Ranking the Movies of 2018: Week 16

Avengers Infinity War joins Ranking the Movies this week and is stunningly low on this list. I am in the minority of critics who didn’t enjoy the bigness of Infinity War. Despite 18 movies worth of backstory and build up I found this first significant pay off of that investment in these characters to be a disappointment that shortshifted much of what I felt were the best aspects of the previous adventures, especially those of Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy.

I didn’t hate Avengers Infinity War. I can recognize that the directors, the Russo Brothers, are very talented and had a huge task that they mostly pulled it off from a technical standpoint. Thanos, Josh Brolin’s remarkable CGI villain, is an achievement on par with Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis’ Gollum. From a technical standpoint, Avengers Infinity War is rather remarkable.

My issues with Avengers Infinity War in many ways are not the fault of the movie itself. The deaths of characters in this movie are rendered meaningless because we know that the characters who died have already agreed to return for solo movies in the future. As Infinity War reached its dramatic and supposedly sad climax, I wasn’t caught up in the shocking twist, I was thinking “well that character will be back, so will that one, and that one, and that one.”

What should have been shocking and painful was rendered moot by the choices of which characters were blinked out of existence. There is zero suspense here, just check out the Marvel and Disney press releases regarding the upcoming film slate and you will know that the ending of Avengers Infinity War doesn’t matter in the long run. This is the first time, for me, that the spell of the Marvel movies has been broken.

All Marvel movies are products, but Infinity War is the first of the Marvel movies to feel mercenary, like something meant solely as a product intended to pry the money from our pockets. The movie is good but not good enough to make me forget about all of the things that surround the movie as a product such as contracts, Disney stockholders, Marvel stockholders and the ways in which announcements on Wall Street effect what we are watching on the big screen.

Avengers Infinity War was the only new movie in theaters last week and being that we had a show to fill, the Everyone’s a Critic Movie Review podcast opened up to a new Netflix movie to help fill out our time and I am so glad we did. We watched the new Netflix original Kodachrome starring Jason Sudeikis, Ed Harris and Elizabeth Olson and what a joy. Kodachrome is one of the best movies of the year.

Our classic this week was chosen by my Everyone’s a Critic Podcast co-host Josh Adams who instructed us to watch the sci-fi movie Knowing starring Nicholas Cage. Knowing is a favorite of Josh’s but he probably regrets bringing it to the show after myself and Bob Zerull spent several minutes destroying the Alex Proyas end of the world nonsense, especially Cage’s silly lead performance.

Next week’s classic is Juno in honor of the release of the new Jason Reitman/Diablo Cody collaboration Tully, in theaters this weekend. Also new this weekend is Overboard starring Anna Faris and a thriller called Bad Samaritan. I also will be making use of my Filmstruck subscription and watching and hopefully writing about Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul.

New rankings below and new additions to the list are in bold type…

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

2. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

3. Black Swan

4. Phantom Thread

5. Black Panther

6. His Girl Friday

7. Best F®iends

8. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

9. Annihilation

10. Kodachrome

11. Unsane

12. Just Charlie

13. Columbus

14. The Death of Stalin

15. Hostiles

16. A Wrinkle in Time

17. Boogie Nights

18. Foxy Brown

19. Becks

20. A Quiet Place

21. Captain America Civil War

22. Game Night

23. Are We Not Cats

24. The Ballad of Lefty Brown

25. 12 Strong

26. Red Sparrow

27. Act & Punishment

28. Los Angeles Overnight

29. Salome & Wilde Salome

30. Switching Channels

31. Actors of Sound: A Foley Artist Documentary

32. I Feel Pretty

33. Tomb Raider

34. War Games

35. Ready Player One

36. Insidious: The Last Key

37. Sheik Jackson

38. Gringo

39. Love, Simon

40. Isle of Dogs

41. Hurricane Heist

42. Samson & Delilah

43. Heat

44. Hell’s House

45. The Last Movie Star

46. The Miracle Season

47. Blockers

48. Avengers Infinity War

49. Early Man

50. Almost Paris

51. Bloodsport

52. Reds

53. Play Misty for Me

54. Frantic

55. Beirut

56. 7 Days in Entebbe

57. Taffin

58. Super Troopers

59. Super Troopers 2

60. Samson

61. Friday the 13th

62. Rampage

63. Last House on the Left

64. Burnt Offerings

65. Paddington 2

66. Traffik

67. Pacific Rim Uprising

68. Sherlock Gnomes

69. Chappaquiddick

70. Cloverfield Paradox

71. Peter Rabbit

72. Proud Mary

73. The Mist

74. God’s Not Dead: A Light in the Darkness

75. Den of Thieves

76. Death Wish 1974

77. Death Wish 2018

78. Knowing

79. The Commuter

80. Fifty Shades Freed

81. Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built

82. Midnight Sun

83. Forever My Girl

84. Every Day

85. Strangers Prey at Night

86. 15:17 to Paris

87. Truth or Dare

88. The Greasy Strangler

89. Maze Runner: The Death Cure