Inventory of Non-Original Films From the Last Decade

My goal in selecting films (especially at the movie theater) is to generally support original films. This is a necessity in a moviegoing landscape in which there’s barely air to breath for non-I.P. films.

However, I don’t bat .1000 and there is certainly a certain amount of films that are worth seeing anyway. Chris Nolan was originally hesitant to direct the Batman series because he didn’t want to be hemmed in. He eventually decided that he could make Gotham anything he wanted it to be and didn’t have to be beholden Tim Burton’s vision. It’s under that attitude that a lot of auteurs take these projects, and there is the plus of bigger budgets and paychecks . Or at least say that in hopes of stomaching the bigger paychecks.

However, there are limits in terms of the absurdity of these concepts. Perhaps to my detriment, I would not see Lego Movie no matter how good people said it was. A franchise based on toys that openly admits in the title that it’s a cash grab for merchandise sales? No thanks.

I looked through every non-original film I've seen in each of the years since I started keeping track of my movie viewing habits around 2002.

It should also be noted that some very acclaimed films like The Joker, Anatomy of a Fall, All Quiet on The Western Front, Mad Max Fury Road, Star Wars the Force Awakenings, Departed and Chicago were all unoriginal, so it's not necessarily an indicator of bad quality and there are levels to which these are original or unoriginal.

2024:

Borderlands-Video game Adaptation

Gladiator 2-Sequel

Wicked-Broadway adaptation

Madame Webb-Comic book adaptation

Inside Out 2-Sequel

Ghostbusters Frozen Empire: Sequel

Dune 2: Sequel

Best: Wicked certainly capitalized on the technical capacities of cinema. The color palette, richness of sound, and technical effects are more than enough to justify this cinematic adaptation. Not to mention, the Kubrick-like task of hand planting every rose for the multi-colored theme in the opening scene.

2023:

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny-Sequel

Asterisk and Obelisk-Comic book adaptation

Super Mario Brothers-Video game/TV adaptation

Haunting in Venice-Sequel (Remake)

Mission Impossible 7-Sequel

Book Club 2-Sequel

Anatomy of a Fall-Remake (Anatomy of a Murder)

Best: I applaud Haunting in Venice for going in new directions with the same character and theme. But the winner is Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny for doing so many things that one would think impossible for an action film with an 80-year-old lead. The film works with Harrison Ford’s age and continues to deliver realistic action scenes; it blends historical intrigue into its plot masterfully; it matches the tone of the original; it exhibits excellent chemistry between the leads; and it continues the motif of moving the film forward a decade and playing around in the entrapping of the 60s.

2022:

Enola Holmes 2-Sequel (Spin-Off)

Death on the Nile-Sequel (Remake/Literary)

Rosalie-spin-Off (Romeo and Juliet)

Dr Strange and the Multiverse-Sequel/Crossover

Valet-Remake

Top Gun Maverick-Sequel

Knives Out: Glass Onion-Sequel

Hotel Transylvania 4-Sequel

Batman-Reboot

Winner: Obviously, Top Gun. The film doesn’t aim for depth but feel-good summer fun with a dose of “USA Rules!” sentimentality, and it works. Tom Cruise never has to do much acting to simply be Tom Cruise, but the cast is a murderer’s row of younger stars and watching them have the time of their lives is where the party is.

2021:

Tick Tick Boom-Broadway Adaptation

Cruella-Live action remake

Space Jam 2-Sequel/Reboot

Legend of Shang-Tsi-Comic Book Adaptation

West Side Story-remake

Winner: Space Jam 2. The good-natured LeBron James can only carry the movie so far, but it’s really about these archetypic cartoons and the visual humor of the animators keeping up with them in the story. 

Edit: I forgot West Side Story, so yes, that. Remaking a classic is no easy task, and Spielberg and crew do an amazing job of reinventing each dance number with greater context and (I’m not going to say better; how can you top Jerome Robbins?) unique panache. The film is prescient and rich without feeling too bluntly political.

 

2020:
Bill and Ted Face the Music-Sequel

Rebecca-Remake

New Mutants-Spin-Off

Birds of Prey-Spin-Off

Prom-Musical Adaptation

Borat 2-Sequel (TV adaptation)

Enola Holmes-Spin-Off (Public Domain)

Downhill Remake (Force Majuere)

Sonic the Hedgehog-Video Game adaptation

Winner: Bill and Ted Face the Music is a sequel with a 29-year lag, so this was extra special watching it in a movie theater. It has a very unique sense of humor that harkens to the airheads of the 1980s with the twist that they are heroes on a cosmic scale: The fate of humanity somehow rests on them.

However, the American remake of Force Majuere is just the right combination of cringe humor and pathos to hit me in the right places.

2019:

Aladdin-Live Action Remake

Zombieland 2-Sequel

Men In Black International—Spin Off

Terminator Dark Fate-Sequel/Spin-Off

X-Men Dark Phoenix-Sequel (Reboot)

Jumanji Next Level-Sequel (Game Adaptation/Remake)

What Men Want-Remake

Joker-Spin-Off

Dumbo-Live Action Remake

Frozen 2-Sequel

If I went off my top ten list, it would be Joker, but is that really an intellectual property work. It’s mostly just a grand manifesto on the origins of violence marginally disguised as a superhero flick. I applaud it’s marketing and the fact that it could use the DC Comics banner to dupe a lot of low-literacy movie goers into seeing a more sophisticated film.

But in terms of a film that is riding the tails off a franchise, Zombieland 2 was a lot of fun. The chemistry of the gang, the comic relief provided by the Zoey Deutsch character, and in all honesty, I’ve never seen the zombie set-up done so well for a light comic relief angle.

2018:

Wreck It Ralph 2-Sequel

Tomb Raider-Reboot

Teen Titans Go to the Movies-TV Adaptation

Ocean’s 8-Reboot/Spin-Off

Ant Man and the Wasp-Sequel (Comic Book Adaptation)

Hotel Transylvania 3-Sequel
Solo-Prequel

Aquaman-Comic Book Adaptation

Overboard-Remake

A lot of serviceable entries here but no stand-outs. Solo has the epic feel of a Star Wars production and it’s not particularly bad. Alicia Vickaner, one of my favorite actresses, brings a certain credibility to Tomb Raider. Wreck It Ralph and Hotel Transylvania are among my favorite cartoon franchises. But the award goes to Aquaman. It’s so ridiculous (particularly from a science perspective), it goes back to being good again. This isn’t to suggest that Jason Momoa is as charming as he thinks he is, but he’s serviceable and doesn’t get in the way of the plot.

2017:
Cars 3- Sequel

Wonder Woman-Comic book adaptation

Kong: Skull Island-Prequel

Murder on the Orient Express-Remake
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End - Sequel

Murder on the Orient Express is a thinking man’s tent pole. The original was directed by the great Sidney Lumet and the cast had no less than six Oscar winners along with the incomparable Tony Perkins and Jacqueline Bisset. This one also has an all-star cast with  challenging roles to sink their teeth into. It’s easy in an ensemble piece like this for the plot to become an afterthought, but I found myself more into the plot than before. Was the CGI a little overdone? Admittedly, yes. Was Kenneth Branagh a little hammy? Sure, but it’s his damn movie, so I’ll let it slide.

2016:

Inferno-Sequel (Book adaptation)

Star Trek Beyond-Sequel

Now You See Me 2-Sequel

Suicide Squad-Spinoff/Comic Book Adaptation

Magnificent Seven-Remake

Batman vs Superman-Crossover

X-Men Apocalypse-Sequel (Reboot)

Finding Dory-Sequel

Ben Hur-Remake

Dr. Strange-Comic Book Adaptation

Alice Through the Looking Glass-Sequel

Ghostbusters-Remake

I’m calling a  four-way tie.

1)      Now You See Me is my guilty pleasure. I’m sure every aspiring musician has dreams of not just wowing the audience but using his abracadabra to play robin hood, engage in ninja fighting, and be among the world’s most popular celebrities. It’s wish fulfillment at its most blatant, but I’m here for it.

2)      Magnificent Seven gives us the pleasure of allowing some acting giants (Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Chris Platt) to play on the same time for once. There’s something incredible about a Western with authentic special effects. I’m sure Sam Mendes and Christopher Nolan would be complimentary of the explosives work that went into these battle scenes

3)      X-Men Apocalypse is a battle royale that juggles multiple storylines and character arcs in a way akin to a great ensemble film. Seeing Storm’s roots in Kenya or the Callabas’s equivalent of the dark web for mutant acquisitions. Quite a lot to play with.

4)      Finding Dory-There was a definite worry in the first half that Dory was just a drag on Nemo and Marlin. She was just grating, unappreciative, and not worth the trouble. But, man, the film hit me somewhere along the way. I was cheering and crying for the eventual reunion and in the same way that Ellen DeGeneres stole the show in Finding Nemo, Ed O’Neill surprised me in a big way here. Not to mention, you never go wrong with underseas visuals.

2015:

Jurassic World-Sequel/Reboot

Man from Uncle-TV Adaptation

Star Wars: The Force Awakens-Sequel/Reboot

Terminator Genysis-Reboot

Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2-Sequel

Hotel Transylvania 2-Sequel

Hot Tub Time Machine 2-Sequel

Pitch Perfect 2-Sequel

Ant Man-Comic book adaptation

Mad Max Fury Road-Reboot/Spin-Off

Not loving the aesthetic of Mad Max Fury Road, I’m tempted to go with Man from Uncle which oozed style and sophistication. However, Star Wars: The Force Awakens was another testament to the power of JJ Abrams as a storyteller. It seemed like the Star Wars story had come to a perfect conclusion, but JJ Abrams found a new angle on it.

2014:

Penguins of Madagascar-Spin Off

X-Men Days of Future Past-Sequel/Prequel

Into the Woods-Broadway Adaptation

Jack Ryan: CIA-Reboot

Captain America: Winter Soldier-Sequel

Into the Woods is definitely an unusually dark and playful musical even if there’s almost too much tragedy to take. Considering I feel like X-Men Apocalypse makes better use of its ensemble. Penguins of Madagascar is a weak entry in the field.

Every Film I've seen in 2015 Ranked:16-30 (Part II)

The Bottom Half of my 2015 Cinematic Viewing (The Better Half):

16. Bridge of Spies dir. Stephen Spielberg, starring Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Amy Ryan, Scott Shepherd, Sebastian Koch, Alan Alda-A visually beautiful film and a nice compliment to Spielberg’s filmography. I’m happy with this film earning a Best Picture nomination as it was an interesting contrast to the other seven choices and this is superior to that subgenre of bland period piece that is made to win these kinds of awards (looking at you “The Queen”). That said, I felt like knocking it down a few notches because the historic character seemed tweaked a bit to fit the standard Tom Hanks persona so it wasn’t as much of an acting challenge. I also feel like the film could have been more kinetic even though the film’s fans say that is a complaint of the ADD generation.

17. Ant Man, co-written by Edgar Wright, starring Paul Rudd, Corey Stoll, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Pena, Bobby Cannavale, w/small doses of Judy Greer-I’ve pretty much reached my saturation point with superhero films but you can’t deny the originality about a superhero who goes microscopic. Some of the stuff (i.e. “I’m in a tight spot, time to go subatomic!”) seemingly comes straight out of a 1950’s B-movie (or at least the version that was gently parodied on that one episode of “Star Trek Voyager”), but hey, the film has a lot of built-in novelty with the special effects and action scenes. There’s a fair amount of going through the motions with the action scenes but the principals are game enough to carry the material and, hello, microscopic action scenes!

18. Jurassic World, dir. Colin Trevorrow, prod. Steven Spielberg, starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent Denofrio, Irrfran Khan, Jake Johnson, Lauren Lapkus-Was I wrong in expecting a Spielberg-produced film to have more of a pro-nature leaning? Spielberg’s past films that featured monstrous animals (i.e. the original “Jurassic Park”, “Jaws”, the Spielberg-produced “Super 8”) never really posit the beast as the villain but rather uses them as a metaphor for fear of the unknown. But Jurassic World’s baddie is cartoonishly amoral and it’s a mildly disturbing creative direction to take the series. Other than that, I didn’t find the kids as annoying as most critics did, I liked Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard’s chemistry, and Lauren Lapkus and Jake Johnson played admirable comic relief. The Lapkus-Johnson non-romance (she has a boyfriend, ouch! oh wait, there's an awkward hug, awww) is the best lampshading of romantic conventions I’ve seen from a film in a while.

19. Pitch Perfect 2 dir. Elizabeth Banks, starring Anna Kendrick, Brittany Snow, Skyler Austin, Rebel Wilson, Hailee Steinfeld, Katey Segal, Adam Devine, Keegan-Michael Key- Not a bad film. Points are docked for originality, of course, but as sequels go, it fulfills its destiny pretty well by knowing the original’s sweet spots and expanding upon them. Plot credibility, of course, flies out the window here to keep the cast in tact: A senior intentionally flunks three times just to stay in an a capella group, somehow the guy who ditched the group to sing back-up for John Mayer is back, etc.

20. Chappie, dir. Neill Blokamp, starring Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver and the voice of Sharlito Copely-Not sure why the critics are hating on Blokamp here, but I found this to possess that same kind of regional cinema charm as District 9. It’s a moderately thought-provoking sci-fi concept about whether one can truly become sentient and if it falls short of answering that question, it’s because there really isn’t a satisfactory answer anyway (I’ve always  had the same complaint of Data on “Star Trek: TNG”). The film has some wickedly funny moments that are funnier than the film has any right to be and, for me at least, it worked.

21. Home, voiced by Rhianna, Jim Parsons, Steve Martin-These three were so adorable as an odd triplet of sorts on the press rounds that I gave in and watched this on Netflix. It’s about as good or as bad as you’d expect: A passable level of charm, some multi-level humor, and mildly impressive visuals.

22. No Way Out, starring Owen Wilson, Lake Bell, Pierce Brosnan-Times really have changed that critics and the vocal subset of movie goers who voice their opinions online no longer tolerate anything that’s politically incorrect. Hey, as long as you don’t retroactively move to revoke the Best Picture nomination for “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”, I’m ok with highlighting the faults of something this ridiculous. At the same time, this was a year in which I saw a lot of politically correct films that are terrible in other ways, so this film is still pretty far from the bottom. It’s actually a narratively interesting film in the manner of Alfonso Cuaron’s “Children of Men” or “Gravity” in which the outside world is painted through the periphery of a single character’s journey. Also, the action is pretty intense in a good way.

23. McFarland USA, starring Kevin Costner, Maria Bello, Carlos Pratt-A sincere and well-shot film but one that’s ultimately forgettable. That it was released in cinema’s graveyard season (January-April) is a good indication that it wasn’t particularly good but I had to see it for myself because I was an avid cross-country runner in high school. The efforts by the film to turn cross-country into an action sport come off more like Terrence Malick than an ESPN-driven style and (while there’s merit in the former), perhaps the latter might have made the film a bit more memorable. Marginally worth watching if you run. Oh and there are white people and Hispanics getting along and learning about each other's cultures (in other words, a very tacked-on atttempt at thematic racial harmony).

24. Terminator: Genysis, starring  Arnold Schwarzenegger, Emilia Clarke, Courtney Jai, Jason Clarke, JK Simmons-Although I didn’t experience Terminator until I was in my 20s, this was my most anticipated film of the summer. Even the bad reviews couldn’t steer me away because the franchise has such a great pedigree (intricate time travel scenarios, cat-and-mouse games with an indestructible robot, etc) but somehow the film found a way to mangle a can’t-lose situation. How? By attempting to tie into the plot continuity of the series while simultaneously erasing everything that came before it. I could listen to a defense of whether the new storyline makes sense but the film’s reasoning is just surface-level dumb. This is one of those situations where the only way to salvage a chance at an enjoyable viewing experience is to turn your brain off which is shame considering this is such a thought-provoking series.

25. Hunger Games IV: Mocking Jay Part II dir. by someone other than Gary Ross, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Helmsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Julianne Moore, Donald Sutherland, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Woody Harrelson-To be fair, I went into the film (more like dragged) thinking it should be ashamed of its existence. Aside from the fact that splitting up the last part of the trilogy strikes me as the low road, The Hunger Games seems like a perfectly self-contained story. One could make the argument that Katniss and her empty gaze as she looks out the train towards an uncertain future is a poignant way to end a serviceable adaptation of a very good book. Why do we need to know all the details of what comes next? I still more or less maintain that the film would have been better off not existing, but if it HAD to exist, it wasn’t terrible (only moderately disappointing) but better stories have been told about dystopic politics. The special effects were certainly innovative.

26.  Rikki and the Flash, dir. Jonathan Demme, starring Meryl Streep, Mamie Gummer, Kevin Kline, Audra McDonald, Rick Springfield-I still haven’t forgiven Demme for scaring the hell out of me when I watched ”Silence of the Lambs” as a kid. I’ve enjoyed some of his films since, but his problem is the opposite here: This film is completely and utterly boring. Demme uses a similar style to 2008 critical hit “Rachel Getting Married” but repeating the framework of the last film verbatim is like trying to use the same magic trick twice on the same audience: It doesn’t feel like this film has anything to say that hasn’t been said more profoundly with Jenny Lumet’s screenplay in RGM.

27. Staten Island Summer, written by Colin Jost, starring Graham Williams, Zach Perlman, Ashley Johnson, Bobby Moynihan, Cecily Strong, Mike O’Brien-You would think that the increased prestige of the home market that people would be doing innovative things with direct-to-video movies. So far, the stuff I’ve watched (I saw Coffeetown in 2013, Camp Takota in 2014, and this) has been equivalent to the stuff you’d see in the $3 bin at Target. In other words, the new class of  direct-to-video movies seems about a s good as the old class of direct-to-video films. Written by that SNL Weekend Update anchor who has been roundly criticized for lacking in personality, this film isn’t much of a step up for him. It aims low (which isn’t a good thing) and moderately delivers on that low mark, but considering the degree of difficulty is so low to start with, why bother?

28. Tomorrowland, dir. Brad Bird, starring Britt Robertson, George Clooney, Hugh Laurie, Raffey Cassidy-One of my goals in writing about film is to argue that the state of moviedom would be better if we collectively acknowledged that George Clooney is overplayed. And yet, I am guilty of occasionally buying a ticket to a George Clooney film on my own volition because there’s a catch to trying to avoid a star you don’t like: The man works with some of the best directors in Hollywood in projects so promising, that even his unwanted presence can’t bring down a film to the point where I wouldn’t want to see it. The premise of a film about the future based on the world’s fair exhibits with Brad Bird at the helm seemed too good to resist, but I wish I made more effort. This is an incoherent mess with simultaneously little and too much interest in investing the viewer in what little coherence there is. And did I mention that the main relationship is with a grown man and his unrequited love for a robot who still looks nine years old?

29. San Andreas, starring Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandria Daddario, Ioan Gruffudd, Hugo Johnstone-Burt, Paul Giamatti-This falls to the bottom of the list because the film’s reason for existence is just so paper thin. I might have been satisfied if the film didn’t pretend it was about anything more than things going kaboom, but devoting precious minutes to a B-plot in which Paul Giamatti plays a doctor of geology trying to exposition away something that makes no sense is a ridiculous gambit to try to turn exposition into meaningful drama. It would be the equivalent of adding a dramatic subplot to "The Fast and Furious" involving the guy who designed the fuel mix. Not that the A-plot has any meaningful characterization. I’m thrilled to see Alexandra Daddario and Carla Gugino get gainful employment in movies but their chemistry with Dwayne Johnson is utterly unconvincing as a nuclear family. The only way I’d make an exception for a film this shallow is if it were directed by Roland Emmerich whose entire skill set as a director is restricted to blowing up cities in style. I can marginally tolerate Emmerich exploiting the same cinematic blueprint in marginally different scenarios but filmdom doesn’t have room for Emmerich and a no-name emulating Emmerich’s style.

30. Pixels, dir. by some guy who basically did whatever Adam Sandler told him to do, starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Michelle Monaghan, Josh Gad, Peter Dinklage-I was intrigued by the video game concept but silly me for not taking into account the squandering of a good thing by the black hole known as Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Production Company. Twenty years after his departure from SNL, Sandler’s comic career is a prime example of what happens to a comic if a lack of studio interference and a steady (but not great) box office following inhibits a comic’s growth. I would argue that Sandler’s 8-year-old-in-a-grown-man’s-body shtick never held that much appeal but the rest of the public seemed to like him when he first broke out and even those supporters now agree his star wattage seems to be fading.

Every Film I've Seen in 2014: Ranked 1-29

1. Gone Girl-Everything I look for in a great film: David Fincher's latest work is challenging, thought-provoking, engaging and novel. It asked profound questions about our presumptions and biases in the media age with one of the most gut-wrenching twists in moviedom and a wonderful coming out performance for frosty Bond Girl Rosamund Pike. Ben Affleck, Casey Wilson, Carrie Coon, Kim Dickens, Neil Patrick Harris, and *gasp* even Tyler Perry deliver great supporting performances for one of the year's most unlikely ensembles.

2. Grand Budapest Hotel-Wes Anderson never fails to deliver on his quirky style but this was one of his more translatable and universally profound films. The comical performance by Ralph Fiennes and the relationship between Gustav and Tony were two things that made the film timeless outside of the Wes Anderson fan contingent. On top of that, the picturesque setting of a posh hotel in bizarro Central Europe lends itself well to some of Anderson's best visuals.

3. Interstellar-To call this film ambitious is an understatement. To translate a realistic look at space travel with black holes and relativistic jumps in time is a tall order but Christopher Nolan's up for the challenge and did not hold back on his intricately crafted style of storytelling. Some found the story ridiculous with "love" saving the day but I went along for the ride.  

4. Whiplash-Like the first three entries on this list, this film is thought-provoking and novel. It's kinetic, it takes you deep into a world you never knew existed before, and it has some of the most memorable scenes of the year. A fully-realized film thematically, no scene is really wasted here.

5. Wild-A masterful adventure film based on the true-life story of a woman's journey along the Pacific Coast Trail. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallee of "Dallas Buyer's Club," the film enables the viewer to really experience the physical strife and isolation of Cheryl Strayed's journey. It's like "Cast Away" or "127 Hours" but it also works well when it features the protagonist making connections with other people.

6. Calvary-The film is an exploration of grief, sin, unhappiness, faith, and the emptiness that comes with wealth. In spite of all that, the journey of the priest (played brilliantly by Brendan Gleeson) is one of hope despite the fact that this could possibly be his last week on Earth.

7. Pride-A feel-good film that balances a large ensemble incredibly well. It's a little sugary but it's based on a sugary historical moment, so oh well. 

8. Birdman-Films about actors and filmmakers can become a little vain. This is the third time in four years that a film about making a film (or a play) won Best Picture and that's slightly problematic. Alejandro Inarritu unapolagetically wears his heart on his sleeve when he makes pictures and that human touch ties so many disparate projects of his. In this case, the performances are great and the merging of story, technological innovation (which some might call trickery), and a wicked score merge to make something that's awards worthy on some level.

9. Into the Woods-The film is adapted from a Stephen Sondheim play which presents some near-impossible challenges when it comes to deciding how to intermingle the light-hearted humor and Gothic angles. It's hard to say whether director Rob Marshall nailed the transitions. On top of that, the film's tone is incredibly jarring as "Happy Ever After" turns into six different levels of weird in the second half. In spite of all that, the film was really memorable in a twisted way. Moreover, the musical element adds something: The song's aren't particularly hummable but the cast displays their theatricality with the numbers. 

10. A Million Ways to Die in the West-With the exception of one scene (Neil Patrick Harris's shoot-off) Seth McFarlane stays clear of overly crass and low ball humor in this extremely hilarious parody that makes great use of McFarlane's hyper familiarity with pop culture. Although it's definitely a popcorn film more than an ambitious comedy (by Jason Reitman, Edgar Wright or Christopher Guest), few comedies can deliver such a strong rhythm of laughs like this and that deserves credit. The film's also better looking than a comedy has any right to be.

11. Still Alice-Better known as the film that won Julianne Moore an Oscar but no one saw (this happens nearly every year in the Best Actress category and occasionally the Best Actor category too). The film is a bit devoid of momentum at times but the film is visceral and Julianne Moore's performance is a great example of an actress winning an Oscar for the right role. Alec Baldwin is great here as well.

12. Imitation Game-The way this biopic screams out for Oscar is mildly off putting if you're conscious of Oscarbait. The the story's insistence on cutting back to Turing's childhood is unnecessary, but the historic personalities portrayed here are very strong and memorable. Math isn't a very sexy topic and this film doesn't make it wholly interesting but it comes close.

13. Chef-Not a particularly ambitious film but a thematically coherent and well-paced one with a clear passion for its subject. 

14. X-Men Days of Future Past-The first couple X-Mens would probably have made my top 10 of their respective years and this one doesn't provoke that level of amazement from me but it's not really a flawed film either (except for the fact that actors like Anna Paquin, Halle Berry and the rest of the older X-Men are pretty much wasted in cameos). The film could have used some more focus on some of the other characters but the small scale focus on Beast-Wolverine-Magneto-X-Mystique is an interesting change and I like that it transitions decades rather seemleesly.

15. Begin Again-The narrative didn't really have that high of a high (Knightley's character anticlimactically decides to release the music herself anyway and the marriage reconciliation is equally forgettable) but it has some memorable moments and is made with a certain amount of passion for its subject. As a mood piece, it's very inviting and a worthy follow-up for Jay Carney for Once.

16. The Judge-Hank (Robert Downey Jr.) is such a dislikeable character that he turns this film into a downer pretty quickly. The argument scenes are almost like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, for example. At the same time, there's a lot to respect the film's ambition and there are a lot of thought-provoking moments here and there. Certain characters like Dax Shepherd's dim-witted lawyer and Vera Farmiga's Sam shine. The courtroom drama underneath it all is pretty decent too.

17. Boxtrolls-The only animated film I saw this year. It was interesting visually and I admired it's slightly darker themes. 

18. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit-This film certainly came in under the radar (I didn't hear about it until I took a chance on it at the Redbox) but I liked the idea of a hero who was essentially an analyst ("Get Smart" tried this on a comic level) with brains. Even his fighting style (I'd go so far as to say my two my favorite action scenes of the year were in this film) were fought using not just Jack Ryan's reflexes but his smarts. The score and visual look were also somewhat inviting.

19. Horrible Bosses 2-This is not a film with anything original to offer as a sequel. It's last act is too confusing to follow and I get the sense I'm not supposed to care. That said, it was more or less what I paid for: The familiar rapport between three solid comic actors with winning chemistry and some memorable set pieces. The addition of  Chris Pine and Christophe Waltz into the cast didn't hurt. Besides, the part of me that quit "House of Cards" because Frank Underwood never got his comeuppance, enjoyed seeing him in the slammer here.

20. Top Five-I love Chris Rock as a stand-up and I applaud him for making a personal film but I don't know if he's actually saying anything here. When given the opportunity to create, Rock's messages are somewhat pessimistic and a downer (His conception of Everybody Hates Chris is a loving family that's always threatening disciplinary measures on him). While the film worked thematically, I didn't feel like even the allure of Rosario Dawson could fill the holes of emptiness created by the protagonist's wealth. 

21. Long Way Down-Pretty much a by-the-book adaptation of a pretty unique story. A couple of the changes worked (making Toni Collette's character's son slighty able, softening Pierce Brosnan's character) while others didn't (shipping the two younger characters, the lack of resolution from the journalist spy/lover incident).

22. Cantinflas-A middling biopic with a few bright spots. It's specific to a setting but I was a little disappoint by how Mexican it felt beyond the subtitles.  The best part perhaps was seeing the guy's creative process in a trial-and-error kind of way.

23. Bad Words-Like "The Judge," it's main character was too dark to be uplifting or rootable. At the same time, I admire Bateman's decision to try something a little darker (whereas for Downey Jr., it's just routine). The movie would have been better if it had some interest in recapturing the spelling bee and recreating that drama. This could have been an opportunity to go specific. .

24. Snowpiercer-The premise for the film is novel and sets up some cool visuals and could go deeper into some sort of mythology if it held up under any level of scrutiny. Why are humanity's last survivors convinced that cramming into close quarters with people who want to oppress/murder them on a never-ending train is a good idea? The steps in the plot (someone dies, someone else gets shot in revenge) were repetitive and the ending was muddled.

25. Lucy-The film set up some cool action scenes and special effects. Moments like Lucy ignoring flight safety or chatting with her roommate while using 20,000 times more brainpower had a funny catharsis. I got behind the story of the character (and like what ScarJo did with Lucy) but a cool concept became more and more outlandish to the point of stupidity. The Morgan Freeman narration trope is getting strained at this point.

26. Foxcatcher-I'm sure I'm in the minority here but this film was as dull and as a Hallmark movie-of-the-week. So the creepy-acting guy with an inordinate amount of time to pursue his interest of a sport where young males touch and tumble with each other and barely acceptable ways, turns out to be a pedophile. That's a surprise? The film's scarce musical score is also annoying.

27. Captain America 2-A couple of the action scenes were great but I found myself caring so little about these characters that it felt like I was dropped into a long-running procedural midway through the season. Why do I care about Captain America as someone who didn't see the Avengers or the first Captain America film? Maybe I wasn't the target audience?

28. Mazerunner-I thought this was going to be about people trapped in a maze like what Ariadne would have designed in "Inception." And maybe they would have been running instead of walking. So much for reading too much into the title. It turns out they were trapped in a village without adults like "Kid Nation" with a more dramatic score and desperate ambitions to be a tentpole film. But, hey it was nice to see Patricia Clarkson for a few minutes.

29. Camp Takota-I was intrigued by the backstory of three YouTube stars crowdfunding their way to a film, but if this is what new media has to offer, I'm fine with the old studio system. This had no edge and barely even had a grasp of what summer camp is like. I wouldn't say Hannah Hart, Mamrie Hart and Grace Helbig are necessarily bad actors or that there personalities didn't shine through but it was a lazy attempt to fit their comic persona into a story. 

Fantastic Four Review (2007)

3 Stars:

If the critics had their way, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer would never have been made. They pretty much unanimously bashed the first Fantastic Four film, yet the film went onto a very respectable 56 million dollars opening weekend en route to a 154 million dollars overall.

I haven't yet seen the first film but if it's anything like the sequel, it isn't too hard to see why critics might feel like this franchise is a second-tier version of X-Men or Spiderman. The special effects can be pretty impressive at times. The London Eye sequence, for example, and the airborne battles are great set pieces. If I hadn't been introduced to Google Earth in the last couple of years, I would have been blown away by the scene where the Human Torch first chases after the Silver Surfer where the frame zooms out of Manhattan to a satellite photo of the Eastern seaboard as a flaming red speck and a silver fly across it. The problem, however, is that the special effects and the world they're set in do not seem well thought-out. Having the Human Torch and Silver Surfer bounce around from New York to Washington D.C. to outer space and Cairo without much second thought, almost feels like something out of a ripe-for-parody 1950's B movie.

That's the case for a lot of this movie: a villain with the name Dr. Von Doom (could they have been any less subtle?), this general blasé feeling by every character in the film about the world ending, etc. Take a film like "Independence Day" to see a somewhat more grandiose vision of our world as it faces a doomsday scenario. In "The Fantastic Four," Sue Storm (Jessica Alba) massages her husband's shoulders as he's being a work-a-haulic and says, "Relax, it's not like the whole weight of the world is on you." Actually, that's kind of EXACTLY WHAT IT IS. Batman is a superhero franchise that's set in "Gotham" and with it, this dark otherworldly atmosphere and Superman weaves together the world of the mundane in Manhattan with extraordinary abilities of Spiderman and his villainous counterparts. On the contrary, Fantastic Four, just appears set in Manhattan out of a lack of anywhere better to film it in. In short, Fantastic Four doesn't feel like a fully realized superhero film in tone.

What makes up for it, in part, is a certain kind of camaraderie between the characters. Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) and Ben Grimm (Michael Chilkis) both are characters imbued with a sense of humor and form a sort of Abbott and Costello chemistry. Besides just being eye candy, Sue (Jessica Alba) brings a sort of feminine balance to the group. Reed (Ioan Gruffudd) is the actual superhero of the group: the equivalent of Peter Parker in Spiderman or Wolverine in the X-Men series. Much of the drama centers around the choices he makes. When you see these four in interviews or press conferences, there's a chemistry between them all that makes them that much more appealing on screen.

The Hiro in Heroes

The NBC show Heroes was the #1 new drama this season and it was one of the few dramas that I did watch this season. I found it to be pretty good but it was also difficult to follow and it required a large commitment from the viewer. I'm not a humongous comic book geek so I might not have been drawn in as some other people but I liked it as I like X-Men: All the people with different powers.

It's a TV show that threads together multiple storylines and it juggles them pretty skillfully but some of the stories are more interesting than others. I think the most interesting of the storylines is that of the Japanese desk jockey Hiro Nakamura and his sidekick Ando. I wanted to analyze the relationship a little more here:

I think we love Hiro because he's a post-modern product of the superhero genre. He's this guy who's incredibly alien to our culture (it's kind of blatantly demonstrated through the fact that he doesn't speak Japanese) and understands it through his childhood affections of comic books. This is clearly reiterated through the line of Ando "you will follow in the footsteps of Star Trek and Superman" or whatever he said. That explains his geeky recitations of what a "hero" shouild be like. Also, there's a geographical symbolism. Wanting to come over to America and save New York is a kind of a twisted parrallel to immigrants wanting to come to America and take New York (the city long associated with the American immigrant experience) by storm in the 19th and early 20th century. Japan has higher living standards than America, but that's really irrelevant, anyway. It's kind of like Mystery Men or Galaxy Quest spoofing superheroes and Star Trek in a very post-modern way, by relying on characters who are intimately familiar and base their reality on those texts.

Ando is the muse through which the audience connects. He's this ordinary white collar worker like many of us who has this nutty friend who's a superhero. Like the audience he has a passing knowledge but a healthy superstition of superheroes until he sees Hiro's powers firsthand. Ando is drawn more and more into Hiro's quest and Hiro's enthusiasm spreads to Ando so he will follow him along on his journey, just as Hiro's enthusiasm is supposed to spread to the audience so we will follow him.

And the summer season is off: Spiderman breaks all the records

Well, the summer season has started (and I have yet to fully discuss that in another post that I had planned to post up) and it was a bang with the new Spiderman sequel. The critics gave it "mixed reviews" while the public saw it in record numbers. Early Sunday projections come to the tune of $149 million and all I can say is that I saw both these trends coming. It seemed obvious that the critics wouldn't like the 3rd part of a trilogy because they rarely do. The expectations are so high, that they're usually expecting the next Citizen Kane and this is usually more the case when the film directors like the 2nd half of the trilogy better. Roger Ebert called X-Men 2 the best superhero movie he'd ever seen until the year after that when he proclaimed Spiderman 2 the best superhero movie ever again, so again the expectations are going to be high.

My city paper's film critic, Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post, went on to express this self-fullfilling prophecy in her review of the film. She basically said, "Spiderman 3 cements the rule that the third leg of a trilogy will always be a massive disappointment, just like Batman Forever and X-Men 3." As I constantly try to remind people, it wasn't until Batman & Robin that the Batman series took a real dive. Batman Forever remains one of my favorite superhero films and I have yet to hear a rational argument for why X-Men 3 was not a good film. Maybe slightly less effective than the first two films, but the level of acting, plot complexity, and special effects are still way up there. By no means do I equate Brett Ratner and Bryan Singer as directors (I think much higher of the latter), but without seeing the opening credits, I would openly challenge many of the film critics who bashed X-Men 3 to identify whether it was a Singer or a Rattner movie.

I also expected Spiderman 3 to do tremendously well, but duh. The harder question is why. I much prefer the X-Men series and tried to show it to my dad once, but for some reason he has a habit of running in the opposite direction of anything that appears sci-fi and about halfway through, he felt it was just unappealling and walked away.

It was too complex for him and in that respect, Spiderman with only one hero (Peter Parker), one villain (Doc Ock or the Green Goblin), one girl (MJ), and one variable who shifts in between (Harry Osborn), it's superhero/supervillain entertainment watered down enough so that anyone can partake. That's kind of the way I see it, at least. Magneto is a villain of Shakesperean proportions and he plays games of chess with his biggest arch rival. Despite Alfred Molina and Willhem Dafoe being serviceable actors, they played one-dimenstional villains. In Spiderman 1, the Peter Parker-MJ relationship is so cliche of the girl-next-door type story, that she's even literally next door. I also didn't feel that any of the key relationships evolved organically from Spiderman 1 to Spiderman 2. Harry and Peter Parker are "best friends" but that is merely a plot point. Do we ever see the two actually canoodling as friends? Despite the cliche factor, I might say that it was a somewhat effective progression from boy having a crush on girl to the two falling in love in Spiderman 1, but in Spiderman 2, there's an awkward stability between the two and they act as if they're lifelong friends. MJ is expecting things of him as "her best friend" such as being on time to the play. It's merely a relationship established at the start of the picture to move it along from one end of the spectrum to another.

Nevertheless, I do like the Spiderman Series and would give both movies thumbs up. I think that they do a great job of intermixing the superhero within the mundane world and that's another reason why this superhero trilogy has become such a mega force at the box office. Because it attracts the comic book nerds in droves while it attracts the people who aren't drawn to comic book storytelling. I think Tobey MaGuire is cast extremely against type and it plays off especially well. I just don't think it's on the level of really great movie making

Nevertheless, I will probably see Spiderman 3, mainly because when something's this big, you've gotta jump in and see what it's all about. I'm also extremely curious to see what they've done with Thomas Haden Church

Review of X-Men 2

Review of X2:
With much of the exposition out of the way, the second installment of the X-Men is much freer to develop its characters and engage in some summer fun along the way. The film benefits from its large and talented ensemble, which includes a number of new heroes and villains entering the scene. New characters include a vanishing monk named Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) and a conflicted teenager with firepower named Pyro (Shawn Ashmore). Of course, we're treated to a brand new villain (Bryan Cox), which adds a new dimension to the battle of good vs. evil as the good guys and bad guys are forced to enter into a temporary alliance and some riveting complications result thereafter. Overall, Bryan Singer has the challenging task of navigating the complexities of this comic and showing the appealing side of this band of misfits, and he comes through in flying colors
With much of the exposition out of the way, the second installment of the X-Men is much freer to develop its characters and engage in some summer fun along the way. The film benefits from its large and talented ensemble, which includes a number of new heroes and villains entering the scene. New characters include a vanishing monk named Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) and a conflicted teenager with firepower named Pyro (Shawn Ashmore). Of course, we're treated to a brand new villain (Bryan Cox), which adds a new dimension to the battle of good vs. evil as the good guys and bad guys are forced to enter into a temporary alliance and some riveting complications result thereafter. Overall, Bryan Singer has the challenging task of navigating the complexities of this comic and showing the appealing side of this band of misfits, and he comes through in flying colors