2022 was an important year for cinema. It was the year that we dipped our toes back into the movie-going waters. Covid restrictions were loosened, doors were opened and the money flowed back in, just when people were writing off the big screen forever. I didn’t hate all of these hit films below – it’s just that I couldn’t get as juiced about them as so many others did. I wanted to. I couldn’t.
Top Gun: Maverick The highest grossing film of 2022 was the perfect way to splash something larger than life onto the biggest screens possible, but I just didn’t get it. Probably because I’m so old that I remember seeing the
original Top Gun on opening weekend of 1986. This seemed like more of a curtain call than a foray into something new. I guess that was the point, but I was bored.
I know I’m supposed to love this. Please read to see why I couldn’t Marvel Universe. Among the biggest money-makers in 2022, but I just can’t anymore. The nobility of Black Panther, The humor of Thor, the presence of one of my favorites, Benedict Cumberbatch – none could keep me from switching butt cheeks in my seat every 30 seconds for waaay too long running times
I’ve loved virtually everything that Jordan Peele has done, going all the way back. I thought for sure Nope would make my Top Ten…until I saw it. By any other man’s measure, I’m sure I’d have been less disappointed. By Peele’s standards, it was a near-miss for me.
The thing about movies is that, sooner or later, even the most brilliant of filmmakers gets humbled. In the case of the horrendously rendered version of one of Disney’s top grossing films of all time , the perpetrators are Director Robert Zemeckis and his team. Tom Hanks, the most beloved of actors, who is also one of the worst at doing accents, doesn’t help matters. Unless you’re gonna do something crazy, off the rails original like Guillermo del Toro did with his adaptation, then have a seat. Don’t be the New Coke of Pinocchio remakes. It has done well on Disney+
It’s making many Top Ten lists, and I do think that Austin Butler’s performance is in the top 3 of the year, but director Baz Luhrman’s splashy spectacle is a mile wide and an inch deep. AND (see above) it has Tom Hanks trying to do an accent that takes you out of the film any time he speaks.
