Logan is back to wrap up his year in film in the only way he can.
Maybe it’s fitting that the first film I watched in 2024 was Sony’s Madame Web. In it, the main character (named Cassandra Webb, of course) gains the ability to see briefly into a possible future and then make split decisions to ensure the best outcome. Meant to be an entry into a proposed universe of Spider-Man-related characters, it had a cast of promising actresses, some veteran talent, and brought in a director from MCU proper (yes, Jessica Jones counts). On paper, it COULD have been really good, or at least decent. Instead, it was an absolute mess, and I feel like that’s a great metaphor for 2024 as a whole. In January we all thought “2024 could be great, or even just okay,” and now it’s 2025 and we can look back and say “What the hell happened? Who wrote this? How did we get here?”
Out of Sony’s three (THREE?!) superhero films this year, Madame Webb is the one that gets the most shade thrown at it, but it’s the only one I watched more than once. I’ll talk about the others, but I gotta say I enjoyed this movie. Yes, it’s terrible. Yes, it feels like it was made by people who don’t understand movies. Yes, it makes not one lick of damn sense at all. But I think that’s why I loved it. And I’m okay being the outlier because really no one should ever watch this.
In April I finally braved the local theatre once more to see the latest entry in the Ghostbusters franchise, Frozen Empire. I thought it was a lesser entry than Afterlife, but still really fun. Paul Rudd is always a blast, and I really enjoy the kids, especially Mckenna Grace. They can barely be forgiven for wasting a talent like Carey Coon, but they had to make room for the old guys I guess. As much fun as it is seeing Murray, Ackroyd and Hudson suit up, it’s time to either move past them for good or put this franchise down once and for all.
April also brought me to The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, definitely the longest-titled film I saw all year. Also, one of the most fun. Henry Cavil, Alan Ritchson, Henry Golding, and (an unrecognizable) Alex Pettyfer play a quartet of soldiers tasked with shutting down a Nazi base at the behest of Winston Churchill, but completely unsanctioned by the British government. Or something like that.
Yes, it’s based on true events, but it has no interest in depicting the truth. Instead, director/co-writer Guy Ritchie goes the Tarantino route and embellishes everything, including the capabilities of the soldiers themselves. If you gave them spandex, funny nicknames, and capes this would have been a superhero film. It’s an absolute blast, and Pettyfer, who I haven’t seen in anything since I am Number 7, absolutely steals the show from the rest of the crew.
Speaking of fictionalized history, in May of 2024 I caught up with Unfrosted, Jerry Seinfeld’s faux-origin film about the invention of Pop-Tarts. The cast was chock full of people whose work I greatly enjoy, including Seinfeld himself, but none of it gelled into anything worthwhile. There were a handful of funny moments, and a few inventive gags, but much like an unfrosted Pop-Tart, it’s not worth your time.
The month of May also brought two trips to the Cineplex, first to see The Fall Guy, and then eventually to see Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, two action films that are on opposite ends of the genre. The Fall Guy had as many laughs as it did death-defying stunts, and like the handful of people who watched it on the big screen, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, it didn’t light up the box office, despite Ryan Gosling’s surge in popularity after Barbie. He and co-star Emily Blunt had amazing chemistry, and Aaron-Taylor Johnson delivers a pitch-perfect performance as the foil. It should have been a much bigger film than it was.
Equally so for Furiosa, which is just a marvel of cinematic achievement. Anya-Taylor Joy gives an almost wordless performance as the title character, and Chris Hemsworth finds a way to be both charismatic and completely unlikable. Like Madame Webb before it, it should have been an omen of what we were in for several months later, instead no one went to see it. It’s not a light and breezy movie, not in the slightest, but it is an amazing one.
In June I got to Ride or Die with Bad Boys Martin Lawrence and Will Smith. Part of Smith’s “Please Like Me Again” tour, the fourth entry in this franchise was a bit of diminishing returns. While most people seem to love the second movie, none of them have topped the first for me, and the misnamed third film, Bad Boys For Life, is sentimentally number two (it was the last movie I watched with my brother before he passed away) for me. Still, I didn’t have the worst time watching Smith & Lawrence do their thing, and there are a few truly creative action set pieces.
The highlight for the month of June though was the Hulu documentary Brats. In it Andrew McCarthy explores the origin of the “Brat Pack” from the ’80s, or more specifically that term, and what it meant to them. As someone who puts St. Elmo’s Fire high atop his list of favorite films, it meant a lot to see the discussions and reunions. I could certainly see why some might find it too navel-gazing to provide anything of real substance, I’m just not one of them. I couldn’t help but extrapolate it all and look at my own life in the same way. What did I experience in my 20s that I took such great offense to, something that maybe changed the course of my life, that I can now see was mostly innocuous and I’ve done myself a disservice for decades by not just shrugging it off? I loved this doc so damn much.
July brought me my favorite film of 2024, but before that, I watched Eddie Murphy prove that he wasn’t too old to return to his action-comedy roots in Netflix’s Beverly Hill Cop: Axel F. Despite the terrible title I think this was a better film than Bad Boys, but not without its flaws as well. It definitely wastes the new characters, specifically Joseph Gordon Levitt, but it gave me a smile seeing Murphy prove why almost everyone since his heyday has just been aping him. It also delivered one of my favorite scenes of 2024; when Axel is challenged on losing touch by his daughter, he insists she shut him out. Her reply of “the parent is always the parent,” really hit home for me.
Then came Deadpool & Wolverine, a movie I saw four times in its first week of release.
What can I say about this movie that hasn’t been said by people who are either more critical or eloquent than me? To say I loved it would be an understatement, and while it’s certainly my favorite film of 2024 I can acknowledge that it’s only a film in the absolute basest sense of the word. The plot is nonsensical and paper thin, none of the characters are defined in any real way, their motivations are loosely laid out or completely nonexistent, and it seems to operate purely on “vibes.” But I was there for all of it, and I got emotional every single time they saved the multiverse. It just worked for me.
August brought me to the film I was probably most hesitant about going into the year, Fede Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus. The Alien franchise remains one of my favorites, even if it’s about 50/50 on whether they’re really worth watching. While taking the saga away from Ridley Scott hasn’t always fared well in the past, letting him keep control of it didn’t really reinvigorate it either. Romulus proved a few things though; it’s still possible to make a great Alien film, and consulting with Scott is a must, even if you don’t heed his advice. Alvarez and company delivered something as scary as it is exciting, and easily the best film in the franchise in over three decades.
September continued the ‘80s revisit, as I went to the Cineplex to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Kevin Smith’s The 4:30 Movie, and the animated prequel Transformers One. Two out of the three of those were pleasant surprises, reminding me of growing up a nerd during some of the best movie-going years in history, and the other was Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. I seem to be the outlier on that one though, but I thought it was an absolute mess of a film.
Transformers and The 4:30 Movie, however, were just a blast. It’s a shame that neither of them lit up the box office, especially Transformers One. I’ve been pretty mixed on the live-action entries for the Robots in Disguise, with the last few attempts at rebooting at least being fun. Transformers One put them all to shame. It adds a lot to the mythos, it’s incredibly funny and it’s chock full of action. More people should have gone to see it.
Smith’s love letter to the seemingly shared pasts of all Gen X nerds is sweet, full of laughs, and over-the-top in the way that so many of those ‘80s comedies were. It lacks a truly ludicrous premise (like making a girlfriend from spare computer parts), but it definitely captured the feeling. It doesn’t have the saccharine nature of his last film, Clerks 3, and I think it’s all the better for it. Probably because it’s more about where he came from rather than the fear of where he’s going and an unfulfilled purpose. The cast is really great, which helps when the jokes fall a little flat. If you miss movies like Better Off Dead, you should have watched this already.
October was all about villainous sequels with Venom: The Last Dance and Joker: Folie a Deux. Neither of them proved to be worthwhile experiences, but I enjoyed the zaniness that is Tom Hardy’s Venom performance over Juaquin Phoenix’s turn as the Joker. It’s interesting to look back and compare them to each other, at the time I hadn’t realized how in opposition they were. Venom being undercooked on a script and special effects level and Joker looking fantastic but coming off like a bunch of ingredients from other recipes slapdashed together. The one thing Joker did have really going for it was Lady Gaga’s Harlequin album that was released in tandem; it’s fantastic.
November’s lone outing to the cinema was Gladiator II, a long-gestating sequel that still somehow didn’t have a cohesive story or compelling narrative. At one point in my life, I was a staunch Ridley Scott defender, but even I couldn’t find much to love in his latest (last?) film. Yes, Denzel is great, but isn’t he always? Maybe the only positive thing Gladiator II has in its corner is that it absolutely proves what a star Russel Crowe is, because the movie never stops telling you how much it wants to be the first one, and no one comes close to being the force that Crowe was in the original. Or any of his other films really.
So that makes it kind of fitting that the first movie I made it out to see in December of 2024 was Kraven the Hunter, which (sort of) co-stars Crowe. Like the other two Sony superhero films this year (Madame Webb, Venom: The Last Dance), this is not a good movie. There are shadows of something worthwhile, which actually may make it the most tragic of the three, but it suffers from obvious studio interference and a weird indecisiveness when it comes to the story. What it does have is Aaron Taylor-Johnson beating people up, though not nearly enough. Then there’s the aforementioned Crowe, who lights up every scene he’s in, no matter how dumb.
The same day I watched Kraven I decided to give the Netflix film Carry-On a spin, and I’m glad I did. It was maybe my favorite of all the throwback action films we got in 2024, bringing up memories of things like Die Hard, it’s fun, and has some great one-liners, interesting set pieces, and a sharp villain turn by Jason Bateman. It gets double points for also being set at Christmas; Christmas Action Film is maybe the most under-valued of all the film genres, and any good entry should be celebrated.
Then, despite all of my reservations about a film adaptation of the musical Wicked, and even though I’d sworn it off in the face of people raving about it…I decided to take the ride and see it in theatres. In any other year that didn’t include the insanity that was Deadpool & Wolverine, this would have been my favorite film of the year. It captures so much of what is great about the stage play, adds in some extra to flesh out the plot from the books, has so many good performances, anchored by stellar turns from Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. And every song is perfect. I picked up the vinyl the second I left the theatre and immediately went home and revisited it.
Lastly, I ended 2024 with my annual Christmas Eve outing to the cinemas. Almost always this has been with my Dad and brothers, though occasionally with other family members as well. After Ryan, my twin brother, passed in 2020 the trips were definitely bittersweet, but it felt good to keep the tradition alive. This year my father decided that he just couldn’t do it any longer unfortunately. He likes to sit further back and modern seating layouts generally prevent that for someone in a wheelchair. I won’t say I wasn’t disheartened by his decision, but my little brother and I decided we would still go, and we brought my Brother-In-Law, David, and his oldest son, my nephew, Jace. So of course we went to see Sonic the Hedgehog 3. I’m happy to report we all loved it, found it extremely funny, and just an all-around good time, which is exactly what you want from the third entry in a video game adaptation made for kids.
My 2024 in movies pales in comparison to most people who would call themselves a film lover, so while that term used to apply to me, maybe it just doesn’t any longer, and I’m okay with that. As evidenced by what I did watch, I’ll almost always show up for someone in a funny outfit beating up someone else in a funny outfit, especially if there are superpowers involved. It’s what 12-year-old-me would want me to do. It’s also how I stay connected, in some small way, to the people who are no longer with me, especially my brother Ryan. It’s one of the things we would always bond over, whether we loved them or hated them, which is going to make 2025 one of the hardest years I’ve had since he passed, but I’m determined not to let the grief keep me from enjoying how Super it might be as well.
Logan is back to wrap up his year in film in the only way he can.
Maybe it’s fitting that the first film I watched in 2024 was Sony’s Madame Web. In it, the main character (named Cassandra Webb, of course) gains the ability to see briefly into a possible future and then make split decisions to ensure the best outcome. Meant to be an entry into a proposed universe of Spider-Man-related characters, it had a cast of promising actresses, some veteran talent, and brought in a director from MCU proper (yes, Jessica Jones counts). On paper, it COULD have been really good, or at least decent. Instead, it was an absolute mess, and I feel like that’s a great metaphor for 2024 as a whole. In January we all thought “2024 could be great, or even just okay,” and now it’s 2025 and we can look back and say “What the hell happened? Who wrote this? How did we get here?”
Out of Sony’s three (THREE?!) superhero films this year, Madame Webb is the one that gets the most shade thrown at it, but it’s the only one I watched more than once. I’ll talk about the others, but I gotta say I enjoyed this movie. Yes, it’s terrible. Yes, it feels like it was made by people who don’t understand movies. Yes, it makes not one lick of damn sense at all. But I think that’s why I loved it. And I’m okay being the outlier because really no one should ever watch this.
In April I finally braved the local theatre once more to see the latest entry in the Ghostbusters franchise, Frozen Empire. I thought it was a lesser entry than Afterlife, but still really fun. Paul Rudd is always a blast, and I really enjoy the kids, especially Mckenna Grace. They can barely be forgiven for wasting a talent like Carey Coon, but they had to make room for the old guys I guess. As much fun as it is seeing Murray, Ackroyd and Hudson suit up, it’s time to either move past them for good or put this franchise down once and for all.
April also brought me to The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, definitely the longest-titled film I saw all year. Also, one of the most fun. Henry Cavil, Alan Ritchson, Henry Golding, and (an unrecognizable) Alex Pettyfer play a quartet of soldiers tasked with shutting down a Nazi base at the behest of Winston Churchill, but completely unsanctioned by the British government. Or something like that.
Yes, it’s based on true events, but it has no interest in depicting the truth. Instead, director/co-writer Guy Ritchie goes the Tarantino route and embellishes everything, including the capabilities of the soldiers themselves. If you gave them spandex, funny nicknames, and capes this would have been a superhero film. It’s an absolute blast, and Pettyfer, who I haven’t seen in anything since I am Number 7, absolutely steals the show from the rest of the crew.
Speaking of fictionalized history, in May of 2024 I caught up with Unfrosted, Jerry Seinfeld’s faux-origin film about the invention of Pop-Tarts. The cast was chock full of people whose work I greatly enjoy, including Seinfeld himself, but none of it gelled into anything worthwhile. There were a handful of funny moments, and a few inventive gags, but much like an unfrosted Pop-Tart, it’s not worth your time.
The month of May also brought two trips to the Cineplex, first to see The Fall Guy, and then eventually to see Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, two action films that are on opposite ends of the genre. The Fall Guy had as many laughs as it did death-defying stunts, and like the handful of people who watched it on the big screen, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, it didn’t light up the box office, despite Ryan Gosling’s surge in popularity after Barbie. He and co-star Emily Blunt had amazing chemistry, and Aaron-Taylor Johnson delivers a pitch-perfect performance as the foil. It should have been a much bigger film than it was.
Equally so for Furiosa, which is just a marvel of cinematic achievement. Anya-Taylor Joy gives an almost wordless performance as the title character, and Chris Hemsworth finds a way to be both charismatic and completely unlikable. Like Madame Webb before it, it should have been an omen of what we were in for several months later, instead no one went to see it. It’s not a light and breezy movie, not in the slightest, but it is an amazing one.
In June I got to Ride or Die with Bad Boys Martin Lawrence and Will Smith. Part of Smith’s “Please Like Me Again” tour, the fourth entry in this franchise was a bit of diminishing returns. While most people seem to love the second movie, none of them have topped the first for me, and the misnamed third film, Bad Boys For Life, is sentimentally number two (it was the last movie I watched with my brother before he passed away) for me. Still, I didn’t have the worst time watching Smith & Lawrence do their thing, and there are a few truly creative action set pieces.
The highlight for the month of June though was the Hulu documentary Brats. In it Andrew McCarthy explores the origin of the “Brat Pack” from the ’80s, or more specifically that term, and what it meant to them. As someone who puts St. Elmo’s Fire high atop his list of favorite films, it meant a lot to see the discussions and reunions. I could certainly see why some might find it too navel-gazing to provide anything of real substance, I’m just not one of them. I couldn’t help but extrapolate it all and look at my own life in the same way. What did I experience in my 20s that I took such great offense to, something that maybe changed the course of my life, that I can now see was mostly innocuous and I’ve done myself a disservice for decades by not just shrugging it off? I loved this doc so damn much.
July brought me my favorite film of 2024, but before that, I watched Eddie Murphy prove that he wasn’t too old to return to his action-comedy roots in Netflix’s Beverly Hill Cop: Axel F. Despite the terrible title I think this was a better film than Bad Boys, but not without its flaws as well. It definitely wastes the new characters, specifically Joseph Gordon Levitt, but it gave me a smile seeing Murphy prove why almost everyone since his heyday has just been aping him. It also delivered one of my favorite scenes of 2024; when Axel is challenged on losing touch by his daughter, he insists she shut him out. Her reply of “the parent is always the parent,” really hit home for me.
Then came Deadpool & Wolverine, a movie I saw four times in its first week of release.
What can I say about this movie that hasn’t been said by people who are either more critical or eloquent than me? To say I loved it would be an understatement, and while it’s certainly my favorite film of 2024 I can acknowledge that it’s only a film in the absolute basest sense of the word. The plot is nonsensical and paper thin, none of the characters are defined in any real way, their motivations are loosely laid out or completely nonexistent, and it seems to operate purely on “vibes.” But I was there for all of it, and I got emotional every single time they saved the multiverse. It just worked for me.
August brought me to the film I was probably most hesitant about going into the year, Fede Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus. The Alien franchise remains one of my favorites, even if it’s about 50/50 on whether they’re really worth watching. While taking the saga away from Ridley Scott hasn’t always fared well in the past, letting him keep control of it didn’t really reinvigorate it either. Romulus proved a few things though; it’s still possible to make a great Alien film, and consulting with Scott is a must, even if you don’t heed his advice. Alvarez and company delivered something as scary as it is exciting, and easily the best film in the franchise in over three decades.
September continued the ‘80s revisit, as I went to the Cineplex to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Kevin Smith’s The 4:30 Movie, and the animated prequel Transformers One. Two out of the three of those were pleasant surprises, reminding me of growing up a nerd during some of the best movie-going years in history, and the other was Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. I seem to be the outlier on that one though, but I thought it was an absolute mess of a film.
Transformers and The 4:30 Movie, however, were just a blast. It’s a shame that neither of them lit up the box office, especially Transformers One. I’ve been pretty mixed on the live-action entries for the Robots in Disguise, with the last few attempts at rebooting at least being fun. Transformers One put them all to shame. It adds a lot to the mythos, it’s incredibly funny and it’s chock full of action. More people should have gone to see it.
Smith’s love letter to the seemingly shared pasts of all Gen X nerds is sweet, full of laughs, and over-the-top in the way that so many of those ‘80s comedies were. It lacks a truly ludicrous premise (like making a girlfriend from spare computer parts), but it definitely captured the feeling. It doesn’t have the saccharine nature of his last film, Clerks 3, and I think it’s all the better for it. Probably because it’s more about where he came from rather than the fear of where he’s going and an unfulfilled purpose. The cast is really great, which helps when the jokes fall a little flat. If you miss movies like Better Off Dead, you should have watched this already.
October was all about villainous sequels with Venom: The Last Dance and Joker: Folie a Deux. Neither of them proved to be worthwhile experiences, but I enjoyed the zaniness that is Tom Hardy’s Venom performance over Juaquin Phoenix’s turn as the Joker. It’s interesting to look back and compare them to each other, at the time I hadn’t realized how in opposition they were. Venom being undercooked on a script and special effects level and Joker looking fantastic but coming off like a bunch of ingredients from other recipes slapdashed together. The one thing Joker did have really going for it was Lady Gaga’s Harlequin album that was released in tandem; it’s fantastic.
November’s lone outing to the cinema was Gladiator II, a long-gestating sequel that still somehow didn’t have a cohesive story or compelling narrative. At one point in my life, I was a staunch Ridley Scott defender, but even I couldn’t find much to love in his latest (last?) film. Yes, Denzel is great, but isn’t he always? Maybe the only positive thing Gladiator II has in its corner is that it absolutely proves what a star Russel Crowe is, because the movie never stops telling you how much it wants to be the first one, and no one comes close to being the force that Crowe was in the original. Or any of his other films really.
So that makes it kind of fitting that the first movie I made it out to see in December of 2024 was Kraven the Hunter, which (sort of) co-stars Crowe. Like the other two Sony superhero films this year (Madame Webb, Venom: The Last Dance), this is not a good movie. There are shadows of something worthwhile, which actually may make it the most tragic of the three, but it suffers from obvious studio interference and a weird indecisiveness when it comes to the story. What it does have is Aaron Taylor-Johnson beating people up, though not nearly enough. Then there’s the aforementioned Crowe, who lights up every scene he’s in, no matter how dumb.
The same day I watched Kraven I decided to give the Netflix film Carry-On a spin, and I’m glad I did. It was maybe my favorite of all the throwback action films we got in 2024, bringing up memories of things like Die Hard, it’s fun, and has some great one-liners, interesting set pieces, and a sharp villain turn by Jason Bateman. It gets double points for also being set at Christmas; Christmas Action Film is maybe the most under-valued of all the film genres, and any good entry should be celebrated.
Then, despite all of my reservations about a film adaptation of the musical Wicked, and even though I’d sworn it off in the face of people raving about it…I decided to take the ride and see it in theatres. In any other year that didn’t include the insanity that was Deadpool & Wolverine, this would have been my favorite film of the year. It captures so much of what is great about the stage play, adds in some extra to flesh out the plot from the books, has so many good performances, anchored by stellar turns from Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. And every song is perfect. I picked up the vinyl the second I left the theatre and immediately went home and revisited it.
Lastly, I ended 2024 with my annual Christmas Eve outing to the cinemas. Almost always this has been with my Dad and brothers, though occasionally with other family members as well. After Ryan, my twin brother, passed in 2020 the trips were definitely bittersweet, but it felt good to keep the tradition alive. This year my father decided that he just couldn’t do it any longer unfortunately. He likes to sit further back and modern seating layouts generally prevent that for someone in a wheelchair. I won’t say I wasn’t disheartened by his decision, but my little brother and I decided we would still go, and we brought my Brother-In-Law, David, and his oldest son, my nephew, Jace. So of course we went to see Sonic the Hedgehog 3. I’m happy to report we all loved it, found it extremely funny, and just an all-around good time, which is exactly what you want from the third entry in a video game adaptation made for kids.
My 2024 in movies pales in comparison to most people who would call themselves a film lover, so while that term used to apply to me, maybe it just doesn’t any longer, and I’m okay with that. As evidenced by what I did watch, I’ll almost always show up for someone in a funny outfit beating up someone else in a funny outfit, especially if there are superpowers involved. It’s what 12-year-old-me would want me to do. It’s also how I stay connected, in some small way, to the people who are no longer with me, especially my brother Ryan. It’s one of the things we would always bond over, whether we loved them or hated them, which is going to make 2025 one of the hardest years I’ve had since he passed, but I’m determined not to let the grief keep me from enjoying how Super it might be as well.
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