Summer 2022’s biggest winners and losers, from Stranger Things and Maverick to Morbius and Lightyear
It was a season of undeniable triumphs and puzzling failures across the entertainment landscape
Aux Features Maverick
If Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal taught us anything this summer, it’s that obsessively rehearsing a scenario doesn’t guarantee everything will go according to plan. There are still opportunities to go off script. This happens with pop culture as a whole; a studio can do all the test screenings and focus groups it wants, but those methods can’t account for the unpredictability of the real world. Yes, Hulu might have been prepared for positive reactions to Prey, but who could have foreseen the praise lavished upon star Amber Midthunder? Sony might have braced for negative reactions to Morbius, but the studio definitely wasn’t ready for the deluge of memes at the film’s expense.
In selecting the entertainment winners and losers from the summer of 2022, we set ourselves one important ground rule: The project or subject must have had its big moment between May and August. So yes, we’re celebrating Kim Wexler now, even though she’s been gracing our TV screens since 2015, because Better Call Saul season six was truly her time to shine. Here’s everything we loved and everything that fell short this summer, with our picks alternating between good and bad.
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Off the bat: anyone claiming Baz Luhrmann’s lurid maximalism needs to be reined in is delirious. I will not speak for everyone here, but the over the top spectacle of Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge is why we dig his style. People that know just know. John Leguizamo’s “turn thee, Benvolio, and look upon thy death” is so good. A goddamn delight. I wouldn’t have it any other way.And I’ll say it: Prey was some generic nonsense. The predator in the movie was seriously OP, until he wasn’t. Dude could run 30+mph and took out a literal squad of people, and then was taken out by one person. The movie was pretty good, but come on; there’s no “Dillon, you son of a bitch” moments in it. It was all pretty basic.And I’m calling it: Stranger Things will be forgotten faster than Avatar. Running Up the Hill will have less staying power than Len’s “Steal my Sunshine.” Count on it.
I dunno, I think Baz Luhrmann’s best movie is Strictly Ballroom, which has some glitz but is much more restrained than his later movies. But that’s just me.
Strictly Ballroom is entertaining and tells a story.Moulin Rouge can’t keepa shot for more thana second anda half.
“the over the top spectacle of Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge is why we dig his style.”I am with you 100%.“Prey was some generic nonsense.”Yet it was the best Predator movie since 2.“Running Up the Hill will have less staying power than Len’s “Steal my Sunshine.”I was at the pool early in August, ‘Running up That Hill’ came on and everyone started singing along or at least mouthing the words. My boss likes the song and he only likes 2 or 3 songs, otherwise he totally disregards music. Also, Stranger Things has already had more longevity than Avatar.
Hard to say at this point in time about the music, but come on, man. I bet if I told you “Lump sat alone in a boggy marsh. Totally motionless except for her heart” that that shit would kick off in your head and you’d know it. And that’s like a semi-popular song from yesteryear.
Considering it came out when I was a teenager, yeah…it also switches back and forth from the Lump lyrics to the Gump lyrics in my head, so I’m not sure any of that is meaningful.
That you knew of the Gump lyrics says something. I guess it depends on your age which songs you gonna remember. You, you’re gonna remember 311 and sublime lyrics over anything released today. Which is cool and awesome. I guess it doesn’t prove anything. I’ma remember Korn songs more than any song I heard this year, which, yeah, got the life.
Oh no I’m not like that either, I remember those songs but I don’t really listen to them anymore. I’m always looking for new music to listen to and can sing along with plenty of songs that have come out in the last couple of years…hardly any of them are pop songs(Bad Guy is an exception because The Interrupters do an awesome cover of it), but I know them. I’ve also been into jazz(Pat Martino, Maurice Brown), obscure ‘70s prog(Camel, Flying Island) and stuff like Youngblood Brass Band lately.Music probably isn’t a great example, I’m extremely abnormal in that my musical tastes were absolutely not cemented in my teens and twenties.
Again, it’s one of those impossible things. You can’t separate Iron Man from all the movies that came from it and after it. It’s still a pretty good movie, but how good of a solo outing is it? It’s not a Goodfellas or JFK. It’s not even a Training Day or Fight Club. It’s Transformers. It’s Avatar.
Don’t get me started on how lazy the writing for Avatar is. Even the Bay Transformers movies had less lazily written scripts.
Between this and “is Hellraiser actually good?” from a few days ago you seem to have a thing for insisting that people actually agree with your hot takes and are just refusing to admit it to themselves.The first season of Stranger Things would stick around in cultural memory longer than Avatar if only due to the historical significance of launching or revitalizing a whole shitload of careers, while nobody really left Avatar with a higher profile than they entered (with the possible exception of Sam Worthington, who people collectively and promptly told Hollywood “no, we didn’t see the movie for him”).Likewise, “would anyone care about Iron Man if it didn’t kick off a massive franchise” is a pointless question, because it did kick off a massive franchise, and it was well-liked enough that the franchise was able to slog through The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2 and Thor without imploding.And it, along with Stranger Things, managed to do that because unlike Avatar, people actually cared about the characters. People like Tony Stark. People like Eleven. Nobody gives a shit about Jake Sully.
I don’t need anyone to agree with me; I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything. I’m fine with being the odd man out with a stupid ass opinion. The predictions of where Stranger Things will end up in the greater scheme of things is an interesting thing that will only play out in time. Like Vh1’s remember the 90s, I’m sure Stranger Things will get a cool 3 minutes of reviews from dipshits in the future.
Running Up that Hill: 1985-2022 and counting. Yeah, not much staying power at all.
Stranger Things is a 6-year old fanchise, Avatar – almost 13-years old. What longevity we are talking about exactly?
And I’m calling it: Stranger Things will be forgotten faster than Avatar.Stranger Things already has more staying power than Avatar. My biggest problem with Prey was how quickly she figured out how to use his helmet and targeting system. I mean, she went from having never even seen a flintlock firearm to understanding electronic firing/targeting systems in like, a day? A real person in her position wouldn’t have understood what was happening.Beyond that, I enjoyed it.
Gotta wait till like 2028 to say Stranger Things has as much staying power as Avatar. And with the sequel coming out, Avatar is sticking around for a bit.
Disagree. The first season of ST came out six years ago and people are still talking about it. The first Avatar came out 13 years ago and was forgotten until news of a new movie started leaking.
Not a fair comparison. Avatar was a movie the came out once, while Stranger Things is a show that has been released over years.It’s the impossible to prove argument I encounter when discussing the Avatar sequels to the MCU. People say, “who cares about Avatar, it’s been forever since it came out.” And I can’t really say, “Who gives a shit about Iron Man” because Disney has bludgeoned you so badly with Marvel properties over the years that you can’t get it out of your head.But it’s like this: Iron Man came out in 2008, Avatar 2009. Which one would be more memorable today if that was it? Like people have MCU stuff on their minds because Disney has not let up on releasing things. If Avatar had yearly things, people would be more open to accepting it.
Iron Man because it’s at least kind of an original movie, Avatar was badly written and boring. If Avatar had yearly releases that were as badly written as the original, people would have burned out on it years ago and they would have stopped happening by now. It’s not like Avatar is Star Wars where there were a couple solid movies before things started to go downhill.
Also keep in mind that ST seasons 3 and 4 were almost 3 years apart and season 4 was highly anticipated. How many people were clamoring for a second Avatar movie in 2012?
Not a fair comparison. Avatar was a movie the came out once, while Stranger Things is a show that has been released over years.People have been asking for new seasons of ST since the original, no one asked for a sequel to Avatar. If we compare the 1st seasons of ST to Avatar and ignore the rest of the seasons, it still had a larger cultural impact than Avatar.
Please stop using the term “no one asked for”. Thank you.
And with the sequel coming out, Avatar is sticking around for a bit.we’ll see about that
I was fine with her figuring it out—I expected her to use it and all.It was weird when the Predator forgot about how it worked. I honestly thought she was going to use it in a more dynamic manner than the trap. Wouldn’t it know or have an override or something?Liked the movie better than OP—and it wasn’t generic in that we don’t see a lot of mainstream Indigenous casting and putting that aside is ignoring quite a lot of it’s appeal.
The first half of Prey was a great half of a Predator movie. The second half of Prey was a terrible video game cut scene.And while I thought Midthunder was great, and I really liked the setting, I don’t know that I would really call it a “thoughtful depiction of Comanche culture.” By the end, the movie seemed to imply that Native Americans are all super-powered parkour masters.
I am curious myself as to the staying power of Stranger Things. I love the show and I hope it does stick around, but ultimately time will tell. Nostalgia might realistically go out of style in the next few years as the world will probably change significantly and our love of 80s culture might just go down the toilet, which might ultimately be a good thing. Or we’ll go in the opposite, more conservative direction and just double down on the nostalgia, completely compromise our creative impulses in the arts and our culture and society just become a giant wasteland.
Never cared much for Moulin Rouge but R+J is legit one of the best Shakespeare adaptations ever made. The casting is so spot-on; not just Leguizamo as Tybalt, but Paul Sorvino (RIP) as Lord Capulet, Pete Postlethwaite (also RIP) as Friar Lawrence, Harold Perrineau as Mercutio, and Miriam Margolyes as Nurse are all extremely inspired casting choices. The film also has so much going on under the surface that people never seem to talk about, like its potent class commentary, its use of religious symbolism and iconography, the ethnic/cultural divide represented by the two families (underlined by the fact that the film was shot around Mexico City and Veracruz, which have similar cultural divides), and so much more. Plus it comes from the era when film soundtracks were the source for some all-time great songs— R+J made “Lovefool” and “#1 Crush” global hits and introduced the world to “Exit Music (For a Film),” which was still almost a year away from appearing on OK Computer (though it was absent from the R+J soundtrack album).
So much in agreement about Prey. I was ready to praise it before I’d even seen it; I was that IN. And then I watched it, and I thought, well, that wasn’t very good at all. So I am constantly bewildered by all the positive reviews it has received.I guess the bar was set pretty low after Predator 2, though.
I’m not a fan of Luhrmann by any measure, but I have to respect a director that has such an unapologetically distinct style. His brand of glitzy excess just isn’t for me. When it comes to directors I don’t like, I’d rather they be interesting even though I don’t like their films (Baz) vs being generic white bread filmmakers with a few watchable flicks (like Ron Howard).
The predator in the movie was seriously OP, until he wasn’t.
“OP”?
“Running Up the Hill will have less staying power than Len’s “Steal my Sunshine.””That twenty year head start sure is fucking up your prognostication skills.
I’m calling it now, for a certain subset of Gen Z, Stranger Things is going to be Star Wars. They’ll be talking about it 40 years from now. That’s how into it my kid and their junior high friends are.
It won’t be. Star Wars was something new and it literally changed pop culture and cinema; Starnger Things, while beloved and praised, is just a part of nostalgia-driven trend. It’s great for what it is, but there’s nothing original about it.
Stranger Things is multiple seasons of TV which comes back every once in a while. Avatar is more easily forgotten because it was a longer amount of time ago that people watched it. I, for one, never did. The last James Cameron movie I’ve seen is True Lies (he seems to have gotten worse with every movie after the original Terminator), and I figure I’d watch Dances With Wolves or Last Samurai before the scifi version of the same story.
Given ‘Running Up That Hill has been a mainstay on classic pop radio stations for decades and already had something of a renaissance back in 2003 thanks to Placebo’s cover version, I’m going to say your ‘call’ is coming from your ass.
Well, the previous Predator films (the first two I recall) had one human defeat the Predator, and those versions–spoiler alert for Prey–had the monster have laser guns. With the humans defeating them not through automatic weapons.
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Running Up the Hill will have less staying power than Len’s “Steal my Sunshine.”I’ve been listening to it and singing it since 1986, so, no.
Russell Brand was there for the first and, I believe, the second films.
Do real people seriously watch Only Murders in the Building for the mystery and story? I’m in it specifically for the celebrity cameos, Steve Martin/Martin Short doing funny bits and Selena Gomez holding her own with 2 seasoned pros. The story is a distant 2nd or 3rd.
“Steve Martin/Martin Short doing funny bits and Selena Gomez holding her own with 2 seasoned pros” is exactly how I describe the show to people. (Season 2 is still in my queue, but man, how good was Jane Lynch in that one episode from season 1?)
Without giving away a spoiler, I will just say that she has a great moment in season 2 as well.
I heard she comes back. A wise decision on the writers’ part.
Oh man you’re in for a treat: Martin Short gets some amazing lines and Jane Lynch is just as good when she shows up!
She was amazing and I love her in that prison from S2!
I don’t necessarily watch it for the story, but I appreciate that the story is as solid as it is. The best mystery/comedy hybrids are the ones that take both aspects seriously.
The one-off Amy Schumer cameo was pretty useless (Sting was much more fun last season), but I really don’t have a problem with any of the others. Shirley MacLaine was wonderful and Sazz is always a blast (hoping she’ll show up as understudy next season).
Remember the cartoon series “Buzz Lightyear of Star Command” from 2000?Yeah, didn’t think so. It was just as bad as Lightyear.Truth is, Buzz is not strong enough to stand on his own. This is the second time Disney has tried and failed to spin off Lightyear into it’s own franchise. Let’s hope there isn’t a third attempt in the pipeline.
I watched Lightyear a few weeks ago and I thought it was fine. It wasn’t awful, it wasn’t great, but there wasn’t really anything wrong with it. I don’t see them building a franchise out of it, though.
Remember the cartoon series “Buzz Lightyear of Star Command” from 2000?Yeah, didn’t think so. It was just as bad as Lightyear.Actually, I remember it and it was pretty great. An enjoyable pastiche of modern Sci-Fi tropes. I used to watch it while I got ready for work and was very pleased.
Honestly, the TV cartoon was better, because it didn’t take the whole thing so seriously. It understood that Buzz Lightyear is meant to be a cheesy B-movie spaceman, which is why Buzz acts so ridiculous throughout the first half of Toy Story 1 (before he realizes he’s just a toy and develops his own personality.) Movie Lightyear was just too darn serious to believably be the inspiration for the Buzz was saw in that original film, and that makes the entire story feel forced. But you’re right, Buzz was created to be a foil to Woody and he doesn’t really work in other contexts. Lightyear was doomed from the moment Disney decided to break up the act.
Could Batgirl really have been worse than Morbius? I kinda doubt it.
Batgirl had Brendan Fraser as a supervillain. It’s literally impossible that could have been bad. Fraser elevates everything. The closest Morbius had was that scene of Matt Smith dancing.
I’m looking forward to the Brendan Frasaissance. He was solid in No Sudden Move, and has Aronofsky and Scorsese films in the pipeline.
Don’t forget his solid performance in Doom Patrol.
OK, fine, I’ll watch the damn show.
His work on Doom Patrol is top tier.
No, you are probably right. But then again, I wish someone had the sense to kill of that film too.
Can I nominate HBO for both winning and losing the summer? They kick off the summer with a bonkers season of Barry, Westworld defies all the odds and somehow becomes interesting again, and The Rehearsal might now be my favorite show of the year.
And then David Zaslav came through the door…
Lightyear maybe should have been live action, but I’m guessing the $ was too much of a risk.I mean, look at the success of The Orville and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds-we LOVE live action space opera that’s well done.
For me, Lightyear was fairly routine, not awful, but also not a lot of fun, which makes the whole meta story of this being the movie that turned the kid from Toy Story into a Buzz Lightyear fan as being very… oh, really?
Watched with my kids and they enjoyed it well enough. Not to an Andy-like degree. And really if that WAS the movie he loved enough to get the toy of, he probably would have wanted the toy of the cat more than of Buzz. Hell, my kids wanted a toy of the cat after watching it.
Are we sure it was the “meme assassins” who turned Jared Leto into a joke?
When The A.V. Club started putting together our June TV preview package, the only show we couldn’t find a trailer for, let alone a still of, was The Bear.I’m really confused by this statement. I saw TV spots for it CONSTANTLY in the lead up to its premiere. Not just on Hulu, but on live TV networks too. I’m pretty sure I saw more ads for the The Bear than I’ve seen for House of the Dragon and Rings of Power so far combined. Perhaps those started airing after the June TV preview was over, but the marketing for that show was incessant in the weeks before it dropped in my corner of the mediaverse.
That’s some seriously lame nitpicky shit criticism of Only Murders in the Building. Amy Schumer WAS a cameo. But the other two were actual seasonal characters.
Yeah, Amy Schumer was a waste. But to be fair, Sting was a throw away character as well. He was just a better one.
From iconic actors like Jayne Houdyshell, Jackie Hoffman, and Amy Ryan to breakouts like Adina Verson and Michael Cyril CreightonI had to look up all of those names to make sure this wasn’t some meta joke from the show, and apparently, they’re all real people that I guess I’m supposed to know?
Hey, can we call Strange New Worlds a winner? It had a really great first season, and is already on track to be one of the best Star Trek tv shows.
I’m enjoying Strange New Worlds, but man, it can get deeply, unintentionally silly at times. I mean, the second episode features a psychic god comet. The third episode has people addicted to light (the guy freaking out at Uhura for turning out the light is one of the funniest things I’ve seen). The sixth episode has scenes filmed at the same mansion as Billy Madison.I know Star Trek isn’t afraid to get silly (like that god-awful eighth episode), but I don’t think some of these moments were on purpose.
A list of some of silly episodes from older Star Trek:If Wishes Were Horses – random godlike aliens pretend to be characters from human imagination because human imagination is amazing!
Move Along Home – the main crew become players in a literal boardgame and play hopscotch
Q-Pid – Q transports the entire senior crew into a re-enactment of Robin Hood in order to help Picard hook up with a woman
The Naked Time – a disease spreads wildly among the crew and makes them act on secret impulses and desires; Spock locks himself in a room and cries about not being able to tell his mother how much he loves her until Kirk literally slaps some sense into him
The Naked Now – literally the exact same same premise, only with more harassment and android sex
This Side of Paradise – spores turn everyone into a bunch of hippies; Spock dangles from a tree like a monkey and re-connects with an old flame, while Kirk’s love of his ship snaps him out of it, prompting him to pick a literal fight with Spock
The Way to Eden – literal space hippies. Literal SPACE HIPPIES.
Fascination – Lwaxana Troi’s psychic powers cause the people around her to act on secret sexual impulses and everyone gets really horny
Shore Leave – an alien planet brings peoples’ imaginary impulses to life, including a warplanes, a giant rabbit, and a knight that spears Dr. McCoy, and the aliens forgot to tell them that it’s all harmless
Threshold – Paris goes at Warp 10, transforms into a space lizard, kidnaps Captain Janeway, and they have space lizard babies together
Sub-Rosa – Dr. Crusher lights a candle to have sex with an alien succubus, just like all of her ancestors before her
Look, I could go on. Silly is the bread and butter of Star Trek, and if you don’t enjoy the silly, then in all likelihood, Star Trek isn’t really for you.
I found it a bit hit-or-miss, but the first and last episodes were great, and in comparison to the other live-action recent Star Trek shows it’s actually fun. So: yes, agreed!
A few weeks ago, it was a real debate on Thursday morning whether to watch The Orville or Strange New Worlds first thing. I think SNW was marginally better, but Orville had a really solid season.
Can we add season 2 of Reservation Dogs to the list of winners? It’s hands down the best show of the year (yes, even topping Better Call Saul), and the fourth episode (“Mabel”) is simply one of the best episodes of any show I’ve seen.
It was an agonizing road for her (and for us!) and the constant worry about whether will Kim survive never faded.That sentence needs a serious rewrite.
They just need to change it to “whether Kim will survive”
I’m sick of hearing about this Stranger Things crud. I mean, it’s not the 1980’s. C’mon, people.
I will have to check out “The Bear” now, if only for the single shot episode. One of my top 10 films is “Russian Ark” which is a 90 minute single shot. It is like a being in a dream. I am excited to see it done with a different tone.
The Bear is really damn good all the way through, especially the one-shot episode. When you’re done, watch ‘Boiling Point’. It takes place in a restaurant kitchen, and its entire 90-minute runtime is a single shot as well. Great stuff.
I will. Thanks for the recommendation. If you can find it, I would recommend “Russian Ark”. Even If you are unfamiliar with the subject, it is still an experience. It all takes place inside the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg with 2000 people. It basically walks through art to show history, the good, the bad and the embarrassments. Thanks again.
Russian Ark isn’t like any bit of narrative storytelling. I know Victoria from 2015 took the legitimate single-shot (not stitched together) approach for a young-people-comiting-crime story, but I haven’t seen it.
I think of it as a visual history with some commentary. More of a visual experience, that is almost hypnotizing. I am probably wrong on the academics, but that is the way I enjoy it.
Re: PREY – Bill Duke’s “I see you.” is a reference to his own line in the original movie.
Great list.
Props to the director S1:E7 of “The Bear,” but no love for the cinematographer, who seems to be Andrew Wehde? The A Camera operator, who seems to be Gary Malouf? YOU strap on a SteadiCam and run it around and around that kitchen in one shot! 🙂
Loser movie from a franchise that’s like one for six in terms of critical acclaim made a billion dollars.
Being a bit picky here, but: showcased talented newcomers (most notably Miles Teller).Would we really call Miles Teller a newcomer? He’s been appearing in movies for over a decade at this point.
I take that line as an implied “…showcased talented newcomers to the franchise (most notable Miles Teller).”
Maybe, but that seems a bit weird IMO. It’s not like Top Gun is the kind of long-running franchise that’s had enough content or significant enough cast turnover to make highlighting newcomers to it a useful thing to do; ‘newcomers’ in this sense would logically include pretty much everyone except Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer.
I want to see RRR but haven’t been able to get out to ant screenings yet. I’d watch it on Netflix but they only have it dubbed in Hindi instead of the original Telugu for some odd reason.
Loser: WB animation. So many shows have been unceremoniously canceled. Not just canceled but wiped out with no way to even buy them for the foreseeable future.HBO Max might end up being a loser too. The excuse they’re giving for making all these cuts is that they want to keep the streaming service premium and only have exclusive high quality content. Except they’re also going to merge HBO Max with Discovery Plus next year, with such high quality premium content as Honey Boo Boo, Toddlers and Tiara, and the Duggar family.
Day Shift was fantastic and I’ll punch on with anyone who claims otherwise!
The AVClub review couldn’t look past the shared DNA with John Wick and wrote it off as a silly John Wick clone but it’s far, far greater than that. The stunt-work is absolutely phenomenal, there’s absolutely no fat in the storyline (keeping things under 2 hours seems to be a hard ask for filmmakers these days), it’s daft sense of humour is perfectly fitting for the story and as far as ripping-off other films go, it borrows from not only John Wick but also From Dusk Till Dawn, Machete, Mad Max Fury Road, The Lost Boys and the Tom Hanks/Dan Aykroyd version of ‘Dragnet’, which makes for quite a heady cocktail indeed. If it weren’t for the spectacle of seeing Maverick at the IMAX, I’d say it’s been the most entertaining film of the year.
Only Murders seems to be getting criticism no other show gets, wherein it’s guest star characters are dismissed when all they did was what other supporting characters in every other show do: be characters that interacted with our main characters and did it for various story and thematic reasons. I don’t get it. Were they all supposed to be part of the mystery and the killer? Couldn’t they have been there for the world and various elements like drama and comedy?
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I like how this article completely sidestepped the two MCU entries this summer. Dr. Strange was in May so that counts as summer…. so let’s be real here, neither Thor nor Dr. Strange were winners. But the A.V. Club wont actually bring itself to speak ill of the MCU so they’ve just omitted it… that would be my theory.
My favorite part of Jurassic World Dominion is that there’s literally no point to Dodgson being Dodgson. You could replace him with a totally new corrupt corporate bad guy and absolutely nothing would need to change, despite his interacting with no less than three characters from the original film where you’d think bringing up that connection would be totally natural.