Greetings, reader!
Today, my 10-week-long project finally comes to an end. #10 is the last number of instalments where I have watched ten or more films belonging to that category, and can therefore make a top 10 -list. I had considered continuing this for even longer with smaller and smaller lists, but as glorious as the battle royale between Skyfall and Spider-Man: No Way Home as the top two 23rd instalments would've been, I decided to quit while I was ahead. No honorable mentions this time, as there are exactly ten 10th instalments I've seen, so I'll just rank them from worst to best.
10. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)
The Wizarding World franchise, consisting of the Harry Potter films and the Fantastic Beasts spin-offs, hit its tenth film with this Fantastic Beasts sequel. It's not very good - the whole feel is a bit too apocalyptic and thus feels more like a DC Comics blockbuster than anything in the Potter-verse. Also, the sheer amount of Marvel-esque set-up and worldbuilding for future sequels makes the film feel empty at its core, like it's so hell-bent on being a franchise instalment that it forgets to be a movie with an identity of its own.
After ten long weeks of praising Potter-verse movies while balancing it out by tirading against the outspoken transphobe who created said world, this project is coming to an end. Would it have been simpler to just exclude the Wizarding World movies from this series? Very possibly yes, but I opted to discuss them while including this discourse in each post, as they are important conversations for Potter fans to have. I'll end in the most powerful way one can end a speech: by quoting Pete Davidson.
"I mean - what's wrong with her, Colin? She creates a 7-book fantasy series about all types of mythical creatures living in harmony with wizards and elfs, and the one thing she can't wrap her head around is Laverne Cox? She's a national treasure!"
9. Halloween II (2009)
Not to be confused with Halloween II (1981), the film of the same name in the same franchise, this is the sequel to the 2007 Rob Zombie remake. For better or for worse, this silly flick is even more Rob Zombie than its predecessor, with the director's polarizing style being hilariously prominent in ways good and bad.
At it best, the plot is delightfully unpredictable and some of the style choices are borderline Lynchian, but at its worst, the film does devolve into messy dialogue and unclear plot turns. The ambition of Halloween II makes it a tad better than the more generic and unimaginative slasher sequels out there, but the half-assed realization of this ambition does make the end product a bit laughable at times.
8. F9 (2021)
Yes, this is the tenth Fast & Furious film, because the spin-off Fast and Furious presents: Hobbs & Shaw wasn't counted as a numbered instalment (even though the earlier spin-off The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift was counted? God, this franchise is a mess). F9 is quite alright, especially for the tenth movie in a franchise with the eloquent premise of "Fast cars go brrr".
Mind you, the plot is very silly and stupid. But when not taken seriously, the film becomes entertaining and even delightful, much thanks to its self-aware nature. After years of fans making the joke "These stunts are becoming crazier and crazier, what are they gonna do next? Go to space?", the franchise actually listened, and made the gamble that filling fan service expectations for meme value and entertainment is more important than pretending to keep any shred of realism and credibility in the plot. And, at least for this viewer, it paid off. For the tenth Fast & Furious film, I'll take cars in space over trying to be respectable cinema any day of the week.
7. Jason X (2001)
Oh, speaking of films where the biggest strength is self-aware tongue-in-cheek entertainment value, this one! It even shares the "going to space" element of the entry above, as by the tenth Friday the 13th film, the producers apparently went "Well, why not send Jason Voorhees into space?".
The film is extremely bad in so many ways - the one-dimensional characters in queue to be killed off, the horrendous dialogue, the abscence of any actually creepy horror, you name it. But damn, it's just so fun! Having watched all 12 films in the franchise, this isn't even in the lowest tier, because this film is just so out there that it becomes a delight to watch in the realm of F-class cinema. A tried-and-true cult classic.
6. Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
Star Trek: Nemesis is a specific kind of good - it's good enough. The directing is a bit sloppy, and the plot screams "The writers don't understand the Star Trek world all that well". But, for a viewer who loved Star Trek: The Next Generation and its cast, this is a good-enough send-off. Would they have deserved a better swan song? Yes, and thankfully they got it with the third season of legacy sequel series Star Trek: Picard decades later. But, for the last film of the Next Generation cast, this one is just good enough to pass the vibe check, even though it could've been a lot better.
Shinzon, played by a young Tom Hardy, is an interesting villain, whose origin as Picard's clone raised by the ominous Remans raises some interesting nature-versus-nurture questions. We also get some nice cameos and sentimental moments amidst the overall messy plot, so despite its flaws, the film is watchable and does at least half of its objectives justice.
5. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Released as an expansion of the fictional universe between episodes VIII and IX of the Skywalker saga, this spin-off follows a young Han Solo, played by Alden Ehrenreich. First of all, I was happy with the casting - there is no replacing Harrison Ford, but for the role of a pre-original-trilogy Han Solo, Ehrenreich is pretty much the next-best thing. Of course, the show is absolutely stolen by Donald Glover as a young Lando Calrissian.
The film isn't all that deep, as showcased by the shockingly forgettable main cast (usually Star Wars characters are so memorable that a nerd like me will remember their names and stories for years after seeing the movie, but with this one, my memories are reduced to "one-dimensional femme fatale played by Emilia Clarke", "generic mentor-with-ulterior-motives played by Woody Harrelson", "cliché bad guy played by Paul Bettany", et cetera). But purely as a fun Han Solo adventure, for fans wanting to know how he met Chewbacca and got his vest and came across the Millennium Falcon, it checks the boxes.
4. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
The tenth James Bond flick isn't quite Roger Moore's best Bond film (though it isn't far from that honor), but it's definitely the most Roger Moore Bond film. In the definitive flick of the Moore era, we get to enjoy all the staples from the dry humor and cartoonish antics to the legendary ski chase opening sequence and the very Cold War -driven plot. Barbara Bach's Anya Amasova is certainly one of the more memorable 'Bond girls', not to mention Richard Kiel's Jaws being one hell of a henchman.
3. The Avengers: The Age of Ultron (2015)
The tenth overall film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the second Avengers film, and while it is unavoidably the worst of the four Avengers movies, it's still pretty decent. At times, the pacing can be a bit messy, but honestly, who could blame them? Stuffing over ten major characters from various different movies into one main cast, where everyone should have sufficiently balanced screen time and a character arch while also working for the larger plot, is one hell of a job. The first Avengers film had it easier as there were fewer threads to connect, while the third and fourth saw the Russo brothers perfecting the formula. The Age of Ultron has some growing pains in that area, but it's still a worthwhile addition.
At its best, the film provides exciting action sequences, entertaining banter, neat connections and a thoroughly intriguing villain in James Spader's Ultron. And while the plot was understandably criticized as hard-to-follow for casual MCU fans, I can say that for those of us who had seen each previous film and had studied the in-universe connections (read: nerds with nothing better to do), it all came together in quite a satisfying fashion.
2. Logan (2017)
The tenth X-Men film was Hugh Jackman's swan song to the role of Wolverine, which he had played for eight films (nine, if you count his hilarious cameo in X-Men: First Class). Or, at least, it would've been his swan song if we weren't living in a cash-grab hellscape where every popular character has to keep returning and rebooting infinitely, as witnessed by this year's upcoming Deadpool x Wolverine or whatever it's called, in this ridiculously self-repeating time-loop that's starting to feel like an X-Men plotline that Magneto would've come up with in order to warp reality.
Anyhow, this tasteful send-off film can hardly be blamed for the mistakes the franchise made later on.
Logan is a pensive and ultimately gripping film, with a gritty western vibe mixed with a subtly post-apocalyptic feel and a specific balance of giving up yet underlying instances of hope in the themes. It's the best possible superhero film for people who don't like superhero films (although those of us who do like superhero films loved it as well), as the focus is on character-building and great actors showcasing humane emotions, instead of prolonged action sequences and worldbuilding.
1. Zach Snyder's Justice League (2021)
I think the biggest takeaway from this instalment project, from an academic standpoint, might be pointing out that the entire top three of the 'tenth instalments' list is movies from comic book franchises. Whether that says something about the structure of modern superhero movie universes (they don't start out with masterpieces but have their primes later on, or maybe they stay fresh because there's such an endless goldmine of source material to adapt from) or about the nature of sequels (the classic formula of planning one film at a time leads to a point where the tenth film in a row can't be any good, but if you plan something ahead like the MCU, the tenth film can be just as good as the first one), I think it's a fascinating takeaway.
Anyways, I thoroughly count the Snyder cut of Justice League as a separate movie and thus a tenth instalment, even if it technically is a version of a previously made movie. The theatrical cut of Justice League, which was the fifth film in the DC Extended Universe, was one of the worst superhero films I've ever seen - and the Snyder cut, released four years after, is one of the best. Even though it's edited from the same material. That's the power of editing right there.
The 2017 Justice League wanted so bad to compete with Marvel that it turned an artistic vision into a shallow product - the runtime was cut to less than two hours, the color scheme is all bright and happy, all of the darker and deeper stuff is cut to make room for witty banter. None of the main characters have anything resembling an arch, the villain is ridiculously one-dimensional, and the action sequences are generic.
In contrast, 2021's Justice League runs at over 4 hours, and it is worth every second. Snyder didn't want to do another generic superhero flick, he wanted to make a work of art, and in that he succeeded. The runtime allows the viewer to get to know each main character, their backstories and motivations, and thus you care for them a great deal. The villain and his motivations make sense as well. The action sequences and color aesthetics feel much more DC, with a gloomy vibe that stands out of the crowd. After being so disappointed in the 2017 film, seeing Snyder's vision come to life with this one was a massive payoff.
Thank you for reading! With this post, my 10-week blast of movie franchise instalments is finally over. Continuing with the themes of saying goodbye, tune in next week for my list of the top 10 character exits from TV!
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