That Was The Year That Was

Conditions: Very Cruisey

The Year in Review

Well as always it’s time to look back over 2012 and mostly regret the time that has been wasted. There were some bright spots but really I doubt 2012 is going to be looked back on with any fondness. So I shall list the highlights, the lowlights, and the making up the numbers:

The BAD

-The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
You know I still can't believe how relentlessly awful and insulting this film was. A muddy murder mystery that turns out not to be a murder mystery at all, then suddenly turns into a riff on the Silence of the Lambs, all of it overshadowed by the Dragon tattooed girl being subjected to violence and depravity for no other reason than the audience's entertainment. I spit on this film.

-Underworld - Awakening
Yet another sequel in the franchise that just won't die. This time a daughter is dropped into the mix, and the underworld has gone public. Doesn't make much of a difference in the end as its just Selene killing everyone as per usual. How can an idea this cool have become this lifeless and boring?

-Battleship
A desperately shallow and stupid film, featuring a massive alien invasion force that restricts itself to sailing around in the waters off Hawaii while trying to phone home. Loud enough to cause brain damage, which explains a lot.

-Prometheus
Brilliantly shot, composed, and acted. Thoughtful and careful in its approach. Nevertheless Prometheus fails abysmally through terrible logic, stupid reactions and a hopeless outcome. I think it stands as the surprise of 2012, in that given its predecessors, its director, its budget, how could it have ended up so badly.

-Resident Evil Retribution
Greatest-hits montage of previous R.E movies. They’re not even trying anymore.

-Iron Sky
Despite, or perhaps because of the crazy premise, this madcap movie about space nazis on the moon just wasn't as funny as it should have been, before descending into clichéd farce.

-Total Recall
Holy crap, this stands by far and away as the biggest misfire of 2012. In an abject lesson of how not to do a remake, the 2012 Total Recall chose to throw out all the nuance and intrigue from the old Schwarzenegger classic that made it such a classic and instead simply have it be an action film about some shadowy revolutionaries being hunted by the police. I simply don't understand how, with all the money and technology we have available to us today, not to mention the original film right there on DVD, they can end up with something as lame and outright boring as this. It's actually offensive.

-Dredd
Not actually a movie, it was just a videogame where we were dragged unwillingly through the levels until the time runs out. Stupid, shallow, violent and pointless.

-Alex Cross
Horribly bland and uneven thriller where an assassin gets offended by the cops trying to stop him so goes after them instead. The most unthrilling thriller I think I've ever seen.

-The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
I'm surprised too, but as well crafted as it is, the problem with the first Hobbit film is how over-indulgent and greedy the director has been. Three hours to tell the first third of a story that could have been told in two at the most is just annoying.



The MEH

-Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol.
See, when you take the romance out of a M.I. movie you're left with a shell of a thing, full of oddly lifeless action sequences and a stupid plot. Proof then to what happens when you take the heart out of a movie.

-The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
So brilliantly faithful to the old comic books that I found the film to be a lot like re-reading the comic books all these years later: Oddly unsatisfying and smaller than you remember. It's true you can't go home again.

-Star Wars: The Phantom Menace 3D
Tarted up in 3D frippery, The Phantom Menace still comes across as bland and as boring as ever.

-Contraband
Stupid bland film where Whalberg goes south of the border to buy fake currency to get his brother out of trouble. It all goes wrong, and then poof: happy ending. Why should we care?

-The Hunger Games
Wannabe take on The Running Man for the teen audience, it's an odd balancing act between a story about a brutal game where kids kill each other, and a big blockbuster movie for kids. Which means much obstruction and diversion and camera-shaking to stop it being a proper r-rated film.

-Men in Black 3
Funny for the most part, but the thrill is gone. The team is gone. The chemistry is gone.

-Brave
Meh for a Pixar film is actually bad, Pixar shouldn't be doing meh movies. Brave is a well made film, of course, but there just isn't really a spark to it like you'd expect from these guys. It just sort of rolls along, then a bear shows up.

-Snow White and the Huntsman
I don't really get the way this was done, as if the focus was more on preserving the cold feeling of a fairytale book, rather than just making a movie about a girl fighting to avenge her father. The film feels lost and listless, with no heart to be found.

-Abraham Lincoln – Vampire Hunter
Absurdist revisionist history at its best, but the crazy premise seems to undermine any attempt the film makes to get the audience invested in the struggle to save a nation.

-The Bourne Legacy
By the numbers Bourne sequel without the actual Bourne. Would probably have made a half-decent television show.

-The Expendables 2
Simple violence and one-liners. Don't come back if you don't have anything to say.

-Skyfall
Surprisingly the third Craig Bond movie is a much more familiar affair, harking back to elements and themes from older Bonds but with a really stupid plot. Furthermore Bond comes across as not only more callous than ever but also, remarkably, as incompetent. The movie may be slick, but I think Bond has lost his edge.



The GOOD

-Looper
Don't think about it too hard and you'll enjoy a character-driven thriller featuring the same character from different time periods. Just a shame the characters weren't very nice.

-Predator
I don't care that this was a classic re-release, I enjoyed the hell out of watching this finally on the big screen. Bold, intense, visceral, and tremendously done.

-The Raid.
More than just a series of astonishingly fantastic fight sequences in a high-rise building, The Raid also features something of a story that is concerned about honour, duty and brothers working together. Ok, it's not Shawshank or anything, but it's not half bad.

-Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows
A lot more bang, but still charming, the second modern Holmes film ups the stakes and delivers a more polished story for our detective hero.

-Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Really terrific old-school spy film that focuses on the spymasters during the cold war. Gary Oldman delivers a brilliantly-subtle performance as George Smiley.

-The Ides of March
Top notch political film, where Ryan Gosling pays for his naiveté by realising that the game of politics is just a game, and politicians are so very fallible.

- John Carter
Hugely ambitious science fiction/fantasy mash up following the tale of a civil war soldier who is transported to Mars and gets wrapped up in a war there between Martian forces. Flawed in many, many ways, this film still has a great adventurous feel to it, which is still worth something.

-The Avengers
Look, the film is as shallow as a paddling pool, but the fact remains that Joss Whedon pulls together a disparate team of misfit superheroes in order to fight a world menace, with style, charm and wit.

-Margin Call
Low key and very serious, Margin Call presents a detailed look into the mindset of the greedy assholes who've brought havoc to the world of international finance.

-The Dark Knight Rises
Christopher Nolan's bat-saga comes to an end with a hugely ambitious finale that sees Batman have to rebuild himself twice in order to save Gotham from chaos. Outreaches itself in several places, but ultimately it's earned it's ending.

-Argo
A well made film about an intriguing event in history, Argo works as a tense thriller despite Ben Affleck's character coming across as a little too restrained and controlled.



- Peace out