Worst of 2022 - End of Year Report

2022 was a fine year for film...but some stinkers crept through and gummed up the piping (in fairness, many of them were not actually from last year). Enjoy.

[Click on the titles of the bottom three for links to full reviews]

10. The Gray Man (2022)

The Russo Brothers tried to bring their money-bagging to Netflix and seemed to be doing ok, until the film apparently dropped off a cliff after the first week - though it's very hard to trust the 'box office' returns of streamers. At any rate, this wasn't great, wasting the star wattage of Chris Evans, Ryan Gosling and specifically Ana de Armas and Jessica Henwick. It was positioned as a franchise with an open ending but let's hope they reconsider. Not the worst (obviously, there are nine to come) but a solid disappointment.

8. Moonfall (2022)

Nobody should be surprised that Roland Emmerich has made a dud here, but the cast maybe should have known better. Halle Berry is a fine actress and Patrick Wilson is underrated, even Donald Sutherland pops up for a cameo (I say 'pops up', in fact, he's in a wheelchair for his few seconds of screen time). The cast isn't the issue, it's just a flat out stupid story. The Moon is getting closer to earth and perhaps there's a sentient being involved. So the plan is to nuke the lunar mutha! I can't think of anyone who might have liked this, outside of some QAnon fruit baskets.

7. Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)

The first Venom in 2018 was bad enough. This one added another symbiote in the human form of Woody Harrelson to try to raise the stakes. Tom Hardy has some fun and he's the best element to the film, but the whole thing is paced badly, it can't find a consistent tone and crucially, it's boring.

6. Wild Wild West (1999)

I hadn't seen this late 90s flop but someone (Parizad) had it in their top 5 a year or two ago, so I thought I'd give it a crack. Well, the best I can say is that it's 'of its time'. Kevin Kline is a solid comic actor, Ken Branagh goes fatally over the top and Big Willy Smith is at the peak of his zeitgeist. But it has either aged very badly or it was never any good. I'll plump for the latter. When the annoyingly nostalgic song is the best thing about a film, you know something went wrong along the way.

5. The Fable: The Killer Who Doesn't Kill (2021)

This is an odd one. Perhaps it lost me in translation but this Japanese film about an almost mythical assassin who is obliged to not kill for a year (due to storyline considerations) is interminably dire. It tries to be funny and sure, some of the humour works better for the local audience, but wow, it's rubbish. The acting is broadly broad, most of the set pieces are workmanlike at best and the plot has zero initiative or originality. It only sneaks in one spot higher than its predecessor (see below) thanks to a passable scaffolding fight scene.

4. The Fable (2019)

The original and the worst (just) of the Fable 'canon'. Stupidly unfunny lead character, played irritatingly by Jun'ichi Okada, nonsensical plot contrivances, and shoddy acting all around. This is based on a manga but how it got a sequel greenlit, I can't begin to fathom. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

3. Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Taika Waititi has a lot of credit in the bank, with the refreshingly odd Ragnarok adding to his Kiwi stuff (Flight of the Conchords, What We Do in the Shadows, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, etc). What happened with this 4th Thor film, then? Probably hubris, I'd reckon. It's tonally all over the place and smug, with overcooked sentimentality and attempts at zany set pieces unbalancing the dish. Only Christian Bale comes out with any kudos. This is maybe the bottom of the bag for the MCU - the only way is up?

2. After Blue (2021)

What an oddity. Usually, I'm all over nutballs films but this French sci-fi muddler with student filmmaker sensibilities boiled my piss no end. The story, if it can be called that, sees a young woman and her mother tasked with hunting down 'Kate Bush' on a planet with no dudes but stacks of cheap looking landscapes, peopled with pretentious antagonists. At a tad over 2 hours, you really need your wits about you to stay awake.

1. See How They Run (2022)

It's a shame to put this at the top (bottom) of the list, as it stars two of my favourite actors in Saoirse Ronan and Sam Rockwell, but it's so pedestrian and dull that I really had no choice. Set around a murder during the original run of The Mousetrap, the story had potential. Sadly, the 'creatives' behind it either didn't have the chops or things broke down in production, though going by the credits of the director and writer, I'd favour my first guess. Not at all funny, boring and annoying is a fine hat-trick of shite.

Comments

Nosferatu

The best looking film of the year, this has a gorgeous array of visuals that elicited a number of quiet 'wows' and intakes of breath from yours truly. Big praise to cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, production designer Craig Lathrop, art director Robert Cowper, set decorator Beatrice Brentnerova, and of course, director Robert Eggers for getting this crew together - he seems to use a lot of the same folk for his films, and fair enough, when this is the final product. Eggers has adapted the script from Henrik Galeen's original for F. W. Murnau's 1922 film, itself none too subtly ripped off from Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula . This is Eggers' fourth feature after The Witch , The Lighthouse , and The Northman and while I haven't yet seen the first two, I didn't care much for The Northman , typically wondrous images aside. He flirts with the pomposity that affected his previous film but here it matches the gothic tones and source text, that is until Aaron Tayl...

The Captive

Screening at the Spanish and Latin American Film Festival , Alejandro Amenabar's first film since 2019 is a mildly controversial take on the 5-year captivity of legendary Spanish author, Miguel de Cervantes. We begin the film as Cervantes is led into a dusty courtyard in Algiers, along with many other kidnappees. Before he can be sold as a slave, or sliced up for insubordination, he presents a letter from the Spanish court, signalling that perhaps it's better he be kept as a hostage for ransom. The film takes a bit of time to get rolling from here but when it does it settles into a clever mix of melodrama and weighty ideas. Cervantes, with his weak left arm acting like an acting crutch, slowly becomes the cheerleader of the prisoners, writing his stories in the air, only stopping when he temporarily runs light on material. The story takes a hurdle when the Bey, a high-ranking provincial governor (Alessandro Borghi) overhears the stories told in the courtyard and summons Cerv...

The Christophers

The title of the film refers to a series of paintings started by Julian Sklar in the 90s but left unfinished for reasons made clear later. Sklar, as played by Ian McKellen, is eccentric and irascible, and seems to be a blend of famous British painters, Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud. As Sklar is getting on in years, his grown children hatch a plan to have the paintings 'completed' for sale, with, or preferably without, their father's knowledge. For this undertaking they must enlist renowned art restorer (and dab hand forger), Lori Butler, an old acquaintance from art college. The premise is fine, but unfortunately, as created by Steven Soderbergh (director) and Ed Solomon (writer), it doesn't have any legs. Paradoxically, the best bits are probably also part of the reason it falters. McKellen is superb as the lovelorn painter, artistically blocked and emotionally bitter. His pithy, acerbic dialogue is great and he gives the performance full welly, but the actual storyli...

Head-On

I saw this confronting 2004 drama at the German Film Festival as part of a retrospective of Fatih Akin films. Unfortunately, there was only one screening in Perth, there might be extra shows in other cities. Akin's a great stylist, authentic and functional, and his films are informed by his cultural standing as a German-Turkish writer/director. In this film, a rough looking bloke called Cahit (Birol Ünel) smashes his car - head-on - into a wall after a heavy night on the turps. While getting treatment, he meets Sibel (Sibel Kekilli), a young woman who recognises his shared dual nationality status. She's looking for a 'Turkish' guy to marry, so her parents will get off her back. Initially sceptical and aggressively dismissive, Cahit realises Sibel is dangerously desperate, so he agrees to the sham marriage. There's an early bump in the road when Cahit kicks Sibel out on their wedding night for asking about his dead wife. Soon enough though, things settle into a room...

Franz: Becoming Kafka

In this fractured, somewhat unconventional biopic, various characters take on the role of narrator, breaking the fourth wall within the story. As curious as the method of delivery here is, the bones of the film itself still function to paint the picture of one of the 20th century's most lauded writers. We witness Kafka's less than perfect childhood with unloving father and powerless mother; his possible spectrum hovering; his near-crippling insecurities; his tricky relationships with women; and eventually the illness that brought on his early death. Director Agnieszka Holland is still firing at 77 years old, she's quite happy to lean towards experimentation and, along with her co-writer, Marek Epstein, she imbues the film with a surrealism similar to Kafka's work. Aside from the 'to camera' narration, the timeline jumps around, even bringing in elements of 21st century Kafka tourism with French, Japanese and American tour guides, who may or may not be on the lev...

The Talented Mr. F.

Screening at the German Film Festival, this is a mind-boggling tale of a 'you-tuber' dickhead who nicked a short animation film off a couple of German university students and passed it off as his own work. The thief, or the 'talented' Mr. F. of the title, is Samuel Felinton, a ubiquitous pud with a probable case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). This diagnosis has been mentioned on Reddit but his baggage is weighty so fucks knows what's wrong with him. We open with Moritz and Julius, who made a cute little robot anime, uploaded it to YouTube to see if anyone liked it, and when it gained loads of hits and positive comments, took it down. Emboldened by this public favour, they then started to enter their short, Butty, into various film festivals. When the replies came back that it couldn't be accepted because the film was already doing the festival circuit, the lads freaked out. Turns out Butty 's brief online life was enough time for Felinton to d...

The Quiet Girl

This is a great film, especially in the way that it manages to create something interesting out of a reasonably mundane synopsis. A young girl is sent away to a relative's house for the summer where she is treated better than at home. Sounds like it could have a bit of Rohmer-style youthful awakenings? Or maybe some gritty Loach-ian societal comment? Even perhaps a revenge tinged 'fear the youth' theme? Well, it's none of the above, and more power to its style. The Quiet Girl herself (Cáit) is a newcomer, Catherine Clinch, and she was apparently found via an Irish language school call out. She's incredible - meek, direct, no airs nor graces whatsoever, with a clear-eyed awkwardness. She's almost like a little female Bowie in The Quiet Girl Who Fell to Earth (no, not a film but I thought I'd italicise anyway). There are orbiting performances that complement her perfectly. Carrie Crowley and Andrew Bennet play Eibhlín and Seán Cinnsealach, the couple who tak...

The Magic Faraway Tree (Me) (Kids)

I probably read these books as a kid (can't remember) but I certainly read them to my kids a few years ago, so the whole family took a trip to the Palace cinema to check out this new film version. It's adapted from the Enid Blyton book(s) by Simon Farnaby, the writer of Paddington 2 , Wonka and Mindhorn , and directed by Ben Gregor, a British TV journeyman. The cast is chock-full of screen dignitaries, from Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy, to Python Michael Palin, to Dame Judi Dench as a talking fridge (!). Modernising this classic kids' book series from the 30s and 40s means adding some stuff about screen (over)usage, the splintering of the family unit, and the desire to get back to the basics of life. In this case, the Thompsons go rural in a rundown barn with old tractors, and chickens living on the stove. The family is made up of Tim and Polly (Garfield and Foy), and the three children, Beth, Joe and Fran, played by Delilah Bennet-Cardy, Phoenix Laroche and Billie Gadsd...

The Good Boy

This English/Polish co-production is not to be confused with Good Boy , a dog-based horror film, even though in most regions the definite article is removed - it seems only Australia and the UK have it as The Good Boy . To muddy the waters more, in some areas, including the US, Brazil and the Netherlands, it's called Heel , something you might say to a dog. Anyway, I'll call it THE Good Boy because that's how it's being sold here. It's directed by a Polish guy called Jan Komasa, who's done some features in Poland, and written by first time writer Bartek Bartosik, alongside slightly more established Naqqash Khalid. They've concocted a genre pic that flirts with horror, winks at black comedy and straight up propositions psychological dependency drama. At the beginning of the film, young scally Tommy (Anson Boon) is a hateable twat, acting 'the big I am' on a night out, drug-fucked and aggro with everyone, until he sets off on his own for more action. ...

Case 137

Here's a police procedural drama from the Alliance Francais French Film Festival with a minor key change. Case 137 is based on true events from 2018 during the Gilets jaunes (Yellow Vest) protests in Paris. The case (or dossier in the version originale) involves a young lad who was shot in the head with an LBD riot gun (basically rubber bullets) and then left on the street. He survived, but with life changing injuries. The IGPN internal affairs department are brought in to investigate. Léa Drucker takes the lead as Stéphanie, a single mum dealing with resentment from her ex-husband, his new girlfriend, and most other members of the force, who believe the cops should look after their own and not 'police the police'. Her teenage son is also concerned that everyone he talks to hates 'les flics'. There's a slight hitch in the case when it's discovered that the injured guy and his family come from Saint-Dizier, also Stéphanie's home town. Director, Dominik M...

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