January 2026 [5-11]
Wonder, Avatar, The Iron Giant, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Avatar: The Way of Water, Avatar: Fire and Ash
- Wonder [2017] - 86
2017’s Wonder — directed by Stephen Chbosky [The Perks of Being a Wallflower, my #48 on the year], and written by Chbosky, Jack Thorne [Adolescence, my #6], and Steve Conrad [whose works I wholly don’t recognize] — is the fantastic little tale of Auggie: A boy who simply looks different from the other kids at school, and the relationships he builds around his similarities, while tackling his differences. I’m genuinely shocked that Chbosky’s Wallflower landed where it did on my 2025 watchlist, because I expected it to be much higher, and it’s the reason that I even know what Wonder is. Regardless, this is an excellent film that [though it does need a little help in terms of exploring certain characters and their purpose within the plot] pulls on your heartstrings exactly as it intends to, exactly when it intends to do it. I look forward to reading the book for this one, because I’m sure it solves any of the minor storytelling issues I had during my time with Auggie and his newfound friends.
- Avatar [2009] - 54
With the release of the third film in the franchise and the prodding of a friend, I decided to go back and take a gander at these movies from my Cacciatoreviews perspective. They’re uh… They’re not very good, turns out. I’d only seen this one and, even then, only once during its original theatrical run. What I remembered was something that was technologically impressive, but narratively just sort of… Bland. While my memory served fairly well, what I’d forgotten [or possibly repressed] was the near total lack of context and care that the story has for any of its plot points or themes. Without any attempt at reason or motivation, we’re expected to just jump into a conflict that vaguely implies Earth has become uninhabitable, while also passively mentioning a valuable resource — the comedically named “unobtanium” [something that the series will never ever create a use for or mention again after this film for some reason] — that humanity wants to mine, thus bringing colonialism and resource-guided genocidal war to Pandora. Sure, fine; I can follow a scifi-flavored commentary on human history well enough, but the lack of actual characters, purpose behind absolutely anything, and the strangely shallow construction of the native cultures being destroyed by the onslaught of human avarice almost works against the message, rather than for it. If you haven’t seen this in a while and were considering returning to it before seeing Fire and Ash [spoilers], don’t bother. Just go see the new movie, because it’s the best this series has to offer.
- The Iron Giant [1999] - 81
Returning to another film I hadn’t seen in many, many years: The Iron Giant tells the story of an alien robot and the friends [and enemies] he makes along the way. Postulated as the story of “a gun who doesn’t want to be a gun” by writer/director, Brad Bird, The Iron Giant stands as an animation classic for good reason. It’s smart, its characters are mostly interesting and believable within the context of the narrative, and it has a lot to say. From some technical perspectives the film also holds up well and is very neat — it’s the first film to have a fully CG main character within a traditionally animated movie —, while the art-style of the visuals largely prevents it from feeling dated in most ways. If you’ve somehow never seen this, or just haven’t in a while, I highly recommend that you seek out 1999’s The Iron Giant.
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan [1982] - 69
Now, I’m not what one would call a “Trekkie”, but that’s more from lack of exposure, rather than the weird vehemence some people pay the franchise — especially those that’ve aligned themselves with the Force for whatever reason. That’s said only to massage any complaints I have about this movie that might rely on context from the various shows or movies. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is one of those films that lives pretty deeply within the culture at this point [regardless of your experience with Star Trek you’ve likely heard someone in your life shout “Khaaannn!!” or reference the death of Spok], and it stands here in 2025 as a pretty decent classic scifi film. I’m sure my watch would have been elevated with more context from all that it references and holds, but it’s certainly solid enough even without that. From excellent set design to genuinely impressive visual effects from the era, The Wrath of Khan does a mostly great job of telling a contained story from a galaxy far, far away… I mean, the final frontier.
- Avatar: The Way of Water [2022] - 32
Watching what will likely be a movie that falls into my bottom 20 of 2026 so early in the year is an interesting experience. While I fielded some of my complaints about 2009’s Avatar above, it’s 2022 follow-up, The Way of Water, manages to sink my opinion of the series even further. It takes all my issues and frustrations generated by the first film, adds entirely new ones, and then says “hold my zangke,” while it goes entirely off the rails with stupid characters, an absolutely meaningless runtime, and a plot that neither contextualizes anything from the first film, matters within its own self, or adds anything of import to the conflict on Pandora. It’s a horrendous mess of bad writing, strangely pro-erasure cultural expressions from the “heroes”, and simply pointless decisions. What I will give Avatar: The Way of Water is that, though it entirely ignores the original resource sought in the first film [making that idiotic fight even more stupid and pointless], it at least has the dignity to give its new prize some sort of implicit value — the cessation of human aging —, rather than just a baseless monetary one.
- Avatar: Fire and Ash [2025] - 59
Avatar: Fire and Ash [and I mean this in a non-cynical way] finally begins to show some growth and maturity in its plot, characters, and purpose. It has an overarching story that mostly begins and ends, it has characters who develop and grow within its [still insane] runtime, and it [more than the others at least] trusts that the audience can follow along with more than one thing happening at a time. All that said… It’s still just an Avatar movie, and there’s plenty of times I caught myself tossing my hands up in exasperation, gawking at how spineless it is during difficult narrative moments, and/or groaning every time someone on screen says “bro” or “cuz”, rather than using a culturally appropriate Na'vi colloquialism instead… And all that’s not even to talk about how strangely manipulative and gaslight-ey Jake is towards Neytiri [we-should-definitely-actually-talk-about-that-though-because-no-one-else-seems-to-be-and-it’s-a-super-weird-part-of-the-movie]. From a technical perspective, Fire and Ash is the first of the films to even attempt anything close to actual cinematography [though it still refuses to eschew the franchise’s overused “punch in” technique], and it has the best sound design of any of the films by a mile, but it also has the most dichotomous visual effects. While its peaks are higher than Way of Water, it isn’t anywhere near as consistent, and its lows look even worse than the 2009 original [which, contextually, still looks quite good overall]. My original rating of this was actually a 60, but I thought it was funnier to drop it down to a 59, just so I could make the joke that I give Avatar: Fire and Ash a high-five for being the best blue-flavored mush out of the three. #LimpDickScienceMajors
