It’s a cliché to talk about how bad a year had been in a retrospective like this, but 2023 was pretty rough for me; so much so that, for the first time since starting this website, I took an extended hiatus to try and get my house in order in this nightmare we call modern life. Still, I tried my best to catch up on the big releases right before the end of the year and have been stewing on this list for a month until I finally found time to get my thoughts on the page. The elephant in the room as always is that we are still in a post-pandemic world, or at least it would be if we weren’t still dealing with COVID and its massive impacts daily, so some of these movies can undoubtedly trace some of their problems to the disruption it caused in the entertainment industry. That’s why I try to keep this list constructive with good faith analysis and a limited number of cheap shots. Granted, the last few months have left me feeling a bit salty about things in general, but I’ve done my best to keep the unproductive dunking to a minimum. Let’s get started!
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Fool’s Paradise
Fool’s Paradise is owned by Roadside Attractions
Directed by Charlie Day
Frankly, I don’t want to come down too hard on a guy’s directorial debut, even if it’s someone like Charlie Day who has a reasonable amount of clout to throw around. Making movies isn’t easy and not everyone can make a graceful leap from actor to director; especially on their first attempt. That’s very much the vibe of the movie; something that was made with passion but not enough discipline. Everything from the obvious Hollywood satire to its homages of the silent era is not as clever as it thinks it is; nor as ambitious as its inspirations. The jokes have no wit to them and the story is held together with outdated caricatures of the Hollywood elite that still aren’t goofy enough to carry this silly premise and so the narrative bends over backward to try and make it work to with middling results. Also, while I wouldn’t call myself an aficionado of silent comedies, I’ve seen enough to know how half-hearted the slapstick is, and that lack of effort here compared to the immense effort and genius that went into crafting a lot of those classic films says a lot about this movie. It’s like reading the first chapter of a textbook and thinking you’re as knowledgeable as the professor, or assuming you can be a professional chess player after watching a few YouTube videos. By all means, follow your passions and be inspired by the talent of others, but maybe let the ideas cook for a little bit before presenting to the class.
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The Marvels
The Marvels is owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Directed by Nia DaCosta
Marvel’s ubiquity in popular culture and the glee with which people are predicting its downfall has been one of the many reasons that I’m glad I took a break from film discourse. It’s true that there’s been a downturn in quality from the studio, and while Quantumania is the most flawed of the three major Marvel films from 2023, this is the one that left me the most frustrated. The point of a team-up movie like this is to see the clashing of personalities as well as the clashing of fists, and while there’s enough sizzle to the VFX set pieces to keep it entertaining, the interactions between our heroes fell flat and the movie seemed uncomfortable with engaging in their flaws. The trauma shared between Carol and Monica over losing Maria, Kamala having to confront the humanity of her idol, Captain Marvel being responsible for people instead of just fixing everything on her own, there was plenty of potential for meaningful growth for these characters on which a better movie would have capitalize. Instead, that all gets shunted to the margins until a brief interaction assures us that they’re all cool with each other before heading off to face a villain who may not be the strongest antagonist the MCU has come up with but feels measurably more defined than our leads. Perhaps I came into this with the wrong expectations when in reality it’s the spin-off movie to two separate TV shows; WandaVision and Ms. Marvel. The jump from the small screen to the big one rarely leaves the beloved characters intact as the filmmakers assume that the bigger budget means less of the movie has to be carried by their performances which in this case meant a lot of banal dialogue and a disinterested supporting cast.
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The Last Voyage of the Demeter
The Last Voyage of the Demeter is owned by Universal Pictures
Directed by André Øvredal
This one makes the list for not just being a mediocre SyFy original movie that somehow found its way to the big screen, but for being a woefully trite end to a story of perseverance from within the Hollywood system. The idea for this movie was conceived of as far back as 1992 with some version of this film being in development since at least 2003, and perhaps if it had come out at that time alongside Underworld and Resident Evil: Apocalypse it would be remembered as a charming product of its time. As a movie in 2023, however, it feels as ancient and dusty as the withered soul of Dracula who, I regret to inform you, is barely in this movie and is only on hand to be a literal monster which is a depressingly limited view of what makes Dracula such a compelling villain. The movie needed to play to its strengths and compensate for its shortcomings. You have a decent set, a cast of solid actors, and a worthwhile premise to build from. What you don’t have is the kind of budget to make the Alien On A Boat movie that they were going for; nor did they have the kind of creature that would thrive in that role. Dracula as a genuine character who manipulates the crew and picks them off one by one would have been far more interesting than the Man-Bat story we ended up with and probably would have stood a better chance of recouping its budget. Perhaps that was the plan at one point, but decades of false starts have left us with a cobbled-together mess that aspires to be high-end shlock but can only crawl its way to mediocre streaming filler; something that didn’t even exist when they first put pen to paper on this idea.
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Dream Scenario
Dream Scenario is owned by A24
Directed by Kristoffer Borgli
Even with everything I’m about to say about this movie, I still considered putting it on my best list and simply let my praise outshine whatever reservations I had felt. The movie does a lot of things right with Cage’s performance being the obvious standout, but in the end, I think its flaws are more interesting to discuss which makes this the best place for it. This is a movie with a brilliant premise that has a lot to say about the modern world, but while it’s true that no piece of art is truly apolitical, it’s still possible to put too much commentary into a movie which is where the film lost me in the second half. I mean this in an almost literal way as the film was already making interesting points about our relationship with celebrity and infamy, but it starts to shift away from being a movie about its characters and more about beating you over the head with its thoughts on cancel-culture that are muddled, to say the least. I won’t deny that some of it hits on some real feelings and anxieties that people have, but what bothered me the most, aside from some unfunny jabs at millennials here and there, is that it felt inorganic to the script; like a last minute rewrite that doesn’t quite gel with what was being set up and talked about in the first half. It switches focus from how a character is dealing with a situation to how scary the situation would be for the rest of us, and while I suppose the movie could have made these two perspectives line up with more finesse, I think it was a mistake to pull focus from Cage and his family. Saying something without actually saying it is one of the many things that make films so engaging to watch, and it’s especially helpful when what you have to say is somewhat half-baked and could use a little ambiguity at the edges.
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Saw X
Saw X is owned by Lionsgate
Directed by Kevin Greutert
A bad sequel is one thing, but watching a franchise scurry back to its roots after taking a modestly bold step is the kind of move that this list was made for. The series has regretted killing off Jigsaw the moment it happened, and while the other sequels tried their best to not be so blatant about it, this is the one where they finally threw up their hands and pandered to whatever fan base remains for this nonsense. Spiral felt like a genuine step forward for the franchise and a natural progression of the ideas that underpinned its appeal, but I guess they didn’t like Chris Rock’s performance so it’s back to Tobin Bell and back to circling the drain. Still, it seems a bit misguided for me to try and tell the filmmakers where they’re going wrong when the audience is still showing up for it, but if anyone at Lionsgate wants to aspire to more than just churning out torture-porn comfort food, then they should either remake the series with a concrete plan of where we’re going and how it will end, or they need to push ahead with new killers and new perspectives. Instead, we’ve rushed back to our comfort zone and the cracks in the formula have never been clearer with some of the least interesting kills and uninspired character drama. Even the final twist at the end, which usually garners some amount of shock and suspense, ends up being a total whiff that I suppose perfectly encapsulated the utter banality of the production but still left me without much interest to see anything else from this franchise.
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The Flash
Is there really that much more to say about this movie? Well yes, as I’m sure people will be examining this thing piece by piece for quite a few years, but the jury was out on this movie well before it was even released. Yes, there are worse movies out there and there’s probably a solid third of this movie that can be entertaining, but this was Warner Bros chickens coming home to roost after a decade of mismanaging the DCEU to follow in the wake of Marvel’s success. The obnoxiously busy effects, the uneven cinematography, the more we learn about the cameos at the end, it’s just a mess from top to bottom that only could have happened because no one was willing to stop it from happening. There were too many balls in the air for a serious course correction, so no matter what went wrong they just had to forge ahead, or at least that’s the impression given the final product. Perhaps everything did go smooth as silk and this is genuinely the final product that everyone wanted. I highly doubt it, especially given how much audiences ultimately shunned it, but the final word is on how this got made, the fact is that Warner Bros saw fit to release it and we’re all here talking about it. Thankfully Warner Bros has taken the only advice I would have given and got a genuinely talented filmmaker to burn it all to the ground to rebuild from scratch. I have my fingers crossed that James Gunn can pull it off, but whatever happens with his new DC Universe, it’s unlikely to produce anything this chaotic. Also, a sequel to Teen Titans Go to the Movies would be great. Let’s call that one an apology for Black Adam.
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The Creator
[NEEDSI23-2]
The Creator is owned by 20th Century Studios
Directed by Gareth Edwards
Talk about a swing and a miss. I suppose it at least deserves an A for effort given the quality of the effects on a relatively modest budget, but what was all that effort in service of? Are the set pieces entertaining enough on their own to justify the cost of admission? Not particularly as the movie seems to regard fun and levity as dirty words. Is the narrative an inspiring tale about humanity with relevant social commentary? I suppose that was what they were aiming for, but the stuffy tone and globe-trotting excess of it all left little impact on me as the story itself flew by. There’s a robot kid who everyone wants to either save or kill in a Children of Men sort of arrangement, but very little of it connects on an emotional or character level. There’s simply too much disconnect between the po-faced grittiness of its narrative and the blunt histrionics that would barely hold the intellectual curiosity of a middle-schooler. We’re in something of a golden age of thoughtful sci-fi that’s dressed up with spectacular action and this feels like the exact middle point of all of them with no real peaks or valleys to speak of. There’s nothing about this movie that stands out as a great moment in sci-fi storytelling or a particularly exhilarating set piece to whoop and holler at; it just sits there trying to convince us of how smart it is without standing out in any meaningful way. It’s hard to say what would have fixed this without simply making a different movie. Maybe an embrace of stylism over realism would have made for more interesting action but that would have tampered with its super serious tone. Neither its personal stories nor its overarching mega-plot feels particularly engaging, so I doubt that focusing more on one or the other would have made much of a difference. It’s simply a middle-of-the-road piece of media where all the parts fit together exactly as they should for the passive amusement of the masses. It’s a puzzle with all the pieces in the box and an intuitive enough layout that you can solve it, but once it’s all together all you get is a dull picture of a bunch of robots; no doubt slapped together by Thomas Kinkade Studios.
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Evil Dead Rise
If you enjoyed this movie then I’m happy for you, but this is not what I wanted from Evil Dead and I’d take any piece of media from the franchise over it; including the Commodore 64 game. Yes, you can argue that it’s more in line with the spirit of the first movie which was a genuine horror film, but I simply don’t believe that the reason we all loved that movie was for its more basic horror elements. Even then, there was a certain level of comedic charm to it that dulled the sadistic glee of some of its other moments, and the franchise only moved more and more away from it as time went on. To go back to this kind of horror feels like a miscalculation and I just sat in that theater feeling miserable as brutality after brutality was being portrayed on screen in a franchise that was at its best when it had more on its mind than that. The emphasis on suffering children was easily the worst of it, but this style of elevated horror that cranks up the dial on bleak masochism has never been to my taste, and the allusions to the previous films feel token and out of place. It’s almost worse when they do indulge in these bits of fan service as the movie seems embarrassed to have to put those gags in there in the first place which means what little humor is in here falls flat on its face. Sure, Bruce Campbell is irreplaceable, and trying to recreate the Ash Magic is an uphill battle that the franchise has been putting off for decades, but even if they tried to go completely without it, there just isn’t much to latch onto unless you are really into the gore. We’ll see if it stands the test of time which the much better 2-2013 remake has failed to do, but for how much misery this put me through, we’re gonna need at least five Army of Darkness spinoffs to make up for it.
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And with that, we’re halfway through our last look at 2023 before forging ahead to a hopefully brighter 2024! What do you think of my picks? Are there any egregious oversights? Let me know in the comments below!
The Reviewers Unite 