GregHowley.com

The Movies of 2022

December 16, 2022 -

Although I did watch a good number of films this year, mostly at home on my PC, many of them were forgettable, and many others were less than notable. When I did see a movie I thought I should mention in a blog post, I took down the name. So here they are.

MoonfallKimi - I watched and wrote down the name of this movie early in the year. By the time December rolled around and it was time for me to write things up, I'd basically forgotten about it, so I re-watched to refresh my memory.

Kimi centers around Zoe Kravitz's character, who works from home for an Alexa-like company that makes voice activated home assistants. The pandemic has worsened her anxiety and agoraphobia, and she's become a total lock-in, hesitant to leave the house for anything. On one of the voice assistant recordings she's reviewing, she overhears a murder, and the story goes from there. I liked the film because it's got a smart female protagonist being badass despite the fact that she isn't any kind of superhuman action hero.

Moonfall - Moonfall was agressively and willfully stupid, but I like Patrick Wilson, John Bradley, and Michael Peña, so I enjoyed it.

AmbuLAnce - Another dumb action film. Just when you think it can't get more ridiculous and over-the-top, it does. This was, to me, best exemplified by the scene in which the characters, who are still in a high-speed car chase, start singing along to Christopher Cross's Sailing while fleeing police.

Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Madness - I love Doctor Strange. And I'm not completely against turning Wanda into an antagonist. But the film was just... meh. The least impressive Marvel movie I've seen in recent years.

Firestarter - This remake was as generic as I'd expected. However, it reminded me of Freaks. Freaks was better, or at least more interesting.

Everything Everywhere All At OnceThor: Love and Thunder - It feels as if after Taika Waititi realized that audiences liked the wackiness of Thor: Ragnarok, he doubled down. And while doubling down isn't necessarily what the franchise needed, it was a fun movie. It wasn't as good as Ragnarok, but it had some pretty high joke density.

Prey Another Predator sequel? I went in unenthusiastic and found the movie to be surprisingly good. Plus, it's got a Wilhelm, which always bumps up the quality of a film.

barbarianEverything, Everywhere, All At Once - Outstanding, hilarious, and deeply absurd. I love James Hong, I love Michelle Yeoh, and I loved seeing Ke Huy Quan, whom I'd previously known as Jonathan Ke Quan when he played Short Round in Temple of Doom and Data in The Goonies.

Clerks 3 - For someone like myself who is a fan of the Kevin Smith films, this one was a fun way to revisit the original. And while it's not as groundbreaking as the original Clerks, it's far better than films like Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.

Barbarian - While horror isn't normally my thing, I did watch a few horror movies this October. And Barbarian was my favorite of them, likely because of the film's unpredictability. So many times, it's easy early on in a movie to determine exactly what's going to happen. Not with this one.

Bodies, Bodies, Bodies - A well-done, if teen-focused, whodunnit murder mystery. Someone had commented that it's like the movie version of the video game Among Us, but in some ways, so was Clue.

I'll probably see more before the end of the year, but I'd like to post this before New Years Eve, so I'm calling this my list.