I spent all of 2021 living and working in Fangliao Township, Pingtung County, Taiwan. There was a lot of job-related uncertainty. I lost a couple friends. I gained a couple new ones. All in all it wasn't a terrible year, but I've had better years for sure.
The top 5 movies of 2021 were Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Battle of Lake Changjin, Hi, Mom, No Time to Die and F9. The Battle of Lake Changjin is about the People's Liberation Army forcing U.S. forces to withdraw from a key position during the Korean War. Turnabout is always fair play I suppose, but this movie is still blatant propaganda, and the reduced status of the Hong Kong talent compelled to participate in it makes me sad.
Critics also liked The Power of the Dog, CODA, King Richard, Tick, Tick... BOOM!, Being the Ricardos, West Side Story, The Eyes of Tammy Faye and Belfast. Of these movies I've seen The Power of the Dog (overrated), Tick, Tick... BOOM! (a solid movie), West Side Story (beautifully filmed, but made me sleepy) and The Eyes of Tammy Faye, which I genuinely enjoyed.
My favorite movies were Spider-Man: No Way Home, Godzilla vs. Kong, The Last Duel and The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Then again there are many movies from this year that I haven't seen, and some of them will be discussed in the upcoming Some Other Movies From 2021 (2) entry.
My least favorite movie was, hands-down, No Time to Die. That film just made me angry. If the James Bond franchise has one rule, it's that James Bond isn't allowed to die in the end. Especially not unnecessarily. Sorry for the spoiler, but there it is.
Excellent
1. Godzilla vs. Kong
I like big stompy monsters. That's kind of my thing. This movie isn't perfect, but it features a few big stompy monsters stomping a lot of stompable things. I appreciate that. The people I went with were all rooting for Kong. I was rooting for Godzilla.
2. The Last Duel
You could fault this movie for being too on the nose, right down to the youngish king passing judgment through the court of public opinion. But aside from that this is a well crafted film, and both Matt Damon and Adam Driver are good as two knights contending over the same woman. Is it the best movie Ridley Scott has ever done? No, but it's still better than most of the movies that came out this year.
3. Spider-Man: No Way Home
That one conversation in Ned's house. FUCK. I managed to avoid online spoilers, and when that conversation happened I was like daaaamn. The plot doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's great regardless. Top tier performances from Holland, Zendaya and... whoever else might be in this movie.
Some Good Ones
1. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
In case you're unfamiliar with the comic books, Shang-Chi was always a street level character, tied to the neighborhood where he lived and isolated from most of the rest of the Marvel Universe. He was very much a product of the 1970s, an era in which Bruce Lee was blowing people's minds.
The more recent movie incarnation is a whole other character. It's not just that they retooled the Mandarin's backstory, but also the scale of Shang-Chi's powers, the magical elements, and the fact that he's untethered to any single (urban) location. The MCU Shang-Chi is just a whole lot bigger, and I think this change of scale makes sense given the MCU films that have come before him. Giving us another street level hero along the lines of the Netflix shows would have been disappointing. It also wouldn't have made as much sense given the kind of continuity Marvel Studios is creating.
I enjoyed this movie a lot more than I thought I would. I wasn't super excited going in, but by the time the fight on the bus started I was fully invested. Simu Liu is a good actor, and Tony Leung, who's carried more movies than I can count, was an ideal choice for the villain. If someone explained the ending to you beforehand you'd probably make up your mind against it, but as it is they do an excellent job of building up to that fantastical conclusion.
Awkwafina? I think she was miscast. She was great in The Farewell - a movie in which she plays a similar character - but her humorous dialogue in Shang-Chi lessened the movie. The actress playing Shang-Chi's sister - a woman I found insanely attractive - could have just as easily filled the same function in the plot.
Fun Fact 1: Actor Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee, almost starred in a Shang-Chi television show in the 1980s. Bruce Lee was the visual inspiration for Shang-Chi back in the 70s.
Fun Fact 2: Movie martial arts legend Yuen Woo-Ping almost directed a version of Shang-Chi for Dreamworks Pictures back in the early 2000s. Yuen Woo-ping choreographed the fights in the The Matrix.
2. Zack Snyder's Justice League
Is it akin to the Second Coming of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Of course not. It's unquestionably better than the Joss Whedon version, but I won't argue that it's not too long. It does fill in some blanks with regard to the earlier version, and I especially enjoyed the added scenes with the Flash, but after watching it I had no desire to see it again. I think the best version of Justice League is somewhere between Snyder's (far more cohesive) vision and Joss Whedon's more "commercially acceptable" substitute.
If nothing else I'm happy this movie was released because it diffused all the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut agitation. I'm sure all of those people have moved on to some other cinematic cause, and I'm happy to NOT know what that cause is.
Fun Fact: That scene with Martian Manhunter in the end originally featured John Stewart/Green Lantern.
3. Suicide Squad
SO much hype, but yeah, it's a solid movie. I wasn't a big fan of James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy films, but this one worked much better for me. I liked "the fakeout" in the beginning, I enjoyed the gratuitous violence, and in Bloodsport Idris Elba seems to have found a comic book character worthy of his acting ability.
My favorite parts of this movie were Bloodsport and Peacemaker's assault on the rebel camp, and also the scenes involving King Shark. Harley Quinn shouldn't have been given so much screen time, and Joel Kinnaman - as in the first movie - doesn't have enough to do. Starro was well done, and making his origins more gruesome was a great idea.
Future: At the present time Gunn seems to have drifted away from the DCEU. He's been helping the Peacemaker series along, but after production on The Suicide Squad wrapped he'd already started work on the third Guardians of the Galaxy. There's even a Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special on the way in 2022.
4. Venom: Let There Be Carnage
It's cheesy as hell, but after sitting through Dune and No Time to Die (below) it was exactly what I needed. It reminded me a lot of earlier, pre-MCU comic book movies like Sam Raimi's Spider-Man or Blade II. Silly but enjoyable dialogue, a completely predictable plot structure and less-than-convincing special effects - all delivered in about an hour and a half.
5. Eternals
At this point in the game it might be better to ask what kind of superhero movie this is. Is it superheroes done as an action movie? Superheroes done as drama? Superheroes done as science fiction? I think the last definition comes closer to what Eternals is, even though it's not completely satisfying in that respect either. As an action movie it fails - it never manages to build that kind of tension. As a drama it also fails - not all of the characters are introduced properly, and some of their actions remain enigmatic long after the credits roll. But, as a science fiction movie it almost works, even if the comic book reasoning employed toward the end brings the whole thing down a couple notches.
While watching it I kept wondering what Jack Kirby would have made of the entire thing. I'm a bit embarrassed to say I've never read any of his Eternals comics, but I think he'd be a bit disappointed by the lack of impact the action scenes have, while he'd be gratified by the cosmic scale of the movie. In my opinion it's not bad, but Shang-Chi was both more complete and more aware of its audience.
Fun Fact 1: Bill Skarsgard, who voiced the Deviant Kro, also voiced Pennywise in It and It Chapter Two.
Fun Fact 2: That offscreen voice at the end? That's Mahershala Ali, who'll be playing Blade in the near future. The filming of Blade should begin next year.
Fun Fact(s) 3: Jack Kirby started work on Marvel's The Eternals after his New Gods series were summarily cancelled at DC. He brought many of the elements he'd introduced in the New Gods to The Eternals.
Fun Fact 4: In the comics, the same process that created the Eternals and Deviants on Earth created the Kree and Skrull on other worlds.
6. Free Guy
Tron, The Thirteenth Floor, The Matrix, Ready Player One and countless other movies dealing with virtual reality, AI, and the implications of the two. Free Guy doesn't offer anything new to the genre, but it's a fun (sometimes funny) movie that takes us on a tour of the usual tropes with a wink and a nod. Ryan Reynolds does a good job of holding the thing together, and even though it's too long it's still a serviceable action movie.
7. Don't Look Up
It's tempting to dismiss this movie as Idiocracy 2.0, but it does make a more subtle (if less funny) point about objectivity in the age of social media. Leonardo DiCaprio turns in one of his best performances here, and writer, producer and director Adam McKay brings his incisive sense of humor to bear on the subject matter.
I have the feeling this movie, like Idiocracy before it, might be a slow burn. If people are quoting it in a few years I won't be surprised.
Some Bad Ones
1. Black Widow
I hated it. Warmed-over Winter Soldier nonsense. I never thought Black Widow deserved her own movie, and this movie is proof of that. Spider Woman? Bring it on. Ms. Marvel? I'd love that. Captain Marvel 2? Bound to be better than the first one. But Black Widow? Why?
I liked David Harbour, Rachel Weisz and Florence Pugh though. They outshine Scarlett Johanssen in every scene they're in. The rest of it? Not doing anything for me. The worst bit is the villain explaining his entire plot aboard the sky base near the end, and that skydive from said base after it gets exploded is pure impossibility.
Calling this "the seventh highest-grossing film of 2021" also isn't saying much. That designation is probably untrue now anyway. Many films had release dates delayed and even pushed to the following year due to the pandemic.
In a Parallel Universe: Emily Blunt almost played Black Widow in Iron Man 2.
2. Army of the Dead
I wanted to like this movie. I really enjoyed Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead. I just wasn't feeling it. It tries a couple novel things: the zombie birth, the zombie animals, but those two gimmicks aside it's very dark and very boring. I like the kind of actor Dave Bautista's shaping up to be, but this movie isn't that entertaining.
3. No Time to Die
People who entered the series alongside Daniel Craig will probably love it, those who've been a fan for longer probably won't. For me this wasn't a Bond movie. It's overlong, it's depressing, and it misses the point of the character. He's a heterosexual male fantasy after all, and not many heterosexual males fantasize about beautiful women we can't have, villains who plan on torturing and/or killing our loved ones, or the personal sacrifice Bond has to make at the end of this movie. I think Craig was a good Bond - maybe not the best Bond, but definitely good - and I don't think this was the right way to say farewell to his character.
4. Dune
What? I didn't like Dune? No, I didn't. Like No Time to Die above I thought it was too long, TOO LOUD, and a burdened by the impression it was trying to make. If the sequels ever get made I'll happily consider this movie the first half of something better, but taken on its own it doesn't present a very compelling narrative.
I still think Denis Villenueve is one of the best directors out there, but he needs to back away from this "small character against an enormous background followed by loud, unidentifiable noises" thing he keeps doing. It really worked in films like Sicario and Blade Runner 2049, but it's getting repetitious. I'll agree that there's not much character development in the book, but this movie makes David Lynch's version look concise by comparison.
5. Red Notice
This movie is terrible. I liked Ryan Reynolds in Free Guy (above), but in Red Notice he's both irritating and superfluous. The Rock does his usual Rock thing, Gal Gadot tries desperately to do something that's not Wonder Woman (whatever that thing is), and along the way they stumble through plot holes large enough to swallow entire continents.
6. The Matrix Resurrections
Excuse me, but what the fuck? The first half of this movie had me - I was fully onboard - but then they aborted mission on existentiality and science fiction, and it became a movie about... the power of love? This movie is trying to walk a fine line between a thoughtful exploration of life in the digital age and action movie, and it fails on both counts. I walked in wanting to like it: I walked in fully invested, but they lost me somewhere between Keanu Reeves' rescue and whatever it is that ending was about. This is really too bad, because the first half of this movie has a lot going for it. They seem to have lost their way somewhere down the line.
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