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Best and Worst Films from April 2025

Best Films from April 2025:

3. Steamboy

This was the worst movie-watching month for me in quite a while, so making the best list was quite difficult. None of these three movies are great, but they are the best ones I watched this month. Steamboy is a solid anime flick that is worth seeing for its visuals. The world building is excellent, the animation is interestingly grounded in coloring, and the score is rousing. The highlight is the first act where the movie was quite riveting and atmospheric. But the second half was the film’s ultimate undoing as this is where all plot and character development were pretty much abandoned in favor of frenetic pacing and endless action sequences.

2. East Lynne

Thanks to the kind people who ultimately managed to put this movie on YouTube, I finally managed to watch East Lynne, which until recently has been one of a few Best Picture nominees that had been almost impossible to see. And it’s a film that deserves to be seen in spite of its very old-fashioned melodramatic tone. The third act is very messy and ludicrous in plot, but the first half was genuinely engaging and memorable. Ann Harding was terrific in the main role and the production and costume design made this movie truly come alive as a sumptuous Victorian melodrama.

1. Plankton: The Movie

Whereas the Sandy movie was the nadir of the franchise, Plankton: The Movie is easily the best SpongeBob film released so far. While it’s strictly for the fans, the supporting characters were forgettable and the animation lackluster, the soundtrack is surprisingly strong, the flashbacks are so much fun, and both Plankton and Karen got terrific arcs. It’s not a great movie, but it’s a very entertaining one, and it’s the only film in the series to rival the original show itself. It’s the best movie I saw all month funnily enough.

Worst Films from April 2025:

3. Diner

Diner is praised as this coming-of-age classic, but in reality it’s a dated, overlong slog populated by insufferable pricks posing as fleshed out characters. This film is all about vibes and little about plot or meaningful dialogue. How they could talk so much and not talk about anything of substance was insane to me.

2. The Final Destination

The Final Destination is the fourth entry in this series and easily the nadir of the entire franchise. It just goes through the motions, repeating the plot of its predecessors while presenting no original ideas of its own. It’s so mediocre.

1. Saving Bikini Bottom

In what is a very amusing development both the top and bottom placement for this month belong to a SpongeBob movie. Saving Bikini Bottom is absolutely terrible. The mixing of live-action and animation was horrendous and the entire film was a sore to the eyes. The movie was supposed to be all about Sandy, but we did not learn anything new about her as too much emphasis was devoted to the uninteresting new characters. It’s a mess of a movie.