Top 5 and Bottom 5 Movies of 2012

So this year I didn't make it out to the theatre as much as I would have liked. The main reason for this is that I'm living in a Spanish-speaking country and almost all the movies at the one movie theatre are only in the dubbed format. While I'm at the point I can follow a movie in Spanish, it can be difficult to enjoy it. However, there were some exceptions, I saw Avengers and Paranorman at a theatre in Spanish and still throughly enjoyed them. I also saw them in English later on DVD and enjoyed them even more. Also I haven't been able to find a few movies on watchable quality DVD yet (notably Wreck-it-Ralph, Django Unchained and Skyfall) but of the plethora of movies I have seen this year, here is my top 5.

The Avengers

While far from being perfect, this movie is too much fun. Joss Whedon does a great job of balancing the characters and never loses their humanity. While there are some plot holes (Why did Loki want to get captured again) I was having too much fun to notice them.

Moonrise Kingdom

This movie is just delightful. It's super-cute with some extremely touching moments. It's like someone told Wes Anderson to make his usual stylized movie, but this time make it happy. The movie is saturated with colorful hues and heart-warming dialogue.

Paranorman

Another fantastical movie made by the Laika studio (who made Coraline). Much like Coraline, the film deals with a young outcast and struggles to fit in. The set design and cinematography is amazing and the characters are extremely likable. A fun "Goonies" like adventure in stop animation.

Chronicle

It's pretty amazing that this movie was so good. Here we are in 2012, and we're already tired of found footage and superhero movies (well I actually I never get tired of superheroes). And then this movie comes along and is so different than the typical movies found in either of the genres. I'm a little worried about the talk of a sequel. It's an unique movie that shouldn't be forced to be reproduced.

21 Jump Street

Surprises are always nice. I wasn't expecting too much from this seemingly run-of-the-mill reboot/remake comedy. So when it was totally hilarious, I was very pleased. And I found out that Channing Tatum is actually a decent actor who can make fun of himself.

So I don't want to necessarily call this the Bottom 5, but rather 5 disappointments. None of these movies are terrible (except for Battleship), they were just disappointing. There were definitely worse movies that came out this year, I just didn't see them. So here are the disappointing 5.

So this movie's terrible. I was expecting so little from it, a few engaging action scenes and some fun dialogue and I would have been satisfied. But instead they threw in a few crappy transformer rip-offs and had a ridiculous script that I was so bored with. Come on Hollywood, you can do better.

Total Recall

This would have been a fine fun sci-fi action movie, if it wasn't a remake and that the original was so good. This movie adds nothing new to the original, and actually dulls down some of the plot points of the original. Again this movie would have been enjoyable if the director just did something different. Instead the final product is a less creative, less fun, less explosive, less intelligent replay of the original.

John Carter

Contrary to all the horrible press this movie received, it's not that bad. But it's not very good either. The main problem this movie has that it can't decide who it is for. It seems like they went for the kid/tween demographic, but I was a little disturbed by this because in the movie John Carter, the hero mind you, literally massacres a whole alien army. I mean there is like alien heads and appendages flying everywhere. It reminded me of the failed franchise movie the The Golden Compass that came out a few years ago.

Again, not a bad movie at all, but very disappointing for me considering it's a Pixar film. I understood why they had to do Cars 2 last year, I acknowledged that and respected the business decision to make that film. But this year they were supposed to get back on track. A cool female archer lead (like Katniss!) and an adventure that she's going to embark on. The whole movie I just felt like they never embarked on the promised adventure. I got that they wanted to deal with mom issues and stuff, but I got bored. It wasn't particularly funny or touching either. It was OK. If I wanted OK, I would have gone to an Ice Age or Madagascar sequel. I expected something more original and epic from Pixar.

 The Amazing Spider-man

So I have to preface this by that I love Spider-man and he's my favorite. I thought the Sam Raimi trilogy was a great depiction of the character. So I was already prejudiced by this movie before I saw it. And then I saw it and for the most part I was satisfied, but I could not get over how similar it was to the original that just came out 10 years ago. Mainly I was not happy with the villain. I already thought Lizard was kind of weak choice for a villain, I mean he's just a big lizard, and then he's so similar to Norman Osborn. He's a scientist, he's green, he's losing funding for his products, he's trying to be a father figure to Peter. I mean couldn't they change a few things. Again a this was pretty good superhero movie, I was just still disappointed.