Top 10 Movies of 2018

Every year I say the same thing: This list gets harder and harder to make every year. There were a lot of great films I wanted to put on this list, but after a lot of thinking and careful analysis of each film I reviewed, I was finally able to rank the top 10. Just because a film isn't on this list doesn't mean I didn't like it, it simply means there were better films. (Please don't burn me at the stake for not putting "Black Panther" on here, OK?)

10. Pacific Rim: Uprising: This was just as good as the original, and I'm hoping there's a 3rd one soon.
9. Ocean's 8: Great cast, great story, great score. A worthy successor to the 2001 film.
8. Ready Player One: There is something for everyone in this film, whether they grew up in the '80's or not. Well done, Spielberg!
7. Solo: I can already here your hate comments being typed. This felt like classic "Star Wars". Just enough grand scale, without going over the top. Alden Ehrenreirch felt genuine as Han Solo, and I look forward to seeing him in more films.
6. Venom: Surprisingly funny, great action scenes, great acting.
5. Teen Titans Go to the Movies: Hilarious movie on par with the "Lego" films.
4. Ralph Breaks the Internet: What "The Emoji Movie" wishes it was. Had great story, a lot of heart, and a lot ( and I mean a LOT) of Easter Eggs and In-Jokes.
3. Bumblebee:  The first great Transformers movie. A great call back to the '80's that proves "Transformers" movies don't need to be big or over the top, and can tell a great story with a lot of heart.
2. Spider-Verse: Everything about this movie was great. It had a great story, great animation, and is the ultimate Spider-Man film (no pun intended)


And the number one movie of 2018 is.....





1. Avengers: Infinity War:  A conglomeration of over 20 movies, with 30 main characters more or less. By all rights, this should not have worked. And yet it did. This is one of the best Marvel movies ever, one of my personal favorite Marvel movies, and I'm proud to rank it as the best movie of 2018.

Bumblebee

Finally, a great Transformers film! Now, I'm one of those people that enjoyed the Transformers movies for the most part, but this blows all of them out of the water! This is what they should have done the first time! This isn't just giant robots blowing stuff up for 3 hours. This actually has some heart and quiet moments to it. It's not exactly what I think of when I think "Transformers", but it was still fantastic! This feels like an '80s' movie. It reminded me a lot of "E.T" or 'The Iron Giant". I was skeptical that since Bumblebee doesn't talk, he wouldn't be able to carry a movie on his own, but this proved me wrong. His scenes are some of the funniest I've seen in these movies. I'm impressed that this is only Travis Knight's second film, and he's already 2 for 2. Rumor says that Marvel is thinking of hiring him to direct 'Guardians of the Galaxy 3' and after seeing this, they definitely should. I also must praise Knight for focusing on telling a story and not objectifying the female characters in any way! This is the most family-friendly Transformers movie. If I had kids, I'd let them watch it. Up to now, I have never heard an audience cheer during a movie that wasn't a superhero or ''Star Wars"movie. My audience went crazy! I think this is the only "Transformers" movie that got a standing ovation from my audience. If you grew up in the '80's you'll definitely love this film! Even if you haven't seen the other movies or know nothing about Transformers, you can still follow it pretty well. It stands on its own as a terrific film!

Grade: A+   10/10   5/5 stars

Holmes and Watson

At the time of publishing this review, this currently has a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, and I'd be lying if I said I couldn't see why. The modern day references in what is supposed to be the 1800s can be a little annoying at times, but I still laughed at this movie. I'm a bit of a sucker for goofball comedies, and I got pretty much what I expected with this. Will Ferrel and John C. Reilly actually do make a pretty funny duo that reminded me of old comedy duos. Some of the jokes were kind of eyeroll groaners, but the ones that worked worked pretty well. Like I said, the modern slang and references do feel out of place, but some of them were actually kind of funny and thought provoking. There's actually some pretty funny commentary on society today compared to society in the 1800s, although some of it did feel a little preachy which annoyed me. There's also this musical number during the last 3rd of the film that is just out of nowhere, and adds nothing to the film, and honestly should have been cut. I didn't hate this movie, but I won't be watching it again anytime soon.

Grade: C     7/10     3/5 stars

Mary Poppins Returns

This is one of the few sequels that is on par with the original. Emily Blunt is fantastic as Mary Poppins, which is a hard feat because Julie Andrews set the bar so high! She is just as good as Julie Andrews. She feels like the same character. I also enjoyed the clever bits of foreshadowing in the film that paid off later. Lin Manuel Miranda is by far the best part of this film! He is so fun to watch! Every scene with him gave me a big grin on my face! And he does a very convincing Cockney, something Dick Van Dyke could not do. (Sorry.) This has all the magic of the original, and the songs, while not as memorable, were still catchy. I was humming a few of the tunes when I left the theater. Will the songs be remembered as fondly and be as timeless as the original? Probably not, but they were still a good attempt. My one negative critique is that some of it did feel like a bit of a retread. Some lines from the original were repeated word for word as if to wink to the camera and say "Hey, remember how much you loved the original?" Overall, it's still an enjoyable flick and definitely a worthy sequel. 

Grade: A-      9/10    4/5 stars

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Last year, I said that "Spider-Man: Homecoming" was the best Spider-Man movie ever. I was wrong. This is! It has the perfect amount of action, drama, and comedy. Allegedly, the directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, were fired from the Han Solo movie because their vision was "too comedic." This movie proves they can balance drama and comedy perfectly, and I'm hoping this film opens the floodgates for them with other studios wanting to hire them. The animation took some getting used too as it is computer-animated, but meant to look like a comic book not quite completely CGI, but not quite completely hand-drawn either. What was clever about this very unique animation style was in certain close-up shots you could see the little dots that you would see in the pages of a comic book if you zoomed in with a magnifying glass. This movie already blew my mind, but if it had come out when I was 6, it would have blown my mind even more so. This is the Spider-Man movie I would have wanted as a kid, and I can't help but feel jealous of kids today who are my age when the original Spider-Man movie came out in 2002. The backstories for the various Spider-people are told very well, and even if you're not familiar with all the various iterations of the character, you still don't feel lost. (and this movie barely scratches the surface of the Spider-Man lore. There are still many, many, versions of Spider-Man that can be touched on, and I look forward to seeing them in the sequel). This is perfect for kids and adults! If this is not nominated for an Oscar next year, something is wrong with the Academy. There was absolute nothing about this movie to complain about!
Grade: A+   10/10   5/5 stars

Aquaman

Note: I got a pre-screening exclusively for Amazon Prime members, which is why this review is a week early. 

This was fin-tastic! In my "Justice League" review last year, I praised the way they handled Aquaman, and made him cool instead of the butt of the joke that he's been for the past 75 years. He's just as cool here. From the opening battle to the final battle, his awesomeness has no end. The story is pretty good, though I did feel like I'd seen a lot of it before, but it's such a fun journey, that I didn't care. The action sequences, at least when they're grand scale battles with wide shots or pan-shots, look gorgeous. The hand-to-hand combat stuff, not so much. The way those are shot made me feel like I was watching someone play the "Injustice" games. Some of the dialogue is pretty corny, but that's the case with most DC films lately. They're trying to be live-action Saturday morning cartoons. I have no problem with that in the action aspect, but some of the dialogue really needed some re-writes. I usually complain about CGI in Warner Bros. movies saying how it always looks like a trailer for a PS2 game from 2004, but that's not the case here. Ok, there were some parts underwater that were very obviously green screen, but those were few and far between, at least not to the degree of "Wonder Woman" where I could tell when things were CGI. Most of the cast is pretty good, but I do need to complain just a little bit about Amber Heard. During the fight scenes, she was great, but anytime she had dialogue, her lips came up into a sort of sneer, like she was smelling rotten eggs. It didn't matter what the line was. It always looked like that, and it was distracting, and a bit funny. A lot of times it also sounded like she was trying to imitate Scarlett Johansson with the line delivery. In fact, if I closed my eyes, I could almost mistake her for Scarlett Johansson. The movie also had a lot of unnecessary figurative hand-holding for the audience. Every time there was a new location it felt the need to tell you where you were, despite the fact that most people could figure it out from visual context clues. It's obvious we're in Atlantis, it's obvious this is the Sahara. You don't need to have the text on the screen tell us. We're not dumb. We can figure it out in the first 5 seconds of seeing the location. By far the best part of this movie is the directing and cinematography. The wide shots are just gorgeous and the non hand to hand battles are well directed too. For a movie called 'Aquaman' where the main character's power is talking to fish, this was a lot better than it had any right to be. This is definitely, surprisingly, one of DC's best. 

Grade: B    8/10     4/5 stars