Welcome to 5 Favorites. Each week, I will put together a list of my 5 favorites (films, performances, whatever strikes my fancy) along with commentary on a given topic each week, usually in relation to a specific film releasing that week.

The rest of the year has a lot more to offer than this weekend, so I’m going to take this opportunity to look forward to 2022 and choose my most anticipated films of the upcoming year.

With the pandemic still playing havoc with the film release slate, there were more than a fair number of untitled films on the schedule. Not knowing what these were, I ignored all of them, focusing predominantly on what little there was of known quantities. I’ve often tried to include at least one film that isn’t a sequel or prequel or remake, but 2022 was proving to be surprisingly bereft of such options. As such, I ended up selecting three Marvel sequels, one Pixar pseudo-prequel (the closest I would come to picking an original property), and one reboot.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Starting off the list is the first of the three Marvel films. This one has two particular elements that have made it a must-have on this list. First of all is the fact that Black Panther was the first film to really lean into the notion of redefining the superhero film. While it relied a lot on the Disney formula, director Ryan Coogler forged a fascinating new story on the origin of the current MCU version of Black Panther. As embodied by Chadwick Boseman, the film felt fresh, alive, inventive, and superlative to nearly every MCU film that came before it.

That alone was enough for me to put it on my list, but the second is a morbid curiosity. With Boseman having died to cancer, the film was without a lead. The question became who would take on the mantle of the franchise’s first independent black superhero (not counting secondary characters like Falcon and War Machine). We haven’t been told much about the film or how it will change things around, but in the past, Disney has just re-cast a role. Such as replacing Terrence Howard from the first Iron Man with Don Cheadle as James Rhodes (aka War Machine) in the remainder of the series or when they pushed out Edward Norton in favor of Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/The Hulk. Yet, Disney has so far indicated that they don’t plan to do so. Of the actors making a return in the sequel, it’s more likely to be Daniel Kaluuya’s W’Kabi than it is to be Letitia Wright as Shuri. Angela Bassett is too old and Danai Gurira has a prominent role as the leader of the Dora, so that only leaves Lupita Nyong’o in an outside chance or another left field choice.

Lightyear

Disney has tried its hand at prequels before. Monsters University was well received, but failed to pique interest with the Academy. Meanwhile, Disney’s only major success when it comes to sequels are the Toy Story films. Thus enters Lightyear. This was the film I referenced that would be a pseudo-prequel and the closest thing to an original on the list. The reason for that is that Lightyear doesn’t focus on the toy Buzz Lightyear, voiced by Tim Allen. Rather, the film follows the original astronaut Buzz Lightyear that inspired the toy itself.

What further makes this film seem like an original concept rather than a sequel is that it’s utterly abandoning the slick, kid-friendly style employed in the Toy Story films and instead is going for an almost hyper-realistic feeling, which makes a lot of sense and also makes me decently excited. There are some elements that still feel a bit childish, but overall, the project is tantalizing for its potential.

Scream

The only reboot on this list is the second attempt to take Wes Craven’s genre-redefining original and set it into a new, more youthful setting. The TV series, which ran for three seasons, two with the same cast and a third with a brand new cast, was not as popular as many had hoped and while the first season was quite good, the second felt a little too uninspired, and the third failed to live up to expectations by ending on a note that felt all too familiar, especially for this franchise.

In this film, Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette are reprising their roles from the original series, but the attacks are now being carried out on a much younger audience. The life blood of horror is its young array of fresh talent that gets to scream and be slaughtered for the pleasure of horror audiences. Cox is in her 50s while Arquette and Campbell are in their 40s. Not that they were that young back in the 1990s, but they were also the survivors, not the younger victims in the film. What made the Scream franchise so fresh was its Janus-like ability to both satirize itself and all of slasher history on the one hand and treat its subjects with the seriousness those same slasher films exhibited on the other. While there were cases of diminishing returns with the first film’s sequels, the death of Craven in 2015 casts a pall over this attempt to refresh the series. Can new blood be infused or will it feel like more self-serving claptrap. I’m interested to see how it turns out.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2

Animated films based on comic book properties are not an uncommon sight, but few reach the level of success this film mustered. Thanks in large part to Sony’s decision to treat this as a regular tentpole release and put its money behind it, the film managed to do what a lot of those others never did. It was a box office smash and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. For years, the Spider-Man character has been a cash-cow for Sony. It’s one of the reasons they are on their third actor in the live-action role and they continue to perform well above expectations. Peter Parker isn’t Spider-Man this time around. He’s included in the guise of Jake Johnson, but the key figure here is Shameik Moore as Miles Morales, one of the more recent comic figures to don Parker’s signature costume, albeit this time with more modern and more youthful style.

This is one of the few recent films I’ve managed to watch twice. I wanted to see if the second time around to see if the humor hit as hard as it did the first time and boy did it. There are some incredibly hilarious sequences and the film’s plot is richly detailed, but easy to follow. It wasn’t entirely designed for young audiences, but children and adults alike found something engaging in the film itself. Now, we’re about to see the sequel to that 2018 milestone. While the law of diminishing returns could hamper its ultimate ability to succeed, the first one generated enough good will and creative spark that the sequel will hopefully not be too much of a let down.

Thor: Love and Thunder

The character of Thor, portrayed by Chris Hemsworth, was first introduced to Marvel fans in the eponymous film Thor in 2011. He was the third of the four Avengers to be introduced, two months prior to Captain America: The First Avenger and ahead of the 2012 unification film. The film brought us to the realm of Asgard where the Norse gods dwelled. The film co-starred Natalie Portman as his Midgardian (Earth) paramour Jane Foster, Tom Hiddleston as his adopted brother Loki, and Anthony Hopkins as his father Odin, as well as a host of other characters that have made some minor appearances in other films.

It was the first film in the MCU set outside the Earthen realm even if much of the action takes place on Earth. The second individual film, Thor: The Dark World, was something of a disappointment in 2013, but his third solo effort, 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok, his most engaging personally emerged under the able hand of actor-writer-director Taika Waititi. Based almost entirely on Thor: Ragnarok‘s creative verve and Hemsworth’s impressive comedic performance in the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot, the 2022 release of Thor: Love and Thunder should prove quite amusing, especially since Waititi is coming back for another round.