According to my calculations I saw a total of 68 films in theaters in the year 2007, which to me seems like very few.... but then again I do prefer quality over quantity. Hehe.
I'm going to start my review of 2007 by naming what I think were the worst movies of the year, then I'll do the overrated ones, the honorable mentions and finally my 10 favorites. So without further ado...
I'm going to start my review of 2007 by naming what I think were the worst movies of the year, then I'll do the overrated ones, the honorable mentions and finally my 10 favorites. So without further ado...
THE WORST MOVIES OF THE YEAR
Note: There were probably worse movies than the ones I'm going to list and you won't see things like Transfomers, Good Luck Chuck, The Reaping, Norbit, etc because I normally avoid crappy pictures. So, here we go. The films are listed in alphabetical order.
After the Wedding - A pretty controversial choice on my list considering that it was one of the five foreign films nominated for an Oscar this year. However, I really didn't like it. Thought it was too melodramatic, the style of the film gave me a headache, and those close ups were frankly annoying.
Alatriste - This Spanish film starring Viggo Mortensen as Captain Alatrise might be the most expensive movie made in Spain but it doesn't take away the fact that it is incredibly dull. You can't understand a word of what Mortensen is saying. Just awful.
The Black Dahlia - What happened to the Brian De Palma who directed The Untouchables and Scarface? This is a huge huge mess of a film. I didn't believe for a second that Scarlett Johansson was a femme fatale, Josh Harnett's can't hide the fact that he's a bore, and the whole film was just camp. The story goes off the rails too early. Instead of just focusing on the "Dahlia's" murder, De Palma introduces many subplots that are uninteresting and confusing.
Beowulf - I'm not really sold on this type of filmmaking. If you already hired good actors (Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, etc) why not just use them instead of CGI-ing them. I felt like I was watching a Playstation 3 game for two hours. The look of the characters was an improvement over The Polar Express, but still their expressions can't match those of a real actor. The film would have been amazing if they used the same technique in which Sin City or 300 were made.
Disturbia - This cheap Rear Window knock-off is adolescent tripe that mildly entertains and that strives too hard to recreate an R-rated horror movie but with a PG-13 rating. Besides, I can't understand what people see in Shia LeBouf. Sure, he's charismatic but he is far from being a great teen actor. Just because he was in two successful blockbusters this year (this and Transformers) and will star in the upcoming Indiana Jones people are hailing him as the next big thing.
Fracture - You would think that a film which stars Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling would be at least entertaining to watch. No so much with Fracture. Hopkins seems like he is sleepwalking throughout much of the whole film and doing his characteristic impersonation of a serial killer. The story really doesn't hold up and even though it is supposed to be a thriller it is one hell of a boring one.
Mr. Brooks - A huge mess of a film that even I was actually surprised by how bad it was. Another predictable, plain boring, and pretentious serial killer movie which has Wiliam Hurt overacting, a pathetic Demi Moore playing a cop, a horrendous Dane Cook, and a Kevin Costner acting like he is going to win an Oscar for this performance.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - It does seem like these pirates have overstayed their welcome. They had pretty much set up the story for this third one at the end of the last one and even offered the possibility of a relationship between Sparrow and Elizabeth. Sadly the third movie abandons all this and just resorts to more setting up and even though it has very good special effects it doesn't compensate for the fact that the story is confusing and incomprehensible. I really had no idea what was going on in the film. Johnny Depp was just annoying, Orland Bloom is a horrible actor and it was way tooo long.
Spider-Man 3 - What happened to Sam Raimi? He did a great job with the previous two Spider-Man movies and now he can't even make a decent one? He destroyed one of my favorite stories from the comic books by introducing too many villains, everything happens by coincidence in this movie, terrible character development, cheesy acting, etc.
After the Wedding - A pretty controversial choice on my list considering that it was one of the five foreign films nominated for an Oscar this year. However, I really didn't like it. Thought it was too melodramatic, the style of the film gave me a headache, and those close ups were frankly annoying.
Alatriste - This Spanish film starring Viggo Mortensen as Captain Alatrise might be the most expensive movie made in Spain but it doesn't take away the fact that it is incredibly dull. You can't understand a word of what Mortensen is saying. Just awful.
The Black Dahlia - What happened to the Brian De Palma who directed The Untouchables and Scarface? This is a huge huge mess of a film. I didn't believe for a second that Scarlett Johansson was a femme fatale, Josh Harnett's can't hide the fact that he's a bore, and the whole film was just camp. The story goes off the rails too early. Instead of just focusing on the "Dahlia's" murder, De Palma introduces many subplots that are uninteresting and confusing.
Beowulf - I'm not really sold on this type of filmmaking. If you already hired good actors (Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, etc) why not just use them instead of CGI-ing them. I felt like I was watching a Playstation 3 game for two hours. The look of the characters was an improvement over The Polar Express, but still their expressions can't match those of a real actor. The film would have been amazing if they used the same technique in which Sin City or 300 were made.
Disturbia - This cheap Rear Window knock-off is adolescent tripe that mildly entertains and that strives too hard to recreate an R-rated horror movie but with a PG-13 rating. Besides, I can't understand what people see in Shia LeBouf. Sure, he's charismatic but he is far from being a great teen actor. Just because he was in two successful blockbusters this year (this and Transformers) and will star in the upcoming Indiana Jones people are hailing him as the next big thing.Fracture - You would think that a film which stars Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling would be at least entertaining to watch. No so much with Fracture. Hopkins seems like he is sleepwalking throughout much of the whole film and doing his characteristic impersonation of a serial killer. The story really doesn't hold up and even though it is supposed to be a thriller it is one hell of a boring one.
Mr. Brooks - A huge mess of a film that even I was actually surprised by how bad it was. Another predictable, plain boring, and pretentious serial killer movie which has Wiliam Hurt overacting, a pathetic Demi Moore playing a cop, a horrendous Dane Cook, and a Kevin Costner acting like he is going to win an Oscar for this performance.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - It does seem like these pirates have overstayed their welcome. They had pretty much set up the story for this third one at the end of the last one and even offered the possibility of a relationship between Sparrow and Elizabeth. Sadly the third movie abandons all this and just resorts to more setting up and even though it has very good special effects it doesn't compensate for the fact that the story is confusing and incomprehensible. I really had no idea what was going on in the film. Johnny Depp was just annoying, Orland Bloom is a horrible actor and it was way tooo long.Spider-Man 3 - What happened to Sam Raimi? He did a great job with the previous two Spider-Man movies and now he can't even make a decent one? He destroyed one of my favorite stories from the comic books by introducing too many villains, everything happens by coincidence in this movie, terrible character development, cheesy acting, etc.
