After two long years, a trip to the movies finally feels like a normal activity again.
In 2020 cinema releases were very few and far between. Then in 2021, we started to see blockbusters return (although being locked down in Auckland, I missed most of them); now, the floodgates have opened with so many long-delayed releases finally here.
The last two films advertised pre-Covid hit screens in 2022, Top Gun: Maverick and Minions: The Rise of Gru. Both were surprisingly good, although one is the breakout hit of the year and a likely Best Picture nominee at next year's Oscars, and the other has some funny jokes revolving around jaundiced tic-tacs.
It's no coincidence that both of those films are sequels; it's become a truth universally acknowledged that if you're going to the cinema in this day and age, there's a good chance it's a franchise film. Although they're not all hits...
The usual Marvel offerings divided audiences, with Thor: Love and Thunder becoming one of the worst-reviewed films of the 30-film MCU.
Other studios attempted to continue their struggling franchises with the likes of Morbius and Black Adam, the latter of which has since been confirmed to be going nowhere in the future of DC Studios.
The Jurassic Saga, which began almost 30 years ago with one of the greatest films ever made, Jurassic Park, came to an end for now with Jurassic World Dominion, a film which blew my freakin' mind. I didn't know it was possible to make a blockbuster that bad anymore.
There were plenty of worthwhile sequels this year though, don't get me wrong. The long-delayed Avatar: The Way of Water proved once again to never bet against James Cameron as it opened to hit reviews from surprised fans and critics alike. Fans worldwide are still eagerly watching the box office as I'm writing this, so if you're reading it in a year's time and it bombed, maybe it's okay to start betting against James Cameron.
Jackass Forever might be one of the year's biggest surprises, opening right at the start of the year to rave reviews for a franchise which always seemed beneath the people reviewing it, but it seems everyone is now on board with Steve-O wearing a condom made of bees.
Special shout-out to Scream (2022), a personal favourite of mine, a new entry into a film franchise very near and dear to me, and I'm not sure I've ever seen a film which felt more perfectly tailored to me.
But enough about sequels! The year had a ton of originality, most awesomely displayed in Everything Everywhere All At Once. A film from a directing duo who go by Daniels, the inventive, hilarious film explores our current obsession with multiverses, but instead of Spider-Man being at the centre of the action, it's a middle-aged Chinese woman who runs a laundromat.
Daniels aren't the only directors putting out some of their best work this year, Martin McDonagh (behind Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) released The Banshees of Inisherin, which explores the existential nightmare that is your friend being mad at you, and it might be his best film. Steven Speilberg also released his most personal film, The Fabelmans, a semi-biopic about how he fell in love with cinema which probably has the best ending of the year.
I'd be remiss not to mention the output of lil' ol' Aotearoa; Muru opened the NZ International Film Festival with a bang, Dame Whina Cooper got the long-overdue biopic she deserves with Whina and David Farrier's follow-up to Tickled, Mister Organ might be the superior film, although a considerably rougher time for the filmmaker himself.
It was a year of surprises; I didn't know Puss in Boots: The Last Wish would be one of my favourites of the year, nor did I think that I would fall in love with Mrs Harris Goes to Paris, but that's why we go to the movies, isn't it?
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