2021 Capsule Reviews

The Last Duel

rating: *****

review: You can tell how lousy critical standards have gotten when a movie that would've been universally acclaimed twenty years ago, been hailed as innovative, and boasted career-defining performances is instead derided, ignored, shunned.  This is a masterpiece.  Besides Matt Damon and Adam Driver you've got Jodie Comer in a career-making role as each of their perspectives is tracked, separately, until the truth (Comer's) closes out Ridley Scott's spectacle (no one has come remotely close to matching him in terms of consistent achievement in historic epics).

The French Dispatch

rating: *****

review: Wes Anderson's most laconic film is basically a glorified anthology, in which he's clearly indulging himself.  Another great film that in any other era would've been celebrated as such.  This is what you get when the pandemic is still happening and streaming services are hogging all the attention.  No perspective.

The Courier

rating: ****

review: My biggest surprise discovery of the year would've been standard acclaim material in any other era: Benedict Cumberbatch in a spotlight as he suffers the depravities at the height of the Cold War.  If I hadn't randomly decided to watch it in the theater early in the year, I probably would never have known it happened at all.

The Green Knight

rating: ****

review: David Lowery has been one of the premier artistic directors of the modern era, but it somehow took for this for the mainstream to notice, and even then it wasn't hailed as the huge achievement it really is.  A classic retelling of a classic tale.

No Time to Die

rating: ****

review: The second and only other time critics actually liked Daniel Craig as Bond (Skyfall, basically a desperate attempt to justify Judi Dench in the franchise) is basically also the only time I didn't.  The audacity of No Time is that it dares to complete the story, which Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace had originally suggested was this version of the character's hallmark.  This, then, is the first time the story has an ending, that James Bond has an actual arc.  It's the Dark Knight Rises of 007.  It's a new wrinkle in the mythology.  

Boss Level

rating: ****

review: Qualifying as one of the miracles of the pandemic was the actual release of the much-delayed Boss Level from Joe Carnahan, which was the first of a one-two punch from him for the year.  A classic example of the time loop genre.

Snake Eyes

rating: ****

review: If not quite The Dark Knight, this is probably the closest we're liable to see anytime soon to G.I. Joe being taken seriously as a cinematic property.  Another unfairly dismissed film from the year.

Die in a Gunfight

rating: ****

review: What I'd like to consider an easy candidate for cult status, a retelling of Romeo & Juliet that also recasts the gang film genre into something more artistically ambitious.

Last Night in Soho

rating: ****

review: A spellbinding time travel experience that combines the unique charms of Edgar Wright and Abya Taylor-Joy.

Settlers

rating: ****

review: For my purposes I include only cinematic releases.  I'm not sure this was, but I don't really care, as it's worth the exception.  A fine space western centering around a young girl struggling to survive terrible circumstances.  Worth considering for cult status for anyone who bothers to seek it out.

Needle in a Timestack

rating: ****

review: Another genre spectacle, this time from John Ridley, involving more time travel hijinks in innovative ways, someone changing the timeline trying to find their perfect reality, and finding poignant results.

Judas and the Black Messiah 

rating: ****

review: Explosive drama featuring a standout lead performance from Daniel Kaluuya that would have been instantly iconic in any other...

The Mauritanian

rating: ****

review: The trilogy of great historic dramas concludes with this look at Guantanamo Bay.  Add Tahar Rahim to the list of those robbed of their just acclaim from the year.

Free Guy

rating: ****

review: This was basically Ryan Reynolds' audition for the Disney version of Deadpool.  A very rare original blockbuster idea for the modern era.

Belfast

rating: ****

review: Kenneth Branagh has been successfully navigating an era in which his kind of career shouldn't still exist, so he got to make a personal film along the way, a throwback to the kinds of movies they were doing back in the '90s.

Dune

rating: ****

review: Denis Villeneuve has stepped away from his solo auteur status to embrace his unique role as a successful director of auteur blockbuster adaptations.  An incredible ensemble of acting talent came along for the ride in this first installment.

Pig

rating: ****

review: The very rare exception to the modern rule that you probably won't personally be interested in Nicolas Cage's further career if you liked him in his earlier stages when he was doing serious material.

Zola

rating: ****

review: I found Taylour Paige to be exceptionally magnetic in this small-scale drama based on a series of tweets.

Copshop

rating: ****

review: If you loved Robert Rodriguez's early films you'll probably enjoy this second Joe Carnahan romp from the year.  Both are also excellent showcases for Frank Grillo, by the way.

Sing 2

rating: ****

review: I came for U2, but it was actually Coldplay that stole the movie for me.  Also some typical but enjoyable animated material around the music.

Death of a Telemarketer

rating: ***

review: Silly and yet enjoyable.  Haley Joel Osment pulls in a supporting role!  He looks like a teddy bear these days.  Put a few more years on him and I think he can use that for a career revival.

Chaos Walking

rating: ***

review: Spider-Man and Rey help each other survive a weird planet.  I think this was interesting.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

rating: ***

review: Maybe if they make enough of these they'll just let Tom Hardy exist on his own wacky terms with his goop doppelganger.

Old

rating: ***

review: M. Night Shyamalan rediscovering his classic footing.  A minor but welcome addition to his filmography.

Every Breath You Take

rating: ***

review: A nice actors' drama revolving around Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, and Sam Claflin.

The Little Things 

rating: ***

review: Denzel Washington, Jared Leto, and Rami Malik in another throwback to the '90s.  Well worth watching these guys work alone.

House of Gucci

rating: ***

review: Come for a much more odd Leto turn in a supporting role, stay for Adam Driver and Ridley Scott in a second, minor triumph to bracket the year together.  Marvel that Lady Gaga doesn't seem as wildly out of place as she did, when not singing, in A Star Is Born.

 King Richard

rating: ***

review: Destined to be known as the movie that led to the Oscars moment, this is also Will Smith's latest attempt to be taken seriously as an actor.  He got the Oscar to show for it.  But he kind of blew the moment anyway.

Our Friend

rating: ***

review: Affleck again, this time with Jason Segal, whose star potential is once again lost in a year that saw no point in paying attention to cinematic releases.

Space Jam: A New Legacy

rating: ***

review: If anything, this gimmick-infused belated sequel knew even better how to be frivolously enjoyable than the first one.

City of Lies

rating: ***

review: Well, it was still mandatory to shun Johnny Depp at this point, so there was no way anyone would admit this Biggie Smalls movie was worth anything.

F9

rating: ***

review: Very surprisingly for me, since I kind of got over John Cena and his shameless mugging years ago, but I think he proved a worthwhile addition to the series.

The Matrix Resurrections

rating: ***

review: I love the original trilogy, all of it.  This is a worthy and clever coda.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

rating: ***

review: Basically this whole era of Spider-Man only exists because the MCU was looking for a boost of interest.  Otherwise it's really had no clue how to justify itself.  This incredibly gimmicky third entry finds it in shamelessly bringing back characters and actors from the prior two.  But it works.

In the Heights

rating: ***

review: No one has a better grasp of smug self-satisfaction as Lin-Manuel Miranda these days.  The storytelling is decent.  He needs to work on writing actual songs.  He's capable.  He just doesn't want to.

A Quiet Place Part II

rating: ***

review: I still haven't seen the first place.  Presented no discernable problem to enjoying this one.

Mortal Kombat

rating: ***

review: A fine pivot into a more serious direction for the franchise.

Profile

rating: ***

review: Far more movies than you'd think believe the gimmick of presenting themselves solely from the lens of social media exist.  This one's worth watching.  It revolves around the horrors of terrorists recruiting unwitting victims.  This one is using herself as bait.

Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard

rating: ***

review: Both of these films are enjoyable throwbacks with excellent casts.

Voyagers

rating: ***

review: I'm not overly fond of material that actively seeks to make its audience uncomfortable, and so that's the weakness of this one (it costars Colin Farrell, although he's dispatched relatively early) about teenagers stumbling over themselves to survive a long journey in space.

Black Widow

rating: ***

review: The much-much belated solo film from one of the characters who debuted earliest in the MCU is fairly standard material for the franchise(s).

Nomadland

rating: ***

review: Periodically the Oscars insult the demographic it otherwise abhors by lavishing praise on movies that star Frances McDormand.

Wrath of Man

rating: ***

review: I wasn't really into Guy Ritchie earlier in his career, but I am now, and this was a fine way to help segue to what I consider 2023 being a career year.

Naked Singularity

rating: ***

review: I'll be honest; I really just need to watch this one again.  Mind-bending spotlight for John Boyega.

Reminiscence

rating: ***

review: Between this and The Fountain, Hugh Jackman seeks to corner the market in sleepy high concept dramas.  But it's nice to see him in something, anyway.  Always likeable.

State Like Sleep

rating: ***

review: I actually liked this one starring Katherine Waterston.

Lansky

rating: ***

review: A fine minor mob movie featuring Harvey Keitel and Sam Worthington.

Spiral

rating: ***

review: To get me interested in the Saw franchise again, you really do need an infusion of Chris Rock.

The Virtuoso

rating: ***

review: A nice spotlight for recent Star Trek renaissance actor Anson Mount.  His narration as the start of the movie is itself worth watching to experience.  I guess I just like his voice.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

rating: **

review: Really, even before the climax proves to be an exact copy of the original, I wasn't as wowed as I expected to be by this.

The Suicide Squad

rating: **

review: I'm hoping James Gunn isn't as enamored with his weirder tendencies with his further DC duties than he allowed himself to be with this one.

Till Death

rating: **

review: Proof that Megan Fox is still hot even if she's handcuffed to a corpse.  So there's that.  Really not that bad.  Just not much compared to other movies.

Those Who Wish Me Dead

rating: **

review: There's really nothing wrong with this Angelina Jolie vehicle, either.  Just needed more, I guess.

Godzilla vs. Kong

rating: **

review: I actually haven't seen the whole thing, but from what I did see it seemed much more interested in continuing one of the two monster movies series than both.  But it's both anyway.

Midnight in the Switchgrass

rating: **

review: The latter-day Bruce Willis has now been explained, so we all understand what's happened to the quality of his acting and career.  I caught this one since it was filmed and had its premiere here in Tampa, and has an interesting title.  Will watch again at some point to see if it's worth anything.

Lady of the Manor

rating: **

review: For years now critics have been trying to convince me that Melanie Lynskey is worth more than the character of Rose in Two and a Half Men.  I think this movie officially convinced me otherwise.

Crisis 

rating: **

review: An excellent cast.  Not the firebrand it otherwise wishes it were.

Licorice Pizza

rating: *

review: I'm just not a fan of Paul Thomas Anderson, I guess.  I find him needlessly indulgent.  This particular version of his work stars the son of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is no Philip Seymour Hoffman, but Paul Thomas Anderson will indulge his belief that he is anyway.

One Shot (2021) Review

rating: ****

the story: A suddenly high value terrorist suspect is the subject of a highly coordinated extraction.

review: The concept of a film being, or appearing to be, one continuous tracking shot has apparently now reached the point where it can be taken for granted.  The likes of Birdman, 1917, Russian Ark, and Crazy Samurai have been joined by One Shot, which if it has been greeted at all, then as a glorified cinematic first-person-shooter experience, and yet the results are as thrilling as any other attempt of the technique yet attempted.

Part of the problem is that it stars Scott Adkins, best known as a stuntman or as the lead in direct-to-video releases, the bargain basement of the medium.  As far as I know, this is my first Adkins film, and I found him to be a riveting action hero, very much akin to Cole Hauser's performances in the TV series Yellowstone, the new "alpha male" template of popular entertainment, though Adkins achieves it mostly by surviving against all odds, being the de facto lead character, and engaging in at least one brawl that calls on his stunt experience.

Supporting him are Ashley Greene (billed here with her married name Ashley Greene Khoury) and Ryan Phillippe, a long way away from his potential as a new leading man some twenty years back, and not even getting to play a particularly heroic part (a glorified bureaucrat who stands in Adkins' way to get the job done).

The story is compelling and the odds are long.  The alleged terrorist in sympathetic in apparently the same way as the lead in The Mauritanian, claiming innocence deep into the film.  It doesn't even particularly matter to the actual terrorists arriving in a horde to break him free if he's what he appears to be.  They need him; it's that simple.  And so they throw their massive numbers (don't spend too much time worrying about how they amassed so many without anyone noticing), and it becomes a Black Hawk Down war incident.  Of course we'll route Adkins on!  We haven't had a guy like him in ages, and he's as close to an everyman there's ever been, although he's never less than compelling.

Bonus material insists there are points in which the footage breaks tracking, and yet it's virtually impossible to tell with the results.  If that's the only reason you choose to watch, fine, because it's impressive filmmaking by default, all the more given the constant fighting that necessitates constant choreography without ever bogging down.  Details lost in narrative are picked up everywhere else.

This is not a B movie.  In a different time it would've been a massive hit.  It should develop a following eventually.  It deserves one.

2021 Movies Viewed/Ranked

 Viewed/Ranked

1. The Last Duel
2. The French Dispatch
3. The Courier
4. The Green Knight
5. No Time to Die
6. Boss Level
7. Snake Eyes
8. Die in a Gunfight
9. Last Night in Soho
10. Settlers
11. Needle in a Timestack
12. Judas and the Black Messiah
13. The Mauritanian
14. Belfast
15. Dune
16. Pig
17. Zola
18. Copshop
19. Death of a Telemarketer 
20. Chaos Walking
21. Venom: Let There Be Carnage
22. Old
23. Every Breath You Take
24. The Little Things
25. House of Gucci
26. King Richard
27. Our Friend
28. City of Lies
29. F9
30. The Matrix Resurrections
31. Spider-Man: No Way Home
32. Mortal Kombat
33. Profile
34. Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard
35. Voyagers
36. Nomadland
37. Wrath of Man
38. Naked Singularity
39. Reminiscence
40. State Like Sleep
41. Spiral
42. The Virtuoso
43. Ghostbusters: Afterlife
44. The Suicide Squad
45. Lansky
46. Till Death
47. Those Who Wish Me Dead
48. Godzilla vs. Kong
49. Midnight in the Switchgrass
50. Lady of the Manor
51. Crisis
52. French Exit
53. Twist
54. The Card Counter
55. Zone 414
56. Cosmic Sin
57. Dangerous

Other Notable Releases

• A Quiet Place Part II
• American Underdog
• Black Widow
• C'mon C'mon
• Cruella
• Encanto
• Eternals
• The Eyes of Tammy Faye
• Free Guy
• In the Heights
• Licorice Pizza
• Jungle Cruise
• Nightmare Alley
• Shangi-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
• Sing 2
• Space Jam: A New Legacy
• West Side Story

Box Office: 2021 Top Ten

I've chronicled this over a number of my blogs over the years, but it's probably a good idea to finally do so at one dedicated to movies.  Here, then, according to numbers at Box Office Mojo as of this writing, are the ten highest grossing movies of 2021, both in the U.S. (the first list) and around the world (the second).

1. Spider-Man: No Way Home ($804 million) The MCU unsurprisingly broke the box office back wide open on the domestic front, driven in part by the unexpected chance to see three generations of the cinematic webslinger (the distributors really wanted to keep that a secret, but it's such an important element of the movie, and obviously many people have already seen the results, including probably everyone, at this point, who cared whether or not they knew about such spoilers).  This has been my least favorite incarnation of Spider-Man on the big screen, but as of this entry I think I can move past that.
2. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ($224 million) Equally unsurprisingly the next biggest winner is again from the MCU, though you'll find its success to be far more in-line with pandemic numbers as they finally began to expand again last year.  This is probably a film that would've performed at exactly these numbers ever before the pandemic, although of course now we'll never know.
3. Venom: Let There Be Carnage ($213 million) Technically associated with the MCU although moreso with the Sony/Spider-Man wing.  Me, I'll just be happy it's Tom Hardy in a bona fide hit, crowd-pleasing movie.
4. Black Widow ($183 million) The MCU strikes again, with an entry that's about a decade late, somehow featuring its original superheroine in the second entry in the franchise to be headlined by one, after her canonical death.  That's exactly where the MCU is these days, folks...
5. F9: The Fast Saga ($173 million) The surprisingly popular franchise that isn't the MCU has endured so long there's as many people baffled by its popularity as who continue to eat it up.  Like Black Widow, it's an installment that draws on material from earlier in the timeline, in more ways than one.  Dom's brother, for one.  But also: Han's back!
6. Eternals ($164 million) Like Shang-Chi I assume Eternals greatly benefited from lower expectations, another new MCU platform that might have seemed far more extraneous previously.  Now it's a welcome distraction and a top ten hit by default.
7. Sing 2 ($162 million) Given Disney's penchant for releasing so many of its recent animated films directly to streaming, a different studio claimed box office glory this year.
8. No Time to Die ($160 million) The final Daniel Craig entry in the James Bond franchise sends the actor out with a bang (I'd call it an historic entry that doesn't deserve the dismissive remarks it's so far generated).
9. A Quiet Place Part II ($160 million) Because these films share a premise with another movie (It Comes at Night) I've seen, I personally have little interest in watching them, because I'm not really a horror fan and so don't need to double down on such things.  Though clearly movie fans like them.
10. Ghostbusters: Afterlife ($129 million) It was nice to see this one succeed, although I wish it had followed its own story beats rather than eventually end on a familiar note.

Global results:

1. Spider-Man: No Way Home ($1,901 billion) As you can see, U.S. audiences were in perfect agreement with their global neighbors for most popular movie, which is usually the case.
2. The Battle at Lake Changjin ($902 million) The Chinese box office has surged to become the second most important one globally in recent years, although Chinese films themselves will only be successful like this there, whereas a global hit depends on how (or if) it plays there.
3. Hi, Mom ($822 million) Here's another Chinese movie.  Was never even released in the U.S.
4. No Time to Die ($774 million) Here's our first real difference, Craig's final turn as 007 having a much more rousing international reception.
5. F9: The Fast Saga ($726 million) A large part of why this series has been so popular is thanks to its multicultural cast, which no doubt helps its international appeal.
6. Detective Chinatown 3 ($686 million) Bet you can't guess which country produced this!
7. Venom: Let There Be Carnage ($506 million) At this point you'll notice how the MCU suffers if left out of Chinese theaters, and who benefits as a result.
8. Godzilla vs. Kong ($468 million) Here's a whole franchise that's been happening with very little actual attention drawn to it.
9. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ($432 million) You'd think this was made for Chinese audiences, but Chinese politics thought differently.
10. Sing 2 ($411 million) Just so you don't think its success was a fluke.

The Mauritanian (2021) Review

rating: ****

the story: A Guantanamo Bay detainee struggles to win his freedom.

review: There are plenty of people who would assume they know exactly how to respond to a movie with this subject matter. And yet, here is The Mauritanian being more or less released to little enough attention. 

It deserves better. It is of course an incredible story, and a true one, about the most controversial of the responses to 9/11 (no shortage of material there), and relentlessly sure that it is in fact representing an innocent man caught up in it.

Tahar Rahim plays the suspected terrorist Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Jodie Foster and Shailene Woodley his public defenders, and Benedict Cumberbatch the face of the prosecution, who quickly enough questions if he’s on the right side of justice.

Rahim became an instant favorite of mine from Mary Magdalene, where he played a surprisingly sympathetic Judas (so he has clearly found himself a type), Foster is Foster, Woodley has the trademark random moment where she seems to forget she’s not a model (for me, anyway; it popped up in the Divergent movies when she’s flying in a futuristic helicopter; I don’t get why she keeps getting away with it, although otherwise she’s a fine actress). For Cumberbatch, putting on another fine vocal performance, it’s an interesting companion to the equally compelling The Courier, also released this year. Zachary Levi has a supporting role as a part of the system that let everything happen to Slahi. It’s another chance to broaden his range, a full dramatic turn where he’s not a good guy.

At the end there’s footage of Slahi himself, which lends credibility to the idea that this story can be taken at face value, that the film’s positive opinion of him is a reflection of how positive he himself is, so many years after all this began, everything he endured.

The effect is to put a face on the whole thing, not just to say there’s been gross injustice or that everyone detained there has a similar story and is worth rooting for, but that so few stories have come out, much less one this seemingly unlikely. Many reviews have suggested it’s some sort of confusing mess, which it is not. Presumably so the critics don’t come off as sympathetic to a terrorist.

Foster’s character has a response to that kind of reasoning right in the movie. Don’t let such nonsense get in your way.

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) Review

rating: ****

the story: Black Panthers organizer Fred Hampton becomes the target of the FBI.

review: The big draw, for me, is watching Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) and LaKeith Stanfield. I assumed Stanfield, who has showed up in a number of interesting projects in recent years, was going to be my favorite of the two, but it’s actually Kaluuya who lights up the screen as Hampton, speaking with rapid fire, charismatic ease. Stanfield is usually pretty subdued, but his presence alone tends to be eloquent. Here he can’t really contend with Kaluuya.

The story is pretty even-handed, even though Stanfield plays the informant who eventually sets up Hampton’s assassination. We watch as Stanfield’s handler, played by Jesse Plemons, grapples with the morality of their assignment, working under the famously heavy hand of J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen).

The results are perhaps best appreciated for what they’re not: Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, a bafflingly lighthearted but on the whole similar story. I was never that enthusiastic about Lee’s film, but seeing this is all the more proof of how easy it is to improve upon. I get that Lee basically saw room for a farce (black guy infiltrates KKK!), but for a filmmaker so well known for his passion, the results were inert. 

Not so with Black Messiah. It even manages to get me onboard with Plemons, a supporting actor who’s gotten a steady amount of positive buzz recently. As the FBI liaison, he at last finds a context that makes sense to me. 

Hampton’s legacy is relatively small as a leader of the black community. His story plays out in the shadow of far more famous assassinations: MLK Jr., Malcolm X. The movie posits that Hampton was poised to succeed them, and that the FBI was desperate to prevent that from happening. That he was militant, at least in rhetoric, is where viewer interpretations of his potential will come into play, but the film itself stays away from judgment.

Suffice to say, his death still plays as tragedy. This is a story that needs telling, and this is a fine way to experience it. It might even be a great way. I will periodically revisit to ascertain.