Top Ten Movies of 2005
Here's my second annual Top Ten list of movies for the past year. I love the fact that I have a second annual anything on this blog.
[10] Doom (Official Site)
This is a great movie within the Aliens genre. You know, monsters chasing you in the dark, fighting aliens with big guns. My full review is available here. Fun as this was, it wasn't much more than a good shoot-em-up so I can't put this any higher on my list. This position was a decision between this movie and Mr. & Mrs. Smith but I give the slight edge to Doom because it integrated first-person perspective from the video game.
[9] Hitch (Official Site)
I do watch a few romantic comedies every once in a long while but I prefer it if they rely heavily on the second part of the term "rom-com." This spot was a toss-up between this movie and Fever Pitch. As much as I enjoyed the baseball portion of the latter, I'm going with Hitch because Will Smith really pulled this movie off nicely. Granted, it takes it's cues from the original Alfie movie in that the main character speaks to the audience directly but it wasn't nearly as cliched and predictable as I expected.
[8] Narnia (Official Site)
I just watched this movie yesterday. After much debate amongst my family, I decided that I preferred King Kong slightly more, hence the eight position for this movie. Narnia captured the novels perfectly, from the setting to the central characters to the talking animals. Even so, it takes a while to set up the World War II era and to get the four siblings into Narnia. That pays off later in the movie because you care about the characters (except maybe Susan) but it doesn't do much for entertainment in the beginning. (I mean, do I need to see them play hide-and-go-seek or should I go find a game of my own?) That being said, this sets up the sequels perfectly and this movie will probably get better with age.
[7] King Kong (Official Site)
This was one of the craziest movies that I have ever seen. Giant ape, three T-Rexes, stampede of dinosaurs, huge bats, scary natives...this movie was darker than I expected and good deal more weird than I thought. Kong is fully realized as a character in his own right. Jack Black and Adrien Brody are fun and plenty of people get squished by giant creatures. This movie has a lot going on and that's the main reason that this gets the nod over Narnia for my list.
[6] Sahara (Official Site)
This was my Bond movie for the year, in the absence of an actual Bond movie. I reviewed this here. 'Nuff said.
[5] Walk The Line (Official Site)
Last year, the music biopic Ray was my top movie. These two movies have numerous parallels since they both deal with a famous musician, drug problems, women issues and the lead actors played and sang. Even so, this movie doesn't quite match up. Granted, I love Ray Charles' music more than I like Johnny Cash's music. More than that, I couldn't really root for Cash's character as he longs to commit adultery for most of the movie. Good movie, not a good love story.
[4] Serenity (Official Site)
If you haven't gotten on this band wagon, it's about time you did. This movie follows the short-lived TV show named Firefly, created by the famed Joss Whedon. (If you don't know who that is then you don't know much about TV. Buffy, anyone?) I gradually got my brother and my parents hooked on this series/movie and I bought my dad the boxed set of the TV show for Christmas. The premise is "cowboys in space," which sounds retarded until you actually see it. And if that's not a glowing review then I don't know what is.
[3] Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Official Site)
I first learned of this movie from a teaser trailer in 2004, I think. It didn't have much but the logo and title but I was still cheering loudly in the theatre, as I am prone to doing. My top three movies in this list basically come in the order of my most anticipated movies of 2005. I reviewed this movie here so suffice it to say, I love sci-fi and I loved the five-part trilogy of novels so I loved this movie.
[2] Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (Official Site)
Anakin turns to the dark side. Ahhhhh yes! The three South Korean boys (the "K Kids") at my house bought the video game Battlefront II for me and my brother for Christmas. There's nothing like the guilty pleasure (and difficulty) of killing a bunch of jedi. This movie paid off in a bunch of ways and I loved it, as I wrote about here.
[1] Batman Begins (Official Site)
Have I mentioned that I'm a big fan of comics? Did I mention that I spent $180.00 US on comics this past week while I was in Florida and I brought back almost 750 new comics? So yes, I'm a fan of this movie. The Fantastic Four was also released this past year and I really enjoyed that movie as well but it doesn't really stands up to the genius of this movie. The fact that it had a bunch of great character actors all over the place only made it that much better.
Honourable Mentions:
Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (My Review)
Robots
References:
Top Ten Movies of 2004
2005 Movie Releases
17 comments:
Kong was a great movie, sure. I almost, almost put it on my own list. I decided it didn't quite have the rewatchability of the other movies on my list, though. For example, when I rented Serenity, I watched 3/4s of it for the second time, the next day.
I haven't weighed in on Narnia on my own blog, so I'll toss in my two cents here. I was pretty disappointed with the movie. It was just kind of flacid; the only character I really liked was Mr. Fox. And he had quite the bit part. Oh, I also liked the head of the wolf police. And the Beavers were ok too. The rest were boring, though. Especially those kids. Yawn.
Ask Titus about his hatred for Narnia; he says they butchered the theology. And for the most part, I find his pov pretty convincing.
Good list - but seriously, Hitchhiker as a top three?
Here's mine:
I must admit, I'm a little bit shocked at how this list turned out. The fact that Batman Begins made it to number one was surprising given I had just mocked you for making that same decision. I even went the distance and ordered them 10-1. Mind you, my ordering system is so random and changed many times while trying to figure it out (i.e. Kong was at first my number one pick...). Basically, I'm a sucker for big blockbusters with lots of actiony goodness - yes, I am a sheep but a darned proud one at that.
10. The Family Stone (I'll probably regret this choice later.)
9. Hitch
8. Star Wars (just be happy it actually made the list - I barely even remembered seeing it in the first place)
7. Narnia
6. King Kong
5. Serenity
4. Walk the Line
3. The War of the Worlds
2. Mr. And Mrs. Smith
1. Batman Begins
...and for the record, I did ease up on the movie-seeing business this year. Compared to 2004, I saw nearly half that at 23 movies.
oh, one last thing...Sahara??? ??? ??? I am shocked and ashamed. ~L
No, Jevant, I don't have the Serenity DVD yet. And yes, you can borrow the Firefly series if you like, later this month.
Mike, Edward's character was captivating - you didn't feel angry with his actions? I compare Peter to myself and Edward to my brother, complete with the relational issues between them like my brother and I used to have. I compare Lucy to my sister as a young girl.
I was pretty captivated by the kids actually (in Narnia)... Edmund especially. The whole betrayal thing was played out really well (in my opinion) and I was definitely drawn in by it. But that's just me personally.
Umm where does this put me? I haven't seen ANY of your top 10 movies for 2005... well except half of Star Wars, but it got too sad so I quit watching it.
HAHA! You left halfway through? Ha! That's hilare. fyi... Andrea was the type of kid who cowered in fear when the paint cans were coming over the bannister in Home Alone.
Nah, "captivating" is definately not the word I'd use. It was just a lackluster movie all around.
Jamie i disagree with some of your pics first of all Narnia number 8 what ever i loved that movie it was adventureous and had a beautiful messageabout Christ also you picked i thougtht you didn't like walk the line that much you have crazy taste in movie have not seen king kong yet i'm a little scared since i hate those kinds of movies i loved Dick and Jane it wasn't on your list why? see ya
Correction, Mike.
You FELT, in your HUMBLE OPINION, it was lackluster.
Grow up and try being reasonable.
Anonymous, you fascist. Go oppress someone else.
And for the record, I saw Doom today. I know it was one of the worst movies of the year. Utterly ridiculous. Like the soliders. They were supposed to be elite and stuff, but I wouldn't want two of them to pump my gas, nevermind fight alongside me.
And while I know Aliens has been the template for all subsequent sci-fi shoot 'em ups, did they really have to make it so obvious they were ripping it off? At least two scenes were identical to scenes in Aliens.
Fascist, schmacist. You're the pretentious overbearing one around here.
Know? C'mon. Now you're just trying to be obtuse.
I'm afraid you've cornered the market on obtuse. If you were capable of humane, rational thought, you might understand that the people responsible for Doom should face firing squads.
Obtuseness is not a market that can be cornered, I don't believe.
Are you capable of humane, rational thought? Because if so, you'd stop passing off your opinion as fact.
That is all, of course, in my humble opinion.
Compared to your strait jacket ramblings, my statements are as clear and true as 1+1=2.
Getting a little worked up are we Mike?
Yes, I'm utterly enraged. Can't you tell from my dismissive comments about Doom?
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