Best and Worst of 2021

by Hans A. Carpenter

The Best
Dune
Director – Denis Villeneuve
Denis Villeneuve keeps his hot streak alive with another challenging sci-fi masterpiece. Opting to adapt only half of Frank Herbert’s classic novel of the same name, Villeneuve avoids the mistake of David Lynch’s adaptation, fitting 10 lbs of plot into a 5 lb bag.
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Director – Jon Watts
Bringing together the Sony and Marvel universes, No Way Home somehow lives up to, or even exceeds, it’s lofty hype. Maybe the most emotional chapter of the MCU, this is Spider-Man at his best.
No Time to Die
Director – Cary Joji Fukunaga
The Daniel Craig Bond franchise goes out with a bang, wrapping up a saga that had some of the highs of the Bond franchise (Casino Royale and Skyfall) with some clunkers mixed in (Quantom of Solace, SPECTRE).
The Worst
Not Having Movies Half the Year
Hollywood was slow to commit to releases coming out of pandemic closures. Business started to pick up this summer as movies like Black Widow and F9 brought us the first blockbusters since COVID landed.
Old
Director – M Night Shyamalan
This isn’t M Night Shyamalan’s worst movie, not by a long shot. But it’s still not a good movie, not by a long shot. With oddball dialog and ruining a promising premise this is still a misfire from a director that seemed to be on the upswing not long ago after a horrific run of bad movies.
Malignant
Director – James Wann
Usually, James Wann makes a good movie and Hollywood ruins it with sequels. Never fear, this attempt at B movie schlock stinks so bad it will end the line here and now.