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Well another year has almost come and gone.
In short this year was a severe disappointment. Some slight surprises but nothing on the order of "the Wrestler" or "SuperBad"
Now I've not seen Paranormal III, Holmes, or the Muppets yet, so these are excluded.

Good or a real surprise:
PussN Boots. A romping good time, and once again proves 3D should be reserved for Comic/Children's movies.
Trollhunter. The first person exploits of Norway's troll management service. Excellent and quirky.
Reds. Didn't expect much from this, but very pleasantly surprised.
Horrible Bosses. Movie made fun of itself. Excellent.
Super8. Ending was a little meh, but overall very early Spielberg, which was the idea.
Battle LA; bang bang bang.Excellent popcorn movie.
Hanna. Very different.

Decent
XMen (or the birth of Magneto). I liked it, because of Fassbender and his character. I could have cared less about the rest of it, although Bacon is a very interesting bad guy.
Rio. Again comic 3D excellent.
Harry Potter. I thought it sucked balls on an epic scale and kept hoping for an Arclight strike to put it and me out of my misery, but the Wife and Genghis Connie liked it (but were vested in it).
Bad Teacher.

Bad
Thor. It sucked as bad as I thought it would. What exactly is Loki's motivation again?
Pirates of the Caribbean. No just no.
Planet of the Apes. big action scene was spoiled by frazzled's desire to see what five rednecks with shotguns and a pickup would do. Ape riot...over.
Immortals. My funmeter was low.
Bridesmaids. It could have been epic.
Adjustment Bureau. Wife liked it. I just wanted the main character to get hit by a bus.

Sucked, just sucked.
Captain America. I went off to surf the web, and when I came down, the wife had fallen asleep.
Transformers. I knew it would blow so waited until the $1.00 rental but really, how can Bay make superfast combat...boring?
Priest What were we thinking?
Pirates vs. Aliens. my big letdown.

How about you's guys?

Muppets: It was all the awesome I remember as a kid, and gave me an excuse to use "Wakka wakka" in conversation.

Yes!

Can't believe you would put Rise of Planet of the Apes in bad, was best film of the year in my opinion.

Real Steel. I went expecting it to be awful, but it was actually really good. A contender for the best film I've seen this year!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and Paul was quite good, especially as it had the line "Yo, fethnuts! Its probing time!"

I think First Class might have been the best movie this year. Another strong contender, imo, would be Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Paranormal Activity 3 was likely the worst movie I saw this year.

Haven't seen Puss N Boots yet, but will soon.

Couldn't make it through Horrible Bosses, found it to be poorly acted.

Super 8 was OK, but the lens flares were very, very distracting. Still a good story.

Battle LA: Only made it about 10 min into this. Tried twice, couldn't do it.

Bad Teacher: liked it, but I like Cameron Diaz.

Thor: Pretty bad, but not awful, not aggressively bad like Transformers 3 was.

Pirates 4 was very meh and just felt like a very phoned in effort all around.

Adjustment Bureau. Wife liked it, as with Frazzled.

Another Earth: very disappointed with the ending.

Bridesmaids: funnier then I thought.

The Help: same as Bridesmaids. Very much a chick movie, but OK anyway,

Colombiana: Didn't expect much, liked it a lot. Zoe Saldana very solid.

Melancholia: Not sure why I thought I would like this. I did not. I did not one bit.

The Thing: They tried their best, dammit, and sometimes it's just not good enough.

Final Destination 5: It is Final Destination. They are all the same. Either you like them all, or you do not. I like them, especially in 3D, one of the only movies I will see in 3D. Unapologetically stupid entertainment.

The Debt: Good intrigue and mind games.

Apollo 18: Was very interested in this, but overwhelming word of mouth has kept me from even watching it.

Conan the Barbarian: Like using coffee grinds a second time. It tastes sort of the same, but it's just not as good.

The Devil's Double: great movie!

Hanna: Loved the concept, hated the "resolution".

Sucker Punch: Can't lie, I liked it.

The Guard: Great film, one of the best ones this year IMO.

No insidious?
I enjoyed that one

Thor and Conan have pretty much been the only two "new" movies I've seen this year.

Thor was really damn good.
Conan the Barbarian was as well. Jason Momoa as Conan was inspired, and it really felt like what I feel Howard would have wanted for his franchise.

I liked Captain America

The real surprise for me was 'The Devils Double'. First class movie. Violent, funny in parts and incredibly well written. Not to mention an Oscar worthy turn by Dominic Monaghan.
I genuinely thought the two main characters were played by two different people!
It was also interesting to see an Iraqi based movie not told from an American perspective. As much as I enjoyed The Hurt Locker, Three Kings etc...

sarpedons-right-hand wrote:I liked Captain America

The real surprise for me was 'The Devils Double'. First class movie. Violent, funny in parts and incredibly well written. Not to mention an Oscar worthy turn by Dominic Monaghan.
I genuinely thought the two main characters were played by two different people!
It was also interesting to see an Iraqi based movie not told from an American perspective. As much as I enjoyed The Hurt Locker, Three Kings etc...

I've heard good things about that.

You should really search it out Frazz, tis a top top way of spending a couple of hours. Although it's extremely violent and sexually explicit in places

I am not good with movies showing torture, even of the hated squirrels, so I must pass.

Watched Cowboys and Aliens last night, utterly forgettable film.

Conan was bland, the villain especially uninspired, it ran like a long episode of hercules or xena.

Rango was excellent.

Battle LA was rubbish. Skyline was worse still.

Your Highness was great, I usually hate that style of comedy but Mrs S and I found it highly entertaining.

X Men 1st Class was indeed 1st class. Very cool.

The Thing was passable but not in the same league as it's predecessor.

The Muppets was shameless indulgent fun and we loved it.

I am looking forward to Sherlock Holmes 2, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Iron Lady (streep is amazing in it from the reviews).

Special Mention: it's a 2007 film but Mrs S and I watched [REC] a couple of months ago and we loved it, best horror I've watched in ages.

The original Girl With The Dragon Tatoo is just amazing, this big budget remake has a lot to live up too....

As for the other great films of '11, I think Super8 was quality if a little iffy at the end, and I'm expecting big things of Sherlock 2.

Conan was great, then again, gratuitous violence and boobs. Can't hate that.

Your Highness...hysterical. My wife and I went with our DnD group and we were dying.

Saw a movie with Matt Damon...something about a virus killing a crapload of people...sucked hardcore if only because it showed what people would actually be like during a global pandemic.

Battle for LA? Loved it. Bunch of people I know hated it, not sure why.

I will note I have high hopes for Prometheus

Kung Fu Panda 2 was my favorite movie of the year, for sure. Gary Oldman's Lord Shen was just stupendous in voice acting, and animation.

I enjoyed Thor a lot, and am looking forward to the Avengers.

Xmen first class was also Enjoyable.

My take on worst movie of the year? The Hangover 2. Perhaps some of it was my high expectations, but I honestly did not find much of that movie funny at all.

For me the third transformers movie was bearable...not good mind you but I managed to watch the whole thing...it was decent for a day's entertainment...

Thor was pretty much the same...it was disappointing as far as marvel movies go but it was decent enough to get my mind off of daily problems...Same goes for Captain America...

Don't even get me started on Green Lantern though...

Puss in Boots and the Mupets were both very well done movies, which is strange because I went into the theatre for both of them expecting a stupid kids movie but Puss was very well done for a spin off and the muppets riddled me with nostalgia for the early 90's...good times were had by all...

Frazzled wrote:I will note I have high hopes for Prometheus

This is well secure in the number one spot on my list, as well. Ridley Scott! Noomi Rapace! Aliens! feth yeah.

Also excited about the girl with the dragon tattoo, but I saw the originals and my hopes are somewhat tamped since I doubt they can live up to it.

Super 8: The ending ruined it for me. The movie had a lot going for it and I liked all the human characters.

Battle LA: Not a deep movie, and it holds to a lot of cliche's pretty tightly, but in the end I enjoyed it. The alien's motivation was once again incredibly stupid but at the same time they showed aliens who actually behaved like soldiers using cover, ambush, retrieving wounded, and falling back when losing as opposed to mindless waves of suicide soldiers. So I didn't regret buying the ticket.

Thor: I don't think the movie was awful, though calling it a "3D" movie was bs when 80%+ of it isn't 3D at all, I just think it was meh. There was some good comedy, it had Natalie Portman, but overall it was just very, very bland.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Disagree so much with you on this one Fraz. This was a good movie and an honest to goodness well done prequel. I've recommended this to several people even if they had no interest in PotA at all.

Captain America: This one was a bit meh, not unlike Thor. However it had a style going for it that Thor didn't. Thor was jarring in that they were trying to mesh this technicolor, nordic, high fantasy/aliens world with regular Earth and it never geled. Captain America's 1940's style meets comic books did for me so while the movie itself was nothing amazing it was still enjoyable.

Transformers 3: Quite possibly one of the worst movies I have ever seen. An utterly incomprehensible trainwreck that feels like nothing more than a few dozen, "Wouldn't it be cool?" effects shots strung together with no rhyme or reason for their existence. If there was ever a better movie to make the case for Bay needing to be made a producer and run the technical and business side of a production for a director with actual talent this is it.

Real Steel was this year's surprise awesome. Didn't look like anything, barely got advertised, was actually really good.

The wife and I almost died laughing at Your Highness, especially when they visit the wizard thing.

I like Thor and Captain America. I really enjoyed First Class, Cowboys & Aliens, and Battle: LA. To be fair the only one out of all of that that was probably a geniunely well done movie with solid acting was First Class but they were all fun movies.

Sadly though I love Ryan Reynolds I hated Green Latern....It brought back to mind the first Hulk movie and gave me nightmares

Conan was fun, We're gonna watch The Debt sometime this week. Oddly enjoyed Scream 4. Guilty pleasure gained from Final Destination 5 (or whatever).

The wife dragged me to A Week with Marilyn which was actually pretty good. Hanna was pretty good but not amazing. Sadly I think the 5th Fast and Furious movie was better than Transformers 3 since at least Fast and Furious 5 had a fight between The Rock and Vin Diesal

Overall not a bad year for movies but I've fallen far behind my cartoon movies and will need to catch up over the holiday

This is going to be very positive, I pretty much like all films...

The Inbetweeners movie, this was really funny. Just as good as the series which I really enjoyed, great ending (if it is, was rumoured a second film would be made) to the show.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes, to be honest I wasn't expecting it to be that good, but for me it really was. I've only seen one of the Planet of the Apes films (The most recent one I think) so wasn't sure what to really expect, but it was an all round great film.

Captain America, bit of a let down. Only because I was expecting it to be awesome, it wasn't bad just not as exiting as i hoped.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, wow this film was brilliant. Wish I had seen it sooner as I really wanted to watch it again, but I saw it in pretty much the last week it was still on at cinemas.

Hangover Two, wasn't quite what I was hoping for but was still a good laugh.

Johnny English Reborn, went to this expecting classic Rowan Atkinson, and while not his best film it was still enjoyable.

I've seen a few more at least at the Cinema this year, but to be honest can't remember which ones as I watch far too many films. Will probably try and watch a couple more films this year, might go see Immortals, Puss in Boots, Moneyball and maybe something else (Got a month Holiday from Uni, with only 3 essays to do so got plenty of free time).

Tin Tin and the Treasure Of The Unicorn.

rodgers37 wrote:
Johnny English Reborn, went to this expecting classic Rowan Atkinson, and while not his best film it was still enjoyable.

Woah someone actually watched that one?

Not been to the cinema much this year, but its Bluray season for the summer films so I'm catching up ish. Regarding my own views.

Captain America - Possibly one of my fave films this year, I'll admit I am a long term fan of all things Marvel, although a recent shift to DC has been a welcome change, but as a fan of the Avengers in comic book form, I pretty much loved it. I think being a fan of the comics themselves might help with this one, and Thor, but for me it was certainly what I was hoping to see, and more importantly never once did I think, why is Johnny Storm using Cap's shield.

Thor - It's certainly a Kenneth Branagh film, and once again I really liked it. Had serious doubts on this one, due to how Thor has sometimes been portrayed in the comics, but I really enjoyed Chris Hemsworth's portrayal of him, excellent stuff. Had no issues with any of the casting choices, and really looking forward to seeing both Avengers and Thor 2.

Pirates 4 - After a few watches, I see it as the weakest of the four Pirates films, although still an enjoyable romp. It was a little all over the place, which seems odd considering the previous films, but they somehow didn't feel that way even with the varying plot twists. I am hoping this will be a blip in another trilogy, and I enjoyed Cruz in the movie, so looking forward to seeing how the next film plays out. I'd say it missed several of the cast of the previous films, and I'm not referring to Bloom or Knightley, new crew members that where not either that interesting, or destined to last long didn't catch my attention, hopefully more Black Pearl crew will be back for the next one.

Harry Potter DH2 - It was well done, but I didn't really enjoy it as much as previous Harry films. Its possibly the first of the films where I really think the book was not given much justice, and it felt a bit pushed that they broke it into two. Especially when Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix would have both been helped by such a move, as although good in both cases, way too much interesting and fun stuff never made it to the big screen. I did pick up the complete Bluray set mind, and I'll certainly watch all the films again over the years, but something about this film just doesn't sit right with me, and I'm not one hundred percent on what that is.

Cars 2 - Odd, I've seen many comments son how Pixar had never made a bad movie till this one, and its lets Pixar down, but I really loved it. Me and the boys where huge fans of the original film, and this one was a nice idea on a sequel, rather than just having them sit around Radiator Springs again. Can't really fault the film, excellent overall.

GC and the Wife liked CARS 2. I wanted to wrench my eyes out. But of course I felt the same way about CARS 1 (except the same Paul newman's voiceover was in of course).

Out of interest what was it you disliked about priest ,probably one of my favored movies of the year?

mattyrm wrote:

rodgers37 wrote:
Johnny English Reborn, went to this expecting classic Rowan Atkinson, and while not his best film it was still enjoyable.

Woah someone actually watched that one?

I liked it.

Not a classic but certainly 3/5 stars.

blackclaw1 wrote:Out of interest what was it you disliked about priest ,probably one of my favored movies of the year?

A lack of acting, plot, and mostly just kind of boring.