We've seen a lot of movies this year, and reviewed about half of what we've seen. It would be impossible for us to review every genre flick we watched in 2012, because if we did, we'd do nothing but sit at the computer and write up reviews, day and night, and that would get fairly monotonous.
So, for every one of the 80 or so reviews we've written, there's another one or maybe even two that we skipped over. Some we skip over because everyone on the Internet was already writing about them, and we frankly didn't have much else to add. Others we skip over because if we didn't, we'd be churning out an endless string of "man did that suck" type of reviews, and after a while that just feels like we're hating movies just to hate them.
So before we get into our end of the year awards lists, let's take a few minutes to at least offer a paragraph or two on some of the movies that we never got around to writing about, and that deserve to have a few words spoken about them.
Dredd 3D is our sleeper hit of the year.
After painfully enduring Stallone's 1995 Judge Dredd movie, it's safe to say that we weren't really all that excited about a remake. Sure, there was no way it could have been any cheesier than Sly's version, but could it actually be any good? That was the real question, and the answer that we found was a resounding "Yes!"
Dredd is simply one of the best action flicks we've seen in a while. It wasn't all bang and flash; it took it's time, handled the source material with a serious tone, and delivered on the uber-violence without making the movie one long gun battle after another.
Karl Urban was awesome as Dredd, and the supporting cast was all aces too. There was no tongue-in-cheek kitsch in this movie, not so much as even a one liner that made us cringe, and that really surprised us. It reminded us of a less kinetic The Raid, if that makes any sort of sense.
We really hope that it sells well on BD/DVD and that we get a sequel somewhere down the road, because this movie truly begs for continuation. We'll have a Blu-ray copy in our hands come January 8th, and since it's safe to say that most of you probably haven't seen it yet (it made less that $20 million at the box office), we recommend that you grab one too. Trust us, you'll have fun with it. A.
From the pleasant surprise of Dredd, we move on to the unpleasant reality of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
I'm not really sure who sat in a Studio boardroom and thought that the concept of this movie sounded like a good one, but it wasn't. I suppose kids (along with really easy to please adults) might get a kick out of the ridiculous action sequences in this movie, but for us it was an exercise in cringe-inducing tedium just to sit through it.
From the painful story, to the painful dialogue, this movie felt like it should have been a direct to DVD release, and a bad one at that. I'm all for silly fun in movies, especially when it comes to action flicks (we loved both Expendables flicks, and those movies are about as silly as it gets), but this one just didn't have the fun factor that so many self-aware B-movies have. It took itself a bit too seriously at times, and that aspect of things didn't mesh with the movie's comedy aspects at all. It just felt like it was confused about which way it should go, and for us, that killed it.
Then again, what do I know... this suck-job of a movie has made nearly $120 million world-wide. Blah. D.
Now here's a small, quiet little flick that caught our attention and held it, and we ended up having a great time watching it.
Rebecca Hall is great as a paranormal debunker who is invited to a London Boys school to investigate some alleged ghost sightings, only to have a bunch of eerie things happen, a few of which were pretty effective (Dollhouse. We'll say no more.)
The Awakening is set in 1922 London, so if you like movies with that spooky old world feel about them, you'll most likely love this one. The movie feels a lot like The Orphanage or The Others, in that it's a slow builder, and tells its story in quiet, hushed tones.
The Awakening is really more of a Mystery than it is a pure Horror flick, but it's engaging none the less. Its strong point is really in its characters, and the actors that play them. Rebecca Hall is a great in her role as she is hot, and Dominic West is a fave of ours ever since his work on The Wire. They both shine here.
If you like it slow and soft, then The Awakening may just be right up your alley. It was for us, at the very least, a welcomed change of pace in a year filled with so many loud and visceral horror movies. B.
This was the first horror flick that we saw in 2012, and it really kicked off the year in shitty fashion for us. Luckily, we've seen way better (and way worse, actually) horror movies since then, but damn this one still makes us shudder when it comes to mind.
Not only is it hard to find a good Found Footage flick these days, but finding a good Exorcism movie has been all but impossible since about 1973. What about a good Found Footage/Exorcism flick, you say? Well, that's like finding a male Justin Bieber fan that isn't gay; it doesn't happen very often.
Not only is this movie filled with long, drab scenes of discussion, some horrible shaky cam, truly unlikable characters, truly bad dialogue, and a bunch of "I think that's supposed to be scary" scenes, but it also boasts one of the lamest endings to a movie we've seen all year. Really, the ending was just plain shit.
The crazy part of it all? This shitty movie cost about $1 million to make, and made about $100 million worldwide. Yeah. And you wonder why cheap, shitty Found Footage flicks became all the rage this year...
I am clearly on a different plane of existence than most people when it comes to pop culture, because it makes ZERO sense to me how a movie this bad made so much damn money. Then again I can't understand how Tyler Perry has a career either, and people just loooove him, but I digress...
The Devil Inside is not the worst horror movie of 2012, but it is most assuredly one of them. Top 10, at least. Maybe even top 5. We'll figure it out here in a few days. Until then, it's a D.
0 comments:
Post a Comment