2022 Summer Movies Ranked
The 2022 summer movie season has come to an end, it’s been a very solid season for movies. But which ones are the best and worst? Which ones made me excited to go back to the cinema? Let’s get started!
12. Thor Love and Thunder: A movie that does have a lot to offer when it comes to entertainment value. It’s also the best usage of Natalie Portman inside of the MCU and I thought the chemistry between her and Chris Hemsworth was actually pretty good. I bought them much more as a couple in this movie. But this is a movie that feels like a parody of Thor, the movie went too far with the humor and jokes to the point where I was cringing more than laughing at points in time. Was I laughing at it? Yes, but it was too much. It was too much of a comedy. Also, Gorr the God Butcher was way too dark and creepy for the goofy tone of the movie. I didn’t think the two matched all that well, Gorr felt out of place with the rest of the movie.
11. Samaritan: A decent but frustrating addition to the comic book movie genre and Stallone’s career. What I appreciated most about this movie is that it didn’t have a desire to match the scope, scale, and tone of other movies in the genre. They had a dark and gritty story that they wanted to tell and they told it that way, so it is refreshing. And since it’s a comic book movie that isn’t a Marvel or DC property it can just stand on its own and doesn’t have to have cameos or easter eggs to Batman or Spider-Man or be connected to this multiverse. And Sylvester Stallone does deliver a solid performance as the lead character. But when it comes to the tone, it’s all over the place. Some of the ideas and scenes are pretty dark and heavy while music cues and jokes seem way too goofy. I wish they gave Stallone’s character a little bit more depth and had his backstory revealed upfront and not as a mystery until the finale of the movie.
10. Lightyear: A movie that I was super excited about, it was one my most anticipated list for the entire year and the summer movie season. But the movie I got, I still enjoyed it. I still had fun with it. It’s an interesting idea to continue the Toy Story franchise without undermining the first four movies. Sox the Cat just steals the show and gets so many great jokes. But the problem here is I didn’t really connect with any of the characters, Lightyear is a bit too mean for too much of the movie. And for a movie that Andy went to see that made him want to get the Buzz Lightyear toy, it’s oddly lit on action and much more character driven.
9. Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers: A movie that was horribly marketed, the trailers for this movie didn’t capture the magic of this movie and what made it special. I do not want to spoil everything, but show enough to make audiences want to watch. But the movie itself is very fun and hyper energy with some great cameos that are taking naps at other studios and it’s fun. Chip and Dale are just fun characters and voiced so well by Andy Samberg and John Mulaney. Now the movie is pretty predictable, you can start to piece together certain plot points fairly early on in the movie.
8. Day Shift: A fun Netflix original movie with a fun concept and a fun cast. And the movie delivers the experience that I wanted which is a movie with plenty of vampire action, fun cast, and a movie that I was entertained by and that’s what I got. If you wanted brutal and bloody vampire action with Jamie Foxx and Snoop Dogg shooting vampires in the face you get plenty of that. And even having Jamie Foxx and Snoop Dogg in this movie just elevates it, as they are fun and are nice additions. But what holds it back is a plot that is very predictable, and things that are set up end in the way that you expect them to end. Plus it has a villain that is underdeveloped and underused, and some humor that really didn’t work for me. But in general, another solid summer 2022 streaming movie.
7. Bullet Train: The latest action movie from David Leitch of Deadpool 2 and Hobbs and Shaw fame. And this is a movie that throws every joke, action scene, and stylistic choice at the screen and hopes that some of it sticks. Because this is a movie that is trying very hard to entertain the audience, and I think for the most part it does that rather well. The cast here is having a lot of fun, and they got a lot of actors that just ooze screen charm. Brad Pitt in the lead is a lot of fun, Joey King as Prince is the stand-out both with the writing and performance she nailed it. And Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Bryan Tyree Henry as the twins were pretty funny. But this is a movie that has so many moving pieces, so many plot lines and motivations that it’s hard to keep track as to what’s going on. The story can be unfocused at points in time, and so the movie just feels scatter shot from beginning to the end. So to sum it up, the story never really stayed on track.
6. Prey: The latest addition to The Predator franchise is a very solid one that does deliver the experience that you want. It’s a tense thriller with great Predator action, and solid thrillers from beginning to the end. And I do appreciate that it does something new and different with the franchise, it’s not rehashing any plot points from the original movie. And sense it is set hundreds of years in the past, it can really do something different with the action because the characters aren’t using guns or bombs, but axes, spears, and bows. And I thought the lead actress was pretty solid in the lead role. And I wanted this movie to be a few spots higher on this list, but I think in the back half of the movie some of the messaging gets a bit too heavy handed with what it does, and I don’t think that was a positive. Second, I get that the movie wanted to have a deep and layered character, but I don’t need an hour of character development for a predator movie. What I need is a Predator destroying some people and you get…in the back half of the movie.
5. Downton Abbey: A New Era: This is a movie that I wasn’t all that interested in seeing. But I went with my mom and grandparents for mother’s day, and I liked it a whole more than I thought I would. It’s a well balanced set of characters played by fun actors. It’s also very funny, a lot funner than I thought I would. And the production and costume design are top notch, the movie looks gorgeous. What holds this one back is that you have two main story lines in this movie. About half of the gang goes to France and the other half stays home while a movie is being filmed at the castle. Both of those story lines were strong enough to stand on their own, and putting them together in the same movie was odd to me, but still a good movie that I was surprised by just how much I liked it.
4. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: Now I’ve talked about this movie a whole bunch on my blog, and my feelings on it are still conflicted. I love that Sam Raimi got to make a horror movie inside of the MCU, it’s something totally new and different for the MCU. Sam Raimi created a truly unique viewing experience. Plus, they just let Wanda be a full on villain in the movie and Elizabeth Olsen just keeps on showing her range as an actress. But for a movie that is called “In the Multiverse of Madness” there is very little madness within the multiverse. They have this character that can make portals appear and hop through the multiverse but the most interesting place we visit is when you go on red, stop on green, and you get pizza in a bowl from Bruce Campbell. There was so much about this movie that I loved but so much left me wanting more.
3. The Gray Man: A big bombastic and expensive action movie with A-list directors and an A-list cast. I know some people weren’t the biggest fan of this movie and thought it wasted the potential of the people behind and the camera and in front of the camera. As for me, I Liked this movie and thought it was a lot of fun. The cast all around is great, it’s fun to see Ryan Gosling do more mainstream action movies like this. Chris Evans gets to play this wonderful over the top villain and gives a fun performance. I appreciate that Ana de Armas keeps on showing up in movies, she’s one of my favorite actress. But the movie does feel generic, it follows the familiar action story template pretty much beat for beat. And the drone shots used in this movie I found to be more of a distraction then an asset for the movie. I didn’t fit that it helped the movie out at all. So in general, this is a movie that delivered the experience that I wanted it delivered a fun action with a great cast, but a familiar story.
2. Jurassic World: Dominion: I know that a bunch of people did not like this movie and thought it was a weak conclusion to this franchise. And I can get that, the movie does have some big story issues that take away from the central concept of the movie. The movie focuses more on bugs and wheat than it does on dinosaurs roaming the earth. But as for me, this is a movie that I dug and had fun with. It’s a total B-grade monster movie with dinosaurs, it’s entertaining but doesn’t make a lot of sense. There are serious lapses in the logic of how things played out, but I really don’t care because it shouldn’t make sense, it’s fine that it doesn’t make sense. It’s also just great to see the return of the legacy characters and all of them are great in this movie.
1. Top Gun: Maverick: For me this is easily the best movie of the 2022 summer movie season, and it’s not even close. I was a bit skeptical when they first announced this movie but with the trailers and early buzz my excitement for this movie became very very high. And the movie delivered what the trailers promised, the trailers promised this entertaining movie and they delivered all of that and more. It’s a crowd pleaser of a movie, when I saw this movie opening night my theater was clapping and cheering multiple times in the movie. And everybody that I’ve talked to about this movie has loved it, I haven’t heard one person say anything negative about this movie. So easily, this is the movie of the 2022 summer movie season that I had the best time with and the one that stuck with me the most.
There you have it, my ranking of all 12 2022 summer movies. Which 2022 summer movie is your favorite? Also, what are some summer movies that I missed? Thanks for reading!
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