2013 hasn’t had as many great movies as
recent years, but it’s certainly had its share of stinkers. A Bottom Ten list
doesn’t even do justice to some of the rotten pieces of cinema that have come
audiences’ way in the last 12 months. As bad as Paranoia, Safe Haven, and
Identity Thief may have been, they
all at least had some redeemable value. The following movies did not. If you
have the choice to watch one of these, refrain.
Dishonourable
mentions: Pain & Gain, G.I. Joe: Retaliation
10. 21 & OVER
A tired re-tread of The Hangover – which, let’s be honest, was already a re-tread of Dude, Where’s My Car? – with three teens
that feel like first-draft rejects from Project
X. The plot is dumb, the jokes are puerile, and the characters are
incredibly racist. If 21 & Over
achieves anything, it’s leaving you with a stupidity-driven headache to rival
the hangovers contained within.
9. HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS
Photo: Paramount Pictures
After The
Hurt Locker, The Town, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,
and The Avengers, Jeremy Renner was
on an unbelievable hot streak. That ended with a loud thud when this stinker
limped into theatres in January. Dealing with the fairy-tale characters as
grown-ups had potential, but turning them into witch hunters for hire was an
incredibly bone-headed move that reeks of desperation. Jeremy Renner deserved
so much better than this.
8. THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES
The post-Harry Potter era is stuffed with YA adaptations, from The Hunger Games to Beautiful Creatures, but even the worst of the Twilight sequels is better than this horribly derivative and boring
mess. Even when the movie occasionally gets mildly interesting, the horrendous CGI
takes you right out of the experience. The Mortal
Instruments book series has six entries in it. Based on this first movie, there
likely won’t be five sequels.
7. MOVIE 43
A great cast does not necessarily make a
great movie. DVD bargain bins are littered with dreck starring gargantuan casts
of solid actors, like Valentine’s Day,
North, and Rat Race. After the filmmakers managed to get Hugh Jackman and Kate
Winslet to film a scene for it years ago, they tricked two dozens other famous
faces to film scenes and stitched them together into a horrible movie. Almost
all the actors have denounced their involvement in Movie 43. If you let it eat 90 minutes of your life, so will you.
6. RIDDICK
Pitch
Black was good, but not great. The Chronicles of Riddick was worse, but wasn’t completely awful. Riddick is the absolute worst of the
trilogy. Every scene is derivative of scenes from much better movies, like Aliens, Jurassic Park, The Road
Warrior, Starship Trooper, and
even the first Pitch Black. It’s the
worst movie Vin Diesel has made – and in the shadow of Babylon A.D. and The Pacifier,
that’s saying something.
Photo: The Weinstein Company
5. SCARY MOVIE 5
The Scary
Movie franchise has one of the worst track records in modern cinema. Even
the first one, which was the best, was pretty bad. The sequels have all been
terrible, but usually each had at least one or two mildly funny moments. Scary Movie 5 is the new low point for
the series, with all the jokes aiming at the ground and still missing the
landings.
4. GETAWAY
Remember when, as a kid, you’d go over to a
friend’s house and they wanted to show you their new video game, but wouldn’t
let you play and you just watched them race around and shoot without getting to
participate yourself? That’s what watching Getaway
feels like. Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez are ordered to commit countless crimes
by an evil mastermind whose ultimate motives turn out to be so stupid, the
already brainless racing movie sputters to an absolutely moronic end.
3. A HAUNTED HOUSE
It’s a truly bad year when the worst Scary Movie sequel still isn’t the worst
horror-genre parody of it. After the atrocious Scary Movie 2, White Chicks,
Norbit, and Little Man, Marlon Wayans’s A
Haunted House continues his streak of making some of the worst excuses for
comedies in the medium of film. Not a single “joke” can elicit even a smile
from anyone with an IQ higher than that of a six-year-old’s. And even a
six-year-old would probably find its humour too immature.
The Waterboy. Little Nicky. Eight Crazy Nights. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry. You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. Grown-Ups.
Just Go with It. Jack and Jill. That’s My Boy.
Grown-Ups 2 is worse than pretty much
all of them. The first five minutes includes a deer urinating on Adam Sandler’s
face, a teenage boy being caught masturbating in the shower by his mother, and
the said deer urinating all over the naked son while his mother watches. And the
other 95 minutes are even worse.
1947’s The
Secret Life of Walter Mitty was designed as nothing more than a showcase
for Danny Kaye’s comedic talents, with the boring protagonist constantly
daydreaming extended sequences wherein Kaye could play various wacky characters.
Ben Stiller’s remake improves on the original by making Mitty’s actual story
more interesting and rewarding, but the movie is still hindered by
toothlessness and predictability.
Photo: 20th Century Fox
Stiller plays Walter Mitty, a negative
asset manager at LIFE Magazine during the publication’s final month. Mitty is a
man who’s done nothing and achieved nothing. When he’s not shyly pining after
his co-worker Cheryl (Kristen Wiig), he zones out into daydreams where he
imagines being brave and adventurous.
Tasked with supplying the cover photo for
the last issue, Mitty finds the negative is missing. Using the opportunity as a
way to get closer to Cheryl, he undertakes a quest to track down the
off-the-grid photographer of the shot (Sean Penn), leading Mitty across
mountains, through oceans, away from volcano eruptions, and toward
self-discovery.
Photo: 20th Century Fox
The first third of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is stuffed with tiresome daydream
sequences that add nothing to the movie and will only please fans of Stiller’s
zanier work. As Mitty mounts his own adventure, though, he stops daydreaming
them, and the movie becomes dramatically richer and more rewarding. By being
given time to breathe, the awake Mitty is much more interesting than any of his
imagined selves.
Stiller is smartly subdued in the titular
role, toning down the spastic antics he’s often known for in favour of a subtle
performance more akin to his recent work in Greenberg.
Wiig also dials down her mania, resulting in the most defusing and charming
character she’s played so far.
Photo: 20th Century Fox
Good performances can’t make up for a lackluster
script, though. Everyone in the film is so good-hearted that you naturally root
for them all to succeed (except for the villainous downsizers, but even they
have their redemptive moment by the end). By being so optimistic and hopeful, the
movie loses easy laughs within its reach, sticking to a neo-Frank Capra tone
that hinders as much as it helps. Worse still is that the plot ends up being so
predictable, it’s often easy to guess, at any given moment, what the following
scene or the next line of dialogue will be.
The Secret
Life of Walter Mitty does well with pretty much
everything it does try, but by aiming low, it never impresses or surprises.
Stiller and Wiig are enjoyable and you’ll leave the movie feeling generally
satisfied, but it could have been much more rewarding if only the makers of the
movie had not settled for simply being good.
The second-biggest movie awards of the year came out with their nominations this morning. Here's a look at this year's nominees.
Best Picture (Drama)
12 Years a Slave
Captain Phillips
Gravity
Philomena
Rush
Best Picture (Musical/Comedy)
American Hustle
Her
Inside Llewyn Davis
Nebraska
The Wolf of Wall Street
Best Actor (Drama)
Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave)
Idris Elba (Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom)
Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips)
Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club)
Robert Redford (All is Lost)
Best Actress (Drama)
Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)
Sandra Bullock (Gravity)
Judi Dench (Philomena)
Emma Thompson (Saving Mr. Banks)
Kate Winslet (Labour Day)
Best Actor (Musical/Comedy)
Christian Bale (American Hustle)
Bruce Dern (Nebraska)
Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street)
Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis)
Joaquin Phoenix (Her)
Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips)
Daniel Bruhl (Rush)
Bradley Cooper (American Hustle)
Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave)
Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)
Best Supporting Actress
Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine)
Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle)
Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave)
Julia Roberts (August: Osage County)
June Squibb (Nebraska)
Best Director
Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity)
Paul Greengrass (Captain Phillips)
Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave)
Alexander Payne (Nebraska)
David O. Russell (American Hustle)
Best Screenplay
Spike Jonze (Her)
Bob Nelson (Nebraska)
Jeff Pope & Steve Coogan (Philomena)
John Ridley (12 Years a Slave)
Eric Warren Singer & David O. Russell (American Hustle)
Best Animated Film
The Croods
Despicable Me 2
Frozen
Best Foreign-Language Film
Blue is the Warmest Colour
The Great Beauty
The Hunt
The Past
The Wind Rises
Best Original Score
12 Years a Slave
All is Lost
The Book Thief
Gravity
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Best Original Song
"Atlas" (Catching Fire)
"Let it Go" (Frozen)
"Ordinary Love" (Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom)
"Please, Mr. Kennedy" (Inside Llewyn Davis)
"Sweeter Than Fiction" (One Chance)
From 1989 to 1994, Disney animation was at
the top of its game. Starting with The
Little Mermaid and continuing through Beauty
and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King, Disney found critical and
commercial success that rivalled anything they’d earned before. The arrival of
Pixar in 1995 knocked Disney off their throne, which they’ve only recently
reclaimed with Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph. Frozen, though, is the best animated movie Disney themselves have
made in almost 20 years.
Based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The
Snow Queen,” Frozen tells the tale of
two princess sisters, Elsa and Anna. Elsa was born with a Midas touch of ice,
and when she and Anna are playing one day, Elsa nearly kills Anna. After that
accident, Elsa stays in her room for a decade, until her coronation day. Her
powers are kept secret from the entire kingdom of Arendelle, including from
Anna, who lost the memories of them.
Still: Walt Disney Pictures
At the coronation ceremony, Elsa loses
control of her powers and sends Arendelle into an eternal winter. Elsa flees
and secludes herself in a faraway ice castle. Anna ventures after her, to
convince her to thaw the land out, assisted by a prince, his reindeer, and a snowman Elsa enchanted as a child.
Frozen represents a near-perfect fusion of modern Disney and early ‘90s
Disney. It covers similar territory as Tangled,
but brings back the theatrical musical numbers that were once a staple of
animated Disney fare. The songs are insanely catchy and grandly operatic,
recalling classics like “Part of Your World” and “Can You Feel the Love
Tonight.” And the cast of Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad, and Jonathan
Groff are all magnificent.
Still: Walt Disney Pictures
As great as the songs are, they’re almost
all in the first 45 minutes. The movie loses a little of its magic in the
second half, once the characters stop breaking into song. As well, at just 90
or so minutes, Frozen’s a little too
lean for its own good. An extra 20 minutes in the third act would’ve made for an
even more powerful movie with a stronger ending.
Minor quibbles aside, though, Frozen is nearly flawless entertainment
that not only redeems a disappointing year for animation but gives Disney their
best animated film since The Lion King.
If this is the future of Disney, Pixar may soon lose their crown.
When the Korean revenge movie Oldboy was released in 2003, it became a
buzzed-about cult hit largely because of three things: its cringe-inducing
violence, its stylized action, and its jaw-dropping climax. Spike Lee’s English
remake has no style and it fumbles its ending, leaving a grotesque mess.
Oldboy’s premise is that Joe (Josh Brolin) – a degenerate businessman who
hits on his clients’ wives, drinks every chance he gets, and doesn’t visit his
3-year-old daughter – is kidnapped one 1993 night and awakens in what looks at
first like a motel room but is actually a personal prison. The room’s window is
fake and the only door is bolted shut.
After resignedly giving up hope of escaping,
Joe turns to his only window to the outside world, the in-room TV. He discovers
on the news that his ex-wife has been murdered, his daughter has been adopted,
and he has been named the killer (thanks to planted DNA).
Photo: Universal Pictures
For 20 years, Joe consumes the dumplings
and vodka he’s given daily, he writes and stockpiles desperate letters to his
daughter, and he watches the world go by through his television. Then one day, without
warning, he’s released. With no understanding of what he did to deserve his
punishment and 20 years of seething fury, Joe goes on a mission of revenge.
The concept is preposterous and hinges on
the ending giving an answer of such scale that it overcomes that. The original,
despite its occasional missteps, stuck its landing with a jaw-dropping turn of
the plot in its climax; the 2013 version trips and stumbles with it, in part
due to Sharlto Copley playing his villainous role as if he has a maniacal
moustache to twirl.
Photo: Universal Pictures
Park Chan-Wook’s version had a visual flair
that amped up the gore for key moments but shied away from it for others. Lee’s
version goes for an all-is-more approach, showing everything from severed
tongues to lumps of flesh. Without any style, it starts off nauseating and fast
becomes numbing.
As its own movie, the new Oldboy is unlikeable, gruesome and dull.
As a remake, it forgets that Joe’s revenge, deep down, is less about exacting
vengeance than about trying to understand his imprisonment. By the time Spike
Lee’s Oldboy gets to its answers,
nobody really cares what the question was.
Twenty or 30 years ago, film adaptations
usually didn’t have to worry about aping their source books exactly. The recent
influx of book series with rabid fan bases being adapted into films, though, has
led to filmmakers being afraid to cut scenes that worked in the book but don’t
in the movie. Catching Fire is a
better movie than The Hunger Games
was, but it still ultimately falls into the same traps by treating its source
novel as gospel.
A year after the events of The Hunger Games, victors Katniss
(Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) have returned to their lives in
District 12, but are continually haunted by nightmares and PTSD flashbacks.
Katniss’s defiance of the rules in the prior Hunger Games has led to sparks of
rebellion amongst the volatile, oppressed districts of Panem.
Photo: Lionsgate
President Snow (Donald Sutherland) wants to
quell any insurrection before it starts, for which he blames Katniss. Along
with the new gamemaker, Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Snow creates
a Survivor: All-Stars edition of the
Hunger Games, allowing for the re-reaping of Katniss and Peeta.
Catching
Fire tells a somewhat similar story as the first
movie while crafting more complex characters and darker tones than the original
had time for. What could have felt reheated instead feels amped up in scale and
stakes. It doesn’t hurt that this had twice the budget of The Hunger Games, either, as the visual effects are much better
this time around. All the returning actors are excellent, particularly Lawrence
and Sutherland, and new additions to the cast like Hoffman, Jena Malone, and
Jeffrey Wright fit right in.
Photo: Lionsgate
If there’s a flaw with the movie, it’s
being too slavish to the pacing of the book. The first half of Catching Fire is all character
development and set-up, which worked much better in literary form than it does
here. By the time the Games actually begin, more than half the movie’s running
time has elapsed, which barely worked in the first movie and here just feels
uneven.
The final book of Suzanne Collins’ trilogy,
Mockingjay, is being split into two
movies, like the Harry Potter and Twilight climaxes. Carrying the momentum
of Catching Fire forward will be the
filmmakers’ biggest challenge, as this one does pretty much everything right
and does it better than the first one. And just maybe, by stretching its story
over two movies, Mockingjay will be
forced to accept being different from its book.
All
is Lost is about a man alone at sea whose sailboat
springs a leak when it hits an adrift cargo container. Through a series of misfortunes,
his situation slowly gets worse, despite his every knowledgeable efforts. His
tenacious battle to survive as every element turns against him is the crux of
this marvellously thrilling movie.
Photo: Lionsgate
It’s hard to imagine how All is Lost got made. The entire movie
takes place at sea, either aboard a sailboat or in a life raft. Only one actor
is seen during the entire movie. At 77, that one actor (Robert Redford) is
seemingly too old to appeal to younger demographics or to even meet the
physical demands required for the movie. It’s only the second movie written and
directed by J.C. Chandor. Oh, and outside of 15 seconds of pre-credits
voiceover, only two words are spoken during the entire 106 minutes of All is Lost (one of which isn’t suitable for print).
And yet...
Photo: Lionsgate
All
is Lost is an absolutely riveting movie. Much like
Ben Affleck’s improvement between Gone
Baby Gone and The Town, J.C.
Chandor has gone from a great debut to a sophomore masterpiece. His writing is so
spare that it’s a shock the few times we actually hear Redford’s voice, yet the
action is methodically well-written. The movie is also very effectively shot. There
are parts of it that are like Life of Pi,
Cast/Away, The Perfect Storm, and Open
Water, but All is Lost does each
familiar scenario better than its progenitors.
Photo: Lionsgate
Robert Redford wholly inhabits the nameless
protagonist and masterfully emotes decades of experiences and relationships
without saying a word. (Just the way he gives himself time to momentarily relax
after almost dying before doggedly getting right back up, or the way he
slightly rolls his eyes at each cruel twist of fate, says more than pages of
dialogue could.) And the ocean in All is
Lost is a character itself, with its own temper, generosity, and
mercuriality.
It’s fitting that 2013 gave the world both Gravity and All is Lost, as they’re almost companion pieces. Like Gravity, All is Lost paints a gripping tale of one person relentlessly
struggling to survive against harsh elements and cruel odds. Also, like Gravity, All is Lost is one of the very best movies of the year.
Matthew McConaughey doesn’t get enough
credit. Yes, he’s done his share of stinkers like Sahara, but he’s also done gems like A Time to Kill and Contact.
Over the last few years, McConaughey has refocused himself and delivered a
string of complex performances in The
Lincoln Lawyer, Bernie, Magic Mike, and Mud. His acting in Dallas
Buyers Club is the apex of his career so far.
Set in 1985, when misinformation about AIDS
polluted the national conversation and most associated it purely with gay
people, Dallas Buyers Club centres on
a volatile, vulgar, homophobic Texan named Ron Woodruff (McConaughey) who is
diagnosed with HIV and given 30 days to live.
Photo: Focus Features
Woodruff finds experimental drugs in Mexico
that help him but that aren’t approved by the FDA in America, which he begins smuggling
over the border. He reluctantly teams up with Rayon (Leto), a transgender drug addict
he meets in the hospital, to help him distribute the medicine to AIDS
sufferers.
To get around the legal restrictions of
selling unapproved drugs in the US, Woodruff charges people $400 a month to
join the Dallas Buyers Club, which gives them unlimited access to all of his
drugs. His ensuing and escalating battle with the FDA and the US Government
echoes his battle with AIDS; both last far longer than anyone expected, but the
outcome to both is ultimately inevitable.
McConaughey shed nearly 50 pounds to play
Woodruff and he learned to carry his gaunt body completely differently. He’s
given great performances before, but nothing before was even in the same league
as his work here.
Photo: Focus Features
Leto is also absolutely brilliant. He
stayed in character for 25 days of filming and he completely disappears in Rayon.
Whether you know Leto from My So-Called
Life, Requiem for a Dream, Panic Room, or the band Thirty Seconds
to Mars, there’s virtually no recognizing him in Rayon, even when all the
makeup and outfits are stripped away.
Dallas
Buyers Club tells a similar story as Philadelphia, but it does much more with
its true story. The characters are complex, the performances are powerful, and
the story is both inspiring and haunting. Ron Woodruff and Rayon are one of the
most unusual pairings this year, but they’re also one of the most fascinating.
The French coming-of-age drama Blue is the Warmest Colour has been
making headlines, but not for the right reasons. The story involves two young
women who fall in love. Like any movie about a realistic romance, there are sex
scenes, which have become all that news articles and the PTC have been able to
talk about. It’s a huge disservice to a movie that deserves to be talked about
because of its quality, not because of its content.
In France, the film was called The Life of Adèle: Chapters 1 & 2,
and the movie indeed feels like two distinct halves. The first half, as Adèle
and Emma fall in love and build a relationship together, is wonderful and
hypnotic. The second half, as jealousies and time chip away at their love,
feels more forced. The first two-thirds of the movie fly by, but after one
particularly convoluted argument in the second half, the movie loses its
momentum and never quite gets it back.
The sex scenes in the movie are graphic
enough to have garnered an NC-17 from the MPAA and a hard R from the Ontario
Film Board, but they serve a valuable purpose to the story and make up a rather
small percentage of the three-hour running time.
Photo: Mongrel Media
The real showcase of the movie is its
acting. Both Exarchopoulos and Seydoux are superb, creating a relationship that
rarely feels anything but real. The extremes they went to not just physically
but emotionally are the stuff of awards, and it’s not hard to see why they each received one at Cannes earlier this year. Blue
is the Warmest Colour is a powerful modern romance
with excellent performances and a new story to tell. If the second half had only
been as strong as the first, it also would have been one of the best movies of
the year.
There are lots of great movies that aren’t very fun to watch. Nobody watches Schindler’s
List or Requiem for a Dream and
says, “That was fun!” Dark or depressing movies can serve a very important
purpose, though, as they can make for the most powerful films. 12 Years a Slave is one of the most
powerful of the year.
Based on a true story, 12 Years a Slave tells the tale of Solomon Northup, a free black
man who, in 1841, was abducted and sold into slavery in the Deep South. Northup
endured horrific abuse for a dozen years before he regained his freedom,
eventually writing the memoir from which the movie’s adapted.
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Important movies have been made about
slavery, like Glory, Amistad, and the miniseries Roots. 12 Years a Slave is more powerful than any of them, largely because
it personalizes the incomprehensible atrocities of slavery. By beginning with Northup’s
freedom, his slavery feels all the more restrictive, driving home realities
that are often glossed over in movies because of their brutality.
Director Steve McQueen very effectively
puts you right next to Northup during his unwavering, twelve-year quest for
freedom, forcing you to see the life of a slave and daring you not to look away.
Fox Searchlight Pictures
The reliable Ejiofor gives the best
performance of his career as Northup. It’s riveting, it’s heartbreaking, and it’s
shaping up to be the odds-on favourite for winning Best Actor at next year’s
Oscars. This is acting of the highest calibre and the movie would be worth
seeing just for him.
In addition to the fantastic Ejiofor,
though, the movie also boasts an impressive cast of supporting actors including
Paul Giamatti, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, and Paul
Dano. Every one of them brings their A-game to the movie, filling every scene
with impressive acting.
12
Years a Slave is not an enjoyable movie. By no
means should it be, because the subject matter isn’t really something in which
to find fun, but it’s worth noting before heading to the theatre that this is a
very dramatic drama. It has a hopeless tone for much of it and the weight of
the movie can be crushing at times. Truth be told, though, that’s partly what
makes the movie so great.
If there was much that was disappointing
about Marvel’s 2011 movie Thor, it
was that so much of the grand story was wasted on Earth. The fish-out-of-water
scenes of the exiled alien Thor (Chris Hemsworth) adjusting to life in New
Mexico were amusing, but the best parts of the movie involved the gorgeously
realized Asgard and the almost-Shakespearean family drama.
After trying to take over Asgard in Thor and Earth in The Avengers, Thor’s Machiavellian brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) this
time takes a backseat to another villain: Christopher Eccleston’s Malekith, a
dark elf who is out to destroy the universe because... well, that’s what
supervillains just have to do.
Photo: Marvel Studios
The confusing plot also involves a MacGuffin
called the Aether that’s basically the essence of darkness and would allow
Malekith to destroy the Nine Realms (which include Asgard and Earth). Thor
decides he can’t defeat Malekith alone, so he frees his recently imprisoned
brother to acquire his help.
Since Natalie Portman was in the original,
her character of Jane Foster has been awkwardly shoehorned into the sequel, as
well. Through convoluted turns of the plot, Foster finds herself infected with
the Aether, which awakens the long-thought-dead Malekith and gives the movie a
reason to bring Foster to Asgard, where she stops serving any real function.
Photo: Marvel Studios
Once Thor releases Loki, the movie finds
its footing. Being freed from the shackles of having to play the villain, the
character of Loki is even more amusing. As the wild card of the plot, you can
never tell what his true intentions are, which helps make his character so interesting.
Hiddleston plays him with a gleefully sardonic smirk, clearly relishing the
opportunity to play up the mischievous side of the god of mischief.
Asgard feels more real here than it did in Thor, no doubt partially due to director
Alan Taylor’s experience helming HBO’s Game
of Thrones. The movie walks a fascinating line between science-fiction and
fantasy that feels quite fresh, deftly weaving a story of aliens and Norse
mythology.
Thor:
The Dark World is almost as good as the first Thor. While some aspects don’t work quite
as well as in the original, others work even better this time around. Marvel
has figured out the perfect uses of both Thor and Loki in the series. Now if
they just give Foster some actual responsibility in Thor 3, these may just outdo the Iron Man trilogy.
As a five-part feature, I'll be counting down the best science-fiction through the history of cinema. From dinosaurs to aliens, from Star Wars to Star Trek, from the depths of the ocean to the far reaches of outer space, these are The 50 Greatest Science-Fiction Movies.
THE 50 GREATEST SCIENCE-FICTION MOVIES
Part 5
By Chris Luckett
(Curious about why certain movies were chosen or ranked as they were? Click here.)
10.
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Before E.T.:
The Extra-Terrestrial, there weren’t many sci-fi movies aimed at kids. There
were certainly age-appropriate sci-fi movies, like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the first two Star Wars movies, but even those had
adults as the main characters. By making the protagonist of his movie a child,
Steven Spielberg found an alchemical mixture that others have been trying to
replicate for over thirty years. The genius and power of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial is that while it stars a child, the
movie appeals to everyone. Kids enjoy it because they can relate to the
point-of-view of Elliott (Henry Thomas), but adults love it because it has a
magic in it that makes grown men and women feel like children again. No matter
how old you are, when you sit down and watch the boy-and-his-dog story of a
young alien accidentally left behind on Earth and the lonely boy who finds him,
cares for him, and vows to help him get home, you can’t help but feel like a wide-eyed
child, filled with wonder at the spectacular storytelling. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial is one of the most emotionally powerful
movies the science-fiction genre has given audiences.
9.
Jurassic Park (1993)
Before Jurassic
Park, dinosaurs never seemed truly real. Having died out millions of years
before humans were on the scene, dinosaurs had only been depicted before in
sculptures, drawings, and stop-motion animation, through the extrapolation of
their fossils and the imaginations of artists and scientists. Jurassic Park’s breakthrough CGI made
dinosaurs truly scary in a way that hadn’t been possible even a few years
earlier. One of the best things about the effects is that it still holds up today
(which certainly can’t be said for many other ‘90s movies with early CGI).
Steven Spielberg used his masterful skill at building tension to inject
thrilling action and suspense elements into the story of an island filled with
genetically recreated dinosaurs that break loose and terrorize some visiting
scientists and children. The movie is perfectly cast; Sam Neill, Laura Dern,
Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, and a young Samuel L. Jackson were all
just recognizable enough without distracting from the dinosaurs themselves. The
clever script makes the complicated science of Michael Crichton’s novel comprehensible
to both adults and children and makes the story, which had already been done
somewhat in Them! and WestWorld, seem wholly original. Jurassic Park influenced many action and
disaster movies of the last twenty years and is largely responsible for
ushering in the modern popularity of science-based action movies.
There are two types of time travel movies.
There are hard science ones, like 12
Monkeys and the Terminator
movies, that treat the plot device seriously and look at the realistic
ramifications of time travel. Then there are fun, loosely scientific ones that
are more interested in speeding past the time travel catalyst and getting to
the antics that ensue from the premise. When it comes to the latter, Back to the Future is still the one to
beat. Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is a teenager who slacks off at
school, skateboards around his hometown of Hill Valley, and hangs around with a
crazy, old inventor, “Doc” Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd). One night, Doc
Brown calls Marty out to a shopping mall parking lot to show him his latest
invention: a plutonium-powered DeLorean capable of travelling
through time. Soon, Marty finds himself stuck in 1955 and needing to convince a
thirty-years-younger version of Doc Brown to help him get back to the future.
(Get it?) Along the way, Marty also has to play Cupid with his parents, whose
path together he inadvertently disrupts. With a great soundtrack, charming and memorable performances from everyone in the cast, a clever plot, and an excellent sense of humour, Back to the Future has become a timeless
classic.
6. A
Clockwork Orange (1971)
Movies that are ahead of their time are
often underappreciated in their own. (Look at the change in the reputations of Blade Runner, The Shawshank Redemption, and Fight
Club over the years.) When A
Clockwork Orange was released in 1971, it told a story of a near-future
when teenage hooligans freely roam the streets at night and terrorize upright citizens. Alex (Malcolm McDowell) is the leader of his gang of
“droogs,” who spends his days giving into his base impulses of masturbation and
Beethoven and spends his evenings assaulting unsuspecting people with his own
disturbing brand of ultra-violence. When he is arrested and subjected to a
brainwashing program to rid him of his evil impulses, Stanley Kubrick’s
dystopian vision of the future goes from interesting to fascinatingly
provocative, raising important questions about free will and choice while also
leaving nightmarish images in your memory. The nearly unintelligible language
the young protagonists sometimes speak is a quite original satire of the new
slang every generation adapts, and the score selections of the soundtrack
perfectly compliment the scenes. History has been very kind to the prophetic A Clockwork Orange, which has gone down
as one of Stanley Kubrick’s purest masterpieces, if also one of his most dark
and disturbing.
5. Aliens (1986) (special edition)
The very best sequels try to be
substantially different from the original, to make a name of their own instead
of falling back on their progenitors’ (like with the darker tone of The Empire Strikes Back or the altered
protagonist in Terminator 2: Judgment Day).
James Cameron’s Aliens is remarkably
different from Ridley Scott’s Alien
and its differences often let Aliens
surpass the original as a movie. Instead of the creeping tension of the first one, Aliens loads up on skilfully
bombastic action sequences and insanely tense ratchetings of suspense. Ellen
Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is the sole survivor of the Nostromo, the rest of its
crew having been killed by the stowaway alien of the first movie. Discovered in
cryo-sleep 57 years after the events of Alien,
Ripley thaws out to find that not only is there no evidence of the alien existing
but that the planet where the Nostromo crew picked up the alien has been
colonized for 20 years. And then communications with the station on the planet
go out. Ripley’s fury and desire to exterminate the creatures that killed her
old crew drive her to join a rescue mission to the planet, but things go badly
wrong. Weaver’s acting in Aliens
earned her an Oscar nomination, as she took the character to even
scarier places than in Alien, as well
as showing a caring, maternal side that helped make Ellen Ripley such a
well-rounded character in cinema. As with The
Abyss, James Cameron’s director’s cut is a much better version of the film;
the extra 17 minutes makes for a fuller experience, while not slowing the movie
down at all. It’s rare for a really good movie to have an even better sequel,
but as great a scary movie as Alien
is, Aliens is an even better action
movie.
4.
Minority Report (2002)
One of the best things about
science-fiction is how well it lends itself toward examining big ideas, through a different setting with all the right pieces exaggerated in just the right proportions to make a statement. These are
the movies that often lead to long conversations in the parking lot of the
theatre or around a living room. Minority
Report, from the writer of Total
Recall and Blade Runner and
directed by Steven Spielberg, is one of the very best at causing such
conversations. In 2054, the police department in Washington, D.C. has a
controversial task force that deals in “pre-crime.” Imprisoned children with
psychic abilities can predict murders and Det. John Anderson (Tom Cruise) and
his team use them to stop crimes before they happen. Ah, but if a person is
arrested before they do something, what’s to say it would have happened? That’s
the crux of the movie, especially when Anderson himself is fingered in a murder
prediction, causing him to go on the run from his own task force to clear his
name. If that weren’t enough, the Pre-Crime Division is also under investigation by an auditor from the Department of Justice (Colin Farrell,
showing how strong an actor he can really be) when Anderson runs, leading to complex
cat-and-mouse chases as strong as the best scenes in The Fugitive or The
Negotiator. Steven Spielberg and his team put an incredible amount of work
into making the world of Minority Report
seem real. The ingenious inventions that populate the film, from facial
recognitionn advertisements to electronic paper, have influenced
technological breakthroughs like tablet computers in the years since. More than
anything, though, Minority Report is
a thought-provoking and brilliant chase movie set in a time that doesn’t seem
fictional so much as a peek into our actual future.
3.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
(special edition)
When Arnold Schwarzenegger starred as the
unstoppable killing machine T-800 in The
Terminator, he gave the world one of the scariest movie villains of the
‘80s. James Cameron brilliantly flipped the tables for the sequel using one
simple idea: since the T-800 was essentially just a reprogrammable
machine, it didn’t have to necessarily remain an antagonist. After the events
in The Terminator, Sarah Connor
(Linda Hamilton) has been committed. (Any evidence of the first terminator somehow
disappeared after its destruction.) Meanwhile, in the future, Sarah’s grown-up son, John
– the leader of the human resistance fighting a war against self-aware
computers and machines – learns of a plot the machines have to send a more
advanced terminator, a T-1000 (Robert Patrick), back in time to assassinate
John as a child (Edward Furlong). John’s militia have acquired a reformatted T-800
and send him back with instructions to protect John at all costs. Having
Schwarzenegger return as a different T-800, now filling a heroic role instead
of a villainous one, provided a fresh, radical change in tone. The CGI of the
liquid metal T-1000 was revolutionary for its day and paved the way for Jurassic Park. Like many of Cameron’s
movies, a slightly longer director’s cut exists, and like The Abyss and Aliens, the
special edition is vastly improved just by the additional few minutes. James
Cameron has made more amazing sci-fi movies than anyone, but this is his
masterpiece. It does everything the original did and does it better, as well as
turning two-dimensional characters in complex ones (even the inhuman T-800) while still saving room for a few huge explosions. Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a perfect sci-fi action movie.
2.
Star Wars (1977)
If you haven’t seen Star Wars, then what are you even doing reading this list? The
original space opera from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Star Wars (or A New Hope, as it would later be rebranded) changed the face of
cinema forever. The monomyth concept theorized by Joseph Campbell, which runs
through everything from The Lord of the
Rings and Harry Potter to The Lion King and The Matrix, was retrofitted by George Lucas using an outer space
motif. Hero Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) heads off on an adventure with the
sage mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness), the roguee captain Han Solo
(Harrison Ford), Solo’s hairy sidekick Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), and the comical
robots C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker). Luke's task: to master The
Force (a life force that binds us all) and rescue the kidnapped princess Leia
(Carrie Fisher) from the evil Darth Vader (David Prowse and James Earl Jones).
Everything about the movie is ingrained into popular lexicon and our collective
cultural memories, from lightsabers and “May the Force by with you” to the
Death Star and “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” It’s no accident
that Star Wars became the
highest-grossing movie of all-time (twice, including the 1997 re-release that
dethroned Jurassic Park). It fulfills
every element needed of a classic movie, it has a family-friendly rating while
still being entertaining for adults, and the connection it made with audiences
the world over is felt in all the sequels, prequels, TV series, books, video
games, toys, and conventions. Star Wars
is the most beloved sci-fi movie of all time and deservedly so.
1.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Leave it to the greatest film director to
make the greatest science-fiction movie. Stanley Kubrick, the man behind such
masterpieces as A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut, and Dr. Strangelove,
or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, became famous for
always wanting to try different genres and never working in the same one twice.
After the black dramedy Lolita and
the war satire Dr. Strangelove,
Kubrick set his sights on space. His vision of space travel and the future was
so smartly prescient and clearly thought out, it led to rumours of NASA hiring
Kubrick to fake the 1969 Moon landing that still persist to this day. 2001: A Space Odyssey opens audaciously,
with the first twenty minutes taking place amongst apes, learning to use tools
and weapons millions of years before modern man. The movie then makes the
longest flash-forward in film history, jumping from prehistoric times to the
year 2001, with a space shuttle heading to Jupiter. There are parallels between
the two sections, not the least of which are black monoliths that cause
inspiration or progress in any species that discover them. (It makes more sense
in the movie.) During the trip to Jupiter, the film finds time to pit man
against machine in a subplot with the self-aware spaceship computer system HAL
9000 deciding to eliminate the “unreliable” human element from the mission. By
the mind-boggling final 40 minutes, even those who understood the bulk of the
movie often get lost the first time around. 2001:
A Space Odyssey is not a movie that makes complete sense the first time
it’s seen, simply because it is so different from what other sci-fi movies
settled for doing and because there is so much going on in it. Much like the
best art, it takes time and reflection to appreciate everything the
artist attempts. Kubrick dabbled in sci-fi again with A Clockwork Orange, but he never went back to space (unless, of
course, you believe the Apollo hoax story). When you achieve perfection the
first time, what need is there to try again? The titular year itself may have
come and gone already, but 2001: A Space
Odyssey remains the greatest science-fiction movie of all time.
