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Best and Worst Films from December 2020

Best Films from December 2020:

3. The 40-Year-Old Version

The 40-Year-Old Version was such a pleasant surprise for me as I hadn’t expected such an amusing and well executed film from mostly first-timers. What Radha Blank did here was incredible on all fronts and the movie serves as this very honest depiction of aspiring artists and how difficult it is to break into the entertainment business.

2. The Climb

The Climb explores male friendship, toxic friends and complicated human relationships with a lot of insight and originality. The two main characters are phenomenally realized and very complex while the movie’s mix of drama and comedy is terrific. There are a lot of memorable scenes here with the highlight being the stellar opening biking sequence that plays out as this very authentically approached, heightened argument.

1. Soul

Soul is easily the best movie I saw all month and one of Pixar’s finest films. They are back after a couple of inferior years in 2020 with both ‘Onward’ and the fantastic Soul that is deep and moving without resorting to manipulative tactics. It’s incredibly inspirational in its themes and message, outstanding in characters and truly artistic in its animation and ambient score. It’s quite possibly the greatest film of 2020.

Worst Films from December 2020:

3. Sponge on the Run

Sponge on the Run started off solid, but ended up being just another passable SpongeBob diversion. I did like the more old-fashioned use of CGI animation, but simply the setup of their new spin-off show felt overly manipulative and like an advertisement itself.

2. The New Mutants

The New Mutants isn’t as terrible as many have pinpointed, but it is an utter disappointment for the X-Men Franchise that had a good premise, but the execution was simply mediocre. The characterization is poor, the story becomes too silly later and the lack of action hurt it in the long run.

1. Tenet

Tenet is the worst movie of 2020 by far. It’s horrible. What Nolan did here was take all of his worst elements and put it together into this jumbled mess of a movie that is loud, obnoxious and ultimately rather dumb. It’s full of explosive action scenes and extensive exposition scenes, both excruciating to bear.