I'm listening to the Quarter to Three movie podcast of The Best of 2012, in which they list their favorite movies of 2012. I'm realizing how many of last year's movies I haven't yet seen, but I'm also realizing how few good movies there actually were last year. I mean, seriously, this is my personal 'best of' list, and I'm really only enthusiastic about fewer than half of the movies on it. Maybe I should say I like less than half of them half as well as they deserve.
I haven't yet seen Lincoln, Django Unchained, Rock of Ages, Jack Reacher, Skyfall, End of Watch, Wreck-It Ralph, Cloud Atlas, or Taken 2. For all I know, some of those might be on my top ten - I suspect that Lincoln would. But of the 2012 movies I did see, here are my ten favorite.
10 - The Dark Knight Rises I don't really have a lot to say about this movie. I didn't love it. I also didn't love Batman Begins. The second movie in the series was transcendant, due in large part to Heath Ledger's Joker, but everyone already knows that.
9 - The Amazing Spiderman There was a lot I liked in The Amazing Spiderman and a lot that I really didn't like. I feel that the movie was hurt by the existence of the Tobey McGuire pictures in that the best villains (Doc Oc, Sandman, Green Goblin, Hobgoblin, Venom) had already been used. Also, another retelling of the origin story would have really put people off, which is why they skipped the prize fight. The story involving Peter's parents was a really strange twist, and I didn't like it. But at least they had him invent his own web shooters.
8 - Total Recall I found this movie to be an odd mix of nostalgia and new elements. They had many tongue-in-cheek references to the Arnold film, including Mars, a three-breasted woman, and the lady at customs who says "two weeks". Sadly, there was a distinct lack of wet towels around heads and Johnny Cabs.
The movie wasn't terrible, but it wasn't a standout either. Good action, but very forgettable. The transport through the Earth's core was implausible at best, and the global chemical warfare angle was poorly covered and left lots of plot holes.
7 - Looper Add Looper to the sizable list of time travel movies that just do it wrong. As much as I love Back to the Future, I thought movies had moved beyond their flawed pseudoscientific philosophy. But it's easy to like Bruce Willis, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt did a good Bruce Willis impression. It's just so hard to believe that The Mob gets ahold of time travel, and the thing they use it for is not taking control and amassing power, but rather disposing of bodies.
6 - Prometheus Ah, Prometheus. There's so much about you to criticize. The one guy who was scared of venturing out is the one guy who later wants to leave alone? And he somehow manages to get lost despite the fact that he's the only guy with the map? Then this terrified guy wants to pet the evil death monster? Come on, Prometheus, come on.
I'd need a separate post to list all the things about Prometheus that didn't make sense. But I still liked the movie better than every other 2012 movie I've seen, with the exception of the ones in this list that follow.
5 - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey My expectations for The Hobbit were perhaps too high. But how could they not be? Peter Jackson's Lord of The Rings movie adaptations are the best book-to-movie adaptations ever made. In a discussion on Google Plus recently, I distilled my feelings on the movie's failings into three items. Firstly, The Hobbit is tonally very different from The Lord of the Rings in that it's a light romp rather than an epic struggle against evil. After having seen these characters go through so much, watching them in an earlier and less dramatic story is moving backwards. Secondly, The Hobbit is a very short book - far shorter than any of the three volumes in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Splitting it into three movies requires an enormous amount of filler, and the filler isn't very good. Third and last, the Lord of the Rings movies were so good that The Hobbit was never going to stand up to their quality.
4 - Cabin in the Woods The horror movie aspect very nearly drove Linda and I away, since horror movies aren't generally our thing. But in the end the variation on the theme really got us, and we both really enjoyed it.
3 - Chronicle Chronicle certainly isn't a perfect movie. Many other years, it might not even be on my top ten list. The found footage angle of it was probably the part of the movie I liked least. But the development of the characters throughout the movie felt so organic - I believed it. The movie had an Akira thing going, and I had fun with it.
2 - The Hunger Games I want to dislike the movie simply because it's a popular YA book. But that's just my distaste for Twilight talking. I read the first two books in the series and two thirds of the final book, and the first two books are actually very good. The movie was good as well.
1 - The Avengers And here it is. The one standout in a year full of substandard films. Before this, the first Iron Man movie had been my favorite superhero film of all time. I don't think I need to do much explaining here - if you've seen The Avengers, you know.
Aside from the top ten, I can think of a few other mentionable films. Worst movie of the year goes to Killer Joe, and best bad movie was Dredd. My most disappointing movie was Argo, which I didn't like despite the fact that everyone else loved it. I'm not sure why. And the movie I had the most trouble liking was The Grey. I know it was a good movie - it was just so dark.