Superhero Movies From October 2018 Onward (12: The Last One)

For reviews of older superhero movies click here and here.  It felt like it was time to get rid of the "baggage" those older entries carried, so I started again from October 2018's Venom.

Of course the coronavirus has disrupted the film industry between the last entry and this one, but it's 2020 nevertheless and I still feel that superhero movies have lost a lot of their novelty.  I'm not saying they've gotten worse, I'm not saying they're going to decline in popularity, but I am saying that from this point onward I'll be more inclined to view them as just films, and judge them on their own merits.

Superhero Movies On The Way

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023 in the States)

Shazam! Fury of the Gods (June 2023 in the States)

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2022 in the States)

Aquaman 2 (December 2022 in the States)

Captain Marvel 2 (November 2022 in the States)

The Flash (November 2022 in the States)

Black Panther II (July 2022 in the States)

Thor: Love and Thunder (May 2022 in the States)

Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (March 2022)

The Batman (March 2022 in the States)

Spider-Man: Far From Home sequel (December 2021 in the States)

Eternals (November 2021 in the States)

The Suicide Squad (August 2021 in the States)

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (July 2021 in the States)

Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Taiwan Release Date Unknown, June 2021 in the States)

Black Widow (April 30, 2020 in Taiwan, May 2021 in the States)

Morbius, the Living Vampire (March 2021 in both Taiwan and the States)

Wonder Woman 1984

What I Liked: The movie makes a lot of emotional if not logical sense.  It's a lot like Avengers: Endgame that way.  Gal Gadot is making great strides as an actress, and Kristen Wiig (one of my favorite actresses) was an excellent choice for Cheetah.  The fight at the end was well done, and the movie feels conclusive in a way that the first didn't.

What I Didn't Like: I felt like Maxwell Lord's character could have been realized better.  He never seemed to have enough motivation to do what he was doing.  The subplot involving his son hits all the right notes, but impoverished beginnings wasn't enough to explain his great ambition.

A couple other things bothered me, namely: why was a fighter jet parked with a full tank of fuel in the Smithsonian parking lot?  And what was the deal with her suddenly being able to turn things invisible?  At a certain point in the movie you have to throw physics out the window, but those two details really bothered me.

Future/Sequels: The next DC film will be James Gunn's The Suicide Squad in August.  After that it's a LONG wait before we finally (hopefully) see The Flash.  As far as Wonder Woman goes, there's an Amazons movie planned, and sometime after that Wonder Woman 3 will appear.

The New Mutants

What I Liked: It was better than I thought it would be.  The general atmosphere and the way in which the characters relate to each other is in line with what writer Chris Claremont did in the comics.  Anya Taylor-Joy is good as Magick, even though her one-liners near the end made me cringe.

What I Didn't Like: This movie just doesn't give itself enough time to get going.  A good horror movie is all about building up tension, and there's precious little tension in this movie.  As it is the "bad guys" (who are obviously not the real bad guys) just appear out of nowhere, there's a giant bear, and then the movie just ends.  Do we blame director Josh Boone for that?  Or Fox?  Or Marvel?  I have no idea.

Future/Sequels: Nope.  Marvel owns this property now, and the best anyone could hope for is an offhand reference in the next, Marvel-produced Deadpool.  IF that movie ever happens.

Bloodshot

What I Liked: A guy movie if there ever was one.  If you liked any of The Fast and the Furious franchise you'll probably like this one too.  It's a solid action film.  Oh, and the actress that co-stars alongside Vin Diesel is achingly beautiful.

What I Didn't Like: That "underwater kata" scene is unintentionally hilarious.  It doesn't quite derail the entire movie, but it seemed like an odd choice.  Why was that necessary for Guy Pearce's plot to work?

Future/Sequels: A Valiant Cinematic Universe?  There were plans for Bloodshot 2, two Harbinger movies, and then a movie featuring both Bloodshot and Harbinger.  As of now Harbinger has moved to Paramount Pictures, so all of that's uncertain.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

What I Liked: The fight scenes are cool.  Ewan McGregor - in what little screen time this movie can afford him - makes a great villain.

What I Didn't Like: Everything else.  As a character Harley Quinn is a complete enigma - and not in an interesting way.  Huntress and Black Canary are far easier to relate to, but again, Harley Quinn's endless monologues push them into the background.  To top it off this movie is terribly, existentially boring.

Future/Sequels: Lord I hope not.  Wonder Woman 1984 is due this summer, and James Gunn's The Suicide Squad is due next year, but if the directors of those movies have any sense they'll distance their films from this one.

Joker

What I Liked: This movie is brilliant.  Joaquin Phoenix doesn't disappoint, and director Todd Philips more than rises to the occasion.  Just the way the title pops up in the beginning is masterful.  This is the kind of movie that sparks debates, avoids safe choices, and gets people riled up.  It's also a harrowing portrait of both one man's struggle with mental illness and the uncaring nature of the society he lives in.

What I Didn't Like: This is a small complaint, but I think this movie tried a bit too hard to tie the Joker into the larger Batman mythos.  Having Thomas Wayne in the movie was enough; there was no need to include other members of the Wayne family.

Future/Sequels: Please Joaquin Phoenix, DON'T do another one.  And don't appear in anything else Batman-related.  This one was just about perfect the way it was.  Just leave it there and it'll age like wine.

Spider-Man: Far From Home

What I Liked: Zendaya.  She was my favorite thing about this movie.  Her character holds the whole thing together.  Without MJ this movie wouldn't make a lot of sense.

Also Mysterio's illusions.  I don't think I'm giving any plot points away when I mention them.  His illusions are some of the more visually impressive things in the MCU.

And speaking Mysterio's illusions, the battle at the end is great.  Setting this battle in London was a good choice.

What I Didn't Like: You can see the plot twist coming from a mile away.  Maybe not calling him "Mysterio" right of the bat would have helped.

Future/Sequels: A third one seems likely.  Still no word as to whether this take on Spider-man will tie into Sony's other Spiderverse films.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix

Got bored and saw it the other day.  It was blazing hot outside, and there wasn't much else to do.

What I Liked: For one thing it wasn't nearly as bad as some of the reviews would lead you to believe.  It's definitely NOT great, but if you were able to sit through Apocalypse you'll be able to sit through this one.  It's actually not bad up until Jean visits the house, though after that point...

What I Didn't Like: At times this movie just doesn't make sense.  WHY do the cops show up after Jean visits that house?  And WHY do the two mutant factions fight in New York?  And WHY do the aliens insist on boarding the train from the other end, when they're clearly walking all along its length, thus making it incredibly easy for the X-Men to fight them off?  

To make things worse, Sophie Turner really can't carry a movie.  Watching her interact with some of the other, more talented cast members is truly cringeworthy.  As bad as this movie is, it's still better than X3, and yet I found myself missing Famke Janssen throughout the film.

Most inexplicable of all is Magneto.  First he says revenge is wrong and that he's given up on it.  Then someone gets killed and he's all about revenge again.  Then he learns about the Phoenix Force and he's all about saving Jean.  This, and that magnetism/telekinesis battle between him and Jean is the most unintentionally hilarious thing I've seen in a long time.

Future/Sequels: As far as anyone knows, The New Mutants is still coming out next year.  After that it'll be a long wait before we see Marvel Studios' take on the same set of characters.

Avengers: Endgame

What I Liked: Everything.  This movie is awesome from beginning to end.

What I Didn't Like: Only two (very small) complaints: 1) Bruce and Nebula's explanation for their "heist" probably isn't going to satisfy anyone who bothers to think it through, and 2) the part at the end where all the "Marvel superheroines" line up and go into battle seems a bit too much like checking off an item on a checklist.

Future/Sequels: The next MCU offering is Spider-Man: Far From Home later this summer.  No other films have been given a release date as yet.  I think it's fair to say that Marvel will make a big announcement soon.

Hellboy

What I Liked: Uh... it's more... British than the original?  That's good, right?  More interesting?

And uh... the fight with the giants is kind of cool.  Brief but cool.

This movie has the quirkiness that made the Mignola comics good.  Upping the gore was also a good idea.  Not sure about the humor though.  Seems like they should have doubled down on that part.  Making this movie funnier would have also differentiated it from the original.  As it is it strays too close to the Del Toro version.

What I Didn't Like: It's pretty bad right from the beginning.  For me the worst thing was the sequence explaining Hellboy's origins.  This part of the movie ventures so close to Del Toro's version that you can't help but compare this one to that one, and this one is always going to suffer by comparison.  They should have avoided that altogether.

Future/Sequels: Ha ha not likely.

Shazam!

What I Liked: Zachary Levi and Asher Angel are both examples of great casting, the story is well thought out, and the battle at the end takes some interesting twists and turns.  I consider Shazam! a vast improvement over Aquaman, which was trying to do too much in too short a time, and also Captain Marvel, which was in my opinion one hot mess of a movie.  Shazam! is much smaller-scale compared to those other two films, but its smallness works to its advantage.  It's very focused and to the point.

Mark Strong, who was wasted on Martin Campbell's Green Lantern, has much more to do in Shazam!  Even if his reasons for being "evil" aren't that well thought out, he's still a good (bad) villain.

What I Didn't Like: The battle at the end goes on a bit too long.  I think shortening it would have made for a better movie.  The introduction of the rest of the Marvel Family feels a bit rushed, even if it was gratifying to see them onscreen together.

Future/Sequels: No definite plans for any sequels as yet, but one of Shazam's other villains is introduced in a post-credits scene.  It's early to say, but I think this movie will be well received and I'd be surprised if a sequel isn't announced soon.

Captain Marvel

What I Liked: There's a part about halfway through, when Carol Danvers is reunited with an old friend.  In that part you can see Brie Larson's skill as an actress.

The fight on the spaceship near the end is oddly satisfying, but some of my satisfaction may have to do with 90s soundtrack, and the fact that I was a much younger guy when those songs were everywhere.  Nostalgia, in other words.

What I Didn't Like: Going back to the comic books, I never found Carol Danvers especially interesting, and this movie did nothing to change my mind.  Really, what is her reason for doing anything in this film?  At what point does her character change or make any real kind of discovery?

She's also so much more powerful than anyone she comes up against in this movie.  There's no sense of threat when "danger" strikes.  Jude Law?  Nope.  The Skrulls?  Not really.  Ronan the Accuser?  Their confrontation is a non-event.

I've also got to say, the explanation given for Nick Fury losing his eye really bothered me.  It's always seemed like this event should be of crucial importance, but in the movie it's explained in such an offhand manner.  The randomness of this explanation diminished the entire film.

Future/Sequels: Strap yourself in because Avengers: Endgame is less than two months away.  After Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home Marvel has announced no other films, though if Captain Marvel does well I'm sure we'll see a sequel.  I've heard a lot of talk about an Eternals movie, but we'll see.

I think what's going to make or break a Captain Marvel sequel is the Asian market, especially China.  If it goes over big in Beijing and Shanghai (as Aquaman did) you can be sure there will be another one.  If, however, this movie fails to find an audience in such places, I imagine Kevin Feige will start vaguely alluding to "future adventures" without making any real commitment.

Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

Does this one count?  Batman and the Justice League are in it.  It also features the newer and older versions of Aquaman.

What I Liked: It's a funny movie, though not as good as the first.  This said, it's not nearly as hyper as the first one, which might be a relief for those who found the first film slightly overwhelming.

What I Didn't Like: It does drag a bit toward the end.  It's weird to say, but I found myself having to really concentrate on Lego Movie 2.  There are SO many references, to so many things, that after the first hour my brain got tired.  

Future/Sequels: There might be a sequel to the Lego Batman movie, though there's no release date as yet.  There might also be The Billion Brick Race.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

What I Liked: Everything.  In my opinion this movie's awesome from start to finish.  The characters, the plot, the animation, the soundtrack, all of it's great.  I suppose it depends on how it does financially, but Spider-Verse could be a real game-changer for CBMs.

For me the best part of the film was the Bill Sienkiewicz-inspired sequence halfway through.  I've been a huge fan of that guy for years, and seeing his art animated almost brought tears to my eyes.  That version of the Kingpin?  That's all Bill Sienkiewicz.

What I Didn't Like: Small complaint: no Spider-Woman.  I've always liked Spider-Woman more than Spider-Man, and it would've been wonderful to see Jessica Drew (finally) show up in this movie.

Future/Sequels: There's talk that Spider-Woman could feature in the sequel alongside Spider-Gwen and Silk, but such plans are tentative of course.  It's entirely possible that a sequel would feature Spider-Man 2099 instead.

Aquaman

What I Liked: Atlantis looks cool.  Amber Heard is easy on the eyes.  The battle in the end - aside from a ridiculous pause in the action for a predictably romantic moment - looks amazing.

What I Didn't Like: Weird moments of exposition.  Instead of showing the audience what's happening/has happened, the characters in this movie often feel the need to stop whatever they're doing and explain things.  The only part of this movie where the action flows seamlessly is when Aquaman and Black Manta have their big showdown halfway through.

The part in the beginning about Aquaman's parents could have been removed entirely.  It adds absolutely nothing to the story, and starting the movie from the adult Aquaman's first appearance would have made a lot more sense.

This movie gets dumber as it goes along.  By the end I was laughing at certain scenes and bits of dialogue, and I wasn't the only one.  And before someone chimes in with "at least it doesn't take itself so seriously," let's remember there's a difference between laughing WITH a movie and laughing AT a movie.

The small ray of hope being that it's not as terrible as Justice League.  Not that this is saying much.

Future/Sequels: Shazam!, also set in the DCEU, will be out in a few months.  After that it's a long wait until Wonder Woman 1984.  Aquaman 2?  It's kind of early to tell, but the movie's been doing well in China, and those wanting a completely brainless superhero romp will be all over this one.

Venom

What I Liked: After a really clunky beginning there are some great action sequences.  Everything after Venom shows up is much better than the 15 minutes that try (and fail) to set up the story.  The fight between Venom and Riot near the end is very good.

What I Didn't Like: That beginning part.  It feels like they weren't sure what kind of movie they were making.  Horror?  Action?  Science fiction?  Going more for the "body horror" elements would have improved the film, and the spaceship/alien invasion subplot could have been dispensed with altogether.

As clunky as the beginning is, the dialogue throughout the movie is by far the worst part.  None of the actors seem at ease with what they're saying, and a couple of lines are unintentionally hilarious.

Future/Sequels: There are plans for a sequel with Woody Harrelson's Carnage in a bigger role.  I think that after setting up the general premise, a sequel is bound to be better.  Harrelson would also make a great villain.  Last I heard, Sony's next comic-based movie will be Morbius the Living Vampire, with Jared Leto as Morbius.  There may be some crossover between Venom and Morbius.

Related Entries:

Movies of the Early 1990s, Ranked in the Order I Enjoyed Them

Some Other Movies From 1994 (2)

Some Other Movies From 1993 (2)

Some Other Movies From 1992 (2)

Some Other Movies From 1984 (2)

For further background on the year in film, please refer to the Some Other Movies From 1984 entry.  

It probably goes without saying, but by 1984 a lot of the trends seen in earlier years coalesced into what most people now think of as "the 80s."  This development can be seen in the movies of that year.

Some things that happened in 1984:

• Brunei became an independent nation.
• Astronauts made the first untethered space walk.
• The Winter Olympics were held in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.
• The U.S. Marines were pulled out of Lebanon.
• Teachers at a preschool in California were charged with Satanic ritual abuse.  These charges were later dismissed as completely unfounded.
• Ronald Reagan called for a ban on chemical weapons.
• Terms of Endearment won the Oscar for Best Picture.
• The AIDS virus was discovered.
• The Soviet Union boycotted the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
• Bruce Springsteen released Born in the U.S.A., featuring the most misunderstood title track of all time.
• Tetris was released in the Soviet Union.
• Ghostbusters and Gremlins were killing it at the box office.
• Metallica released Ride the Lightning.  (Oh yeah.)
• People in the Philippines demonstrated against Ferdinand Marcos.
• Jeopardy and the animated Transformers aired on TV.
• The UK and the PRC agreed to a handover in 1997.
• The IRA tried to kill Margaret Thatcher.
• The Vatican officially forgave Galileo for that whole "Earth orbiting around the sun" thing.
• Reagan won a second term over Walter Mondale.
• A famine raged across Ethiopia, triggering later aid efforts from Western pop stars.
• Crack cocaine appeared in Los Angeles.

Linked entries can be viewed in their entirety on YouTube.

Excellent

1. The Natural

Robert Redford stars as an over-the-hill baseball player given one last shot at glory.  But what makes this movie great is that it's about a lot more than baseball.  It's also about the value of integrity in the presence of the corrupt.  This was director Barry Levinson's second film, following Diner by two years.  I applaud its idealism.

Some Good Ones

1. Threads

The Day After, Barefoot Gen and this movie.  In the mid 1980s the threat of nuclear war had an immediacy it just doesn't have now.  If you don't believe me, just look at the metal albums of the time.  That theme presents itself over and over again.  Yet of such books, movies and songs Threads has to be the most relentlessly depressing.  I got about 3/4 of the way through and had to skip through the rest.  It was just too depressing to watch straight through.

If you were looking to make a big movie on a small budget, however, Threads is worth seeking out.  What they achieved with minuscule resources is indeed something to behold.  The only films which approach it in that respect are some of the Russian war movies like Come and See, which were also made in the absence of appreciable funding.

2. The NeverEnding Story

Probably the best movie you could see after watching Threads above.  Where that movie's all dark and depressing this one's very upbeat - at least toward the end.

I was nine when this appeared in theaters, so of course I saw it in the theater.  Watching it in 2020, I remembered the flying dog thing and the theme song, but aside from that my memory of this movie was very hazy.

The plot?  Uh... something Fantasia something princess something The Nothing something.  The story ranks a distant second behind the visuals, though it's still an entertaining film.  Weirdly enough, director Wolfgang Peterson did this between Das Boot (!) and Enemy Mine.  It marks his transition into Hollywood movies.

Fun Fact: This movie was adapted from a German children's book.  The NeverEnding Story covers the first half of this book, while The NeverEnding Story II covers the second half.

3. Stop Making Sense

Today I learned that P-Funk alumnus Bernie Worrell was also a member of Talking Heads.  This fact makes more sense (ha ha) after watching this movie.  You could regard Talking Heads as an offshoot of the whole P-Funk thing.  As with all such concert movies, I'm not sure where director Jonathan Demme is to be found in this film, but it's still very good.

4. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

Anime by Topcraft, the studio that would later morph into Studio Ghibli.  It's set in a future where radioactive insects dominate the Earth, and wherein a young princess tries to teach her people how to live in harmony with nature.  Director Hayao Miyazaki would go on to direct several celebrated films, the best known being Spirited Away.  I watched the restored version, released long after the anime appeared in Japan, and while it's on the slow side it's definitely worth watching.

5. The Last Starfighter

Must have watched this dozens of time when I was a kid.  Arcade game + Star Wars = The Last Starfighter.  The early-stage CGI is memorable - and was cutting edge at the time - even if the plot is an afterthought.  Still an entertaining movie, though they probably could have spent more money on the sets.

Fun Fact 1: Lance Guest, who stars in this movie, was 24 at the time of filming.  WAY too old for high school.

Fun Fact 2: The director of this movie played Michael Myers in John Carpenter's Halloween.  He also co-wrote Escape from New York.

Fun Fact 3: Actor Robert Preston, who carries most of this movie, frequently collaborated with director Blake Edwards.

Fun Fact 3: Dan O'Herlihy, who plays the Alex's co-pilot, was an Irish actor who also played the villain in Halloween III: Season in the Witch and the chief executive in RoboCop.

Fun Fact 4: Atari planned to release an arcade version of this movie, but decided against it after seeing an early cut of the film. 

6. The Philadelphia Experiment

Michael Pare stars as a man accidentally sent into the future.  It's similar in many ways to John Carpenter's far superior Starman, which came out the same year.  Carpenter was also one of the producers of this movie.

7. Purple Rain

Poor Prince.  He just wants to play his music and sexually dominate Apollonia, but his father is abusive, and Morris Day is trying to steal his spotlight.  I remember seeing parts of this movie as a kid, and I was happy to learn that it still holds up.  Especially the sex scenes with Apollonia.  That woman could've given a dead man a hard-on.

And as much as I hate to say it - Bolan being my favorite of the two - I think Prince had the kind of rock/pop stardom Marc Bolan was always striving for.  Bolan of course enjoyed tremendous success in the U.K., but his fame (and talent) never approached what Prince enjoyed in the mid-80s.

Fun Fact 1: The director of this movie went on to direct Tango & Cash.

Fun Fact 2: Morris Day and Prince went to the same high school in Minneapolis, and were frequent musical collaborators.  The Time, Day's backup band in the film, started as one of Prince's side projects.

8. The Element of Crime

Lars von Trier's first movie, and also the first movie in his Europa Trilogy.  It's early Trier, so expect a lot of people saying cryptic things against multiple screens - shots within shots within shots.  It requires a certain kind of patience, but I liked it a lot more than the later Europa.  The murder mystery plot makes it more accessible.

9. The Whale Hunter (a.k.a. Whale Hunting)

South Korean men rescuing women from lives of prostitution.  This seems to be a popular theme in older South Korean movies.  The Whale Hunter explores this theme a bit less seriously, with touches of Hong Kong-style slapstick throughout.

10. Top Secret

Hilarious if you're around 10 years old, and as it happened I was around 10 years old when I first saw it.  I thought it was hysterical at the time.  Almost four decades later?  Eh, it's OK.  Most of the funniest bits happen in the background.  

Top Secret is notable for being Val Kilmer's first movie.  He'd go on to do Real Genius the following year and Top Gun the year after that.

Well That Escalated Quickly.

1. Class of 1984

A high school band teacher tries to reach a group of psychopathic young learners.  The teacher goes from reasonable to unreasonable in a surprisingly short amount of time, but this movie is nothing if not entertaining.  Michael J. Fox appeared in this before Family Ties aired, and it's a lot of fun to see an earlier version of him, long before he was a household name.

I'm not sure how this film compares to later genre offerings like 187 or The Substitute - it's been a while since I've seen those two - but I'm sure Class of 1984 has a special place in many people's hearts.

Some Bad Ones

1. Stranger Than Paradise

Jim Jarmusch is 50/50 for me.  On the one hand I loved Ghost Dog, on the other hand some of his movies have bored me to tears.  Stranger Than Paradise falls into the latter category.  It's slow, nothing ever happens, and the "surprise" ending isn't really a surprise.  Critics loved it, and it won a lot of awards, but its appeal was lost on me.

2. Firestarter

To be fair, only Drew Barrymore could have carried this movie, but the director and the script weren't doing her any favors.  It's something of a spiritual successor to 1978's The Fury, though it's not nearly as good as Brian De Palma's film.  Everyone involved does their best John Carpenter impersonation, but this movie lacks the dramatic insight of Carpenter at his best.  The biggest problem is "The Shop" organization, which doesn't seem to operate in the most practical manner.

Fun Fact 1: Director Mark L. Lester would go on to do Schwarzenegger's Commando the following year.

Fun Fact 2: John Carpenter almost directed this movie.  He was involved in its early development, but the studio replaced him with Lester after The Thing proved to be a financial disappointment.

Fun Fact 3: Blumhouse has plans to remake this movie.  I'm not optimistic about these plans.

3. Children of the Corn

Like Firestarter, another Stephen King adaptation.  This one is the worst of the two.  It has three major flaws, which are, in descending order: 1) It starts off from the children's point of view.  This destroys a lot of the mystery which should surround them.  2) Peter Horton's character is a thundering dumbass.  3) The "corn demon" at the end should have been hinted at in the beginning.  As it is it just seems to appear out of nowhere, and its presence isn't that necessary to the overall plot.

Fun Fact: Linda Hamilton is in this.

4. Roadhouse 66

Oooh... "exotic Mezcal."  These days you can buy that in most Walmarts.

Judge Reinhold and Willem Dafoe star in this lifeless attempt to resurrect American Graffiti-style nostalgia.  At no point is it interesting, and this movie has some serious continuity issues.

5. Give My Regards to Broad Street

Paul McCartney and co. lipsync their way through a plot that's just barely there.  It's self-indulgent in the way all of the Beatles' movies were self-indulgent, and this kind of self-indulgence is only more annoying two decades after the British Invasion.  Just compare this to Stop Making Sense and Purple Rain above.  It's obvious which two of the three movies are better.

6. The Hills Have Eyes Part II*

I often think that Wes Craven was a really, really overrated director.  He had a lot of cred in the horror world, but how many genuinely good movies did he do?  The Last House on the Left, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Hills Have Eyes -- none of these movies are particularly good, even though they play with some interesting concepts.  Even Scream -- an undeniably good movie -- rests more on its screenplay than on Craven's skill as a director.

The Hills Have Eyes Part II only proves my point.  It makes the first entry in the series look much better by comparison, and even that film wasn't especially well done.  Neither this nor the original hold a candle to Alexandre Aja's remake, and both are easily overshadowed by other classic horror movies from the late 70s and early 80s.  To some extent Wes Craven knew what shocked people (i.e. he was good at spotting trends), but as a director?  I don't think he lived up to the hype.

Beyond the Valley of the Cringe

1. Rhinestone

Both the Dolly Parton/Sylvester Stallone team up nobody wanted and the one movie Stallone wishes he could erase from this timeline.  Want to hear Stallone hear country songs?  This is your movie.  Yearning for a lot of awkward sexual chemistry (or the lack thereof) between Stallone and Parton?  This, again, is your movie.  I deserve an award for sitting through it.

Related Entries:

Some Other Movies From 1983 (2)

Some Other Movies From 1982 (2)

Some Other Movies From 1981 (2)

Some Other Movies From 1980 (2)

*According to some sources this movie came out in 1985, not 1984.

Some Other Movies From 1984

Saw all of the movies below recently.  For those wondering how I came upon them, I hereby refer you to the "1984 in Film" article on Wikipedia.

Some Good Ones

1. Missing in Action (?)

Is it good?  Is it bad?  Is it so bad it's good?  I had a really tough time with this one.  On the one hand it's a solidly put together action movie, on the other hand the Vietnamese characters are little more than cartoon villains.  The fight choreography is definitely better than Forced Vengeance (another Chuck Norris movie I've seen recently), but then again the idea that Chuck Norris, with his dirty blonde hair, could somehow "go stealth" by wearing black clothes in the middle of Saigon is ridiculous.

One thing's for sure, this movie wasn't helping U.S.-Vietnam relations any.  Having a Chinese American play the leader of the Vietnamese diplomatic contingent was especially insulting.

Yet while it doesn't quite pack the punch of First Blood Part II, it does exemplify a trend towards Vietnam-themed action movies in the 80s.  For this reason alone it's worth seeking out.

Fun Fact: The similarities between this movie and First Blood Part II aren't accidental.  Both movies were based on a story treatment submitted by James Cameron for the second Rambo film.

Fun (Non)Fact 2: Chuck Norris has counted to infinity.  Twice.

2. Dreamscape

Hollywood never met a good idea it didn't recycle.  Dennis Quaid would later star in Innerspace, another movie where he invaded other people's personal space, and let us not forget The Cell in 2000, Vanilla Sky in 2001, and Inception in 2010 - all of which offered other takes on the concept of people visiting others' dreams.  And yes, there's probably some other, earlier movie I've forgotten (or don't know about) that treads upon similar ground.

Just the same, Dreamscape is a good movie.  Dennis Quaid was a great leading man, and it's too bad that so much of his career was derailed due to substance abuse.

3. Against All Odds

Bet you remember the Phil Collins' song better than the movie.  "So take a look at me now...."

...but maybe it's not all Phil Collins' fault.  This movie is good, but it's not as good as Taylor Hackford's previous effort, An Officer and a Gentleman.  This one's more a genre picture, and feels less genuine than its predecessor.  Especially that confrontation at the end of the movie - that one scene is so silly that it almost ruins the entire film.

Jeff Bridges stars as an ex-football player, Rachel Ward is the love interest, and James Woods appears as a shady "friend" of Bridges.  In the same year Bridges starred in (excuse the pun) Starman, and the year before Woods starred in Videodrome.  Both of those movies were way better than the more derivative Against All Odds.

4. A Passage to India

David Lean was still making movies in the 1980s? I had no idea.  And that's Judy Davis?  From The Ref?  Apparently she's Australian!  Who knew?

This movie is VERY slow to get going, but if you liked 1982's Gandhi I think you'll also find a lot to like in this movie.  Where Gandhi was big and momentous, A Passage to India is small and intimate.  It's full of the day-to-day misunderstandings: the little embarrassments that informed the rule of the British Raj.  It's also more of an ensemble piece, whereas Gandhi was the story of one man.

Compare Maurice Jarre's orchestral score in A Passage to India to the synth-laden score he did for Dreamscape the same year.  Could any two things be more different?

5. Beat Street

"You can keep your dreams, gentlemen.  But get something to fall back on."  Truer words were never spoken.  33 years later, and what happened to all those (slow) rappers, DJs, taggers, and breakers?  For some, fortunes were won and lost, but for most it was probably a brief glimpse at fame, and then back to the day-to-day reality of living in the Bronx.

This movie's still surprisingly good.  And yes, I owned my own pair of parachute pants, once upon a time.

6. Falling in Love

Not as bad as Scenes from a Marriage, not even as bad as Eyes Wide Shut, but definitely NOT a date movie.  This tale of marital infidelity will have you (and your significant other) questioning the nature of your relationship long before the credits roll.  While De Niro and Streep's previous movies were definitely better (The King of Comedy and Silkwood, respectively), this film has aged very well.

7. Red Dawn

Cold War paranoia at its finest, and also the one movie the NRA really wants you to see.  It's very 80s in the same way that Missing in Action is very 80s, but the story's more coherent and the acting's better.  Fun Fact #1: Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey, who both appear in this movie, would later star in Dirty Dancing together.  Fun Fact #2: The script for this movie started out as an anti-war film, but the studio pushed the scriptwriter into making it more of a "teen Rambo" movie.

8. The Killing Fields

Having been to Cambodia, I can tell you that a) it's very beautiful, and b) it's very sad sometimes, too.  For every Angkor Wat there's a troop of kids running after you saying: "Hello one dollar!  Hello one dollar!"  For every sign of (uneven) development, there's a TV channel right out of Orwell's 1984.  Cambodia is, in other words, a very strange place, but if you haven't been I recommend it.

Sam Waterston stars in this story of the Khmer Rouge's rise to power.  This movie won a lot of Oscars, including a Best Supporting Actor for Waterston's costar, Haing S. Ngor.

9. Love Streams

John Cassavetes kind of lost me with Gloria, but he was back in form again with Love Streams.  If you think about certain plot elements it's somewhat ridiculous, but for me this just adds to the movie's charm.  Felt like something John Waters might have attempted.

10. 1984

I'm talking about 1984 in this post, so of course I have to mention this movie!  It's one of my favorite books, and they did a good job adapting it to film.  For a particularly jarring experience, listen to the Van Halen album right after viewing the movie.

11. Once Upon a Time in America

I'm really surprised I didn't see this movie earlier.  Sergio Leone, De Niro, James Woods -- it seems exactly like a movie I would have gravitated toward much earlier on, but for whatever reason that didn't happen.

I can't say it's a perfect movie.  Even with a four-hour runtime it doesn't successfully juggle all its characters, and the friendship at the center of the movie isn't really given enough time to develop.  This said, there are a lot of things to like about Once Upon a Time in America, not least of which are the cinematography and a truly masterful performance by De Niro.

Fun Fact: Jennifer Connelly is in this.  It was her first movie and she was between 12 and 13 at the time.

Some Bad Ones

1. Police Academy

This was funny in 1984?  I guess you had to have been there.  Actually I was there - but I was only 9 at the time.  There's a somewhat funny gag involving a prostitute and a podium, but the rest of this movie feels like warmed-over Animal House.

2. The Hotel New Hampshire

Whatever happened to Beau Bridges?  He used to be everywhere.  Maybe he got tired of being a movie star?

The senior Bridges, Rob Lowe, Jodie Foster, and the dude who got melted and then hit by a car in Robocop star in this story of a New Hampshire family that opens a hotel.  It's full of cringe-y dialogue and one of the most badly-timed rape scenes ever.  One of the more annoyingly pretentious movies I've seen recently, but maybe the book was better?

Also the only film in which you'll hear Jodie Foster say something like, "Hey!  Your balls are wet!"

3. Buckaroo Banzai

You know what this movie needed?  More Jeff Goldblum.  He's the only interesting thing in this entire thing.

You know what this movie also needed?  More action.  For what most would assume is an action movie, there's little going on for most of the Buckaroo Banzai's two hour runtime.  Even the big fight at the end is anticlimactic.  It's like a radio serial that fails to end with a cliffhanger, or a TV show without enough of a premise to keep the viewer invested.

This was Peter Weller's biggest movie before Robocop, and I can tell you he was much better used by Paul Verhoeven.  To some extent I understand why this movie enjoys a cult following (its eccentricity), but come on, there are better movies to obsess over.

4. Paris, Texas

Something about two brothers, one of whom was missing for four years.  God it's boring.  Made it halfway through and had to tap out.

5. Nothing Lasts Forever

What a weird film.  Was this supposed to be funny?  The guy from Gremlins and some SNL alumni feature in this story about a young man who wants to become an artist in New York.  Mostly black and white, with a dream sequence in color.  It was never released theatrically or on home video, though it was later uploaded to the Internet.

Some That Are So Bad They're Good

1. Streets of Fire

Riding high on the success of 48 Hrs., writer/director Walter Hill offered this second, larger helping of macho bullshit.

Diane Lane (a.k.a. Superman's mom) is abducted by Willem Defoe and later saved by her old boyfriend Michael Pare.  Inbetween there are a few good songs and a lot of bad ones.  The dialogue is unintentionally hilarious, and certain plot points make absolutely no sense.

Watching this movie in 2017, I'm not sure if I feel more embarrassed for Willem Defoe, who spends most of the movie wearing silly leather fetish overalls; or for Amy Madigan, who has all the worst lines.

2. Breakin'

The bastard child of Beat Street and Flashdance, featuring a white girl who learns all about poppin' and lockin'.  Where Beat Street is New York cold, Breakin' is sunny California.  Where Beat Street is inner city, Breakin' is well-lit dance studios and beaches.  Gotta love the evil dance instructor.  Fun Fact: Ice T performs in this movie!  Twice!

3. The Ice Pirates

Super low budget, jokey Star Wars ripoff?  It's not as deliberately funny as Spaceballs, but in terms of unintentional hilarity it's in the same neighborhood.  Robert Urich stars as the pirate captain, with the more recognizable Ron Perlman and Anjelica Huston in supporting roles.  

Fun Fact: Stewart Raffill, the director, is also responsible for 1988's Mac and Me.

Related Entries:

Some Other Movies From 1982
Some Other Movies From 1980
Roller Disco, Man!
Ten Good Bad Movies

1984 and Counting

I'm getting older now, so I suppose it's only natural that I'm developing a fondness for older movies.  This isn't to say that I don't watch the new ones, but I find myself developing a certain nostalgia for the movies of my youth.

The other day, for example, I was watching Ghostbusters for the thousandth time.  Ghostbusters came out in 1984, when I was nine years old, so I was well within the target audience for that film when it was first released.  Yes, I saw the sequel.  Yes, I watched the cartoon.  And yes, I may have even owned the lunch box.

Ghostbusters is, I think, a movie that has stood the test of time.  This is undoubtedly why they're filming a reboot.  The characters are still engaging, Bill Murray is still funny, and it's still spooky without being scary.  It's the perfect Halloween movie, and even though some of the special effects look dated it's still an engrossing film.

After I finished Ghostbusters, I started to wonder about other films from the same year.  Wikipedia has a list of these films, which informed me that the top ten movies from 1984 were, in order, Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Gremlins, The Karate Kid, Police Academy, Footloose, Romancing the Stone, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and Splash.

Of course some of these movies have aged better than others.  Films like Ghostbusters and Temple of Doom continue to attract new viewers, while others, such as Police Academy and Romancing the Stone, have largely been forgotten.  This is true of any year in film - often, and for any number of reasons, the movies that were once the talk of the town escape the collective memory, while others, seemingly doomed to obscurity at the time of their release, find a new life with a younger audience.

After seeing the above list, I went and rewatched all ten films.  Some of these, like Ghostbusters, I had seen very recently, while others, like Beverly Hills Cop, I hadn't seen since the 80s.  I'd have to say it was interesting to revisit this year in movie history, though some of the conclusions I reached about that year's blockbuster films surprised even me.

For one thing, Beverly Hills Cop is now a deeply boring, talky, slow-paced movie.  It would never pass for blockbuster material in this day and age.  I think what originally sold audiences on this move was a) Eddie Murphy's charm, b) the soundtrack, and c) the word "fuck."  The characters in Beverly Hills Cop go out of their way to say fuck at every conceivable opportunity.  "Fuck you motherfuckers," quoth the young Murphy, "Y'all get the fuck out of here!"

Gremlins is another film that hasn't aged well.  The acting is terrible, the special effects look positively prehistoric, and the story is nonsense.  It's a great example of that "Transformers" kind of popularity, in which an idea present in a movie fascinates people just enough for them to overlook that movie's obvious flaws.

Police Academy and Footloose, however, are just BAD.  Police Academy is so NOT funny, so labored, and so deliberately sophomoric that it almost gets points for being so terrible.  Footloose, by contrast, is one of the most unintentionally hilarious movies ever filmed, and continues to give rise to parodies.

Romancing the Stone?  Who else has seen Romancing the Stone recently?  Or is it just me?  Odds are that I'm the only guy that's bothered to watch this movie in some time, and even though it has a few redeeming features I can't recommend it.

I'd have to give The Karate Kid, Star Trek III, and Splash a passing grade.  Not masterpieces by any stretch of the imagination - though The Karate Kid is still pretty damn good.  And whatever happened to Ralph Macchio?  Is he still around?

One thing that watching all of these movies has brought to mind is how much the world has changed since 1984.  No cellphones.  Computers with minimal amounts of memory.  No Internet.  Huge cars.  Video arcades.  Sweat clothes worn as daily apparel.  Thriller-era Michael Jackson.  Cold War paranoia.  Reaganomics.  The abuse of synthesizers.  Rotary dial telephones.  Huge tinted glasses for women.  Big hair.  Almost no CGI.

This, and many of these movies are tedious by modern standards.  Whereas blockbusters in 2015 are mostly layers of CGI intercut with minimalistic conversation, movies in 1984 put a lot more emphasis on character development, plot twists, and dialogue.  I'm not saying this is/was always a good thing - I'd certainly take Transformers: Dark of the Moon over Beverly Hills Cop - but it is indicative of both the era and the limitations on movie making back then.

So 1984 - was it a good year for movies?  It was certainly a good year for me, but then again I was nine years old at the time, and a lot of these films were like doors to worlds I was just discovering.  I can remember going to see Star Trek III in the theater, and being fascinated by the idea of the Genesis planet.  I can remember seeing The Karate Kid, and wanting to study martial arts.  Many movies from that year made a lasting impression on me, and this is why I keep rewatching the best of them.