My Favourite Film of 2018

Always late to any game, I felt the need to post the films I enjoyed the most in 2018. Which was almost two weeks ago, so my adherence to deadlines continues.

Random thoughts on those I saw:

Aquaman was pretty and technically impressive, but had a script that felt so stupid it had to be deliberate. It was the second James Wan film I saw last year--the other being The Conjuring 2--which again showed Wan's technical prowess with spinning cameras and methodically thought out scenes, but also had a script that seemed more functional than emotionally engaging. 

The Ritual was another horror film that started off so well, focusing on the after effects of a man's cowardice and the impact it had on his friendships before quickly degrading into a Viking cover of The Hills Have Eyes. It's almost as if there's a studio memo that says films can start off original and thought provoking, but they'd better heel over to something audiences have seen a thousand times before by the time the movie hits the seventy minute mark.

The Girl With All The Gifts was a good take on the please-let-it-end zombie genre that stayed true to its themes and didn't lie to the audience with a happy ending. 

Happy Death Day was a superb low budget horror movie, taking the premise of Groundhog Day and applying a serial (?) killer storyline to it. It had an engaging heroine (Jessica Rothe) and a script that allowed her to figure things out fairly quickly. A minimum of gore, a fun script, and a low budget can still make a very good horror film. Here's the proof.

Annihilation may have come across as a more powerful film if I hadn't read the novel it was based on. As it was, I still enjoyed this film very much, outside of the ending. It's not so much based on the Jeff Vandermeer novel as it picks and chooses what elements to take from it and from the second novel in the Southern Reach Trilogy, Authority. I like Natalie Portman, and she is very good in this. I think I would have enjoyed a second film in this universe if Hollywood wasn't so determined to smother intelligent films.

Mission Impossible: Fallout was just exhausting. I am a genuine fan of Tom Cruise and of this series, and this is clearly the most bold and challenging in the franchise. I still think Ghost Protocol is my favourite, but Fallout does it's damnedest to push it from the dais. Cruise just never stops in this film, and the stunts and chases are so magnificent the studio should have provided an intermission and a cool drink to let the audience gather itself before the next onslaught. A well crafted film with a script that assumes you're paying attention--when you're not wincing at the ordeals Cruise is enduring for your entertainment dollar.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is that rarest of things--a superhero film that acknowledges that someone in the audience may have read the comics. There are so many well placed nods towards comic book fans in this film that they made me smile as much as the movie did. Even despite legal contracts, Sony placing this story in an alternate universe where other alternate universe versions of Spider-Man arrive was bold, as was making Spider-Gwen the main supporting character, if not shared lead. This was a well written, well crafted, just damn fun movie that glories in the joy of the Spider-Man character. 

Bohemian Rhapsody had a bravado performance by Rami Malek and a family friendly history of one of rock's greatest bands. I enjoyed it, but it was not the cinematic masterpiece that awards shows seems to think it was. It was serviceable and gave audiences a great night out and a chance to hum along to some beloved music. 

So having said all that,  my favourite film of 2018 was Mandy.

Mandy felt like a spiritual sequel to 1981's Heavy Metal, kinda. It was also a strange movie that exists in a universe where weird, horrific supernatural shit just happens, where cults drive around dark woods in vans, and where taking revenge first means making an axe that looks like it belongs on the cover of a Dungeons and Dragons manual. Mandy was just so weird and disturbing and sad that I simply could not look away. It was such a rare creature that not to celebrate it is to let something precious fade away. It is definitely not for everyone, and that isn't to say I have some higher cultural appreciation, because I surely don't. It just hit me like no other film did this year, and that's why it's my favourite film of the year.