Best way to summarise the movies of May 2019… hmm… I wonder… oh, here we go. So imagine John Wick was given a hit list to assassinate Elton John, Godzilla, the Brightburn kid, Pikachu and Aladdin (ESCPECIALLY Aladdin), I would say, in the course of a month, he was successful in four out of five of those assassinations – sparing Elton John only because he liked his music. In simpler terms, John Wick and partly Rocketman were the only films I would consider genuinely good this month – the rest are already dead to me… ESPECIALLY Aladdin.
#6 Aladdin (Theatre of DOOM)
A tasteless cash grab at nostalgia which reinterprets the magic of the movies as a greater, more benevolent curse on any attempt at artistic merit.
#5 Pokémon Detective Pikachu (Kingdom of the Criminally Dull…)
A lacklustre attempt at making magic; although not a complete loss due to the charisma of one, Ryan Reynolds.
#4 Brightburn (Kingdom of the Criminally Dull…)
A clunky attempt at clever satire that remains admirable despite falling far down from its potential.
#3 Godzilla: King of the Monsters (A CRUSADE!!)
An entertaining monster mash that realistically could be cited as heavily flawed; but through its staleness and cheesiness, hot garbage can be relished.
#2 Rocketman (A CRUSADE!!)
An energetic framing of the eccentricity behind the character of Elton John through a terrific Taron Edgerton performance and fantastical musical numbers, never mind its various slips into genre clichés.
#1 John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (Lost Art)
A brilliantly choreographed, widely shot, blast of ingenious action cinema with a terrific Keanu Reeves as its centrepiece.
Image Sources:
- Nashawaty, C 2019, Brightburn imagines if a young Superman didn’t come in peace: EW review, Entertainment Weekly, Meredith, viewed 25 May 2019, <https://ew.com/movie-reviews/2019/05/23/avengement-review-scott-adkins/>
Reviewers of the Lost Art 