
Because for all its ambition to be a Terrance Malick-like space movie it doesn’t have anything to offer that hasn’t already been covered in more arresting fashion elsewhere.
The visuals are great and would have likely been impressive as hell on a big screen, but at the end of it all we’re left with a perfectly mechanical character performance from Brad Pitt that only ever threatens to become transcendent and ultimately doesn’t serve anything especially interesting.
Underwhelming.
I LOST MY BODY (J’ai perdu mon corps) (2019)
Strange, surreal, beautifully animated — a winding, dreamlike and often darkly fatalistic trip.
Worth jumping into blind, it’s up on Netflix now. Highly recommended.
JAY & SILENT BOB REBOOT (2019)
I’ll confess that there’s a lot of me that’s grown past much of the kind of humour particular to this slice of the View Askewniverse, and yet there’s an unassailable honesty and sincerety to everything that Kevin Smith makes and an infectious sort of fun to the rolling roster of celebrity appearances, self-aware jokes and cheap gags that makes it impossible not to get at least a little caught up in his enthusiasm.
Even better then to see it in a packed theatre while he and Jason Mewes regale a crowd of late-night fans at The Rio with tales of the journey that’s taken them from JAY & SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK almost twenty years ago forward into the same universe, with all the people who have grown up in the meanwhile (some forty-plus cameos??) and their now adult children too.
Smith himself claims the title of The Biggest Kevin Smith Fan, but that’s not for love of himself but for absolute joy of what he gets to do as Kevin Smith.
Who else could pull three Batmans into one dumb film and still have room for a last joke with the great Stan Lee?
KNIVES OUT (2019)
An old-school whodunnit with modern sensibilities and an A-Grade cast.
Twin lead performances from Ana de Armas and Daniel Craig are equal parts charming, hilarious and empathetic, anchoring a great ride, makes you wonder why this sort of film seems to have fallen out of vogue for the last… what? 20 years? Whenever THE USUAL SUSPECTS came out.
<a google visit later> (It was 1995).
Clearly, any major discussion is spoilerific, but just know that it’s a smart, well executed mystery full of solid performances, plenty of humour and deftly handled class culture undertones.
I was expecting two or three extra twists come the end, but I’m not going to hold that against it.
Recommended!
SIDE NOTE: I’m going to try and add an illustration to each review to spruce things up around here going forward, the complexity and style of which will probably be utterly random. Enjoy!
THE MANDALORIAN s01 e01/02 (2019)
Only two episodes in and already the best thing to come out of STAR WARS in 20 years.
Has a really vintage feel to it, like older pulp Westerns against a SW universe backdrop and enough balance of practical effects and higher concept space stuff to keep it interesting yet still very grounded.
Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that a certain integral character is the most adorable critter ever and they’re 100% going to sell a billion toys of it.
So far, so good. Very promising.
FORD v FERRARI (2019)
More the story of capable, passionate people being throttled and bullied by idiotic corporate groupthink than the simple “make car go fast” story that the trailers might have let on.
Anchored by two excellent performances from Matt Damon and Christian Bale, director James Mangold (LOGAN/3:10 TO YUMA) wisely keeps the focus on what’s driving <haha> these men towards perfection over explicitly celebrating the sport itself.
For anyone with an interest in motorsports this is a must watch, for anyone else (myself being included on this side of the fence) there’s great character studies and some excellent action to enjoy while you’re fuming at the arrogant bastardry of corporate oversight.
Recommended.
NERVE.SQUID.PILOT 