And when I say 'what it was about' I mean, 'What did Rob like best?' There's no point pretending otherwise - I only care about myself and things which give me pleasure. So this probably won't be about explaining the rise of ISIS, unless someone makes an awesome movie about it in the next 8 days.
Let's start somewhere obvious. Television. That's the best thing in the world, isn't it? So that's an ultimate good. Here's some of the TV I've really liked.
I could have just said that to start with, I suppose.
Agent Carter, Daredevil and Jessica Jones
It feels kind of redundant and obvious to say it, but here I go anyway: the Marvel Cinematic Universe is really bloody good. A brilliantly planned, creatively diverse array of stories that has fundamentally changed mainstream cinema and, perhaps more importantly, made excellent, sexy use of Scarlett Johanssen. It hasn't always hit the mark; Incredible Hulk feels a bit of an imposter, Thor: The Dark World is needlessly complicated and Iron Man 2 is made of testicles. But for the most part it's been a series of awesome, exciting and varied wonders.
One of the most enjoyable films of the year has been Ant Man - a playful, zippy movie that made ingenious use of its premise and, in Paul Rudd, gave us yet another example of Marvel's great eye for casting. But far more exciting, for my money, was the arrival of the MCU on the small screen.
Agent Carter is a beautiful period piece, lit up by the luminous Hayley Attwell. She's great - confident, funny and believable - and brings a lightness of touch to a show that could easily become over impressed by its own period detail and (excellent) feminist credentials. The story telling is solid and it looks fantastic.
Daredevil is also powered by a strong performance, but this time it's not really the eponymous hero that thrills. Loki aside, the MCU has struggled to give us a truly great villain. Not any more. Vincent D'Onofrio bristles and thunders at the centre of this show, inhabiting the villainous Wilson Fiske with an astonishing combination of fury, cunning and childlike desperation. There's also some awesome fight choreography, especially in episode 2's already famous corridor battle.
And then there's Jessica Jones. Bloody hell. Just when I was ending the year thinking Agent Carter was going to be the best female action hero and Daredevil had given us the best villain. Along comes this super-confident, amazingly written piece of work. Great performances all round and a strong script give us the most mature and interesting iteration of the MCU yet. The subject matter is dark,
serious stuff yet the show is smart enough to stay witty and human throughout. David Tennant plays Kilgrave as, well, basically an evil version of his Tenth Doctor, and he's quite magnificently creepy - not least because he retains a certain likeability even as he does the most despicable things.
All three series show that the success of the movies is no fluke. This is more than just a canny marketing exercise. Marvel is stepping beyond an (impressive) array of superhero movies and starting to develop genuinely diverse narratives. Free of the need to accommodate the high-stakes plot arcs of the movies, these stories are dealing with more profound and personal issues.
The Infinity Stones may have some huge, universe shattering importance but I find it much harder to care about them than I do about Peggy Carter's struggle to be accepted in a world designed for men, or the emotional consequences of Jessica's abusive relationship with Kilgrave. I'm way more interested in the battle raging within Wilson Fiske than I am in a hundred robots destroying yet another city. This is great television made with heart, passion and real intelligence, and if we're in luck, it's the future.
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