Having started this blog late into the year I feel a bit bad as I did miss out on reviewing some of the bigger films during their run. But rather trying to accomplish the overly time-consuming task of writing the 2000 word essays for every movie that came out this year, even just the ones with wider (Australian) release, I'll just do a single paragraph overall impression of the ones I have seen this year. And just in case you're wondering, they are in the order that I saw them at the movies, not from worst to best.
The Vow
I am not a big fan of romance comedy or romance drama and only watch maybe one a year at the big screen. Most of the time it's too cheesy, too emotionally manipulative or just not interesting, and only a handful of exceptions did I enjoy. The Vow was one of those exceptions. I think the whole 'based on a true story' or 'based on a real person' sub-genre is very unpredictable because Hollywood loves to make all sorts of changes to make the film more marketable. And so the real story may be lost in scripting and direction. However, this film was sincere, and even though there were definitely some changes to the actual events and dumbing down of the christian elements, I think it has some warm moments and heartbreaking scenes/dialogue that captured the reality the real couple went through.
Rating: 8.5/10.
Recommendation: Watch once or twice, and also read the story behind the movie.
The Secret World of Arrietty
This was the first of Hayao Miyazaki's films that he did not actually direct. I've actually already looked at it in 2010 when the Japanese language version came out (finally putting my Dip.Lang to good use, sort of). However, I watched the English one as well since the dubbing effort is critical in transferring the effectiveness of the film to western audiences without losing the Japanese touch. I liked how intricate the movie was, seeing how all the borrowers interact with the relatively giant worlds, there was quite a bit of thought put into all the details and daily life routines which in my opinion is what made Miyazaki's earlier work so successful. However the story is a bit too quirky, sometimes hard to follow and the setting much more contemporary, which makes the film's world harder to buy. The translation/dubbing is okay but I would say the Japanese version is superior. And why are they called Borrowers? They never return anything!
Rating: 6/10 for English version, 7.5/10 for Japanese version.
Recommendation: Watch once, then watch the Miyazaki's older works (Howl's Moving Castle and earlier)
The Lorax
It sucked. The animation was nothing new, the character was more annoying than whimsical simplicity. I think Dr Seuss is rolling in his grave. It doesn't treat children with much respect and thinks they aren't smart enough without being littered more visual 'clues'. The only thing I would say is a plus is that they did manage to stay faithful in the design of the visuals and the main character, but barely.
Rating 4/10.
Recommendation: Don't bother.
A Thousand Words
I think Eddie Murphy has really really past his prime now. All his more recent films, especially the comedy ones, are just not funny. The jokes are recycled, his movies' premises are interesting but not exploited well, and a lot of the scripts seem very forced. This movie is no exception.
Rating 3/10.
Recommndation: Don't bother.
The Hunger Games
This was actually a really well crafted film. Initially it did not appeal to me for its similarity to Battle Royale in its premise. However looking back I have to say they are very different: the children in Battle Royale were high school classmates, having known each other, dated each other and studied together for years (in Japan subject teachers move around classrooms so you have all the subjects with the same group of people). In this film Katniss only barely knew Pete prior to selection; the rest were all strangers and so killing each other was a slightly less big deal. Thus the stakes are different, and the psychology of the whole game is also different.
I did appreciate (but not exactly like) how bizarre and extravegant the elites are, but I don't agree with most of the professional critics who said Jennifer Lawrence did a spectacular job portraying Katniss. She's definitely more expressive than Kirsten Stewert in Twilight (Bella), but falling far short of many other young actresses (Emma Thompson and Chloe Grace Moretz to name a couple). I liked her work in X-Men: First Class a bit better. But nonetheless the movie actually passed the tests in my opinion, and is definitely a better brain food for teens and young adults than a few other franchises in this 'niche'.
Rating: 7.5/10.
Recommendation: Watch once or twice, then read the 3 books before the sequel comes out.
The Avengers
I don't care whether Peter Jackson's Hobbit movie is going to be good or not.
THIS WAS MY FAVORITE MOVIE OF THE YEAR!!! And judging by online polls and many other critics' reviews, the favorite movie of millions of other moviegoers as well. I didn't actually grow up reading Marvel comics (was more into Manga/Anime) but I think that there has never been a movie that was as anticipated as this one in my lifetime.
They literally made 6 other movies to build up to this one! That's not just a huge gamble financially, but also sets an example of whether using smaller movies to promote bigger movies is a feasible franchise strategy.
What can I say everyone else hasn't already said? The action was great, the story is well written, the characters are surprisingly developed even if you didn't watch the other films, it's just so so funny I almost feel like there is no way they could top it in the future films! I sincerely hope this isn't their peak and now it's just sequel downhills, but for one brief moment, I think I've witnessed brilliance in the comic book/superhero genre that even non-geeks and non-nerds could appreciate and enjoy.
Rating: 10/10.
Recommendation: Watch it to your hearth's content. I'm waiting for the collector's edition. :D
Men in Black 3
This was a pleasant surprise given how disappointing MIB 2 was. This film re-captured the style and charisma of the first film, but also giving a very touching story which I think developed Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones' characters a lot more than the first two films combined. The aliens were fun as usual, the jokes were updated, although the villain was really bland, straightforward and predictable, I think the rest of the movie makes up for it threefold. John Brolin does an excellent job being young Agent K, and honestly I thought that it was some pro CGI effort to make Tommy look 30 (maybe 20) years younger. A satisfying experience, though this movie being the one I watched after The Avengers I may be more generous and in a cheerier mood when looking at this film ^_^
Rating: 8/10.
Recommendation: Watch once or twice, then wait for Blu-Ray, then MIB marathon time!
Snow White and the Huntsman
The movie itself isn't half-bad. There's virtually nothing to do with the disney version and from what I heard is better than the
other snow white movie that came out this year, but it's just really really hard not to watch this film and imagine Bella and Thor.
I think it was just too distracting because their character's personality is virtually a copy of their more famous roles. This made it super hard to judge this movie without drawing comparisons, but like I said it's not bad. At least it kept my gaze for the entire screening unlike some
other movie.
Rating: 6.5/10.
Recommendation: Watch once.
Brave
I think this is one of Pixar's weaker movies, but given how high their bar has been in the past decade, I think it's still pretty good. The story is very reminiscent of fairy tales/folklores, it's nice to see a strong and realistic heroine + family, and I think there's plenty of fun and moral lesson for kids and adults. Of all the Pixar movies I would say it's slightly better than Cars and Cars 2 but slightly worse than Monsters Inc. I don't remember the details of the movie which is rare, but the emotions I felt watching the movie was definitely positive, though I was slightly disappointed because they've been on a roll between Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3.
Rating: 7.5/10.
Recommendation: Watch once, and buy Pixar collection when it comes out.
The Amazing Spider Man
I think Andrew Garfield's spiderman is definitely closer to the comics than Tobey Maguire and a lot more interesting to watch. However, I liked the original spiderman series more. I thought they were the ones responsible for opening the doors for big production companies to explore the superhero genre again since the box office and/or critical failures in the 90s. Spiderman 2 in my opinion is one of the best 5 superhero movies ever.
Also this movie had to compete against two other bigger superheros films Batman and The Avengers, and I think it's a clear loser in that respect. Having said that I did enjoy the film on its own it was just hard to embrace it when it wasn't even 10 years since I saw the 'original' one, a term I use lightly because most ideas are recycled and repackaged in Hollywood these days.
Rating: 7/10.
Recommendation: Watch once or twice, but don't buy until we see how good the sequels are.
Hmm now for the real challenge: should I resort to doing Top ## lists for movies from past years/decades? Guess we'll see in the coming months!
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