Even though I watch a couple of movies a week, I don’t watch enough of them. Lemme explain that. The movies I tend to watch are ones I’ve already seen and fall under the same umbrella; sci-fi, horror and action-adventure. So while I might stop and watch Suicide Squad on TNT if I’m flipping around the dial, that also means that I’m not watching other movies of different genres I haven’t seen yet. Other people might go out to the theater and expand their filmic horizons every week, but at best I might venture out to checkout The Predator or stay at home and watch Star Wars for the 900th time.
Regardless, here’s every new movie I saw in 2018.
The Cloverfield Paradox ⭐⭐
In an era when surprise in pop-culture is practically impossible because of the internet and social media, the release of The Cloverfield Paradox on Netflix was a pretty big surprise as the movie was first advertised on the Super Bowl last winter and premiered on the streaming service immediately afterwards.
Mute ⭐
Mute, by writer/director Duncan Jones, takes place in the same cinematic universe as his wonderful Moon film. But whereas I greatly enjoyed Moon, I thought Mute was a bit long and overly serious.
Black Panther ⭐⭐
I dug Black Panther if I didn’t see what all the hype was about. It seemed to me Black Panther was a well-constructed Marvel film that I enjoyed, but I didn’t think it was much different then what had come before. But I was in the minority as the film went onto become one of the most successful movies ever earning more than $1.5 billion at the box office.
Avengers: Infinity War ⭐⭐
I liked Avengers: Infinity War but found it hard to take seriously. I mean the movie (spoilers) features half of the universe being wiped out when evil villain Thanos get all the power in the universe, snaps his fingers and literally makes it so. But does anyone really believe that when the sequel is released next summer in theaters, that by the end of that movie all of this will be undone with order restored with the good-guys winning?
Deadpool 2 ⭐⭐⭐
The movie I had the most fun at last summer was Deadpool 2. While I didn’t think it was as good as the first one, I really dug this sequel that introduced a few of my favorite characters to the Deadpool universe, namely Cable and Domino.
Solo: A Star Wars Story ⭐⭐⭐⭐
My favorite movie of 2018 had to be Solo: A Star Wars Story. Derided before it was even released, this movie that follows a young Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) as he goes from street urchin to intergalactic smuggler is a lot fo fun. Solo is the one movie this year that I’ve actually seen more than once.
Ant-Man and the Wasp ⭐
I really liked the first Ant Man movie, but I really disliked the sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp. There were so many plot-holes here that things started to get to MST3K territory. In fact, I got so sick of this one that towards the end I started fast forwarding just to get through it.
Annihilation ⭐
The movie I was most disappointed with this year was Annihilation. It was written and directed by Alex Garland who also wrote the brilliant 28 Days Later and both wrote and directed Ex Machina, as well as being based on a series of interesting novels by Jeff VanderMeer, I found Annihilation to be dull and confusing. So much so that I didn’t even bother fast forwarding through this one, I turned it off before making it to the end.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout ⭐⭐
Another fun movie was the sixth, and so far most successful, Mission: Impossible – Fallout. I’ll admit this one doesn’t have much going on in the story department, I saw it in the theater and four months later can’t remember the story, but the action scenes in Mission: Impossible – Fallout are worth the price of admission alone.
The Predator ⭐⭐
Here’s what I tell anyone thinking about seeing the latest movie in the Predator franchise — if you’re into sci-fi and movies that feature the Predator, you’re probably going to dig The Predator. If you’re not, then you might want to steer clear of this one.
In Annihilation, something happened, no one’s quite sure what, that caused a small coastal village to be surrounded by a barrier that made weird things to occur to everything inside. People vanished, animals mutated and buildings appeared out of nowhere. Now dubbed “Area X,” teams of scientists have been sent in to study it, but few have ever come back and the ones who have seem to be different. Like they might be duplicates with the originals stranded inside.
The most famous of these kinds of stories has got to be Solaris by Stanisław Lem. Lem’s novel deals with a group of scientists studying the ocean-covered planet “Solaris” that isn’t an ordinary planet, it’s somehow able to do things like change its orbit and create artificial clouds and animals from its surface seemingly out of nowhere. As the scientists study Solaris they come to the stark conclusion that the planet is probably a gigantic living organism with a massive, alien intelligence, and that as they study the Solaris, Solaris is also studying them.
It’s theorized that all this alien “stuff” is actually their trash, akin to the garbage a family might leave behind in a meadow after a roadside picnic. And how the animals in the meadow wouldn’t know what to make of our garbage, we don’t know what to make of the alien trash either.
Much of the second season’s focus was on an opposition either between the kids of Hawkins and the adults, or both the kids and adults together against the things in the “upside down.” Will (Noah Schnapp) spent most of the first season trapped in the alternate, black “upside down” dimension. And while Will looks normal, something’s wrong as he begins experiencing visions of some thing that scares him. But no one will listen to him except his friends including Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) and Max (Sadie Sink). But what can they do when not even the new head of the secret government Hawkins Lab Dr. Sam Owens (the always wonderful Paul Reiser) believes that anything’s wrong. They think that even though there’s still an open portal between our two dimensions that with regular burnings things can be contained. But as any good army general can tell you, containment can only last so long before there’s some sort of unexpected breakout.
One thing I found interesting about the second season was the contradictions between it and the first season of the show. In the first season the character of Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) had escaped from that secret lab where then leader Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine) had no qualms about using murder in order to get his way. In the second season a nicer head of the lab Dr. Owens is trying to help the Byers family return to a normal life after the first. The question is can Dr. Owens be trusted, or is he just another Brenner in disguise?
If “premonition” is a theme of the second season, then “compromise” is too. Like with Sheriff Jim Hopper (David Harbour) and the Hawkins lab, agreeing to bring Will in for regular tests, even if he’s secretly hiding Eleven from the spooks in a cabin in the woods. Or even Will’s mom Joyce (Winona Ryder) who’s trying to give Will a normal life after almost losing him, even if it means that she’s also trying to constantly keep him within eyesight and know where he is at all times. Life is full of compromises, and in Stranger Things that’s no different.
I can’t say that I liked the second season of Stranger Things as much as I did with the first, but if I did that would be saying a lot. That first season is a modern day classic that will be studied and imitated for years to come. Even if the second season isn’t as good as the first I’d still argue that it was a great one. I was constantly on the edge of my seat, was never quite sure where things were going and found the show a lot more gory and bloody than I thought it would have been. But in a a good way.
Luckily that never transpired and while I didn’t care for them, the Abrams films resuscitated the property for a little while longer. Now, 12 years after the last new TV episode of Star Trek comes a new series, this time not shown in syndication, or on cable outposts like UPN or The CW but instead for the first episode at least on CBS; Star Trek: Discovery.
I think what hurts Inhumans the most is that it doesn’t have much action or story. There’s a lot of palace intrigue and when there are fight scenes they’re standard TV fare. But to the story of Inhumans was so over the top and heavy handed it was unintentionally silly at times.