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From cult comedies to Marvel movies, Taika Waititi has proven himself to be a really talented filmmaker, but which of his movies got the best reviews?
If there’s one thing Marvel stans, comedy snobs, and the nation of New Zealand can all agree upon, it’s that Taika Waititi is a really talented filmmaker. Some of his movies have been more successful than others, but it would be pretty hard to find a critic who wasn’t entertained by at least one of his crowd-pleasing comedies. But which Taika Waititi movie was the most successful with critics?
Before Thor: Love and Thunder and the international football comedy Next Goal Wins come out in 2022, here’s how the director’s first six films rank in terms of averaged Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes scores.
Eagle vs. Shark – 55 percent
Taika Waititi’s first film as a director, 2007’s Eagle vs. Shark, is generally agreed to be his weakest, and the only one with a “rotten” score on Rotten Tomatoes. Starring Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords and Loren Horsley as a couple of eccentrics who fall in love at a costume party, Eagle vs. Shark didn’t do too much to stand out from the slew of awkward indie comedies post-Napoleon Dynamite and was a bit too twee for most critics to fully enjoy.
Todd McCarthy’s review for Variety summed up the film as “innocuously mild and inconsequential.”
Jojo Rabbit – 69 percent
Jojo Rabbit‘s Rotten Tomatoes score of 80 percent is a lot higher than its Metacritic score of 58. The majority of critics liked Waititi’s 2019 World War II comedy-drama, loosely based on the novel Caging Skies by Christine Leunens, but some had issues with its tonal clashes and a few outright hated the movie, skewing Metacritic’s average lower.
Given this is a movie about a boy whose imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler (played by Waititi himself), discovering that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl, it’s understandable that people had strong reactions in all directions. It ultimately won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, however. As Peter Travers wrote in Rolling Stone, “Love it or hate it, Taika Waititi’s singularly silly take on the WWII coming-of-age movie is damn near impossible to shake.”
Boy – 79 percent
Waititi’s 2010 film Boy is about an 11-year-old Michael Jackson-obsessed Maori boy getting to know his father, Alamein (Waititi), who was just released from jail. Workshopped at the Sundance Writer’s Lab and exploring coming-of-age themes the director later explored further in Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Jojo Rabbit, Boy was a major hit in New Zealand, breaking box office records for a homegrown production.
In his review for The Boston Globe, Ty Burr described Boy as “hyper-stylized, funny, a crowd-pleaser.”
Thor: Ragnarok – 83.5 percent
One of the most critically acclaimed entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the 2017 movie Thor: Ragnarok proved Waititi could pull off stunning action scenes while also exercising his proven comedic strengths. Ragnarok pitted Thor and Loki against their sister Hela and Asgard’s colonial legacy, gave The Hulk a bigger spotlight, and introduced new characters like Valkyrie.
Reinvigorating the franchise after the disappointment of Thor: The Dark World, The Washington Post‘s Michael Sullivan called Thor: Ragnarok “a movie that, to put it in terms that the film’s screenwriters might appreciate, is Thor-ly needed.”
What We Do in the Shadows – 86 percent
Co-written and co-directed by Jemaine Clement, who also starred in the movie alongside Waititi, the 2014 mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows became an instant cult favorite among both horror and comedy fans for its quirky portrayal of vampires living together in New Zealand. This movie’s cultural footprint keeps growing with two successful TV spin-offs: Wellington Paranormal and the American What We Do in the Shadows show.
Of the original film, Claudia Puig wrote in USA Today, “If Twilight made you queasy and Dark Shadows felt like a missed opportunity, this pitch-perfect genre spoof is worth relishing.”
Hunt for the Wilderpeople – 89 percent
Waititi’s most universally beloved movie so far is 2016’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople, based on the book Wild Pork and Watercress by Barry Crump. The story about a juvenile delinquent and his foster dad on the run from child services is filled with humor and heart, with Julian Dennison and Sam Neill giving great performances as the complex main characters.
The film was a popular crowd pleaser, breaking Boy‘s box office records in New Zealand. In his review for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Tirdad Derakhshani described Hunt for the Wilderpeople as being “as near perfect a film as I’ve ever seen,” praising its “wild mix of absurdist humor and pathos.”
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