My Top 5 Best Films of 2023

There’s a lot of great movies that I didn’t get around to seeing, so this is just the best of what I saw this year.

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5. The Creator – A beautiful looking sci-fi movie with some strong performances that never really end up breaking any new ground.

4. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – Yet another innovative addition to the franchise, that borders on audio and visual overload with almost too much going on at times. Strong, grounded character moments keep things focused.

3. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One – Yet another highlight reel for Tom Cruise’s action and stunt work. The returning cast is solid, and Hayley Atwell is a great addition. But the big bad AI that can seemingly predict the future and the so-so human bad guy weigh the film down.

2. The Super Mario Bros. Movie – There’s barely more plot here than the Super Mario games, and the character journey isn’t too inspirational, but it’s just a fun film that has something for everyone that’s ever played a Mario game.

1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 – The plot is a bit weak, and the villain is more of a jerk than a threat, but the strong character moments and emotional send offs wrap up this trilogy in style.

My Top 5 Worst Films of 2023

I’m pretty picky about what films I see in the theater, so this list is more about my least favorite of the year. Sometimes figuring out what should be on the list and in what position comes down to how willing am I to rewatch a movie.

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5. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom – Despite having fun as a comic book movie, the buddy comedy never gels, and the film spends too much time with an irredeemable villain that ends up taking a backseat to another baddie.

4. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – While the film does have some cool action sequences and some nice character moments, particularly with Kang, it’s mostly a CG mess that allows the next big bad of the MCU to be taken out by one of its goofy heroes and a bunch of ants.

3. Fast X – With even more over-the-top action and an over-the-top villain, the film just doesn’t have much to add to the franchise. And with Vin Diesel pushing the rest of the cast to the sidelines, it loses the some of the ensemble feel that spiced things up in the other films.

2. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny – A fairly boring and forgettable film that is lacking in every area that made this a great franchise. The action is lackluster, the hero just doesn’t want to be there, and he’s mostly upstaged by a new character.

1. Expend4bles – Thanks to Stallone dipping out at the start of the film, it turns into a glorified Statham movie, with everyone else taking supporting roles. Add in a miscast Megan Fox, terrible green screen work and mediocre CG, and you end up with a mess.

Movie Review: Godzilla Minus One

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A solid movie that succeeds in making Godzilla a terrifying force of nature, and while the human characters could’ve used more scenes to really make them feel connected to each other, they still bring enough to the table to keep things interested in the long stretches where we don’t see the monster. The basic plot is right out of the classic “Godzilla” films as the mutated creature threatens Japan as the humans struggle to find a way to stop him. Godzilla is scary. He’s huge, he’s vicious, and is just out for death and destruction. (I don’t think I’ve ever seen his atomic breath taken so literally before.) And, despite a budget that’s a fraction of what Hollywood typically spends on special effects on a movie like this, Shirogumi delivers some incredible visual effects. The bulk of the film is spent with the human characters, and while they were compelling enough, I didn’t feel as strong of a connection with them as I would’ve liked. Some of this may be a bit of culture shock, as it’s a sub-titled story taking place in mid-1940’s Japan and some of the subtlety probably goes over my head. Because the lead character, Shikishima, is so damaged emotionally, I found it hard to get as invested in his arc. There were strong supporting characters that included a potential love interest, a found family, and group of friends, but because Shikishima was so closed-off to them for most of the film, it didn’t quite feel like this group of characters was tied together in a meaningful enough way.

*** out of *****

Movie Review: Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

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A buddy superhero comedy that never quite lands to due to weak jokes, wooden characters and minimal chemistry between the leads. The basic plot itself is fine, but it takes too long to lay out the stakes, and even then, there’s not a great indication on how bad things will get if the bad guys win. The pacing is all over the place, with narrations undercutting some of the action, needle drops that turn tense moments lighthearted and, like the first film, a lot of time spent following a villain who has no real character arc or sympathetic moments. There aren’t many standout action sequences, and the ones we get are so overloaded with CG it never feels like these characters are actually involved in any of them. The buddy dynamic between Aquaman and his brother falls flat, as Arthur is too silly to identify with while Orn has little personality to work with. And on top of that, the two just have no chemistry together. (Even the octopus sidekick adds nothing to the dynamic. He’s not cute or funny.) There are no real surprises or cameos, and the DCEU wraps things up pretty quietly.

** out of *****