2015 yielded some great individual movies, but putting together a Top Ten proved to be trickier than I realised. I suppose overall 2015 was a bit inconsistent, but here goes with the Top Ten, honourable mentions and worst of the worst.
1. Mad Max Fury Road
George Miller’s return to Max Rockatansky’s scorched earth was the best film of the year by gasoline chugging miles. In fact, it was the best film of any year. A gloriously supercharged car chase through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, it redefines action cinema as a spectacle. There is nothing about Fury Road that is not wonderful. Tom Hardy’s absurdly taciturn performance as Max, Charlize Theron’s raging Furiosa, Hugh Keays-Byrne’s berserk Immortan Joe and an eye popping cast of assorted grotesques. Like a fruity jazz number where it’s the notes you don’t play that make it a work, it’s the things you don’t see in Fury Road that elevate it to greatness. While the focus is clearly the chase, it’s the implication and suggestion of the bigger and bolder universe they inhabit that make it great. The depth and attention to minute detail indicating the love and creativity and inspiration that went into this film. Unlike so much modern science fiction, Fury Road eschews ham fisted exposition in favour of depositing you in the wasteland and crediting you with enough booksmarts to figure it out. Production values aside, it feels like it belongs in the 70s. In 2016 I need to see the Black & Chrome cut (fan edited, Miller approved, black and white, dialogue free version). But as it stands Fury Road is a near perfect movie.
2. It Follows
So great that I have included it in two end-of-year top tens. I saw it at the 2014 Melbourne Film Festival, but 2015 saw it get a divisive general release. For my money it delivered everything you could possibly want from a modern day horror movie. It Follows juggles its inventive concept and a genuinely creepy vibe, with some STD subtext and Carpenter homage, without ever resorting to cheap scares or becoming derivative.
3. Ex Machina
Alex Garland’s existential A.I. rumination. Young corporate whizz kid gets summoned to his boss’s remote estate to test out an Artificial Intelligence experiment. Stylish, intelligent, thought provoking science fiction. Arguably the better Oscar Isaac / Domhnall Gleason sci fi picture of 2015.
4. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
When the first trailer materialised for The Force Awakens I tried to manage my expectations, remembering the gigantic slice of ‘meh’ pie that The Phantom Menace served up. But by the time I set foot in the cinema I was like a kid on Christmas day. The first half of the movie is a helluva lot of fun, but it does lose its way as the last act becomes a little too derivative of the original trilogy. But a decent Star Wars movie is unarguably a ‘must see’, and one I’ll definitely be going back to for a second viewing.
5. The Guest
Although technically a 2014 release, this sneaked out direct-to-dvd in Australia in 2015 so it gets included. Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett’s previous collaboration, You’re Next, was an interesting home invasion flick that unfortunately ran out of steam in the last third; but The Guest has the stamina for the long haul. Dan Stevens turns up on a family’s door step claiming to have been friends with their son who died in the military. But all is not as it seems. A cracking action movie / black comedy.
6. Kingsmen: The Secret Service
Matthew Vaughn’s back catalogue generally seems to fall into the watchable/forgettable category, and as such, I went into Kingsmen with very little by way of expectation. I was rewarded with two hours of pure, distilled cinema fun. An exciting, hilarious chav James Bond take on the spy genre; Colin Firth is brilliant; and it is just a 100% good time.
7. Jurassic World
Colin Trevorrow’s unlikely follow up to the wonderful Safety Not Guaranteed could not have been more of its opposite. Much like Star Wars, Jurassic World does not feel the need to tread on any new ground but finds a likeable lead in Chris Pratt and plays to its strengths as genetically engineered dinosaurs predictably run amok. And you
do know how I love a good large-creature-runs-amok movie.
8. The Spongebob Movie: Sponge out of Water
Spongebob’s second theatrical feature proved he’s still got it. The regulars go 3D in pursuit of the stolen Crabbie Pattie recipe, Antonio Banderas turns in possibly his greatest ever performance as the villain, and Matt Berry appears as a future dolphin. The best animated movie of the year, and more fun than both Inside Out and Big Hero Six combined. Watched it on a plane and guffawed my head off.
9. Avengers: Age of Ultron
Not even remotely as much fun as the first instalment, Age of Ultron stuttered and stumbled with some less than sparkling dialogue and the first recorded case of 2015’s most common movie disease – being too derivative of a successful predecessor. Nevertheless, even operating on half a tank, the Avengers can serve up delight in the form of an eminently enjoyable principle cast and a ton of Hulk Busting spectacle. An enjoyable couple of hours, just not the (repulsor) blast we had been expecting.
10. Spy
Surprisingly amusing spy caper, with a fun story and a bunch of great performances from a decent cast. It somehow manages to make both Melissa McCarthy and Miranda Hart funny, largely due to the fact McCarthy dials back her unwatchable OTT shtick to a more bearable level. The greatest triumph of all however, is Jason Statham’s hapless spy, sending up his tough guy image to hilarious effect. The Stath is brilliant in this. But as much fun as Spy is, I still have zero interest in director Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters, due in 2016. Please burn it with fire.
Honourable mentions (in no order):
• Self/Less
• Deep Web
• Mistress America
• Ant Man
Still waiting on the strangely horror-shy Australia to get a release date for two movies I’ve been chomping at the bit to see for the majority of 2015, Eli Roth’s
The Green Inferno, and the Kurt Russell cannibal/western mash up,
Bone Tomahawk. No doubt they’ll silently fart out direct-to-dvd at some point in 2016 because Australia is weird.
Worst:
Deathgasm
All the worst things about generic horror and generic heavy metal in one shitty movie.
Inherent Vice
Muddled private eye lark from Paul Thomas Anderson. Lacking enough humour to call it a comedy or enough intrigue to call it a mystery, let’s just call it a disaster.
Mortdecai
Irritating Johnny Depp vehicle seemingly designed around seeing who could conjure up the worst accent. It was excruciating. I switched it off.
Queen of Earth
Two childhood friends go on vacay to a cabin and up irritating the hell out of each other, but not as much as they irritated me because it was supremely boring and all the characters were jerks.
Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker sees JJ Abrams returning to the director’s chair after original director Colin Trevorrow left following ‘creative differences’. With Rian Johnson’s divisive The Last Jedi splitting an increasingly toxic ‘fanbase’ into two camps, the outraged and the overcompensating, the reactions were extreme to a movie that was neither the franchise killer, nor the masterpiece, that each side claimed. So Abrams finds himself with a tricky job ahead of him, returning to a trilogy that started out brightly but has gotten a bit lost along the way.
