The Funniest Movie Scenes Of 2022
Even though studios have mostly abandoned straight-up comedies on the big screen, there have still been plenty of laughs to be found in the cinema of 2022. In fact, some of the year's biggest laughs came from movies that you wouldn't immediately classify as comedies. Horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and even a couple prestige dramas vying for awards came accompanied with some truly hilarious moments. A couple of these movies may even be funnier than some full-fledged comedies that hit theaters and streaming this year. But no matter what genre the laughs came from, we wanted to round-up some of the funniest scenes we saw in movies this year, and we hope they bring you just as much laughter as they brought us throughout 2022.
Let's dig into the Funniest Movies Scenes of 2022!
Black Adam doesn't use doors in Black Adam
For all of its bluster and for all of its 15 years of development, "Black Adam" is a staggeringly mediocre movie that feels safe, bland, and polished until every potential rough edge can be left in a baby's crib. However, if you squint, you can see the kernel of a much better movie lurking in the margins, and that much better movie takes center stage with a running gag that is so weird and funny that you wish the movie had just embraced the lunacy of it all.
You see, Dwayne Johnson's Black Adam doesn't give a s***. He's not a superhero (until the third act makes him one), but a bitter, angry, violent dude who has been awakened from a supernatural prison after thousands of years of being locked away for the crime of being an all-powerful a-hole. Military hardware can't touch him. American superheroes can't land a proper blow. And he has zero use for doors.
Yes, this is a character who is so powerful and cares so little for the rules of modern society that he doesn't acknowledge the existence of doors. Instead, he simply walks through the nearest wall, casually tearing it to pieces with his bulky frame and moving onward like nothing happened, leaving shocked and appalled mortals in his wake. He does this multiple times. It is extremely funny every time. It's a truly inspired gag in a movie that desperately needed more inspiration, a vestige of a better movie that is unafraid to treat its title character as a true menace. (Jacob Hall)
Natasha Lyonne as Merton in DC League of Super-Pets
"DC League of Super-Pets" is a family friendly, animated superhero adventure, so much of the humor is pretty tame and geared towards kids. But Merton McSnurtle, a turtle voiced by Natasha Lyonne isn't just a scene-stealer, because she basically steals the entire movie. With Lyonne's signature smoky voice, Merton has this sort of aloof attitude that is perfect for a slow-moving creature like her. So it's only appropriate that when she and the rest of her animal friends at the shelter come into contact with orange kryptonite that she's suddenly given superhuman speed. But this has absolutely zero change on Merton's hilarious personality and tendencies, especially when it comes to her awful eyesight.
Merton shows a penchant for wanting to find another turtle to get romantic with, but her poor eyesight leads her to hit on a construction worker's helmet in the middle of the street and one of those plush Garfield toys with the suction cup paws that people put on car windows. Merton also delivers lines intended to make adults chuckle, such as suggesting that Superman get a prenup before marrying Lois Lane and making a comment about how "you never forget your first." But perhaps the funniest moments from Merton come from her salty language. Yes, Merton swears in the PG-rated adventure, but those uses of profanity are amusingly bleeped out. In this setting, the bleeps are infinitely funnier than if we heard the actual words. Natasha Lyonne is a gift, and she easily gets the biggest laughs in "DC League of Super-Pets." (Ethan Anderton).
'You're part of the moon now' in Moonfall
It feels like it's been years since "Moonfall" hit theaters, but the sci-fi action movie only arrived in theaters back in February 2022. Anyone who saw the bonkers feature from "Independence Day" director Roland Emmerich surely hasn't forgotten just how absurd this movie became. The trailers indicated that there was more than meets the eye when it came to explaining what our lunar satellite truly was, but the explanation was even more ludicrous.
It turns out the moon is actually a super structure housing an artificial intelligence that was created by a technologically advanced human race billions of years ago. Of course, that AI became self-aware and chose to destroy humanity after it came to believe they were enslaving it. When disgraced astronaut Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson) interfaces with the moon's operating system, he learns all about the moon's origins, and the OS gives him the necessary information to destroy the AI threat that has been wreaking havoc on Earth by shifting the moon from its orbit. Though Harper plans to sacrifice himself to enact the plan that would destroy the AI, science enthusiast and moon conspiracy theorist KC Houseman (John Bradley) takes it upon himself to save the world, since he doesn't have any family left on Earth who will miss him.
Of course, it all works out, the world is saved, and the deadly artificial intelligence is destroyed. But the movie isn't over. We cut back to Houseman, who has been brought back to life as a hologram inside the moon's operating system. The OS talks to him by way of a hologram in the form of his late mother, an elderly woman sitting in a wheelchair with a cat named Fuzz Aldrin in her lap. She says, "We scanned your consciousness. You're part of the moon now." If that wasn't ridiculous enough, after Houseman confirms that they've saved the planet, the old woman acting as a proxy for the moon says, "We should get started." Houseman asks, "Get started with what?" And we're left with so much excitement for a sequel!
It's one of the goofiest cliffhangers in blockbuster history, and it absolutely cracked us up. (Ethan Anderton)
Pete Davidson's true fate revealed in Bodies Bodies Bodies
This year, we started seeing Gen Z take the spotlight in more stories on the big screen, and it's no surprise that the generational stereotypes make for an often funny spin on tropes we're familiar with, especially in horror. The genre-straddling slasher "Bodies Bodies Bodies" is a great example of how focusing on the demographic can lend itself to both real-life terrors and hilarity in equal measure. The movie's final moments cement that notion in just the short span of an unpublished TikTok video.
"Bodies Bodies Bodies" follows seven friends who join forces at one of their family mansions to have a raucous hurricane party, but when a game goes horribly wrong and one of the friends (Pete Davidson as David) ends up dead, miscommunication, lies, and human instinct takes over. It sounds intense, and it certainly can be, but it's pretty hilarious too.
The film closes with Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and Bee (Maria Bakalova), the only two of the group left alive after accusations, accidents, and anger stack up even more bodies, finding David's iPhone. They unlock it by opening his dead eyes and letting it scan his face (eerie yet effective, and pull up his TikTok. In the next 30 seconds, the audience finally gets clued into how he died, which was the central mystery of the film. It turns out David accidentally killed himself by way of a sword wound to the throat while trying to slice open a champagne bottle to the tune of popular Curtis Roach and Tyga song "Bored In The House."
You can't help but smile a bit over as you watch Sophie and Bee realize everything that happened after he died was for nothing. It's depressing, it's telling, and it's really, really hilarious at the end of the day. David's demise tackles class, excess, internet addiction, and pure irresponsibility all in one short yet hysterical package — a pitch perfect ending to a Gen Z horror tale. (Lex Briscuso)
'He's white?' in Elvis
What are we to make of Tom Hanks' performance as Colonel Tom Parker, the villainous manager of Elvis Presley in the anti-biopic "Elvis" from director Baz Luhrmann? Like everything else in the movie, Hanks' performance is cranked all the way up — buried under makeup, he adopts a truly incomprehensible accent and plays the part to the hilt. He's obsessed with exploitation, and when we first meet him, he's looking for the next big act. As fate would have it, the radio is playing a hot young performer named Elvis Presley. But due to the nature and style of Elvis' music and the fact that he records under the Sun Records' label, the Colonel assumes Elvis is Black.
Because of the prejudices of the era, the Colonel has no interest in representing a Black artist, but he's immediately informed that Elvis is not Black. Elvis is, in fact, white. At which point Luhrmann and cinematographer Mandy Walker push the camera in on Hanks' stunned, makeup-heavy face. "...he's white?" the Colonel asks in disbelief. Yes he is, Colonel. And that's all the man needs to hear — soon he's racing off to meet Elvis face to face, a meeting that will change both of their lives. It's a silly moment, yes, and there's undeniable humor in the way Hanks plays the scene. But silliness is baked into the "Elvis" recipe, and that's what makes it so memorable. (Chris Evangelista)
The prayer in The Fabelmans
There have been some misconceptions about Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical film "The Fabelmans." It isn't some self-aggrandizing ode to his own brilliance or a sentimental family melodrama. "The Fabelmans" is a coming of age flick, and it encapsulates everything that genre entails, which includes a significant amount of comedy. Nowhere is that more present than the scene in which the Jewish Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle) is invited to the home of Monica (Chloe East), an intensely Christian classmate who is horny for both Sammy and Jesus himself. We see her bedroom walls plastered in posters of Jesus alongside contemporary cuties like Ricky Nelson and a gigantic crucifix hung above her bed. Monica then channels her desire to make out with the boy through the prism of praying that Jesus enters Sammy's heart.
The scene plays at a heightened level we haven't seen in the movie thus far, yet it doesn't feel out of place in the slightest. A huge reason for that is the utter commitment of Chloe East, who I would argue should be nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. She is given the incredibly tricky task of playing someone completely aware of her own carnal desires but doesn't want to be too obvious about them (although they couldn't be more obvious to anyone except perhaps the somewhat oblivious Sammy), and her commitment to her religion both has to be entirely sincere and a complete joke. LaBelle is also the perfect scene partner, expertly complimenting her intensity with utter confusion.
Some would say Steven Spielberg's one weakness as a director is comedy, and a scene like this completely dispels that theory. No other scene had me howling louder in a theater in 2022 than this one. (Mike Shutt)
Paging Dr. Sunshine in The Menu
Late in "The Menu," John Leguizamo's vapid, fading movie star starts to wonder, "Why him?" Why was he invited to a dinner service at the remote island restaurant of Hawthorne, where executive chief Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) has concocted an elaborate revenge fantasy against everyone who has wronged him and his profession. He has no connection to him. Why is he here? Why must he die alongside everyone else?
So he asks, and Chef Slowik monologues. Years ago, before he was a powerful celebrity chef, Slowik had a rare day off. A day where he could relax and enjoy himself. Go the movies, even. So he does. And he sees "Paging Dr. Sunshine," a comedy so bad that it ruins that precious day off and plants a seed of anger and resentment so deep that, decades later, the chef uses his incredible resources to draw the man responsible into his clutches to kill him. It's outstandingly petty and conveyed with such darkly hilarious menace by Fiennes, who imbues Slowik with enough psychotic mania to be terrifying but enough humanity for us to totally understand him. Listening to this powerful figure rant about this terrible movie, titled "Paging Dr. Sunshine," no less, after 90 minutes of airing far more serious and profound grievances is the finest joke in a movie filled with them.
Of course, the real capper is Leguizamo's assistant (Aimee Carrero) begging for her life, as she had nothing to do with "Paging Dr. Sunshine." But once Slowik learns she attended an Ivy League school without student loans, he doesn't event pause: "You're dying tonight." In a film filled with acidic, perfectly executed jokes, this one-two punch reigns supreme. (Jacob Hall)
Nicolas Cage talks to himself in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Tom Gormican essentially delivered a Nicolas Cage-themed feature episode of "Pimp My Ride" with the Nicolas Cage as Nicolas Cage playing Nicolas Cage in a Nicolas Cage action-comedy, "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent." The Academy Award-winning actor is an undeniable talent, but his history of playing memorable (and memeable) characters on screen has turned him into an endlessly quotable, living legend. This reputation is given the meta-textual treatment in Gormican's film, which sees real-life Nicolas Cage playing a dramatized version of himself accepting a $1 million paycheck to attend the birthday party of a billionaire superfan named Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal).
Cage doesn't know that this superfan intends to throw Cage into a real-life version of a Nicolas Cage movie, while the CIA is hoping that Cage can help them bring Javi down. In order to get through it, Cage channels his most beloved characters, seemingly searching for the answer to, "What would a character played by Nicolas Cage do?" In one of the best moments of the film, Nicolas Cage has a face-to-face meeting with "Nicky," who is the manifestation of Nicolas Cage during his younger years. From a poetic perspective, it's a clever way to allow Cage to come to terms with the former persona her adopted while trying to figure out his life, but the fact Nick and Nicky eventually lock lips with one another, is the cherry on top of a hilarious Nicolas Cage flavored sundae. Watching Cage match wits with the younger version of himself feels like our generation's version of getting to watch Vincent van Gogh paint his self-portrait, and the delivery of "You're Nic f********************************************* Cage!" is easily one of the best of the year. (BJ Colangelo)
Weird Al writes 'My Bologna' in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
It's fitting that a biopic about "Weird Al" Yankovic, pop culture's preeminent song parodist and deeply beloved comedy icon, should be a parody in itself. "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story" includes small pieces of actual fact about Yankovic's life — his parents really did buy him his first accordion from a door-to-door salesman — but juices them up with absurd exaggeration and obvious lies; Yankovic's father didn't really savagely beat said door-to-door salesman as he does in the movie.
As most modern music biopics have fallen into the trench of cliché, "Weird" has a delightful time satirizing the genre's hackneyed "dramatic" moments, notably the well-worn, stale scene wherein a musician plinks around on a piano, and — in a flash! — creates their most recognizable hit. In "Weird," Yankovic (Daniel Radcliffe) is laying around his apartment with his roommates-cum-future-bandmates, talking about who gets to open up a package of bologna. At that moment, The Knack's "My Sharona" comes on the radio, and lo, inspiration strikes. Al stands up and begins singing the first few fateful lines of Yankovic's very real 1983 hit "My Bologna." The real Yankovic, incidentally, provided his own vocals for Radcliffe.
The joke of the scene — and indeed of all of "Weird" — is that Yankovic's comedic send-ups about food and eating are worthy of equal gravitas as anything Johnny Cash or Ray Charles ever penned. Indeed, moreso. The fictional Yankovic will eventually become so big, he'll pass on playing Live Aid with Queen and acting as James Bond. He'll also have a torrid affair with Madonna and do battle with drug lords. And to think, it all started when the toast was done. Then he topped it with a little of ... "Eat It." (Witney Seibold)
The Penguin mocks Batman and Commissioner Gordon for not speaking Spanish well
If there's one thing you can say for the 2003 "Daredevil" movie, it's that Colin Farrell is in his element as secondary antagonist Bullseye. He has no dialogue at all in his very first scene in the movie; he simply wins a game of darts while chugging a pint, throws on his leather coat, collects his money, and then kills a guy with a handful of paperclips. What an entrance.
So, Farrell's return to the role of "not the main bad guy, but still a pretty bad guy" in Matt Reeves' "The Batman" was a welcome one this year. Even hidden under a layer of facial prosthetics, Farrell manages to steal every scene he's in (there's only a handful) and almost walks away with the whole movie. His delivery of lines like, "Whoa, take it easy, sweetheart!" and "Holy god, what are you showing me? Come aaahn!" is truly magical, but Penguin's best moment comes after a high-octane car chase, followed by the Big Trailer Moment of Batman (Robert Pattinson) stalking his prey while the soundtrack blares.
Which just makes it so much funnier when, upon being confronted with the accusation that he is "el rata alada," Penguin stops being intimidated by Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) and Batman and starts roasting them both for their terrible Spanish grammar (and, indirectly, for failing to solve a riddle that Reddit solved in about 10 seconds).
It's the perfect foil to Robert Pattinson's moody, brooding young vigilante superhero. He is vengeance. He is the night. He no habla español. (Hannah Shaw-Williams)
The Captain's Dinner in Triangle of Sadness
We have all had to deal with embarrassing situations while on vacation, but perhaps none were as gross and uncomfortable as what went down during the captain's dinner in "Triangle of Sadness." After being forced to neglect their duties for an impromptu pool party, the kitchen staff accidentally let the seafood to be served at the dinner spoil, resulting in almost every passenger coming down with food poisoning. If that didn't make matters worse, the drunken communist captain (Woody Harrelson) is fighting with the equally-drunken capitalist Dimitry (Zlatko Buric) over the intercom, a massive storm is raging outside, and the defective bathroom plumbing has turned the hallways into a brown-watered flood. Capping off this nightmarish scenario is a band of pirates that capsize the ship, killing the majority of passengers.
While this certainly sounds horrible, Ruben Östlund's slow build-up makes it more akin to a comedy of errors than a looming tragedy. Every time you think it's going to end, something else comes in and makes the situation worse. You are stricken by such discomfort and disgust that you can't help but laugh, especially since everyone on that boat was horrible anyways. If it's wrong to laugh at increasingly terrible situations inflicted upon ignorant rich people, then I don't want to be right. (Erin Brady)
Benoit Blanc confirms Miles Bron is an idiot in Glass Onion
In "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery," Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) finds himself in the middle of a murder mystery involving Miles Bron (Ed Norton), a tech billionaire everyone treats like an eccentric genius. At times the conspiracy around him feels so complicated that we don't know if Blanc will ever get to the bottom of it.
But not only does Blanc figure it all out; he's annoyed to discover that the answer to everything is staggeringly, mind numbingly stupid. Not only did the most obvious culprit turn out to be the killer after all, but his supposedly-brilliant scheme was a collection of half-baked ideas stolen from other people. He doesn't even think to burn the one piece of evidence that could incriminate him until another character wonders aloud why he hadn't done it already.
It turns out that, like a lot of ultra-rich people who run our world, Bron isn't actually a genius; he just has no morals and isn't afraid to claim other people's ideas as his own. "Dumb, but brilliant!" one character exclaims in the middle of Blanc's monologue about Bron's scheme. Blanc immediately cuts her off with an exasperated, "No! Just dumb."
All of Blanc's monologues are delightful, but this one triumphs from the sheer level of petty annoyance in Blanc's voice. He's not outraged that Bron committed murder; he's just offended at how half-baked his murder schemes were. Even without the timely Elon Musk parallels, Blanc's rant is hilarious, well-deserved, and incredibly satisfying to hear. Not only does Bron get his evil schemes exposed, but he gets the roast of a lifetime in the process. (Michael Boyle)
Pádraic tells a lie in The Banshees of Inisherin
There's very little humor in "The Banshees of Inisherin" that isn't touched by darkness, but the most hilarious dose of darkness comes when self-described "happy lad" Pádraic (Colin Farrell) decides that the way to win back the affection of his former friend Colm (Brendan Gleeson) is by being a bad boy. Fiercely jealous of Colm's circle of music students, Pádraic decides to drive one of them off. Offering Declan (Aaron Monaghan) a ride in his cart, Pádraic breaks the (fake) news to him that his father has been hit by a bread van and is in serious condition. Declan is not just upset by this but flabbergasted because, as he tells Pádraic, his mother actually was hit by a bread van, and died. "If it's the same fecking bread van, I'll kill them!"
Aside from the absurdity of Pádraic happening to choose the one type of accident that Declan had previously been traumatized by (maybe bread vans are just a very serious hazard in Ireland), the scene also makes a comeback later in the movie, and proves oddly pivotal. Pádraic's lie about the bread van and Declan's dad is ultimately what brings everything crashing down. (Hannah Shaw-Williams)
OJ stays in the truck in Nope
When it was first announced that Jordan Peele, at the time most well-known for the sketch comedy show, "Key & Peele," was going to venture into the world of horror, there were plenty of skeptics who quickly ate crow after "Get Out" hit theaters and completely revolutionized the studio horror system. Not only has Peele quickly become one of the definitive voices in the genre sphere, but his films have consistently provided an unmatched balance of genuine terror, brilliant social commentary, and perfectly executed comedic levity. In his third feature, the sci-fi horror jam, "Nope," is filled to the brim with terrifying imagery and hilarious zingers. Honestly, anytime Em (Keke Palmer) is on screen, there's guaranteed to be at least one moment that incites, at minimum, a sensible chuckle.
But one of the funniest scenes in "Nope" is one of the simplest, and exemplifies the relatable humor injected in much of Peele's work. After having a terrifying encounter with the UAP/alien known as Jean Jacket while attempting to return the horse Lucky back to the Haywood ranch, OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) sits in his truck to watch the thing struggle to digest all of the non-human/animal material it just sucked up, including a fake decoy horse put out by OJ and Em. Jean Jacket regurgitates the decoy horse up, sending it crashing through OJ's windshield. Rather than make a break for it, he sits in the truck and then drops down the manual lock on his side door. It may be a small moment, but it elicits some big laughs after witnessing such a harrowing scene just moments before. Well played, Peele. Well played. (BJ Colangelo)
Silence of the Lambs in Jackass Forever
It should come as zero surprise that "Jackass Forever" was a sure thing for this particular list. Johnny Knoxville and the gang had been away for more than a decade, but this movie proved they didn't lose a step. While we could argue for hours about the funniest bit in the movie, there is something about "Silence of the Lambs" that just checks all of the boxes. It's mean-spirited yet funny, with both the old crew and some of the new guys getting tortured just for agreeing to spectate. Instead, they had an epically mean prank pulled on them as they were locked in a pitch black room with what they think is a very deadly, venomous snake. We get to watch their terror unfold knowing that they're perfectly safe, at least from the snake. Instead, they have to endure cattle prods, mouse traps, running into pans, a floor of marbles, and plenty of pain to escape the room.
From the moment those doors slam shut, it's pure chaos of the most hilarious order. Admittedly, the amount of joy any audience member gets out of watching these dudes get full-blown tortured for minutes on end is a bit sadistic, but would it be "Jackass" without at least a touch of that? The genius of it is that we all know there is no snake in the room, but the guys have absolutely no idea. That makes it gut-bustingly funny when Poopies, with a look of pure fear on his face, says the line, "So if we get bit, we die." And that's just the opening of the sequence. When Chris Pontius, doing his best Buffalo Bill impression in the dark is, like, the 10th funniest thing in a sketch, you know you're in good shape. The sheer horror on Dave England's face is gold, but combined with his utter refusal to believe that it's over when the lights come on, punctuated with the line, "I'll start a new life in here," well, that's cinema, my friends. (Ryan Scott)
Raccacoonie in Everything Everywhere All At Once
There are a lot of silly moments in Daniels' "Everything Everywhere All At Once," but one with the best payoff is the reveal of Raccacoonie, an alternate-universe version of the Pixar classic "Ratatouille." When Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) tries to explain to her family that other versions of themselves can inhabit them and control them, she tries to use "Ratatouille" as a point of reference, but calls it Raccacoonie instead. Her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) teases her for the mistake, but later when Evelyn hops to an alternate universe, she actually meets Raccacoonie, voiced by Randy Newman.
Raccacoonie controls a hibachi chef (Harry Shum Jr.) by hiding under his huge hat and pulling his hair to make him move. That's pretty funny all on its own, but when Hibachi Chef Evelyn ends up needing to move fast in order to save Raccacoonie, she ends up jumping on her coworker's shoulders and pulling his hair just like the little furry fellow. They speed down the street after Raccacoonie, in a cage on the back of an animal control truck, and it's as heartwarming as it is hilarious. (Danielle Ryan)
Shooting a talkie in Babylon
As Damien Chazelle's relentless powerhouse "Babylon" transitions out of the silent era, it takes a breather to show just how difficult it is to make a talkie. What seems like a simple task for star Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) to accomplish — she must walk onto a set, hit her mark under a hanging microphone, and say her lines — turns into utter cacophony as the production is beset by interruptions and errors that ruin take after take.
Nellie doesn't hit her mark. The sound tech (Carson Higgins) can't move the microphone, because it's been perfectly calibrated to hang in this exact spot. Nellie delivers a line too loudly. Some guy's shoes squeak in the middle of a take. The director (Olivia Hamilton) needs to keep one leg completely motionless. An assistant director (P.J. Byrne) at the end of his rope screams at everyone to get it right, and all the while, the soundstage is sweltering with the heat of bright stage lights shining down on everyone. Just when everyone's at their breaking point, a take actually seems to be going well: Nellie's on point, the sound guy is pleased, the set is quiet, and the character makes it all the way through her dialogue. The crowd erupts with joy, yelling and hugging at their triumphant success — only to realize that the poor cameraman, cramped into an airless sweatbox in the middle of the room, has collapsed in the middle of the take. When someone rushes to his body, checks for a pulse, and declares that he has died, it's a grimly funny capper on the whole fiasco. Making movies is hard! (Ben Pearson)
Measuring the basement in Barbarian
One of the greatest tricks writer/director Zach Cregger pulls off with his nasty, shocking little horror movie "Barbarian" is how deftly funny the whole thing is. And more importantly, how that humor actually informs the film's terror and larger ideas.
After its slow burn first half, in which one lead character is brutally killed and another left missing in action, the film abruptly and disconcertingly leaps to another plot line altogether: We're now following AJ (Justin Long), a disgraced actor fleeing ruin and a rape charge in Los Angeles, who returns to one of his Michigan properties to sell it for emergency funds. Of course, this is the same place where we spent the first half of the movie, a building that has been revealed to be a bonafide house of horrors with a secret dungeon basement that conceals a terrifying monster. But while those early scenes filled the discovery of the basement with fear and dread, with Georgina Campbell's Tess not going anywhere near it until she has no other option, AJ has a different reaction. He finds the massive nightmare dungeon beneath his home and...
...immediately starts googling if a large basement can add value to his home. He then grabs a tape measure and starts measuring, casually bumbling through the same dark, unsettling spaces that had left Tess so terrified earlier in the film. The smash cut to AJ, so casually measuring the freakiest movie basement since the original "Evil Dead" without a care in the world, is one of the funniest cuts in 2022, and maybe one of the funniest cuts in any horror movie. It's a brilliant piece of idiot humor, but also one that directly informs the movie's dark core belief: men and women have a very different definition of "safe space." (Jacob Hall)
Naatu Naatu in RRR
In "RRR," we get the ultimate friendship brought to life by T. Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan as Komaram Bheem and Alluri Sitarama Raju. After the two strangers teamed up in an incredibly epic fashion to save a young boy from a train wreck, they become the best of friends. In fact, the two become so close, that they might as well be brothers. Of course, they don't know that their ultimate goals actually make them morally opposed to each other (at least at first), but that's only a problem later in the movie.
While Bheem and Ram are still riding their bromance wave, they team up to completely embarrass a pompous British douchebag. Bheem has become infatuated with a young British woman named Jenny (Olivia Morris). When a chance encounter results in them striking up a friendship and hopeful romance, Jenny invites Bheem to a wedding at her extravagant residence. When the aforementioned British d***head named Jake takes note of Jenny's liking to Bheem, he sets out to humiliate him for not speaking English and being unfamiliar with dances like salsa and flamenco. Thankfully, Bheem's bro Raju comes to his rescue and asks Jake if he knows "Naatu." Jake is thoroughly confused and asks, "What's 'Naatu?'"
This sparks a double team of an impressively choreographed musical number with Bheem and Ram dancing around the luxurious courtyard as the party claps along and watches with amazement. Eventually, everyone tries to join in and it turns into a party-wide dance-off. It's an endurance trial, and of course nobody can last very long. The guests start falling over, unable to keep up with Bheem and Ram. Try as he might, Jake gives it his best, but he fails and humiliates himself. However, that's not the end of this dance-off.
Just when you think it's over, Bheem and Ram share a knowing look with each other, and a playful rivalry sparks the final battle of this dance-off. There's such joy in the faces of T. Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan as they realize they're about to compete against each other, and it takes this rapturous musical number to the next level. Of course, Ram gives in and lets Bheem win the dance-off so that he might impress Jenny. Because that's what best friends do.
This is one of the most exhilarating sequences in cinema in the entire year, and it will have you smiling ear-to-ear and laughing heartily while clapping along with "Naatu Naatu." (Ethan Anderton)
The butt plug fight in Everything Everywhere All At Once
In the multiverse-sprawling madness of "Everything Everywhere All At Once," there's plenty of absurdity to go around. From an everything bagel that literally has everything imprinted on it to a lovely romance among two women with hot dog fingers, this movie has some of the silliest scenes of the year, maybe even the 21st century. That also extends to the fight sequences in the movie.
The premise of "Everything Everywhere All At Once" finds Michelle Yeoh's unsuspecting laundromat owner Evelyn Wang taught how to tap into the endless possibilities of the multiverse in order to learn various fight styles that alternate versions of herself across the multiverse have become skilled in. In order to tap into these multiverse abilities, Evelyn has to do some kind of strange action, like give herself papercuts between her fingers or rubbing Bactine in her eyes, in order to tap into some kind of fighting style from another universe. During one of the masterfully choreographed fights, one of Evelyn's adversaries is about to tap into another fighting style, and in order to activate it, he leaps through the air and plants his rear-end right on top of an award that looks suspiciously like a butt plug.
What follows is a spectacular display of martial arts between Michelle Yeoh and a man with a butt plug hanging out of his ass, and it only gets better when another enemy shows up with a trophy firmly planted in his anus and ready to fight. It's silly and awe-inspiring all at once. It culminates in a spectacular slow-motion moment when Evelyn spins between the two plugged-up men and plucks the trophies from their butts, rendering them ineffective. The directing duo known as Daniels are mad geniuses, and this is one of the finest examples of their wild, entertaining ideas. (Ethan Anderton)
Ugly Sonic in Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers
It was April 2019 when the first trailer for the "Sonic the Hedgehog" movie arrived online, and the internet was not happy. Our first look at the photorealistic computer generated version of the SEGA video game character was horrifying. His eyes were too small and too far apart from each other. He had hairy, five-fingered hands without gloves. And perhaps most horrifying of all, a full set of pearly white human teeth. It was an abomination, and the reaction from fans on the web was so loud that it prompted director Jeff Fowler and the crew to completely redesign the character to more closely resemble his cartoony roots.
Flash forward to 2022, and the "Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers" movie is delivering a "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"-style story that takes us into a real world filled with animated characters. And it's not just 2D animated cartoons anymore. There are also computer generated characters who populate the real world, representing the various live-action/CG hybrids that turned 2D animated characters into realistic 3D renderings. One of those characters just so happens to be the original version of Sonic the Hedgehog, appropriately dubbed "Ugly Sonic."
Ugly Sonic is working at his own booth at a pop culture convention, signing autographs for "fans" who want to throw some cash his way. Voiced by Tim Robinson, Ugly Sonic represents the washed up actors of Hollywood who maybe once had a moment of glory but now find themselves desperate to peddle whatever they can just to pay their rent. "Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers" even highlights those horrific human teeth in slow-motion, and it turns one of Hollywood's most embarrassing mistakes into one of the funniest gags from the entire year. (Ethan Anderton)