Oscars 2022 Review: 7 Ups & 8 Downs

5. Zack Snyder Fans Troll The Fan Vote

Another widely maligned aspect of this year's show was the decision to include awards decided by the general public on social media - the Oscars Cheer Moment and the Fan Favourite Film.

It felt like desperate pandering from the Academy in an attempt to garner greater audience interest in the ceremony, just as when they tried to introduce the nixed Best Popular Film Oscar a few years ago.

Yet the two awards ended up backfiring in hilarious and totally predictable fashion, largely courtesy of Zack Snyder's cult of die-hard fans.

The Oscar Cheer Moment, where bafflingly three of its five nominated moments took place from films released since 2019, went to The Flash entering the Speed Force from Zack Snyder's Justice League, inexplicably beating out The Matrix's bullet time and Avengers: Endgame's climax.

It got even better, though: while the Fan Favourite Film was widely expected to go to Spider-Man: No Way Home, it was in fact won by Snyder's Army of the Dead, with second and third place absurdly taken by Cinderella and the little-seen Johnny Depp film Minamata.

If nothing else these wins underlined how utterly inane the idea of a fan vote, especially one conducted over social media, actually was. One suspects the Academy probably won't try this again.