Last year was one of my favourite years in a very long time when it comes to films, with some (Knives Out, Little Women, Marriage Story) becoming some of my favourite of all time. However, I don’t think 2020 will reach the heights of 2019- and, with Dolittle’s reception, it seems the lows may exceed last year’s CAT-astrophic failures.
It’s not that we’re getting an abundance of terrible films, although, it does look like we’ll be getting some duds such as Birds of Prey, Minions 2 and New Mutants (a film that Fox hid from audiences for two years after it was made). But what strikes me when I look at the films slated for 2020 release is the feeling of indifference to the majority of them. Perhaps it’s unfair to compare 2020 with the ridiculous bombardment of exciting, original and surprisingly fantastic films of last year, but I still get the feeling I won’t care for the majority of them.
Even the films I should be interested in aren’t getting me particularly excited, Black Widow’s marketing hasn’t done much to interest me, and I feel I’ll mostly go out of necessity because it’s a Marvel film. People seem excited for Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, but my experience watching the 8-minute prologue in December has put me off.
The only films I’m truly looking forward to are the animations. Pixar is giving us two new films, Onward and Soul, and they both look delightful. The new Spongebob film is sure to be a riot and there’ll be another Phineas and Ferb movie on Disney+ soon. Beyond that genre, there isn’t a single film in Rotten Tomatoes’ Most Anticipated Movies of 2020 list that gets me excited.
It feels like we are being overwhelmed with mediocrity, all twelve months are filled with the types of film (Free Guy, Death on the Nile, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard) that studios release in between the major films, but they all forgot to make any of those.