Day 4 as we get into the Top 20 and see those movie that were really good but not quite great.
20. Final Destination 5
- A fun stab at the franchise after the horrible
4th one from last year. They pretty much do everything right here
that they didn’t do well in the previous one. The characters are better which
makes you involved in the story. The tension is incredibly high through a few
scenes and one scene will make you seriously consider ever having Lasik Eye
Surgery. The scene with the gymnast on the balance beam is about 5 minutes of
nail biting as they set up 4 or 5 difference things that could happen and then
what happens comes completely out of left field. Also, the director here was a
second unit director on some Cameron films so he knows how to use the 3D
effects to great…um, effect
19. Horrible Bosses
- When you get casts with a bunch of stars the
script sometimes has problems keeping up with all of them. Here the script
plays to all the characters individual strengths and remains hilarious while
doing so. Spacey is great in his role which is basically him riffing on his
character from Swimming with Sharks. The revelations though are Farrell
and Aniston who play against their type here and find some hilarious places to
take the characters at every turn. Jamie Foxx is excellent in his small role
and the three leads (Bateman, Sudekis, and Day) find the right mix for their
parts to avoid becoming caricatures and staying sympathetic throughout. There
was some initial talk about this plot being directly from Hitchcock's Strangers
on a Train, and they do a great job of alluding to that in a discussion
about halfway into the film. The one minor complaint is that the film could've
gone for a darker tone but sort of backed off that to keep it broad. It's a
really minor gripe though.
18. Cars 2
- The first Cars took a bunch of flack from
people, and I never quite understood why. Maybe it was simply because it wasn't
Toy Story or Monsters Inc. Maybe it was because it was a bunch of talking cars.
Maybe it was because the fast moving society in which we live couldn't deal
with a movie celebrating the slowed down nature of a time long ago. Perhaps it
was because Larry the Cable Guy was a major character in the film. The bad news
is that if you fell in the last group you are not going to like this film
because LTCG is a bigger part of this one. To be fair, he is really good in
this film and while he can't replace Paul Newman- he does his best to interject
enough of his "Aw shucks" charm to soften the blow. The story is a
spy thriller as someone is trying to destroy new faster cars in an attempt to bring
back the Lemon cars of old. Mater gets caught up in the plot and gets drafted
by the British intelligence agency to help out with the case and that leads to
plenty of fish out of water scenarios to explore. Most of them hit. At least
one fails miserably but only because it is so questionable. (In Germany the bad
guys trap Mater in the back of a semi and gas him. How did that possibly get
past the idea stage?) The rest of the film though is an absolute delight both
acting wise and visually. The graphics people here give the locations their own
unique spin and there are enough sight gags (the pope mobile riding in a pope
mobile) that you will chuckle. This skews younger than most Pixar films but it
still has enough smile inducing moments to engage the adults in the crowd.
17. X-Men: First Class
- On some levels this is a really fun movie. It
plays off the viewer knowledge to the point where we are spotting things that
we know in later films will come up. Overall though this is a film that
rises above some quirky material by the
performances of James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Kevin Bacon. All three of
them grab hold of the viewer every time they are on screen and demand your
attention. McAvoy plays Professor X with the same class and dignity that
Patrick Stewart later brought to the part. He is the steadying influence on the
X Men as he tries to be rationale about everything and avoid them blowing up
and wiping out civilization. Fassbender has an even more menacing tone than
McKellan found in the role of Magneto. He is playing nice for the sake of the
cause but underneath it all he is sneering at everyone and everything and is
insulted by how McAvoy associates with humans. Bacon is just enjoying his run
as the bad guy here and he owns every single scene he is in. After that though
the performances get a little worse and January Jones is absolutely horrid in
her role. If she wasn't so appealing to the eyes she would be totally useless
in her role. The students at the class get varying degrees of material but
Jennifer Lawrence continues her great run here by rising above the material
here. I'm only gonna go middle of the road here but that shouldn't be taken as
me hating the movie. In the end I feel sort of ambivalent towards it. The cameo
midway through was a nice surprise though.
16. Thor
- Thor has always been one of the odder
characters in the Marvel universe. He's based off legitimate myths that are
taught to kids in school and when you start explaining his back story it can
get pretty damn convoluted. Here though, they do an excellent job of telling
the back story but also telling a story that keeps the plot moving forward and
never dulls the viewer. They do this by inserting the viewer directly into the
middle of the story and then flashing back to a previous event. So instead of a
cold open to the movie, they tease something happening and then show you why
that thing happened. It's a different tactic but it's one that works. I found
it especially refreshing after watching the first X-Men again last night. That
movie is downright dull. That isn't me saying it's a bad film, but it's not
really controversial to say that they take a long time to set up the story of
the characters. By the time they get it all set up, the movie is close to its
end. This helped the second film to be better. It already had the exposition
down and it jumped right into the middle of the action. (And it's not really
controversial to say that the third one kinda blew hard). But anyway, back to
Thor- Chris Hemsworth is really great in this role, and Kenneth Brannagh brings
some great flourish to his directing of the film. He is well versed in
Shakespearean drama and gives some of the larger scenes that small touch. It
really works here. This film is designed more for the masses so it may leave
some hardcore comic fans cold, but this is a fun little popcorn flick with some
great dramatic touches.
15. Contagion
- For someone who is a germophobe like me this was the
scariest movie of the entire year. People coughing and then trying to shake
hands or touch me really freaks me out- especially when it is someone that I do
not know. Here a bunch of A-List actors
and actresses get together and try to figure out what is happening with this
unknown virus and how to stop it. Every character is expendable here and
Gwyneth Paltrow has a pretty graphic autopsy scene. This film is good and
clever but it does move pretty slowly at times which helped keep it from
getting any higher than this on the list.
14. Kung Fu Panda 2
- A better movie than the first one as Po tries
to track down his real father and ends up battling an heir to the peacock clan
to regain power in China. The peacock was trying to harness the power of
fireworks to take over the city and was told by a soothsayer that one day a
black and white apparatus would defeat him. From there you get a really nice story with Po trying his best to save the day and avoid screwing up everything time and again. The animation here is crisper than it was in the first one with a few different animation styles used throughout going from computer animated to (seemingly) hand drawn at times. The story here is more solid and the action scenes are above the high level the first one set. A superior sequel in every single way.
13. Captain America: The First Avenger
- This is probably my favorite superhero film of the summer. Everything
about the film just works including the setting and feel of the film.
The movie takes place in the 1940's and it truly feels like a film that
would have been made in that time. The CGI stuff early on with Chris
Evans could have been really cheesy but he infuses those scenes with
some pretty good pathos and develops the character so that when the
ending comes you truly feel for him. I also enjoyed how the movie took a
similar tact as
Thor and started further along in the story and
then went back and told you what happened. It breaks up the narrative
structure and works as a framing device rather than just telling the
origin story chronologically. Tommy Lee Jones is great in his role, but
it's really a part he can play in his sleep. Overall a breezy two hour
film that never overstays its welcome and never feels its length.
12. Rango
- It is a shame this movie didn't find a bigger audience from the start and instead had to plod along for a while. However, it probably isn't a huge shock that it didn't. It looks like an animated film for kids and while there is some slapstick and silliness for them- this is far more designed for adult audiences. It relies on the classic tropes of the Western film and incorporates the classic fish out of the water element of storytelling. Johnny Depp is a chameleon that gets lost in the desert on a family move out west. He gets stuck in a dry town where the residents are rationing water and trying to discover where their supply is all going. Depp takes the job as sheriff and has to defeat the bad guys and save the town. It is clever, funny, and carries a nice dramatic weight throughout that drives the story. This was a joy to watch.
11. The Muppets
- It sort of pains me to leave this on the outside of the Top 10 because I love this film. However, it speaks more to the strength of the Top 10, in my opinion, rather than to any weakness of this film. If I had one minor gripe it is something out of the hands of the filmmakers- and that is the voice of some of the characters. There is so much to like here as Segel writes a script that perfectly taps into the Muppet spirit without cheapening the characters. The music here is top notch with some classic Muppet songs (with the best one probably being "Pictures in My Head") and there is funny lines and concepts scattered throughout. Amy Adams is her normal gorgeous self and all the cameos work with one getting a huge pop in the theater. I won't say who it was but will hint by saying, "The response could have been described as a Big Bang." Also, Chris Cooper is great as the villain here. This movie will remind you why you loved the Muppets and how entertainment can be heart-warming AND fun.
Day 5 will probably come on Saturday so you may have to wait a few days for the all important Top 10.
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