Best (and Un-best) Movies of 2015

Here are some of my favourite movies from the last year, plus a deserved kicking for some of the more piss-poor efforts.

The Best

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The moment your childhood was waiting for.

A predictable choice for the top-spot, perhaps- but thoroughly deserved nonetheless. I watch a lot of blockbuster movies, and they're generally entertaining enough. But it's rare to find a Hollywood movie with as much soul as this, and without a single weak link. From the first note of the classic score, I was plastered into my seat with a grin of stupefied joy on my face, which pretty much remained there for the duration of the run-time. Everything was just right; the direction, the balance between old and new characters, the genuine laugh-out-loud repartee between characters. Hell, they even got an awesome female protagonist who kicked arse and was actually a well-rounded and interesting character. Do you know how rare that is these days?!

Hell, even the female heroes who get in the movie are generally ignored and treated as a merchandising liability.

Indeed, this is perhaps one of the first Hollywood movies in recent memory that actually felt too short: in an age where almost all big action movies are bloated and in need of a good 30 minutes of trimming, this movie was taut and bursting with novel ideas and iconic imagery. Yes, it was nostalgic and echoed back to Episode IV- but what's bad about that? The characters and tone were sufficiently different to feel like this installment had something new to say. I'm probably wrong, but for me it was the best of the Star Wars movies, and I cannot wait for the next installment in 2017.

Bridge of Spies

This excellent movie almost seemed to slip under the radar, though in recent months it seems to have developed more buzz. I knew little about the movie before going to the theater, and so I was immensely impressed to find that it was much more than just a star vehicle. Yes, Tom Hanks gives a quintessentially Tom Hanks performance (warm, funny, relatable) as a lawyer negotiating the tricky waters of Cold War politics, but there is a great deal else to enjoy in the movie. The story was engaging, the production design top-notch, and Mark Rylance gave a terrific performance as a compromised Soviet spy. All the way through I kept thinking "the script is really good, and the director put some lovely shots in there". It was only as the credits rolled that I realised it was written by the Coen Brothers and directed by Steven Spielberg, those hot new rookies. If you like historical dramas with interesting characters, give this your time.

Inside Out

Another not-exactly surprising choice, given the almost universal acclaim it received as Pixar out-did themselves once again. As with all of their best movies, Inside Out appealed to kids as an adventure romp (Joy and Sadness trying to return home) and to adults as a heartfelt exploration on 'big themes' (feelings, memory, and the pains of adolescence). It was touching and amusing in equal measure, and as you watch it you feel like you're seeing a future classic unfolding before your eyes. I laughed, cried (as will happen in a Pixar film), and left the theater feeling like I had seen a true piece of art- what more can you ask of a movie?

Honourable Mentions/Best of the Rest

Song of the Sea - a genuinely enchanting Irish animation. Charming without being twee, it's as unique as it is utterly brilliant. You can read more about it in an earlier post I wrote.
The Martian - Pretty much as perfect as a survival movie can be. Like Castaway on Mars, only better. A great performance by Matt Damon in an engrossing movie.
Sicario - An undeniably bleak yet superbly taut thriller. Without giving too much away, the scene where the characters are trying to go cross the Mexican-U.S. border was literally heart-pounding. With brilliant performances from all the leading actors and and an unpredictable story which rockets along, it's well worth watching.


I'm Not Mad, I'm Just Disappointed

Spectre

It's a shame the movie had about half the intensity of the poster.

After the excellently romping Skyfall, the latest entry in the James Bond franchise was disappointingly lackluster. Whilst not without enjoyable moments, the film as a whole felt disjointed and like it was trying to pack in far too much into the run-time. Vaguelly relevant drone-NSA stuff? You got it. Blofeld? Sure, why not. The guy who plays Moriarty in Sherlock? Couldn't hurt. The problem was that by packing in so many characters, plot points, and exotic locales, it became far too bloated and lacked focus. It was too ambitious in retroactively trying to tie together all the Daniel Craig era Bond movies into one neat package- unless I missed plenty of clues, they were all stand-alone features which were perfectly fine in their own rights but had no over-arching ties. Perhaps the oddest part of the movie were the poorly realised female characters; one minute Monica Bellucci's character is mourning her deceased husband- killed by Bond- the next, she's letting 007 give her a good old-fashioned rogering after about 30 seconds of back-and-forth banter. The same applies to Lea Seydoux's character; she starts out detesting Bond and wanting nothing to do with him, reluctantly succumbs to his charms, then promptly buggers off just before the final act. Bewildering.

Jurassic World

Maybe I'm misremembering this film, but I thought it was bloody dreadful. It all seemed so promising- the eminently like-able Chris Pratt starring, a reasonably interesting premise (genetically engineered super-dino), an iconic moment with some 'Raptors- where did it all go wrong?

This was the highlight of the movie. If you see the trailer, you've saved yourself two hours.

Well for a start, Pratt was utterly wasted in the lead. You can see him at his best in Guardians of the Galaxy - tough, but cheeky. You're rooting for him to succeed because he feels like your best buddy. In Jurassic World, you get none of that from his character. When he's not being a know-it-all blowhard, he's being a bratty douchebag. It smacks of a generic role written for literally any action star (was a Hemsworth not available?), which was a real waste of talent. Then there were other annoyances; far too much time given to frankly irritating kids, Bryce Dallas Howard's one dimensional boss-lady outrunning a T-Rex in high heels, our "heroes" making out in the middle of a deadly pterodactyl attack whilst there are extras dying around them left, right and center. It was all pretty poor and a massive missed opportunity.

Simply Awful

Furious 7

I've already outlined all my issues with this movie in an earlier post, so I'll be brief. This movie was fucking dreadful in almost every way. It was entertaining, if only that you're constantly laughing at how absurdly awful it is. It almost felt like a satire on all that is wrong in modern movies, were it not for the fact that it seemed to be so utterly joyless in its own stupidity. Abominable, and the misery compounded by the inevitability of another sequel.