Most Anticipated Films Of December 2022.

Well here it is the final month of 2022, before you know it we will be in January. 2022 seems like it’s going to wrap up with some really strong films as well!

A few films I’ve already seen that I highly recommend

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – December 23rd (Netflix)

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish – December 21st (Theaters)

Nanny – December 16th (Amazon Prime Video)

23. Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules – December 2nd (Disney+)

22. Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas To All – December 20th (Apple TV+)

21. The Mean One – December 15th (VOD)

20. Darby Of The Dead – December 2nd (Hulu)

19. Bed Rest – December 7th (Tubi)

18. Christmas Bloody Christmas – December 9th (Shudder)

17. Troll – December 1st (Netflix)

16. The Apology – December 16th (Shudder)

15. A Wounded Fawn – December 1st (Shudder)

14. Living – December 23rd (Theaters)

13. Wildcat December 30th (Amazon Prime Video)

12. Hunt – December 2nd (VOD)

11. The Eternal Daughter – December 2nd (VOD)

10. Broker – December 26th (Theaters)

9. Corsage – December 23rd (Theaters)

8. Avatar: The Way Of Water – December 16th (Theaters)

7. Decision To Leave – December 9th (VOD)

6. White Noise – December 20th (Netflix)

5. Aftersun – December 20th (VOD)

4. Women Talking – December 25th (Theaters)

3. Babylon – December 25th – Theaters)

2. Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio – December 9th (Netflix)

1. The Whale – December 9th (Theaters)

Disenchanted loses the magic of the first film.

Years after her happily ever after, Giselle, Robert and Morgan move to a new community and Andalasia and the real world are thrown off-balance.

Disenchanted is the long awaited sequel of 2007’s Enchanted a film that quickly gained a relatively big following including myself. Enchanted was genuinely really fun film filled with a lot of heart, passion, character and had a huge identity to it. It’s been one of those films where people have wanted a sequel for a long time, Disenchanted is the end result and they completely dropped the ball here. What’s sad is there just isn’t a whole lot to say about Disenchanted as it’s a forgettable movie that completely takes out all of the magic that made Enchanted so great. The positives come from Amy Adams who returns as Giselle, she’s clearly putting her heart into it and actually sings a lot of the songs very well, Idina Menzel is actually not bad here either a song she sings towards the end “Love Power” is actually quite great and beautifully sung. James Marsden who just isn’t given enough screen time here is truly charming and actually gives all the moments that made me laugh, you can’t help but smile whenever he’s on screen which is sadly just not enough. Everything else here is about as generic as you can get between a very typical disgruntled child or teen storyline that ends with learning a lesson, which really has the energy of something from the Disney channel in the early 90s it’s truly a huge missed opportunity to look at Morgan’s (played by Gabriella Baldacchino) character and her relationship with her mother Giselle in a way that could connect with the audience. But they just settled with the most generic way possible that is way too forgettable, Disenchanted is a frustrating movie because this is most definitely something you can make into a great movie, but the forgettable script, a lot of the basic original songs and the storytelling is severely lacking and loses the magic of the original.

Disenchanted is available on Disney+

4/10 D+

The Friendship Game is a horrendous teen horror movie.

Teens in a small town come across an object with mysterious cosmic powers and a baffling sort of consciousness. Over the course of a night, the object tests their loyalties and unravels the mystery about their missing friend.

The Friendship Game is basically if somebody said “hey remember that movie Truth Or Dare (2018) that was terrible and almost everyone forgot about? What if we somehow made an even worse version of that?” That’s what you get here and if that was the intention well then they succeeded because The Friendship Game is a incoherent mess that is so bafflingly bad, the mix of teen melodrama with the horror elements is painfully dull and puts the movie at a complete stop pacing wise. By far the worst part of the movie is the editing, it’s not so much of how bad it really is it’s that scenes are edited out of order leading to the story making very little sense at all and looking like a broken down vehicle. The characters are the most cliched teen horror characters you could come up with, Peyton List and the rest of the cast are not given enough to work with leading to all the performances being painfully wooden. By far one of the worst movies of the year.

The Friendship Game is available on all VOD platforms.

Disgrace To Cinema F

Fantasy Football has cute moments but is ultimately bland in execution.

A daughter discovers she can magically control the performance of her football-playing father through her gaming console.

Fantasy Football just sort of exists, this is something you would have saw back in the early 2000s, with a premise like a daughter finds out she can magically control her dad who plays football through a video game console just oozes early 2000s family movie antics. And to this movie’s credit at times it is a lot of fun, Marsai Martin and Omari Hardwick are very fun in the leading roles and actually have father and daughter bonding moments that are genuinely very cute. Kelly Rowland isn’t too bad either so there’s a lot of family moments that are genuinely sweet, everything else however is very stale. The rest of the movie really doesn’t take advantage of how bizarre the plot really is and the it remains in the “play it way too safe” area which is a bit unfortunate, as there was a lot of potential to be very creative here but the movie spends a little too much time on family drama that ultimately does feel a bit more of the same from other movies.

Fantasy Football is available on Paramount+

4/10 D+

The People We Hate At The Wedding is forgettable.

Family tensions ramp up among siblings in the week leading up to their half-sister’s wedding in the country.

The People We Hate At The Wedding is a whole lot of nothing, outside of Kristen Bell and a few moments this just does not do much at all, the premise sounds fine enough but plays out like something that might have been passable 10 years ago, now it just fits in with a lot of bad comedies that just aren’t funny at all. Despite this being released on Amazon Prime Video out of all the movies they have released and from what I’ve reviewed and seen, this one feels the most like a Lifetime/Hallmark movie. It plays out exactly how you expect it’s going to and just doesn’t give any of the characters some sort of personality outside of cliches, Kristen Bell is great here because she’s Kristen Bell and definitely tries her best. Otherwise this is just huge release date fodder.

The People We Hate At The Wedding is available on Amazon Prime Video.

2/10 F

A Christmas Mystery and Holiday Harmony (2022)

When her best friend’s dad is falsely accused of stealing the town’s prized jingle bells, a young amateur sleuth and her friends must find the real thief before Christmas.

I definitely think A Christmas Mystery is a lot better than it could have been, as there are a few things to like about it the standout being Violet McGraw who gives a very delightful performance. She easily steals every single scene she’s in and is even able to carry the movie on her own pretty well, the rest of the cast do a fine enough job, unfortunately what does hold this movie back is it’s way too predictable. While yes it is a kids movie and does play out like a kids mystery movie that really doesn’t change how it’s very predictable and the viewer could easily figure out who stole the bells within the first 20 minutes or so, there just isn’t enough mystery to it and the cast of characters truly make it a bit too obvious who did the crime. Having that said it’s a very non-offensive kids movie that I think kids will enjoy, it’s forgettable but it’s definitely one of the better Christmas movies to come out so far this year (although that’s not saying much).

A Christmas Mystery is available on HBO Max

4/10 D+

With just two weeks to get to the iHeartRadio Christmas Eve performance of her dreams, singer/songwriter Gail takes on a group of misfit kids hoping to perform in a Christmas Eve gala of their own.

Holiday Harmony is like if you took any Hallmark Christmas movie and mixed it with a bad fanfiction on Wattpad, outside of Annelise Cepero who gives a decent enough performance and actually has a decent singing voice. The rest of the movie is way too predictable and is the very definition of a Hallmark Christmas movie, including bad writing, terrible pacing, nonsensical story beats and way too drawn out. I think the most surprising thing about this is it’s a HBO Max original, before this I can’t really think of an original from HBO Max that felt like something from the Hallmark channel but I guess nobody is safe. The movie is also a huge product placement for iHeart Radio even when it hurts Gail’s (Annelise Cepero) music label the movie still remains positive to iHeart Radio which completely takes the viewer out of the movie. The movie ends exactly how you expect it to, there’s definitely some cute moments but those appear during the third act which is around the time someone might turn this off. It’s definitely not the worst Christmas movie out there but it is one of the most forgettable.

Holiday Harmony is available on HBO Max

3/10 D-

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a entertaining yet strong character piece film about loss.

Queen Ramonda, Shuri, M’Baku, Okoye and the Dora Milaje fight to protect their nation from intervening world powers in the wake of King T’Challa’s death. As the Wakandans strive to embrace their next chapter, the heroes must band together with Nakia and Everett Ross to forge a new path for their beloved kingdom.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is the last film of phase 4 of the MCU (the last part of phase four is the Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special which is releasing next Friday) and it was a very strong way to close a rather very mixed phases. The first five minutes of the film alone is one of the best scenes Marvel has ever done, they really worked Chadwick Boseman’s passing into the story very respectfully and carefully which in the end gives plenty of incredibly strong moments. There’s a lot of character bits here this time around sort of like how Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 was more of a character piece, here it’s quite similar only that the themes are much more different. The themes here is loss and trying to cope with losing the people you looked up to most, the performances here absolutely compliment this well. Letitia Wright who plays Shuri is a very strong lead who really does a great job with her performance, Angela Bassett who plays Ramonda absolutely nails it she gives one of the best performances of the year and truly steals every single scene she’s in. Bassett has always been a powerhouse performer who really puts in so much passion in so many roles she’s in and here is no exception, Lupita Nyong’o who plays Nakia is really strong here as well, it’s great to see her character again after being absent for awhile and it’s also seeing that she gets a lot to do in the film. There’s tons of powerful moments with her character and gives a ton of development that’s quite investing. Finally there’s Tenoch Huerta who plays the villain of the film Namor, his character is refreshing to mainly due to actually having a well developed motive. He’s not the stereotypical “I want to take over the world” type of villain he actually has a short but very well done flashback scene that really develops his character and why he is doing certain actions and what’s the goal. All of this really blends together well that ends up creating some really emotional moments especially during the beginning and the very end of the film, the film does have it’s hiccups mostly with Martin Freeman and Julia Louis-Dreyfus who are just sort of there, they do a decent enough job with what they are given but it’s really not anything special. The tone is drastically different from the other scenes and has the energy of a CSI episode when it comes to the scenes with the two. Dominique Thorne who plays Ironheart is decent enough here and has pretty okay introduction, but it’s not anything particularly great either. Unfortunately Ironheart isn’t all that interesting here and ends up being there mostly for comedic relief, however when Thorne is given some strong moments she does quite a great job. Lastly there’s plenty of action scenes that are really strong one in particular that really steals the show, the major thing that really separates Black Panther: Wakanda Forever from a lot of the other phase four projects is that there were actual themes and high stakes for the characters, there was a sense of loss where anything could happen. It was an investing film that actually studied the characters and gave them their flaws rather than just not show any at all. Overall Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is by far one of the better parts of phase four, outside of the few hiccups as mentioned this is a entertaining yet character moment filled film.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is currently in theaters.

8/10 B+

Ticket To Paradise is a fun throwback to the early 2000s romcom era.

A man and his ex-wife race to Bali, Indonesia, to stop their daughter from marrying a seaweed farmer. As they desperately try to sabotage the wedding, the bickering duo soon find themselves rekindling old feelings that once made them happy together.

Ticket To Paradise is a throwback to the early 2000s romcom era and in the best ways possible. Julia Roberts and George Clooney have excellent chemistry here that completely sell this movie, even if the script feels a bit too redundant or empty at times they still work with it and actually turn it into something very entertaining, Kaitlyn Dever and Billie Lourd are both fantastic here as well! Lourd once again gives a decently hilarious performance as a side character (she was fantastic in Booksmart) and has one scene in particular that is actually quite strong. It’s a small moment but it does show Lourd’s acting talent decently well, the chemistry between Kaitlyn Dever and Maxime Bouttier is really solid here. There’s tons of cute moments between the two that truly standout and are just generally really fun, not every single joke in the movie lands and there are definitely areas where the humor could have been so much better. However the humor for the most part works which is mainly due to the film capturing the spirit of early 2000s romcoms, the story is predictable yet it’s still very charming and fun to watch unfold. Is Ticket to Paradise going to break any ground? Definitely not but it is a very fun time and a step in the right direction for romcoms.

Ticket To Paradise is available on all VOD platforms.

7/10 B

A Christmas Story Christmas is a solid sequel that captures the magic of the first movie.

Ralphie returns to give his kids a magical Christmas like the one he had as a child.

A Christmas Story Christmas is a sequel to the 1983 film A Christmas Story, meaning this film completely ignores the events of A Christmas Story 2 which released in 2012 and was just a dreadful experience so it’s not a surprise they want to forget about that. Because surprisingly enough A Christmas Story Christmas is surprisingly pretty decent, first off the original cast returns which is great and they all do a pretty solid job here. They capture the spirits of the original characters and actually have fun with them as well, the most noticeable one that doesn’t return however is Darren McGavin because he passed away in 2006, what the film does is pretty interesting rather than recast they decided to have Old Man Parker pass away as well. They did a pretty solid job of working it into the story and actually led to some emotional moments, so I definitely give credit where credit is due. The main flaw mostly stems from the story being a bit too familiar, there’s some nice callbacks and nostalgic moments to help the movie run smoothly, but a lot of what happens ends up being traditional Christmas movie shenanigans such as the parents losing the Christmas presents so now they have to find other ways to celebrate Christmas. However there is absolutely no denying that the movie has a lot of heart as well as a lot of entertainment to it, it’s a genuinely fun movie that compliments the first film very well and uses the characters quite well. A Christmas Story Christmas isn’t going to have the impact like the first movie did, but it is a solid sequel to the original.

A Christmas Story Christmas is available on HBO Max!

7/10 B

Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song is an inspiring documentary.

An exploration of the life of singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen as seen through the prism of his internationally renowned hymn, `Hallelujah’.

There really isn’t a whole lot to say about Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song, it goes over pretty much a lot of common knowledge about Leonard Cohen and one of the most beautiful songs ever written Hallelujah. Plus the song’s impact on the music and parts of the film industry as well, there’s some interviews that are truly touching as well as footage of Cohen commenting on parts of his career and when he made his resurgence. The documentary really makes it known just how influential Hallelujah became from being covered by so many artists, to being sung by several people on American Idol, X-Factor ect as well as being used in a lot of films most notably Shrek. It’s a song that’s been celebrated and will continue to be celebrated, the documentary has so much heart and soul put into it mainly from the footage of Cohen himself. It’s honestly a inspirational documentary that really goes deep into Cohen’s career, definitely check this out if you are a fan or if you are interested as this is quite a good introduction to Leonard Cohen.

Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song is available on all VOD platforms.

8/10 B+