2010 in Film

Because we are compelled by annual tradition (and, we assume, international law) to do so, we will compose our end-of-the-year list.  Rather than limit ourselves to a paltry ten, we are prepared to take a broader approach.  Of the countless films released theatrically or direct to dvd, we saw twenty-six of varying quality.  As such, we shall list them from worst to best.

Pay attention, because this next part is important.  We will consider now only those theatrical films first released in 2010 in the United States in at least limited capacity.  We'll come back to this later.


26. Robin Hood: This "beats" number 25 by a hair, and it's certainly a debatable point.  In fact, there's slightly more to like in Robin Hood than in Jonah Hex, even if it's all in the background.  Ultimately, though, we seem to get a big-budget adaptation of Robin Hood these days only once a generation, and this was without a doubt an utter waste of the opportunity.  Lacking any coherent vision, tone, or direction, it was empty, meaningless, and boring.

25. Jonah Hex: As we said above, this really was something of a tie.  Jonah Hex stakes its claim to number 25 on little more than a whim.  That the short Jonah Hex DC Showcase flick attached to Batman: Under the Red Hood was superior is a painful understatement.  The 12 minute animated piece was more moody, darker, more intelligent, better written, conveyed a more interesting story, and developed its characters with a thousand times more skill than the feature film.

24. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time: We don't expect movies based on video games to succeed in crafting a thought-out plot and well-developed characters.  We do, however, expect them to try significantly harder than this.

23. Alice in Wonderland: Alice in Wonderland was one of those bad movies it was worth seeing for some of the 3-D effects on the big screen.  If you missed those there, however, there's no further point in sitting through the movie.

22. Kick-Ass: Are we being hard on Kick-Ass?  Perhaps.  This succeeded in turning an adorable eleven year old girl into the year's most bad-ass action star, as well as providing Nicholas Cage with the most interesting role he's ever had.  There were some fantastic scenes.  Pity most were released online before the movie came out.  And pity the rest of the movie oscillated between scenes of gratuitous violence and painfully awful dialogue.

21. The Book of Eli: If you want a relatively low-budget, thoughtful genre piece with a twist ending starring Denzel Washington, we strongly recommend you track down Fallen.  As for The Book of Eli, it isn't bad, per se, but it's neither thought out, original, nor is it all that interesting.  The ending isn't much of a payoff, either.

20. Planet Hulk: The first of the direct-to-DVD films on our list, Planet Hulk was good for what it was.  While it didn't raise any bars, it was solidly entertaining, and worth watching, presuming you're a fan of superhero movies.

19. Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole: This movie drives us crazy.  It's easily one of the most breathtaking movies we saw this year.  If we were rating this on visual beauty alone, it would be in the top five.  Sadly, it was also one of the dumbest movies we saw this year, containing dialogue so awful, we wanted to claw out our ears.  Our best advice is to order the DVD from Netflix, mute your TV, then just play Dead Can Dance loudly on your stereo.  This way, you'll experience everything good about the movie with none of the bad.

18. MegaMind: Eh.  It wasn't bad, which is good, but it wasn't all that good.  Which is bad.  It's worth seeing, though, if you're a comic book geek.

17. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus: This was a fine movie.  If it had been fifteen years prior, it would probably have been a good movie.  As it was, the CG held it back.

16. Batman/Superman: Apocalypse: Another direct-to-DVD release, Batman/Superman: Apocalypse managed to tell a solid story, improving on its source material.  Netflix exists for a reason, people: get on it.

15. How to Train Your Dragon: This was pretty good, all things considered.  More specifically, there wasn't much about How to Train Your Dragon that was at all bad.  It felt like someone made a list of everything that Dreamworks had been doing wrong over the last decade, then made sure not to do any of those things.  And, to their credit, it seems to have been a fairly comprehensive list.  But, while the movie never faltered, it never really soared, either.  It was good, really.  But we crave better.

14. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: Having spoken to a lot of people, we've come to the conclusion that if you read the books, you either love this movie or hate it.  If you did not read the books, you were probably disappointed with the movie.  We didn't read the books.  The movie felt good.  It looked good. it seemed to exude good.  But, overall, yeah.  Just didn't interest us all that much.

13. Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths: The main criticism of Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths is that it didn't use the version of the League from the animated series, despite the fact the script was written for that team.  And, honestly, it's a grating issue, assuming you're a longtime fan (which we are).  However, it's still a great movie, particularly given that it was released direct-to-DVD.

12. Daybreakers: This could have been so much higher on our list.  Top 5, easily.  It had everything: great setup, interesting world, brilliant attention to detail, and even a solid twist.  And then, in the last five minutes, it all fell apart.  Oh, the movie's still good.  Very good, in fact.  And the ending isn't THAT bad.  But it definitely drags this movie down from being great.

11. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, Part 1: We almost feel less sound placing this on a list of movies than the direct-to-DVD films.  With each release, these feel less like movies and more like... well... something else.  The Harry Potter films are so episodic, they almost feel like a television series.  That said, it's a really good series.  We can't wait for the last episode.

10. Predators: We reviewed Predators very favorably when it came out, and we've since backed down a bit.  It's still a fantastic action movie, but it hasn't proven as memorable as we'd hoped.

9. Batman: Under the Red Hood: The final - and best - of this year's direct-to-DVD films, Under the Red Hood was brilliantly made.  The character work here was topnotch.  You'll note we're awfully high on the list to be discussing something that was never released into theaters: that's because this was better than most movies that were.

8. Tron: Legacy: Was this a good movie?  Of course not: the story was idiotic and the characters were two-dimensional.  But, like Avatar, it was a beautiful bad movie.  And unlike Avatar, Tron: Legacy was also fun to watch.

7. Inception: While we're not sure it was anywhere near as intelligent as many seem to think, the fascinating tone and intriguing world of Inception made it one of the best espionage movies we've seen in a long time.

6. Tangled: This is neck and neck with number 5, but then I am a comics geek at heart.  Still, Tangled is a fantastic Disney production that deserves a spot alongside last year's Princess and the Frog and the semi-live-action Enchanted as new takes on the Princess motif.

5. Iron Man 2: Plenty of people hate this movie.  We appreciate where they're coming from, and understand.  What's more, we don't begrudge them their opinion.  Everyone has a right to be wrong, after all.  The genius of Iron Man 2 is that it feels more like a handful of issues of Marvel Comics Presents than a graphic novel about any one character.  Maybe some of those issues are out of order: who cares?  This is a movie where Black Widow and Happy Hogan team-up to deactivate the computer program that's controlling War Machine.  This thing kicks ass.

4. True Grit: We've never seen the original, and, from what we've heard, we never need to.  The Coen Brothers' version is an intriguing and entertaining picture.  And in her own way, the fourteen year-old heroine comes off as just as badass as Hit Girl.  Honestly, which is more frightening: a young girl with a gun or one with a knowledge of the law?

3. Toy Story 3: Numbers two and three are a hair's breath apart.  Honestly, in a few months, we'll probably forget about number 2 and regret shoving this so far back.  But, for the time being, this is our assessment.  Toy Story 3 was a fantastic movie.  The last thirty minutes are terrifying, sad, and touching. You know, par for the course when it comes to Pixar.

2. Black Swan: Like we said above, we make no guarantee our feelings won't change.  Technically, Black Swan is probably a psychological drama or something like that.  But, as far as we're concerned, it was one of the best horror movies we've seen in years.  It plays with perspective and reality in a way that burrows into your head, until you're not really sure what's real and what isn't.  While we were at times ambivalent, the film builds and offers one of the best payoffs we've seen in years during the last act.  Personally, we might have preferred the ending a few minutes earlier, but that's just our taste.

1. The Secret of Kells: Yes, we're well aware that this movie was released internationally in 2009 and that it played a handful of film festivals and even a short run or two in select cities (qualifying it for last year's Oscars).  But it wasn't technically given a real release in this country until this year.  Even that was so short we never heard about it.  Fortunately, Netflix picked up the slack and has been streaming this, which is how we finally got to see it.  And, dear God, is it pretty.  We mean REALLY PRETTY.  As in, so pretty you will cry.  Not because anything sad or dramatic is happening, but just because your mind won't be able to stand the sheer beauty of what you're seeing and hearing.  That good.  Sure, we're stretching the definition of "new movie" to include this, but we have little choice.  Because, just once, we need to be able to say that the Secret of Kells is, without a doubt, the best new movie we saw this year.

The Middle Room will not be shown tonight...

Instead we bring you Mainlining Christmas.

The Middle Room will return after the holidays at its regularly scheduled time.

DVD Review: Superman/Batman: Apocalypse

Superman/Batman: Apocalypse is quite a bit better than its predecessor, Public Enemies.  In fact, unlike Public Enemies, we actually enjoyed it more than the comic arc it was based on.  Granted, this wasn't a particularly high bar to ascend: the comic, while containing a handful of fantastic moments, just didn't succeed in making Kara - the story's central character - sympathetic or interesting.  The movie, on the other hand, did manage this feat, and worked as a result.

In some ways, the source material for this storyline was easier to adapt than that for Public Enemies.  As we explained in last year's review, our favorite moments in Public Enemies were internal, and as such wound up amputated from the DVD release.  The Supergirl arc didn't have this problem: the best scenes were action or dialogue.  Everything we wanted was present, and a few of the worst scenes were rewritten.

Unfortunately, all of this care was only enough to raise the movie to the level of "pretty good."  Despite their best effort, the filmmakers were still restrained by several absurd plot twists and poor dialogue, almost all of which we recall from the comics.

We should probably digress from a moment to talk about the movie's infamous title.  The comic series had "Supergirl" in the title, appropriate as the story revolves around the arrival of Kara Zor-El, Superman's cousin.  The director has said she'd have preferred this title, but it was decided higher up that Supergirl wouldn't sell.

Of course we find such studio interference idiotic.  We presume that any comics fan who would avoid a dvd with the name "Supergirl" on the cover would likely also avoid a dvd they'd heard was about Supergirl, regardless what it was called.

Ultimately, we're less concerned with a movie's title than its content.  Warner Bros could have called it Batman/Superman 2: X-Men United, and we wouldn't hold it against the movie.  And, when push comes to shove, this version is fairer to its female characters - particularly Supergirl - than the comics were.  This was most notable during the finale, where Supergirl was given a far larger role.  It's also worth noting that throughout the character designs were less offensive (though we still miss the visual style of JLU).

There are some good moments and ideas in Superman/Batman: Apocalypse.  And there's some good animation.  The voice acting is less consistent than we're used to, but, despite our skepticism, Summer Glau managed to carry the role and steal the movie.  It's also always nice to hear Kevin Conroy's voice coming from Batman's mouth.

The real issue with this is that we've seen it all before, and we've seen it better.  JLU used all these characters to far better effect, covering many of the same ideas and battles.  To any who haven't seen that series, watch those first.  This is good, but JLU was great.  So are the animated DCU films Justice League: New Frontier, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern: First Flight, and Batman: Under the Red Hood.

Against the best of those, we'll award Apocalypse a relative three out of five stars.  If, like us, you're a connoisseur of these films, this is worth viewing, but we can't offer more than a luke warm recommendation to anyone else.

Movie Review: Megamind

Megamind is a fine movie; nothing more, nothing less.  To put it in perspective, it is at best the sixth best superhero comedy film which does not feature characters from the Marvel or DC Universe, coming in behind The Incredibles, Sky High, Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog, The Mask, and Mystery Men.  If we to consider Marvel and DC properties, Megamind also falls behind the direct-to-DVD comedies Wonder Woman and Hulk Vs.  If television programs are included, Megamind is likewise bested by The Powerpuff Girls, both iterations of The Tick, Batman: Brave and the Bold, and Word Girl.
    
That's off the top of our heads.  There are certainly others.

This list is not intended to put down Megamind, merely to illustrate the reality that this isn't exactly unexplored territory.  The filmmakers at Dreamworks Animation can take some solace in knowing that they have indeed produced a film superior to My Super Ex-Girlfriend.

At any rate, beside Despicable Me (a film we'll most likely get around to watching eventually), the most obvious film Megamind needs to be compared against is The Incredibles, and there is a sense of symmetry here that is profoundly significant.  Back in the 1960's, when Marvel emerged as the industry leader in terms of innovation - not to mention sales - there was a period where DC attempted to replicate their success by duplicating their formula.  While this sometimes resulted in good comics, they never came close to their rivals.

So it is with Megamind.

Oh, there's plenty in this movie to entertain us.  The three lead characters are likable and most of the jokes are solid.  With the exception of a prolonged Marlon Brando rift, none of the gags were grating, and even that was tolerable.

The main problem with Megamind was a lack of commitment.  The movie either needed to have some gravitas or it needed to set aside moralizing and play up the dark humor.

For a few brief moments at the beginning, when Megamind is breaking out of prison, unveiling massive devices, destroying property, and just having fun, the movie is at the top of its game.  But we didn't really expected this to last, and indeed, he quickly has a predictable change of heart.

There's nothing wrong with that, either.  When he first realizes the how utterly meaningless his existence is without adversity, there are some fascinating parallels with Wanted (the comic, not the movie).  This "twist" closes the door on darkhearted fun, but offers an opportunity for some actual drama.  Pity they squandered it, opting instead for slapstick.

Watching The Incredibles, it's obvious that Brad Bird appreciates the humor intrinsic to comic book heroes, but he also has a deep respect and understanding of his source material.  The same can be said of every other film listed in the first paragraph of this review.  But not Megamind.  At least not on the same level.

It's clear the writers of Megamind find superheroes funny on a superficial level.  Yes, they wear capes and tights.  Yes, their cities have names like Metropolis.  And, to the writers' credit, they were able to churn out some funny gags.  However, naming the city "Metrocity" only invites comparison to Townsville and The City - two better uses of the exact same joke - and Megamind just can't compete.

The odd thing is that there was room to develop the story into something more effective.  The title character and his best friend, Minion, were fantastic characters, as was the obligatory intrepid reporter.  But there was only one moment in the movie that had any real weight: when Megamind was told off by said reporter, and was asked, quite simply, what he'd expected.  Everything else felt by-the-book.

The character's back story was more cartoon than comic book.  The initial premise - Megamind was the last son of his dying world, rocketed towards Earth to seek out his destiny, only to get shown up by the last son of a neighboring dying world also being sent to Earth - was actually quite inspired.

But as soon as they reach Earth, the premise was merely played for laughs.  It's not hard to imagine why: it is, fundamentally, a parody of Superman's origin.  And it is funny.  Just not for long.

This is a common error among those trying to parody superhero back stories.  While straight absurdity may amuse most audiences, it makes actual fans of comics cringe, not because they're making fun of Superman, but because they have no idea what they're making fun of.

The fact remains, the silver age back story of Lex and Clark in Smallville is significantly more ridiculous and absurd than any superheroes-in-school jokes the makers of Megamind can cobble together.

In place of motivation, Megamind's youth is a montage of slapstick.  He fares better than his nemesis, however, who is grossly inconsistent.  Is Metroman a showboating jackass out for the glory, a self-obsessed idiot who kept saving the day until he grew bored, or a benevolent genius, who perceives more than he seems to?  Any of these could have worked.  Instead, we're left with a character whose entire personality, intellect, and powers are rewritten around each scene.

And yet, despite all of these flaws, the movie works.  This is a solid three star movie against The Incredibles's five.  This is ultimately worth seeing.

The problem is that there are so many other superhero movies and television shows that you should see first.

Movie Review: Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole

Professional critics are split neatly in half in their opinion of Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole: the film is currently holding at exactly 50% on the Tomatometer.  What's more, a cursory glance at the synopses of the reviews verifies that the schism lies deep: the critics seem to either love or hate the film.

We went to the movie curious to see which side was right.  Walking out, we found ourselves in complete agreement with all of them.

Legends of the Guardians is indeed a beautiful and awe-inspiring trip into a fantasy world.  It's an exciting and thrilling viewing experience.

It's also cheap pablum; pathetic dialogue uttered by two-dimensional characters fighting to defeat Nazi-owls and to stand up for the power of dreams.

And therein we approach the common thread between these disparate points of view.  Like so many other movies being released these days, Legends of the Guardians owes a debt to the 1980's.  Sure, the novels it's officially based on were all released in the past decade, but the spirit of the movie is pure eighties.

In fact, we can think of no better description of the movie than watching the opening credits of Labyrinth in slow motion while a bottle of glitter is slowly being shaken out in front of the screen.  Play Dead Can Dance loudly in the background, and you'll have faithfully recreated the best scenes from the movie.  Play a power ballad, and you'll appreciate the depths the film can sink to.

The movie is a difficult one to reconcile.  There are scenes of utter amazement, owls soaring into battle with weapons building off their strengths and forms.  These aren't merely excellent fights: these may be the best anthropomorphic animal fights every made.

Then there's an obnoxious owl with a lute who's present for comic relief.  Actually, with the possible exception of the main character and his teacher, every protagonist who's onscreen for longer than three minutes seems to be comic relief first and foremost.  And none of them are in the least bit funny.

To their credit, all of these owls become competent when necessary, though only through the graces of a montage.

The movie was directed by Zach Snyder, making it his second adaptation in a row to feature a owl-based hero following in the tradition of his mentor.  The war, though, is pure 300.

The only thing missing from the battles is blood, a casualty of the PG rating.  This omission is somewhat striking, as the film - to its credit - isn't afraid to amass a body count.  Watching the movie, we could help but think of all the extraneous blood spilled in Zach Snyder's previous films.  If they'd used a few gallons less in 300, for example, no one would ever have missed it.  And those gallons could have been put to good use here.  Would this movie really have fared worse with a PG-13 rating?

In terms of passing judgment, we can do little but hold this against Watership Down, the pinnacle of animated anthropomorphic war movies.  The visual effects here are easily worthy of five stars, but the tragic lack of substance cuts that in half.

As such, we're giving Legends of the Guardians two and a half relative stars.  This doesn't mean it's not worth seeing, however.  Provided you accept the mind-numbing simplicity of the writing, there's plenty of spectacle to make the film worthwhile.

DVD Review: Batman: Under the Red Hood

Despite the new cast, Under the Red Hood, in many ways feels like it's part of the 90's animated series.  It isn't, of course: the continuity explored is more or less the same as the comic's, though the story plays out differently than when it appeared in print.  But the art and design echo the series, down to the interplay between fire and shadow and the cut of Batman's cowl.

The story, our readers are no doubt aware, deals with the death and resurrection of Jason Todd, the second Robin.  If by some happenstance you were not aware of this, do not fault us: we've spoiled nothing.  Unlike the comics, no effort was made to construct the story as a mystery.  Aware their audience knew the "twist" going in, the filmmakers dropped it.  The movie doesn't dangle the identity of the Hood for any appreciable amount of time or treat it like a revelation.

Instead, the story focuses on the psychology of those involved.  And that is why it works.

Under the Red Hood reminds us of Mask of the Phantasm.  It's carefully constructed and eloquently delivered.  It's not epic: the characters are waging war for their souls, not to save Gotham or stop an alien invasion.  It's dark without being gratuitous; dramatic without being sappy.

And, most importantly, they've delivered a fantastic version of the Joker.  Connoisseurs of the character will detect similarities with Ledger's version, along with echoes of the Joker in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. 

This is a more calculating version of the character than those usually presented.  He's sadistic and psychotic, but nowhere near as random than, say, the Joker who generally appeared in the animated series.  He's a far cry from the Joker we'd have imagined, and yet there are no fewer than three scenes we'd include on a top 20 list of our favorite Joker moments in film or TV.

The voice acting is solid, though it's hard not to miss the cast of the animated series.  As all things do, Under the Hood has its flaws, the most notable of which being its portrayal of Nightwing.  While they certainly give him some great scenes, he's in far too little of the movie.  And, when he does appear, he comes off as a sidekick, not a hero in his own right.

In terms of quality, Under the Hood falls just short of New Frontier, but it comes extremely close.  It's now available on Netflix, and we strongly suggest seeing it.

Movie Review: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is a great movie, in that it accomplishes everything it sets out to do.  The story is competently told, the tone is conveyed, the direction and acting are good, and the visual style is incredible.  But, with the exception of that final aspect, the movie still managed to disappoint us, not because it failed to achieve its goal, but rather because we never clicked with the movie.

Simply put, we weren't really compatible with Edgar Wright's vision for this movie.

There were several wedge issues, beginning with this version of Scott Pilgrim.  Many have blamed the casting, but we actually rather liked Michael Cera in the role.  It was the role itself that grated on us.  Scott was whiny, shallow, and self-obsessed.  This wasn't exactly a flaw, though, because it was clearly intentional: the movie was a story of self-discovery and personal growth.

That, incidentally, was our second issue.  We've seen these sorts of character journeys before: they're a dime a dozen on the sitcoms we grew up with.  From this movie, we wanted something a little lighter or, barring that, something as original as its appearance.

And, from a visual standpoint, the movie was absolutely awesome.  The fights were fast paced, intriguing, and fun, and the effects were a joy to watch.  Unfortunately, the movie dragged when the punches stopped.  The characters, while adequately developed, weren't particularly likable, making it difficult to care what happened to them.
 
Still, where the substance disappoints, the style reigns.  Michael Cera was an action hero, and an imposing one at that.  The battles were engaging and exciting, and the movie is well worth a trip to the theater.

In terms of tone, the movie almost reminded us of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; a jarring experience since we'd entered expecting something along the lines of Shaun of the Dead.  Of course, Eternal Sunshine offered a more original story to support its innovative use of effects.

The visual style is almost reminiscent of Speed Racer, which time and reflection has elevated to five-star status.  Against that metric, we award Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World three and a half stars.

Scott Pilgrim demands respect, and the action sequences are a joy.  Unfortunately, the movie is easier to respect than to love.