Movies of 2012

Instead of doing my round up of films I watched and saying which one was best, I've decided to try and present a few 'awards' in different categories. So, here goes...

Most surprising movie
Disney/Pixar's Brave was a big surprise. I'd been very disappointed by Cars 2 and didn't think the trailers were anything special. I thought it looked like a Scottish-set version of Mulan or something, but the story veered off in an unexpected direction. The animation was top-notch, it had some very funny scenes, and generally I thought it was excellent.

Most underwhelming movie
Prometheus promised much and delivered very little. It somehow managed to combine pretentious ambitions with weak characterisation and a plot that seemed to be mainly made up of holes. Very, very disappointing.

Movie that made me think a bit harder than I expected
I really liked Looper, although I'm pretty sure the central plot device of time travel unravelled right at the end. But it was very well acted - Joseph Gordan-Levitt was excellent, as was Bruce Willis - and the story kept me guessing right to the end. All-in-all, a sci-fi move that was well worth watching.

Enjoyable action movie of the year
I really liked Avengers Assemble. It may not be as cool as the recent Batman films, but it was fast-paced, the actors took the job seriously, but most of all it was the culmination of a series of films that all fed into a much larger picture. As such, it was a believable 'cross-over' film. The characters had back-stories, but this was a move forward for all of them. It maybe was a bit long, but that's about the only criticism I can make.

Movie that made me feel a bit 'meh' afterwards
Two movies vie for this award - The Dark Knight Rises and Skyfall. I don't think either enriched my life. The Batman film had an interesting political edge to it - that without the ruling 1%, all you get is anarchy and terror, while the James Bond film was nihilistic in the extreme (as I said when I reviewed it before). Nihilism can work in a movie (for example, I thought Dredd was very well done), but Skyfall was unremitting for a movie ostensibly about a 'hero'.

Comedy of the year
I didn't see that many comedies this year. Ted was funny, but a bit rude, so I'm going to give this one to Ice Age 4: Continental Drift, mainly because it made a joke about a previous installment in the series involving dinosaurs and said that it "didn't make a lot of sense." That amused me.

Film of the year
And so to the big one - my personal favourite film of 2012 and it has to go to... (drumroll) The Muppets. As I said when I reviewed it back in February, I liked the way the film treated the original Muppet ethos with respect. Disney did a very good job at capturing what made the Muppets work a few decades ago, and it was just a great family movie, with several jokes that made me laugh out loud. On another note, the recent acquisition of the Star Wars empire by Disney hasn't really worried me - given how Disney treated the Muppets, I have high hopes they will capture the spirit of Star Wars in the right way. (And as Cathy has pointed out, they really can't mess it up as badly as George Lucas did with the prequels.)

I'm already looking forward to some of the films due out in 2013, but that was 2012.

Summer of science fiction (and superheroes)

I've seen a goodly number of science fiction films over the last few months, from the summer through to now. I've seen most of these with my cinema buddy Connor (shout out), who may yet revive his blog and give his verdict on these films.

Avengers Assemble - I liked this a lot. Lots of action. Smart script. Humour. Built well on the preceding films. Probably one of my favourite superhero films to date.

The Amazing Spider-Man - I wasn't sure about whether this film would work as it seemed too soon for a reboot. But it was pretty good. I preferred Andrew Garfield to Tobey Maguire. The pace was quick. Aunt May wasn't as annoying. It had Martin Sheen in. The only let-down was the villain as The Lizard just doesn't have the same screen presence as Green Goblin.

Prometheus - Just about everyone I've spoken to was disappointed with this. I spent most of the film thinking about how it could have been a better movie. That's a bad sign. Perhaps the pre-event hype got to me. I do think, though, that the major problem with this was the characters doing completely nonsensical things. Science fiction is usually nonsense, but its characters have to follow the internal logic of the movie for it to work. This didn't.

The Dark Knight Rises - Meh, Batman. I went right off this after The Dark Knight. I went in the hope it would be a redemptive moment for the Batman series. It wasn't particularly  and the underlying political message was ropey. Apparently if the proles ever rebel against the downtreading classes, the result will inevitably be anarchy. Batman is a protector of the privileged because without them society would slide into chaos. Seriously.

Total Recall - I enjoyed this. There were a few nods to the Arnie original. The central gist of the story was a bit confused (and physically impossible), but the tech was cool. I want a hand phone. Definitely better than expected for a remake.

Dredd - I've reviewed this on the blog. A brilliant rendering of the original comic books, but gory and nihilistic. Not a feelgood movie, but one I want to watch again.

Looper - I'm still trying to work out whether this worked or not. Time travel movies tend to fall down when you try and piece together the timeline after all the monkeying about. But it was very well made and acted and I really liked it, so would recommend it and would watch it again.