2011, Worst to Best

The Middle Room has never looked favorably on top 10 lists. Are we so shallow, so simplistic, that we must examine only the good? Is not a year defined by both ups and downs, positive and negative?

And so, it only serves to reason that, in order to truly lay a year to rest, we must examine it in all its facets. Therefore, we present to you now a list of every single new movie with a theatrical release we watched this year, arranged from our least to most favorite:

16. Green Lantern: There's a case to be made that this may not quite be the worst movie we sat through this year, but there's no question it was the most disappointing. From the start, it was clear the filmmakers were adapting the right material: this was a modern version of the character, complete with the Lantern Corps in all its glory. On paper, it was precisely the formula used by Marvel to churn out film after film of geeky fun. But this movie sucked. The direction felt like it was lifted from bad sitcoms: nothing had any force or drama. So, for screwing up what we'd hoped would be our favorite live-action movie of the year, we're placing this dead last.

15. The Green Hornet: We actually caught this on DVD, having more important things to do than go see it in the theater. It wasn't all bad: there were some cool action sequences and funny moments, but it really failed to sell the idea of the Green Hornet. This character was a precursor to Batman and has some cool aspects - he's one of the few superheroes who manipulates his identities to achieve indirect results, for example. This movie tried to play the whole concept for laughs, as though the movie was too cool to adapt the Hornet and instead mocked it. The results were mixed, at best.

14. Cars 2: We actually liked Cars 2 quite a bit, despite the fact it was a really, really bad movie. The fact it's so low on this list is more reflective of how strong the other thirteen movies we saw were - this was, in fact, a very good year for film. But it was a bad year for Pixar. Everything that has made Pixar films work is missing: the movie's saving grace is that there's a brutally violent spy flick buried between scenes of Larry the Cable Guy trying to drive the audience to suicide. But the spy scenes actually deliver something cool, provided you have the patience to watch the rest.

13. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol: This was a solid action movie, though we disagree with nearly every critic on the planet, all of whom seem convinced it was the best in the series. Sure, there were some awesome sequences, but the plot failed to create tension or deliver a single interesting twist. This falls short of the third entry in the series, which was far more engrossing.

12. The Adventures of Tintin: A solid CG pulp adventure, Tintin was certainly enjoyable. Most years, it would have ranked much higher, but there were a lot of good films released in 2011. And, while it was definitely fun, it never felt like it was anything more. Neither the characters nor the story managed to draw us in and make the movie particularly memorable.

11. Thor: This misses the top 10 by a hair. It was a spectacular movie, and the visual portrayal of Asgard was kind of fantastic. But ultimately, it was a great comedy/love story, while only being a good superhero movie. Everything felt toned down and de-powered to keep it grounded. It was a great film, but this fact kept us from really getting caught in its world.

10. Winnie the Pooh: If you'd asked us a year ago to bet on our top movie of 2011, we'd have pointed to this. The fact it's so far down our list is more reflective of our expectations than the movie's shortcomings. But, frankly, there were shortcomings. The story-line was a mess, due to the writers' insistence on dissecting the original stories then reassembling the pieces. On top of that, the music just didn't win us over the way the songs in the original did. All that said, the animation was beautiful and the voice casting was just about perfect, so it's still a great little movie.

9. Rango: This was probably the most bizarre movie we saw this year, which is saying something given the list includes Arthur Christmas and Cowboys and Aliens. Rango is positively engrossing and fascinating on several levels. However, it might be a little too weird for its own good. The characters aren't actually likable and some of the film's twists come off as weird for the sake of weird. But make no mistake: it's one of the most innovative and ambitious movies we saw this year.

Note: numbers 8 though 4 are basically a tie. Depending on the time of day, we'd likely arrange these differently: all were extremely good movies.

8. Cowboys and Aliens: Yeah, we know we're the only ones who actually like this movie, but that's okay. The film is nothing like what we'd expected. We went in anticipating a dark, alien horror/adventure set in the old west. What we got was a zany buddy-adventure movie with aliens, lasers, and gunfighters. But that's cool: we really like those things, too.

7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2: Most people we've spoken to who have actually read the books rank this lower. Apparently, it's basically a by-the-numbers adaptation that adds very little. Having not read any of the novels, we found it an extremely exciting, emotionally engrossing conclusion to the films.

6. X-Men: First Class: This was shoved back two spots because we dislike how the movie handled most of its supporting cast. But every sequence with Charles and/or Magneto was phenomenal. The scenes with Erik tracking down and murdering Nazis were among the most satisfying ever filmed in a superhero movie. And then there's that cameo. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Brilliant.

5. Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Who expected Rise of the Planet of the Apes to make this or any other best-of list? Certainly not Fox, who released it in August with a modest marketing campaign. But this thing took us all by surprise. The story focuses on Caesar, a super-intelligent ape who is actually written well and depicted effectively. The movie sells its premise with shocking competency, allowing this to blow away all expectations.

4. Captain America: The First Avenger: While we have issues with this film - especially with the fact that Captain America doesn't fight a single Nazi in the movie (unless you count Hydra agents, which you shouldn't) - there's no denying it was one of the most fun superhero films ever made.

The last five were a bit difficult to assign, and we're not sure about the order. But we feel fairly confident in the top three; both in the fact they belong at the top and in their respective order:

3. The Muppets: There's a reason this was one of the most popular movies of the year: it was damn good. The movie's decision to focus on three new characters, two humans and a new, generic Muppet, took courage. From the moment we heard that, we couldn't get our minds around why they would make the choice. But it turned out being an extremely inspired move. The movie has been accused by some of not focusing on the Muppets, but we don't believe this is fair. The brilliance in using new characters is that the movie is instead able to explore what the Muppets are and how they're viewed within their universe. It's a complex movie. And it's also a hell of a lot of fun.

2. Arthur Christmas: We knew very little about Arthur Christmas prior to its release. The trailers we'd seen were less than intriguing. Then came the reviews, which were overwhelmingly positive. Based on its score on Rotten Tomatoes, we decided to give the flick a shot. And it was amazing. The character work was very developed, the writing was strong, and the jokes were hilarious. If you miss this in the theaters, make sure you check it out on DVD next Christmas: it's fantastic.

1. Kung Fu Panda 2: What a weird year. Not only does Pixar not deserve the Oscar for Animated Picture, their offering doesn't even deserve a nomination. In our opinion, this one deserves the prize (though we won't be offended if Arthur Christmas, Rango, or even Winnie the Pooh steals it). Yeah, it was a fantastic year for animation, but a horrible one for Pixar. But Kung Fu Panda 2 took up the slack. This was everything we hoped the sequel would be and then some. This skipped the cheap jokes and childish antics that held back the first one, instead unleashing what we consider the single coolest movie of the year. It was smart, dramatic, funny, and - most importantly - absolutely kick ass. The fights in this thing were beautiful, the villain was scary, and the heroes were awesome.

Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

For the second time this summer, Fox has failed to produce a bad movie based on a beloved property, and has instead provided us with yet another prequel which revitalizes a franchise, over-performs at the box office, and wows audiences. We suspect several high-ranking executives will lose their jobs; at the very least, we can't imagine either director will be welcome back to work at the studio again.

You see, Fox has something of a reputation. This is the company that procrastinated so long after X-Men 2, Bryan Singer left for studios that would actually let him work. Only when they were safely rid of his competence, did Fox hire Brett Ratner to rush X-Men 3 to theaters.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes certainly contains Fox's fingerprints, particularly in the casting. One part after another is type cast: who runs the facility where apes are kept caged: how about the guy who played William Stryker? What about his border-line sociopathic son: is Draco Malfoy free? We need someone to wear a motion-capture suit and pretend they're an ape: Andy Serkis.

There's every indication that Fox was trying to crank out a mediocre movie. But something must have gone horribly wrong, because Rise of the Planet of the Apes was awesome.

Perhaps the problem was in the script, which used the absurdity of the premise as a backdrop to explore Caesar's character, making him the center of the movie while relegating humans to the supporting cast. Or the issue may have been with the director, who clearly grasped the movie's potential and somehow made it happen. Alternatively, you can blame Weta Digital, who handled the effects with their usual attention to realism and character. The cast was likewise solid, providing performances that were insightful or at least fun, as needed. In particular, Serkis's portrayal of Caesar was absolutely genius.

Like First Class before it, Rise of the Planet of the Apes reminds us that a prequel can work. Four stars on a scale relative to Blade Runner's five.

Give Us Your Worst, Part 17: Blade: Trinity

Wesley Snipes is currently imprisoned, ostensibly because of tax evasion, the same charge that brought down Al Capone. We are certain that, had they been able to prosecute Snipes for his involvement in Blade: Trinity, the FBI would certainly have done so. At least justice is served, albeit on a technicality.

The main problem with Blade Trinity is that Blade one and two were actually good movies - very good, in fact. And number three just doesn't live up to expectations. When the best thing about your movie is Ryan Reynolds auditioning to be Deadpool, you've got a problem.

There's a lot wrong with Trinity. The movie elevates insulting its audience's intelligence almost to an art form. This is a film where humans engage in fist fights with vampires and win, despite the fact the entire series has been spent establishing that vampires are superhumanly strong and fast. People literally shrug off punches which should be able to pulverize concrete - was anyone thinking while they were filming this?

And then there's Whistler. Both Whistlers, in fact. When the second installment bent over backwards to retcon Abraham Whistler's death in the first movie, we accepted it on principle (comic books have been retconning away deaths almost since their invention). But why resurrect the series' most interesting character in the second movie only to kill him at the start of the third? His death here didn't seem to have any real lasting consequences or impact.

Then there's his daughter, Abigail, who regularly beats up vampires while listening to her iPod. While driving to seek vengeance on a group of vampires who just murdered her friends, she spends her time assembling a set list to listen to. We are unclear whether this was supposed to be funny, whimsical, or perhaps gritty and realistic. Whatever the intent, the end result is simply bewildering.

But none of this compares with the movie's villain, who is (after a fashion) supposed to be Dracula. If you were to actively go out and try to cast the least appropriate actor alive for the role, we suspect you'd wind up choosing someone like Macaulay Culkin or Jason Alexander, and either would have made for a more entertaining Dracula than Dominic Purcell, best known for starring in the short-lived Fox show John Doe. Describing him as non-threatening is an understatement. When Purcell is stalking or killing his victims, it's incredibly challenging to stay awake.

It's unclear whether Blade: Trinity is supposed to be more horror or action, an important distinction, as we don't know whether to call it one of the least interesting horror movies of the past decade or one of the most boring action movies we've ever seen. Perhaps it can be both.

Regardless, this is a movie lacking impact. It's slow, pointless, and completely inoffensive. Pull out the harsh language, and we doubt there's enough gore or violence to even warrant an R rating. This isn't sickening, like Punisher: War Zone, nor is the embodiment of sleaze, like Frank Miller's The Spirit. In the end, it's just a tedious exercise that lacks the thrills of your average made-for-TV movie. What a waste of time.

Give Us Your Worst, Part 16: Electra

Electra ultimately only has two flaws; unfortunately, they are not minor: 1. the movie ultimately misses the point, and 2. it is dull. That The Middle Room remains divided over which is the more serious infraction should serve to illustrate just how completely the film misses said point.

We are not experts on the comics Electra springs from, however we have some familiarity with the character. The movie portrays Electra as something of a reluctant assassin who kills because she's good at it, though the film strongly implies she hates the work.

This is, in a word, wrong.

It is our understanding that Electra does not generally do things she does not enjoy. She seems to be largely portrayed as something of psychotic killer, albeit a fairly affable one. She is, in some ways, a female counterpart to Wolverine.

To tedious effect, the movie attempts to explore Electra's deep seated psychological state, particularly her emotional state. This is, once more, a mistake. In fact, it's more or less the exact mistake made in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

It is important to appreciate the fact that Electra is a character created by Frank Miller, a man who does not write female characters with complex psychological states (he tried once, and within 24 hours, three prostitutes were found dead and a large sum of hush money was trading hands).

While we appreciate the sentiment of wanting to add some substance to the character, it ultimately eliminates the point of the film altogether. Electra exists to be a ridiculous ninja assassin who assassinates ridiculous ninjas. That's what makes her fun: attempting to add gravitas will not end well.

In the movie's defense, there were a handful of fight sequences which were kind of fun, as well as a number of interesting supernatural supervillains for Electra to kill. The cold opening was a decent enough depiction of the character - likely as accurate as anything we'll ever see on the screen - and Jennifer Gardner certainly looks the part when she's not sniffling or crying (pity that eliminates most of the movie).

Despite making many of the same mistakes as Wolverine, this was ultimately far less offensive. But don't expect even something on the level of Ghost Rider.

Give Us Your Worst, Part 15: Catwoman

We saw this in the theater. Yes, it's true. We did not pay for the experience - a box set of Batman the Animated Series contained a free pass, and we used it.

We hated this movie, despising it for mismanaging the concept. And we swore to never watch it again.

Be did we not also swear to track down and watch - or re-watch - the worst of the worst superhero movies ever made? How is one to weigh oaths?

Well, we found an old scale in the back of The Middle Room and set our promises upon it. It turned out our promise to you outweighed the one we'd sworn to ourselves, so onto our Netflix queue it went.

This next part is difficult for us. Do not think we didn't debate the merits of keeping this to ourselves, of neither speaking nor writing the truth.

But that's just it, isn't it? The truth is the lifeblood of The Middle Room. Without a belief in the Universal concept of truth, what is an icosahedron but a three-dimensional, twenty sided polygonal device? Are we to believe it's turning is random?

No - it cannot be so. Truth exists, and the icosahedron exists to reveal it. And so must we.

We watched Catwoman for a second time. And we kind of enjoyed it.

It was bad; to be sure, a wasted opportunity to use a fantastic actress to explore one of DC's most misunderstood characters. Halle Berry could have made an excellent Selina Kyle, and instead they recast her as Peter Parker.

In structure, this was an attempt to recreate the success of Spiderman. And everything about the movie was bad - the writing, the direction, and especially the effects.

But it was gloriously bad, hilariously bad. It wasn't so bad as to be good, but it was so bad it was interesting and funny. Really funny. And actually kind of fun, provided you know what you're getting into.

Give Us Your Worst, Part 14: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

We could have skipped this - perhaps we should have - since this is a relatively new movie. We went when it was released in 2009, seeing and reviewing it on its opening day.

We remember thinking it was bad. In fact, we remember considering it awful. But when we came across a copy at the library, we felt we owed it to you to give it another shot.

We actually thought this time might be different. After all, we went in the first time not knowing what to expect and saw it on the big screen, which can sometimes be unforgiving. Now, re-watching it at home, we allowed ourselves to imagine it might not be so bad.

Our delusions were soon shattered. X-Men: Origins: Wolverine is, if anything, worse than we'd remembered it. After the film ended, we checked our initial review and saw we'd given it 1.5 stars. Chalk that up to weakness: this was a one star film if ever there was one.

What's baffling about Wolverine is that it ever came into being. Were a team of master filmmakers to set out with an unlimited budget and the express goal of producing a Wolverine movie that boring, they would have no doubt returned humiliated with a far more interesting picture than this. Producing a bad Wolverine movie is easy to imagine, but a boring one: how does that happen?

The movie's dull pacing and melodramatic storyline are draining, and the fact that Jackman and Schreiber are well cast only means there are good actors meandering through the pointless and meaningless drivel that form the backbone of the picture. Nothing begins to make sense: the villain's plans are so inanely overcomplicated, it's all but impossible to comprehend a scenario where he could have won. The minor characters are at best vague reflections of their comic counterparts. And the action sequences oscillate between being garish and boring.

The most shocking aspect of this movie may be that there's little indication the filmmakers realized they were producing something this bad. The direction suggests they believed they were making an epic, a dramatic tragedy that would appease its audience and critics both. It's a pity they didn't realize the truth: if they'd dropped some of the pretense and embraced camp it may actually have relieved some of the tedium that permeates this movie.

Not much, but anything would have helped.

Give Us Your Worst, Part 13: Supergirl

Supergirl first appeared in comics in 1959. For years she was a popular and iconic character. In 1984, she got her own movie. One year later, in 1985, DC Comics killed her. Having just seen said movie, we suspect the timing wasn't entirely coincidental.

That Supergirl is a dull, stupid, poorly made movie is hardly surprising. After all, the basis of this experiment requires us to track down the worst of the worst and examine them. And Supergirl is brimming with many of the same flaws we've seen a dozen times: bad script, bad directing, and bad acting, to name a few.

But the long list of things Supergirl does wrong is fundamentally less interesting that the shorter list of things the movie does right. The character is, for the most part, a decent adaptation of her comic origin, and - unlike the Superman movies - she actually faces off against a few giant monsters reminiscent of the type that plagued her and her cousin back in the golden age. The monsters were quite a bit cooler than we would have expected, given every other aspect of the movie. One, a giant, invisible beast, involved some outright impressive model work, and the other, a more traditional demon, had a fantastic design.
Never mind that the fights themselves were pitifully inadequate.

In addition, while Superman himself fails to appear in person (apparently due to scheduling conflicts), the movie does a good job of maintaining the presence of his legacy. From posters of The Man of Steel to supporting roles for Lois's cousin and even Jimmy Olsen, this feels solidly in continuity with the Reeve movies.

Finally, the movie actually bothers to explore the Phantom Zone, even if the portrayal offered is wanting.

Before we give the impression that all of this makes up for the film's flaws, however, we assure you this was as bad - if not worse - than either Superman III or IV.

There are dozens of problems with this movie, but the worst is pacing. The film spends an absurd amount of time on Supergirl's secret identity, friends, and her would-be boyfriend. None of it is remotely interesting.

Adding insult to injury, none of it makes sense, either. The premise of the movie is that the power source of Argo City (which survived the destruction of Krypton somehow) is lost. Without this, her family and neighbors will die in a matter of days, so Supergirl runs off to Earth to get it back. She brings a bracelet with her which functions as a homing device.

Remember, she has mere days to locate the device or everyone she cares about will perish.

So she enrolls in school, plays field hockey, and hangs out with Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane's niece. At one point, she allows a lead towards the energy source to get away rather than endangering her completely superfluous secret identity.

But that's all par for the course, because absolutely nothing in this movie makes sense. The most telling scene may be one of the first. Upon arriving to Earth, Supergirl sets out in search of the missing McGuffin. She winds up talking to a pair of lecherous truckers, clearly intent on assaulting (and likely raping) her.

Let's set aside the fact the movie plays this for comedy.

She's wearing a suit like Superman's, and she identifies herself as his cousin. Her attackers don't believe her - fair enough: why would they? They make their intentions clear, and she promptly lifts one of them into the air by his chin before using her Superbreath to blow him through the wall of a construction site.

The other trucker then draws a knife and says, "You shouldn't have done that," because evidently he's the second stupidest person to exist in any of the myriad parallel Earths. We say second because someone on Earth Prime had to write that scene.

The entire movie plays out like this. If the movie had been less boring, some of these sequences might have qualified for an exemption under the "so bad it's good" clause of film quality. But, as it was, there was little redemption.

It's a bad movie - a very bad one, in fact - with a few scenes and concepts showing real potential. But, when all was said and done, the things the movie did competently may have made it worse: there was a clear blueprint stamped across the screen for how Supergirl could have been a worthwhile movie - even a great one. Knowing that makes the end result all the more painful to behold. It's like they were taunting us.