Hindsight: A 2021 Cinematic Retrospective

Due to a combination of lockdowns and apathy I barely watched any new films in 2021, so perhaps for the first time ever for that year the list of films I didn't see vastly outnumbers the list of films I did.

Didn't see:

Willy's Wonderland

I think I wanted to see this initially because the premise (despite being based on the ongoing popularity of Five Nights at Freddy's with kids) isn't terrible and Nic Cage has done some good weird films in the last few years like Mandy and Color Out of Space but apparently this isn't much cop.

I Care A Lot (technically 2020)

This is technically a 2020 film but I don't think it got a release out here until 2021. Rosamund Pike is usually good value so I wouldn't mind giving it a go.

Zack Snyder's Justice League

I don't care if it's better than the theatrical release of Justice League; I still don't care.

A Quiet Place Part II

I also didn't love the original A Quiet Place enough to bother seeing this one.

Black Widow

If this had been released before Avengers Endgame I might have cared but I'm only going to watch this if I feel some desperate need to catch up on Marvel films before, I don't know, the Fantastic Four film they say they're gonna make.

The Suicide Squad

I actually do want to see this since I've heard it's quite decent.

Don't Breathe 2

Same with A Quiet Place Part II, I didn't need to see a sequel to this film about being silent either.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

I should really watch this because a friend of mine did stuntwork in it. I'll get around to it eventually.

No Time to Die

More like "no time to waste on another James Bond film I already know I won't enjoy."

Eternals

What's this Marvel instalment even about? I once considered myself reasonably knowledgeable about superhero comic books but these characters are too obscure even for me.

Ghostbusters Afterlife

I don't want to watch a serious tribute to an Eighties comedy film. Why has Ghostbusters become so sacrosanct?

Spider-Man: No Way Home

I've heard this is good but seriously, didn't the previous Spider-Man film only come out about a year before? Too much Spider-Man for me. I don't care enough about the Raimi films to be excited about Maguire and his enemies coming back either.

The Matrix Resurrections

There's only one good Matrix film and it came out in 1999. Not remotely interested.

Films I actually saw:

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

I knew this was going to be bad. James Wan didn't direct it and, like so many of the awful "Conjuring Universe" spinoff films, it was directed by a nobody whose only other noteworthy work was on another shitty Conjuring spinoff. I think the bits where Ed and Lorraine are in the woods investigating the case are the only decent bit in this piece of garbage that completely fails to have any of the tension or dread of the first two films. It's an absolute farce.

The French Dispatch

Wes Anderson does his Wes Anderson routine. Visually engaging, stylish and at times amusing, but sexist and oddly repugnant in its advocacy of the prescriptive and the doctrinaire, the celebratory nature of the concept at times strikes rather as fearful and conformist.

Munich — The Path to War

Based on one of Robert Harris's (in my head) endless stream of World War Two thrillers, this is a relatively well-made period piece with a decent bit of tension for the fictional protagonists, but I thought the pacing was weak; it goes for two hours but felt to me like it went for about four. The highlight is Jeremy Irons as Neville Chamberlain and the film probably would have been a good deal more interesting if it was just about the 1938 Munich conference, Chamberlain's rationale, Hitler's psychology and the betrayal of Czechoslovakia without the go-nowhere spy thriller stuff added on. I didn't actually watch this until late 2022.

Halloween Kills

After the mildly decent 2018 continuity reset, the Halloween franchise immediately reverts back to being about Michael Myers killing stupid people in ridiculous ways. Full review here.

Titane

By default my "best film of 2021", this Palme d'Or winner about a disturbed young woman who has sex with cars, murders people and impersonates a desperate man's missing-presumed-dead son was a visually engaging if at times slightly obvious portrayal of frustration, alienation and grief. Not for everyone, but I liked it.