I know that the looking back and looking forward articles tend to get a bit thick in December and January, so I'll try to make this the last of them. Having recently listened to a Quarter to Three podcast in which they discussed their top ten movies of 2013, I found myself asking what my own top movies were. And while I'll spare you the top ten list, I'd like to review and discuss some of what 2013 had to offer.
I've realized that how much I enjoy a movie has largely to do with the expectations I have for the movie prior to watching it. If my expectations are high, I stand a good chance of not liking the movie because it will be so difficult for the movie to meet those expectations. Conversely, if I expect the movie to be terrible, I'm often pleasantly surprised.
There are also quite a few 2013 movies that I'd planned to see and haven't yet had the chance. I'd wanted to see Anchorman 2 with my wife, with a friend, and with a co-worker. I was looking forward to that movie a lot. I still haven't seen it. I also haven't yet seen The Heat, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, Kickass 2, Frozen, or Europa Report. And I held off on seeing the second Hobbit movie because of how horrifically disappointed I was by the first one.
My expectations for Iron Man 3 were fairly high, as are my expectations of all the Marvel movies post-Avengers. I was a bit disappointed, and I thought it was laughable that Iron Man's invincible armor was being shredded by single punches from Extremis subjects left and right. Giving Pepper Potts superpowers felt stupid and unnecessary. Later in the year, I was similarly disappointed by Thor: The Dark World, from which I'd been expecting great things.
The Will and Jaden Smith movie After Earth was fine - about what I expected. Entertaining, but not great. But I'd expected a lot from Elysium, and the movie made me sad because it really wasn't that good. Too much unnecessary violence, and not enough plot. I'd expected World War Z to be the worst movie of the year, as it had nothing other than the title in common with the book, which remains one of the best books I've ever read. I was pleasantly surprised to find that World War Z was simply a below-average zombie movie. I was also pleasantly surprised at Riddick, which I'd expected to be more of the same necromonger battles in a setting that wasn't sure if it wanted to be fantasy or sci-fi. Instead, they brought the movie back to the roots of Riddick, and it felt a lot more like Pitch Black, which was a thing of good. I'm surprised to say that I really enjoyed that film.
I also really enjoyed Oblivion, even though I've heard many criticisms. It felt more like actual classic science fiction than many of the other 2013 films, and it caught me off guard with its direction. I can't call myself a Tom Cruise fan, but somehow I always like his sci fi films.
Of course, my movie of the year was Pacific Rim. I know it's all special effects and very short on plot, character, and a lot of the stuff that makes films win awards, but what can I say? It's got giant robots punching giant monsters.
The stinker of the year would have to go to Man of Steel. So bad. I'll admit to not following comics nearly as closely as many of my friends, but they got Kal-El all wrong. In many ways, Superman is supposed to be an analog to Marvel's Captain America: a moral center for the superhero community. He's a grown-up in a world of children. Humanity bickers, has wars, plays petty politics, and he's left trying to point out to people that they're acting like babies. The movie got nearly nothing right. The only thing I liked is the way the movie's female Kryptonian antagonist moved when she fought - almost like The Flash. I did read one DC novelization in which Superman actually beat The Flash in a race by using strategy rather than raw speed alone. Yeah - Superman is fast.
Let's see, what else? The Wolverine? Crap. Ender's Game? Crap. American Hustle? I hated it. But the Joaquin Phoenix movie Her was very nice. Can you call that movie a romantic comedy? I don't know. But it took place in a very well-realized and plausible near future. I'm tempted to call it science fiction, but the only real science fictiony thing about it was the existence of artificial intelligence, and some nice technology that probably exists today but isn't yet available to consumers. The AI thing did go in a very interesting direction that wasn't explored deeply because this isn't a sci-fi movie and thus that isn't the focus. I also really liked the relationship between Joaquin Phoenix's character and Amy Adams's character - they were straight friends and there didn't have to be a romantic relationship. You don't see that much.
Gravity is a movie that I liked for a couple reasons. First, good movie. Yes, I know that Neil Degrasse Tyson poked some holes in its science, but you've got to be fairly savvy to have your suspension of disbelief seriously affected by those nitpicks. What surprised me is that I found myself actually glad to have seen the movie in 3D. I hate 3D movies and generally go out of my way to avoid them. But with the importance of depth of field in respect to the space debris, and the quality of the movie's special effects, it was pretty awesome.
Lastly, a movie I just saw over a friend's house last week. It's the kind of movie I wouldn't have enjoyed seeing with my wife, but with the group of guys I was with, it was a riot. The movie is insanely vulgar, but we had a lot of fun watching it. Movie 43. It's the kind of movie you watch and cringe throughout the entire movie. I swear, I wanted to hide behind my chair during the first skit. The film is a series of short unrelated skits, and the cast is pretty amazing. Dennis Quaid, Greg Kinnear, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Kate Winslet, Gerard Butler, Seann William Scott, Johnny Knoxville, Richard Gere, Kate Bosworth, Uma Thurman, Kristen Bell, John Hodgman, Liev Schreiber, Naomi Watts, Emma Stone, Seth MacFarlane, Patrick Warburton, Aasif Mandvi, Jason Sudeikis, Elizabeth Banks, Stephen Merchant, Kieran Culkin, and I've left off a lot of actors. If you watch it though - don't say I didn't warn you.