I’ve waited long enough, but it looks like there really won’t be an interesting-looking movie to come out after Guardians of the Galaxy this summer. Add that to the fact that I’m now a contributing member to society with actual responsibilities, I didn’t get to the movies too much these past few months.

But that doesn’t mean the movies I did see weren’t good. Overall it was a pretty awesome summer for movies, if a little void of content. But as fall descends its chilly omnipresence over summer’s dwindling sun, it is once again that special time of year where I rank the movies I’ve seen the past season, worst to best.

This time the participants are, in order I’ve seen and reviewed them:

Godzilla (which I never reviewed, but still enjoyed)

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Maleficent

The Fault in Our Stars

Edge of Tomorrow

22 Jump Street

The Purge: Anarchy

Lucy

Guardians of the Galaxy

As always, click the movie titles to be taken to my full review. Now let us embark.

Oh how the Purgees have fallen. I still stand behind my third place ranking for the first Purge on its respective list, but this sequel really shot down my opinion of the franchise. (Legally, of course.)

A few weeks ago there was this hoax going around that Philadelphia (as well as a few other cities) was going to host a Purge, which I wasn’t really paying attention to until this little kid in the street asked me if I was going purging that night like he was. Of course I responded, nah dude, that’s not legal, but already the doubt was setting in. Would there really be a Purge that night? It was Philly, after all, making it plausible.

Turns out there wasn’t a Purge that night, obviously. So I had to clean up all the dead bodies by myself.

You can’t have it all. Sure, Lucy has Scarlett Johansson’s looks and literally all the knowledge, but she didn’t use these qualities for anything, so what was the point?

No, really. What was the point of that entire movie? It became unclear to me when Lucy started using her brain to time travel, which is apparently a function programmed in the human mind that we just haven’t unlocked yet. I call shenanigans.

Oh look, it’s the annual reimagine-a-classic-childhood-tale-and-give-it-awesome-visuals-but-mediocre-everything-else. Just like Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and the Huntsman, Great and Powerful Oz, and whatever others I’m forgetting, this movie further drives my fear that the new generation may be growing up watching these films instead of their far superior animated counterparts. And that’s saying a lot from the person who only reviews brand new movies.

From Godzilla up, I liked everything on this list. Despite that, I have shockingly little to say about the monster mash of a movie, which explains my lack of a review. Monster fights monster at an entire country’s expense, but if I wanted to see that, I would have stayed home and argued with my mom. To me it was a less cool Pacific Rim with dragons and bats instead of robots.

Speaking of Pacific Rim, Edge of Tomorrow is definitely the 2014 version of that movie financially; kind of a flop in the US, but a blockbuster in China and other countries cooler than the US.

What’s cool about Edge of Tomorrow is that it shows in order to be a good action movie, all you have to do is make sense. That’s the bare minimum. It’s what Lucy and Purge (which, let’s be real, was an action, not a horror) failed to do. Edge of Tomorrow’s premise could have become complicated (anything with time travel is), but it kept its head together.

… Alright, no corny pun is popping in my head for this one. Next.

The number of days that passed since I saw this in the past is great though the number of future days that will pass to the past are greater. That sentiment expressed, I stand by my earlier claim that X-Men is one of the least needed franchises in modern cinema. It does however provide a broader platform upon which our favorite actors and actresses can portray superheroes, and we all know no actor has truly “made it” until they’ve played a superhero. It’s 2014, people.

PS: Who cares if private photos of Jennifer Lawrence leaked? Mystique has been running around nude since 2011, people.

We all know Shailene Woodley can’t run, and apparently all that exercise in Divergent really took a toll on her. Not only is she physically ill, but now she’s dating her own brother, played by Ansel Elgort. Cross-film incest is so messed up, and I’m glad this movie was created to raise awareness.

That probably offended some people, so all I have left to say is this: whenever I want to watch two terminally ill, incestuous teenagers fall in love to a neo-electronic soundtrack, Fault is my new go-to.

Which brings us to our epic finale: 22 Jump Street verses Guardians of the Galaxy. Comedy verses action. We’ve already established that Guardians makes sense, or else it wouldn’t be this high on the list. But is making sense enough to top the list, or will 22 one-up it?

I mean obviously. It has ‘2’ in the title, so it had to be second.

Now that the dust has settled, I think 22 Jump Street may have surpassed 21 Jump Street to be my downtime go-to comedy. (At least I assume it will be when it actually comes out on DVD.)

Its only flaw was, from my perspective, not devoting a proper amount of screen time to exploring the complex relationship between Dave Franco and Rob Riggle. Chemistry like what their characters have comes along once in a lifetime. I guess Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are competent replacements, though.

As if I could go a single ranking without giving the top spot to a Marvel movie. (No really, maybe I should broaden my horizons a little bit.) I say this pretty much every time but this time I think I mean it; Guardians is the best movie of the MCU so far.

While pretty standard in plot, the movie was fun enough that I didn’t even notice until writing the review. It also exposed audiences to one of the most striking images in modern day film; baby phoenix Groot dancing in his pot. Absolutely humbling.

And so the seventh era of my blog has come to a pun-filled close. I’m sorry I put you through that. Here’s the abbreviated rank:

9. The Purge: Anarchy

8. Lucy

7. Maleficent

6. Godzilla

5. Edge of Tomorrow

4. X-Men: Days of Future Past

3. The Fault in Our Stars

2. 22 Jump Street

1. Guardians of the Galaxy

I can’t really promise consistent reviews for this upcoming semester, but I’ll do my best. Check back soon for further reviews! Does anything even look good in the upcoming month or so?