Dylan's Top 10 Best Films of 2020

 

Aw hell yeah, the shit stain of a year known as 2020 is finally coming to a fucking end! Not everything was bad though, because we were blessed with a few good movies this year! Today we are going through the 10 movies I enjoyed the most this year! 

Here's a few honorable mentions!

Birds of Prey, Onward, The Hunt, Da 5 Bloods, Unhinged, Fatman, Just Mercy, Extraction, Happiest Season and The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On the Run

Now, on to my top 10!

10.  Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog may not be anything special or groundbreaking, but it's a fun comedic adventure that has some cool action sequences, some good laughs, and a fucking amazing performance by Jim Carrey! It may not be a perfect film but it did provide some levity and fun to an otherwise horrible year.

9.  Bad Boys for Life

Who knew a movie from January would be so much fun? Bad Boys for Life is absolutely that! It managed to have the same amount of energy that the first two films had, the action was exciting and brutal, and it was also one of the funniest movies of the whole year! Will Smith and Martin Lawrence proved they still got it, they kicked ass, they were hilarious. What else can I say other than I loved this movie?

8.  Freaky

My last pick was an action comedy, my next pick is a horror comedy. Freaky was fantastic! It was a laugh riot, the kills are gory and creative, and Vince Vaughn gives probably my favorite performance of the entire year! This was the best slasher film I have seen in a long time and I look forward what director Christopher Landon does next!

7.  The Invisible Man

The Invisible Man was one of the best horror films in the past 10 years! Leigh Whannell once again proves how great of a director he really is. The story was fantastic, the tension was non-stop, the acting was great! Elisabeth Moss is awesome here, she definitely redeemed herself after being in that dumpster fire of a movie from last year known as The Kitchen!

6.  Spontaneous

I am not much of a romantic comedy guy, most romantic comedies are trash! Some examples of great ones are The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and The Wedding Singer. Spontaneous definitely joins the list of great ones! The humor is beautifully dark and hilarious, the romance is great, and this movie is extremely well directed! If you love romantic comedies, or great movies in general, give this a watch!

5.  Love and Monsters

Love and Monsters was just pure fun! It's fun, it has great action sequences, the monsters were cool, and Dylan O'Brien gives a fun, charismatic performance. This movie had a surprising amount of heart too! You can't go wrong with that!

4.  Promising Young Woman

Promising Young Woman tackles the issue of sexual assault with darkly humorous but tasteful fashion. The film is a great dark comedy, and a fantastic thriller at the same time! The movie is timely, entertaining, extremely well written, and much like every other movie on my list, featuring some of the best acting I've witnessed all year!

3.  Possessor

Possessor is one of the most compelling and entertaining gore fests I have ever seen! The story was just so intriguing and I always wanted to see where it would go! This was one of the goriest films I have seen probably since the 2013 reboot of Evil Dead. The ending of the film was a standout, this film has one of the best endings I have seen all year!

2.  Soul

Soul is one of the best kids movies in years! This film was so, so good! The animation is beautiful, it has tons of heart, the voice acting is flawless, and wow, the music phenomenal! PIXAR is on a roll again, I am glad their movies haven't been disappointing lately, Soul is a wonderful addition to their library and I can't wait for the Blu-ray to come out!

1.  Tenet

Here we go, we finally made it to my favorite film of 2020, the movie that made me the happiest through the depressing trainwreck of a year! Christopher Nolan has done it yet again with another challenging but rewarding, endlessly thrilling action film! Tenet is the film that entertained me the most, the story was amazing, the action sequences were exhilarating, seriously some of the best action these eyes have ever seen! The acting was seriously on point, the special effects were mind blowing! I could spend hours gushing on this film! This may not be the absolute best film Nolan has made, Inception and The Dark Knight are still his masterpieces, but this is still a wonderful addition to his filmography and everyone who loves movies should absolutely check it out!

So there we go, that was my top 10 best films of 2020! I can't wait for what next year has to offer and let's hope that 2021 is better than this year!

Wonder Woman 1984 - Movie Review

 Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

Wonder Woman 1984 is the anticipated sequel to the fantastic first film from 2017, director Patty Jenkins returns for this film, and the film stars Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, and Pedro Pascal. Taking place in 1984, Wonder Woman now must take on two new villains, Maxwell Lord and Cheetah, and there's also some wishing stone in this movie too. Released in theaters and HBO Max on Christmas day in 2020, the film received mixed reviews and is so far a decent hit at the box office.

THE GOOD

Before I rip this trainwreck to shreds, I do have like 3 good things to say. There's a decent action sequence that takes place in the white house. The acting is good. The opening scene is fine. Yeah that's about it.

THE BAD

WOW! This film was terrible! I haven't been this bored with a superhero movie since last year's Dark Phoenix. The film is painfully boring, it looks terrible, it doesn't even fit in with the rest of the DCEU films. This film has some of the worst pacing I have witnessed all year. This movie is 151 minutes long and you really feel that run time! The movie moves at a snail pace, nothing significant really happens in the entire run time, there's a horrible lack of action in the film. Now, I don't mind if a superhero movie has little action, because I adored Avengers: Endgame, Shazam!, and the Ant-Man films, but those movies had plots that I was on board with, and I loved the characters in those films! This movie lacks a compelling plot, and the characters this time around are not interesting in the slightest. You only actually get to see Wonder Woman in action twice in the first 100 minutes of the film. Out of the couple action sequences in this film, the best one was the white house scene. The rest could have been great but they had zero emotional weight, and the CGI and green screen are TERRIBLE! During this car chase sequence in the desert (oops, I meant in front of a green screen) about 90 minutes into the movie, the green screen is painfully obvious, the CGI was unconvincing, it was such a let down. It wasn't the worst action sequence in the film though. The final fight between Wonder Woman and Cheetah was the lamest and most poorly done action sequence I have witnessed in a superhero film in quite some time. At least Dark Phoenix had mostly competent action sequences. The CGI on Cheetah looked like it was straight out of Cats! Yeah, I was just shocked when I saw how awful she looked. Now you may be wondering, what happens in the film while there's no action happening? Nothing, most of this film is either a hallmark rom-com, or it's too busy taking plot points from other superhero movies, mainly Spider-Man and even Batman of all things. Cheetah's entire plot is basically Electro's plot in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Riddler's plot in Batman Forever. Wonder Woman's arc here is straight out of Spider-Man 2! The romance is so boring. While Gal Gadot and Chris Pine give good performances, their chemistry is completely absent, it's executed like a hallmark movie, there's nothing to praise about it. The story is awful, nothing makes sense, and it just takes from other superhero movies as I mentioned before. Steve Trevor's return was weird and confusing, I'm not going to spoil anything for any of you who want to see this thing, but yeah it's weird and confusing.

CONCLUSION

Wonder Woman 1984 is the worst event film I have seen since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and the worst superhero film since Dark Phoenix. It's boring, cringey, there's very little action, there's just nothing here that reminds us of how great the first one was. The first film was fun, action packed, I loved the characters, the story was engaging, this film was none of those things. If you liked this movie, that's fine, enjoy what you like, but I personally don't enjoy this one. This is the worst DCEU film so far, and if you manage to make Justice League look good, you know you fucked up. I wanted to love this movie, I was rooting for Patty Jenkins to make another great Wonder Woman film, but she failed big time.

2.8/10

FILM INFO

Rating:  PG-13 (for sequences of action and violence)

Run time:  151 min

Release date:  December 25th, 2020

Studio:  Warner Bros. Pictures, DC Films

Here's a picture of Cheetah to really spice up this review:

Krampus - Movie Review

 Krampus (2015)

My original plan was 4 Christmas reviews but I decided on 5.  My 2nd review is for a horror comedy called Krampus, based on Austrian folklore and directed by Michael Dougherty, who also directed the fantastic horror comedy anthology film, Trick R' Treat.  Released in 2015, Krampus received positive reviews from critics and was a modest success at the box office.

THE GOOD

Krampus as a movie may be far from perfect, there's still a shit ton of greatness to it! I love how realistically the movie portrays the family, it's not sappy or sentimental whatsoever! They fight, argue, call each other names, but despite that, I actually did care about most of them. I love the tone and atmosphere of the film, the comedy never gets in the way of the eerie, dark vibe, as a horror film it's actually pretty effective. The performances are pretty solid, even the child actors do a pretty decent job. The humor can be hit and miss at times, but when it lands, it's pretty funny. There is this incredible scene involving hand drawn animation about half way through the movie explaining a character's experience with Krampus, it's compelling and beautiful, it's the best scene in the movie. The effects and production value are marvelous! It's almost all practical, and there is endless amounts of creativity on display. It's grotesque, surprisingly so for a PG-13 movie, creepy at times, humorous at times, it's all fun to watch. I can compare this to Gremlins in a way because of some of the mayhem involving small creatures in the movie. The scene where you finally see Krampus blew me away, it was nothing short of amazing.

THE BAD

As I said previously, this film is far from perfect. Some of the comedy does not work. Pacing is a real issue at times. There are sequences in this film are boring, the movie doesn't flow as well as it should. I REALLY hated the aunt character in the film, her constant complaining and bitchiness got to the point of being excessive, it got on my nerves really fast.

CONCLUSION

Krampus has its flaws, but this movie never falls short on creativity. There are highly entertaining scenes while also having scenes that are dull. This movie has fantastic atmosphere and tone, which is what I expect for a horror film. It's festive enough to be a nice watch at Christmas and if you can look past some of the film's few shortcomings, this can be a delightful experience.

7/10

FILM INFO

Rating:  PG-13 (for sequences of horror violence/terror, language and some drug material)

Run time:  98 min

Release date:  December 4th, 2015

Studio:  Universal Pictures, Legendary Pictures

Die Hard - Movie Review

 Die Hard (1988)

Welcome to the first of my Christmas reviews! This is the first of 4 Christmas movies I have planned to review for the week of Christmas, and there's no better way to kick it off than Die Hard! Yes, Die Hard is a fucking Christmas movie, stop with the fucking debates! Seriously, whoever says Die Hard isn't a Christmas movie obviously hasn't fucking watched it! Released in 1988, the film initially received mixed reviews, but overtime has been widely considered to be one of the best action films of all time, and was a major box office success, becoming a franchise with 4 sequels, one of which was the disaster I reviewed earlier this year, called A Good Day to Die Hard.

THE GOOD

Die Hard is one of my favorite films of all time. It has everything, action, suspense, humor, twists and turns, romance, you name it, it has it! This movie is exciting, it has top notch action, it's violent, the tension is relentless! Bruce Willis does an amazing job as John McClane, part of what makes the movie so exciting is that he is vulnerable, he shows fear, he faces near certain death many times, and you always hope he survives! John McClane is very likable as a character, he's pretty much a lovable asshole, and he provides much of the film's humor with quotable lines and awesome one liners! Alan Rickman is an absolute scene stealer in this movie playing as the villain, Hans Gruber. He is one of the greatest action movie villains of all time! You understand his motive, he is intimidating, immediately when he's introduced you know he means fucking business! It's especially impressive knowing that this was Alan Rickman's first role! The editing is fantastic, the movie moves at a rapid fire pace. The film never drags on, there's never a dull moment to be found. The writing is amazing, there's so much great dialogue, and the story is engaging. Like I mentioned before, the action sequences are phenomenal. The gun battles are exciting, the stunt work is out of this world, the blood effects and explosions are cool, the hand to hand combat is brutal, and all that is thanks to the amazing direction by John McTiernan, who directed many other great action and thriller movies like Predator, The Hunt for Red October, Die Hard With a Vengeance and the underrated Last Action Hero. One thing I really gotta praise is the sound mixing! If you watch this movie, you absolutely must watch the film with the loudest sound system you can! The gun shots and explosions sound so cool, same with the punches, kicks, neck snaps and whenever heads get smashed towards hard objects, it all sounds like it really hurts!

THE BAD

Nothing is bad in Die Hard!

CONCLUSION

Die Hard is a fucking classic! It's both a great Christmas movie and a fantastic action movie! Featuring amazing action, tension and fantastic performances by its cast, Die Hard is a must watch for every Christmas, or even all throughout the year, it's that good!

10/10

FILM INFO

Rating:  R (N/A)

Run time:  132 min

Release date:  July 20th, 1988

Studio:  Twentieth Century Fox

Mulan (2020) - Movie Review

 Mulan (2020)

Mulan is a remake of the fantastic animated Disney musical from 1998, it was directed by Niki Caro and stars Yifei Liu, Donnie Yen, Jason Scott Lee and Jet Li, and tells the story of a girl named Mulan, who pretends to be a man to join the military in order to prevent her crippled father from fighting in war. This film was highly controversial, with some of the film being filmed near Chinese concentration camps, Disney thanking many organizations associated with the Chinese Communist Party, the lead actress supporting the police in the Hong Kong riots and getting many aspects of Chinese culture wrong. I am not getting into any of that because I just want to review movies. Released in 2020 on Disney+ for a ridiculous $30 fee and select theaters, Mulan received mostly positive reviews for critics, but was trashed by audiences.

THE GOOD

I have not been a huge fan of the Disney remakes, this isn't the worst of the remakes, but there still isn't a lot that I liked about this movie. Some of the action sequences are shot competently enough, Jason Scott Lee gives a pretty solid performance, and some of the cinematography and scenery is nice. Yeah that's about it.

THE BAD

This movie was BORING! Seriously, this movie bored me to fucking sleep! I had to rewind a lot of the movie to watch the whole thing, because I found myself falling asleep several times throughout the film. There's no fun to be had here. There's no fun characters here, Mushu is gone, none of the army guys have fun personalities here, not much even happens in this movie. This movie tried selling the fact that this is a more mature, action filled film, but it's not. This movie has some pretty annoying humor in the first act, and for a supposedly more action filled film, this movie didn't have much action in it, most of the action sequences are in the last third. While some of the action is competent, there are times where it's not that impressive, it's shot in an insanely high frame rate, and it doesn't look very convincing. I'm all for action that's ridiculous, I love action films like Commando, Face/Off, Die Hard 2, but there's a right and wrong way to do it! There's no emotion in this film, I didn't care about anybody, there's no montage where Mulan is preparing to join the army like in the original, there's literally nothing here. There's very little consistency in characterization, but biggest flaw in that regard is Mulan's father. In the beginning of the film, he supports Mulan in the beginning but then literally like a couple of scenes later he is preaching to her that she needs to learn where her place is! The girl power message is stupid too! Now I have no problem with strong women in movies, Kill Bill is one of my favorite movies, Wonder Woman is one of the best superhero movies in the past 10 years, but this movie suffers from the exact same problem as Captain Marvel where in order for the female hero to be strong, she has to have zero flaws and have an extreme lack of personality or emotion. It seriously contributes to how fucking boring the movie is.

CONCLUSION

Mulan is a horrible remake that's boring and lacks any passion whatsoever. There's little action, no interesting or fun characters, nothing makes sense, there's no reason for me to care about Mulan in this film. I would not have cared about the lack of action if I was invested in the story and characters, but because I wasn't invested in fucking anything, the lack of action just made everything even more boring, and the action wasn't even that impressive in the first place. I have completely lost all hope in Disney remakes being good. It's not as bad as Alice in Wonderland, Maleficent, Beauty and the Beast and ESPECIALLY The Lion King, this remake still didn't convince me that these Disney remakes are anything more than desperate cash grabs with little effort and passion.

3.8/10

FILM INFO

Rating:  PG-13 (for sequences of violence)

Run time:  115 min

Release date:  September 4th, 2020

Studio:  Walt Disney Pictures

 

Fatman - Movie Review

 Fatman (2020)

Fatman is an action comedy film starring Mel Gibson, Walton Goggins, and was directed by Eshom Nelms and Ian Nelms. Fatman tells the story of a broken, fed up Santa Claus who must fight an assassin who was sent to kill him by a vengeful kid. Released in 2020 on VOD, Fatman received mixed reviews from critics, but was generally liked by audiences.

THE GOOD

Fatman is a delightful film with good action, a phenomenal performance from Mel Gibson, a glorious twisted, dark tone and sense of humor. The story was fantastic, I was never bored throughout the entire run time, the movie moved at a smooth pace. Mel Gibson gives us one of the best portrayals of Santa Claus of all time in my personal opinion, he really sells that Santa Claus is a broken guy who is fed up of kids growing increasingly violent and naughty. I love how he still has elves in this pretty grim, dark comedy, and they actually look like elves, and their diets are like an elf diet. Walton Goggins is fine in the film, he gives your typical Walton Goggins performance. Chance Hurstfield, who plays the kid, just might be the best part of the movie. He does a fantastic job at playing a selfish, psychotic kid. It was easily one of the best child performances I have seen in a while. The action is surprisingly great, it's all in the final act but when we get into it, it's exciting, brutal and bloody. Yes, this movie is rated R so you parents out there beware that this is not a Santa Claus movie for kids. Actually, cool parents would let their kids watch this, so yes, I recommend this for family movie night. This movie is darkly funny and the tone is delightfully grim.

THE BAD

I don't have any major gripes with this film. I think there could have been a bit more action in the film, for an action movie, there is a lack of action in the first two acts. The story is really good though so it's not a huge problem.

CONCLUSION

Fatman is a fun Christmas flick that demands to be seen. The story is fun, Mel Gibson is a fantastic Santa Claus, the kid is by far the best part of the movie, and the final act is great violent fun. If you find it on Blu-ray like I did, or if you rent it on VOD, give it a watch, you might just enjoy it.

9/10

FILM INFO

Rating:  R (for bloody violence, and language)

Release date:  November 13th, 2020

Run time:  100 min

Studio:  Saban Films

GREAT MOVIES: Ratatoing

Ratatoing (2007)

Ratatoing is an animated comedy short film made in Brazil in 2007. It tells the timeless and heartwarming tale of a rat who must steal ingredients from a house in order for his restaurant to become successful.

THE GOOD

This is without a doubt one of the greatest films I have ever seen! The animation is gorgeous, the dialogue is perfectly written, the emotions are powerful, this is all around a fantastic film. The voice acting is great, they act their asses off. The story was consistently engaging, while mostly dialogue driven, it still provided enough excitement and intrigue to keep me invested. The animation is absolutely flawless, it's too perfect! The character design, the visuals, everything! It completely blew me away! The comedy is some of the best I have ever experienced in the movie! It's much better than the comedy in its shameful ripoff from Disney! The voice acting is orgasmic, move over Seth MacFarlane, these voices top every voice in Family Guy! This film was a tear jerker as well. The emotional impact of this film was so powerful, it had me in tears so many times!

THE BAD

This film was way too good, it was beyond perfect!

CONCLUSION

Ratatoing was a masterpiece! I have never seen a better animated film than this! This film was beautiful, it brought new meaning to my life! Ratatoing has mastered its craft and gave us a phenomenal example of what great cinema is. If you haven't seen this brilliant film, do yourself a favour and see this!

FILM INFO

Rating:  Not Rated

Run time:  45 min

Release date:  2007

Studio:  Video Brinquedo