Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

Well, 2020 turned into a stinker of a year, but Gadot, Jenkins and Pine reunite to cheer us up with Wonder Woman‘s second solo outing. Gadot is outstanding and Diana Prince/Wonder Woman is magnificent. With Big Themes and women centre stage, it’s a shame the plot is a shambles and it’s far, far too long.

X-Men Dark Phoenix (2019)

The final instalment of the X-Men reboot is an unruly tangle of belonging, family and identity with plenty of CGI mayhem and big action set-pieces. Stuck with the mis-casting of Fassbender and MacAvoy, it relies on Sophie ‘Mahogony’ Turner stepping up as the empathetic core and she’s just not that kind of actress. Blown away by Jessica Chastain’s icy villain and Jennifer Lawrence’s too-short stint as Mystique, Turner is the weak nail in the wall from which the whole thing hangs.

Kong: Skull Island (2017)

Kong meets Apocalypse Now in a 70’s re-boot with all the logic of a Japanese ’60’s kaiju movie. Go to Vietnam; leave Vietnam; go to island; meet Kong, fight giant cave lizards, do not leave island, do not go to New York, do not kill the ape. At least Kong is a ‘real’ ape with proper fur – cast of Cats take note.

Birds of Prey (2020)

While I’m all in favour of equal opportunities, I’m not convinced that an R-rated, sweary, violent bid to outdo the testosterone-fulled action genre is quite the feminist triumph Birds of Prey was hoping for. For all that Margot Robbie turns in a scene-stealing performance as Harley Quinn, the whole movie plays like a teenage boys’ fantasy of a sweary, bloody and rather pointless graphic novel, built around a very small pair of hot pants.

Spiderman: Far From Home (2019)

Having missed the previous two instalments of this third Spiderman reboot in two decades, checked in on Far From Home to discover it’s National Lampoon’s European Vacation overloaded with smash-bash-and-crash, CGI-tastic, urban destruction and another terrible villain. However sparky and charming are it’s young leads, Jake Ghyllenhaal is more Mystery Men than Mysterio, in a paper thin plot that grumpy Nick Fury should have seen through in two minutes.

Fast Color (2019)

A heart-warming family drama with three strong female leads that is also a superhero movie without the bash, smash and crash. Part Midnight Special, part X-Men, but with a grittier edge than A Wrinkle in Time, Fast Color doesn’t need buckets of blood and blowing s* up every five minutes to tell a proper story. Mr Bay and Mr Snyder please take note…

Sucker Punch (2011)

At what point are we allowed to call out Zack ‘300’ Snyder’s multi-layered, teenaged boy’s masturbation fantasy that includes child abuse, strippers, gangsters, a mental hospital, four women in bondage outfits and one infantilised actress in a schoolgirl costume fighting giant samurai, zombies, knights, dragons and robots in a CGI-tastic gun-fest? Never mind ‘live-action manga’, this has the sexual politics of a 1960’s exploitation B-movie.

Abigail (2019)

The outstanding steampunk production design and Eastern European folk tale atmosphere can’t elevate Abigail into Fantastic Beasts’ league. The script might have Russian poetry in it’s soul but after translation and terrible overdubbing a la 1970’s Singing Ringing Tree, it makes Hallmark sound like Shakespeare.

As if Tinatin Dalakishvili attempting to play mid-teenage in her twenties wasn’t bad enough, the hair department gives Abigail the worst wig since Streep’s Lindy Chamberlain or Bardem’s No Country hitman.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

The triple-trilogy comes to an end after forty years with a low-budget, low-key bit of character drama. Not.

J.J. Abrams dials everything up to 12 for the epic-est space-opera finale, with thousands of space ships, a Sith temple, a cavalry charge across the deck of a star destroyer, daft plot, lame dialogue and the worst light sabre fight in history.

Just as well Daisy Ridley rescues the whole thing with some decent, sympathetic acting.

The Mandalorian Season 1 (2019)

Disney/Lucasfilm’s Man with no Name bounty hunter wears a cloak instead of a poncho; but with GoT‘s Pedro Pascal doing the Clint Eastwood voice, accompanied by a jangly guitar soundtrack, the laser guns, spaceships and planet-loads of Star Wars porn can’t disguise this Space-ghetti Western.