2022 has been the Box Office’s year of resurgence; after two years of restricting public access to movie theatres, cinema date nights are back. Big-shot Hollywood directors have saved some of their best releases for this year, after many delays announced due to COVID-19. We’ve seen the ambitious expansion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the renewal of 20th-century classics, and some surprising hits amongst the flops — but which movies left the most positive impressions on their audiences, and which ones turned out to be disasters?
If we’re going off of the highest Rotten Tomatoes ratings (which seems to be a reliable method, given that critics and regular consumers alike can comment on titles), Top Gun: Maverick takes the cake. The easy-to-watch action sequel brings back Tom Cruise after over thirty years, and stars notable names such as Miles Teller, Jon Hamm and Ed Harris. This film boasts an impressive 99% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and an almost-matched 96% Tomatometer score (dictated by professional movie critics). Also in the 90 per cent is All Quiet On The Western Front with a 90% audience satisfaction score and 91% Tomatometer score. The astounding anti-war film — based on the 1929 novel of the same name — tells the story of a young German soldier experiencing firsthand the horrors of the First World War. The naïvety of youth is captured well within the actors, and emotions and action run high as you would expect from such a genre.
Most movies making top of the list are aided by a large budget. Jurassic World: Dominion serves as a continuation of a now-beloved series, and its explosive $165 million budget was certainly worth it: the film grossed over a billion US dollars (The Numbers, 2022), with over a third of this amount wracked up over its opening weekend. However, you may be surprised to learn critics only rated it as 29% on the Tomatometer (audiences disagreed, rating it a not-too-shabby 77%). There are plenty of Hollywood blockbusters that have divided the public’s opinions, such as My Policeman, the Amazon original starring Harry Styles. Fans rated the romance a collective 96%, praising its realistic depiction of LGBT+ relationships in 1950s England and citing the characters’ chemistry as tangible; critics, on the other hand, put it down as 44%, unimpressed by slow pacing and a somewhat over-told storyline.
On the topic of blockbuster films that may have flopped, Where the Crawdads Sing comes to mind. This is mostly due to characters painted very differently from their book versions (written by Delia Owens) and a lot of nonsensical plot points. Lovers of the novel point out Daisy Edgar-Jones’ ridiculous fashion on screen, as the protagonist comes from extreme poverty yet remains dressed in pristine clothing. The movie scored only 34% on Rotten Tomatoes. Then perhaps the worst of all was Morbius, based on the Marvel comics character of the same name, with Jared Leto playing the lead — his reputation as someone notoriously difficult to work with prevailed and caused much controversy. The superhero disaster scored just 15% on Rotten Tomatoes.
However, let’s move on to some better choices. Many were looking forward to Zach Creggar’s newest project Barbarian, starring Bill Skarsgård and Richard Blake; the unsettling horror scored 92% on the Tomatometer and 71% with its audiences. While the trailer made the film out to be quite different from what actually appeared on screen, the concept was creepy and original. Bill’s brother Alexander (Skarsgård) starred alongside Ethan Hawke in another well-received film this year — The Northman. Scoring an impressive 89% on the Tomatometer and 64% with audiences, this action-packed thriller was directed by Robert Eggers, whose particular folklore-inspired style can be love-or-hate (he’s the name behind The Witch and The Lighthouse).
As usual, superhero films wrack up some of the most views on a yearly basis. The MCU has passed its golden days shooting Avengers films, and instead has branched out into multiple character-based series focusing on individual heroes. Some long-anticipated additions to the franchise made good money at the Box Office, but I would personally disagree with the relatively high ratings on Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder (74% and 64% on Rotten Tomatoes, respectively). While these two films rose to the top of the charts with ridiculous and unfinished editing, hit-or-miss humour and seemingly nonsensical plots, Spider-man: No Way Home and DC’s The Batman (93% and 85% Rotten Tomatoes ratings, respectively) were well-structured and kept the audience on their toes. The latter, directed by Matt Reeves and a deviation from the regular Marvel content, was particularly pleasantly surprising.
Lastly, some personal favourites: Don’t Worry Darling — set in a dystopian 1950s-inspired setting, starring Florence Pugh alongside Harry Styles — handles an interesting concept that builds up suspense and leads to an explosive ending; Nope broadcasts the continued fantastic work of Jordan Peele, and is a great one to go into blind; Smile is a genuinely scary film that’s refreshingly non-predictable as far as the horror genre goes, and well worth a watch if you can handle it. Overall, it’s been a successful year for cinema, but everyone will have their own opinions on which films impressed them the most. Feel free to take the critics’ ratings with a pinch of salt and find out for yourself.
Figure 1: Snapshots from 2022 movies, Variety.
References
Box Office Mojo (2022). ‘Domestic Box Office for 2022’, Box Office Mojo [online]. Available at: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2022/ (Accessed 14/12/22).
Nicholas Allen (2022). ‘The 10 Biggest Box Office Flops Of 2022, So Far (Including Lightyear)’, Screen Rant [online]. Available at: https://screenrant.com/biggest-box-office-flops-2022-lightyear/ (Accessed 14/12/22).
Rotten Tomatoes (2022). ‘Best Movies of 2022 Ranked’, Rotten Tomatoes [online]. Available at: https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/best-movies-2022/ (Accessed 14/12/22).
The Numbers (2022). Jurassic World: Dominion statistics, The Numbers [online]. Available at: https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Jurassic-World-Dominion-(2022)#tab=summary (Accessed 14/12/22).
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