Top 5 Worst Movie Deaths of 2011.

Okay, I couldn’t let 2011 go by without doing a little list reminding us all of some of the worst deaths over the past year. I’ve listed my personal top 5 worst deaths of 2011, all of them are for different reasons but all are terrible, terrible deaths! 

Undead's do not count, so you won't find any nomination from the Twilight movie I'm afraid. Much as I wish it would just die...

WBMs of 2011.

Last year produced many good movies, but there was also more than one or two bad ones. Those movies you see the trailer for and wonder how they got the money together to make such rubbish. Now, unless I’m being paid, I’m just not going to watch movies that look like tripe and I will go out of my way to avoid them. I don’t care if im seeing them for free, I’m wasting my valuable time so I’ll stay well away when I can. These movies I have, rather lovingly, dubbed WBMs. Wide Berth Movies.

So here’s my list, in no particular order, of 2011’s WBMs...

Top 7 Animated Movies of 2011.

It was a reasonably decent year for animated movies in 2011. It was quite unique in that Pixar’s yearly offering, Cars 2, was pretty poor. This meant other animated movies had to pick up the slack and they all did a decent job in doing so. I saw 7 animated movies this year, obviously not enough to do a top 10, so here are my top 7 animated movies of the year…

Top 10 Movies of 2011.

In terms of movies, 2011 turned out to be a pretty good year and seeing as it’s the done thing on the internet to rank things in order of preference, here are my top 10 movies of 2011. Keep in mind that the movies I’ve included were all released in the UK during 2011, so if you see a movie that was out in 2010 in America or elsewhere don’t be a whiney little gremlin; likewise if you see a movie hasn’t been included it’s likely that it came out in 2012 in the UK (War Horse for example).

I’ve pretty much gone off which films I enjoyed the most rather than analysing them a little too much. Put simply, these are the 10 movies I enjoyed the most in 2011. So, without further ado here is the top 10…

Holmes versus Moriarty. Heads versus Tails.

Sherlock Holmes has been all the rage in recent years. There’s been the outstanding modern adaptation done by the BBC and there’s also been the big-budget outings on the big screen.

The 2009 Sherlock Holmes movie was directed by Guy Ritchie. It was actually a really good film, Guy Ritchie’s best by far! It starred Robert Downey Jr as Sherlock and Jude Law as Dr Watson. Even though Downey Jr is an American, this isn’t an issue as he captures the pompous British accent that’s perfect for the Sherlock character quite brilliantly.

Well now Guy Ritchie has returned with the second instalment Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and it’s even better than the first.

Impossible Missions of the Fourth Kind.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen Tom Cruise on the big screen. It was Valkyrie back in 2008 when I last saw him (I refuse to acknowledge Knight and Day) and he was actually pretty good in that, so I was fairly excited to see his latest action movie: Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol.

Now, I have to admit, I’m not really big on the Mission Impossible movies. They’re kind of the third place action movies behind the Bond and Bourne flicks. And let’s face it there aren’t a whole lot of movie franchises that have produced a fourth instalment that isn’t worse than watching paint dry on the inside of your eyelids. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for example, that was fun.

The Cat in the Hat (and Boots).

The Shrek series is one that Dreamworks have enjoyed milking over the years. Since Shrek 2 though, the franchise hasn’t really improved at all, in fact the quality has dropped. They had babies, which means inevitable baby jokes. Sigh.

So perhaps a spin-off movie starring one of the more popular characters would help give the franchise a much-needed boost. Up steps Puss in Boots.

Did it succeed in breathing a bit of life into the series? Well, yes, but only a little.

Puss in Boots is a good character, and he represents pretty much the only draw in this movie; the other characters don’t have the same care and attention put into them that Puss has had. Though attempting to pull off a movie like this with one character alone is difficult, Puss in Boots manages to pull it off reasonably successfully.

A story about storytelling.

The Oscar nominations came out recently and some were surprised to see that it was in fact Hugo that received the most nominations with 11 including best picture and best director. But considering just how good a film it is, I’m not surprised one bit.

Perhaps it’s less surprising when you learn Hugo’s director is none other than Martin Scorsese, who decided that with this film he would have a go at filming in 3D.

Now, I didn’t watch it in 3D, mainly because I don’t like it, but even in 2D you could tell that Hugo used 3D pretty well. It was depth 3D, not just the “oh it’s coming right at me” 3D that’s used by every other 3D movie apart from maybe Avatar.

Computer animated play-doh.

As far as Christmas movies go, it’s fair to say the old ones are the best ones. For all the versions of A Christmas Carol we’ve had, it’s always Alistair Simm’s Scrooge that comes out on top; It’s a Wonderful Life continues to be watched year in year out by many; and not a December goes by without Home Alone being aired on TV.

That’s not to say that there hasn’t been any more recent Christmas movies that have been good, but for all the Christmas movies that get made every year, few are any good. I think Elf, starring Will Ferrell is the last really good Christmas movie that’s been released, and that was back in 2003.

Well deck the halls and jingle my bells the wait is finally over as someone has actually done another great Christmas movie. That movie is Arthur Christmas.

Beware the Ides of March.

American politics is corrupt, conniving, power-craving, misogynistic and undemocratic world. But one thing you certainly can’t call it is boring.

Hence why most of the political stories across the ages have been set in the land of the free, whether they be fact or fiction. The latest offering to the fictional pile is The Ides of March, a film that stars its own writer and director, George Clooney. 

I don’t really know why the film has such an important meaning for the 15th March but it does, maybe that’s election day or something. My best guess is that it’s making reference to the fall of Julies Caesar, but who knows maybe the DVD release date will be on 15th March.

Steven Spielberg and the motion captured quiff.

Ladies and Gentlemen it’s been a while but Steven Spielberg is finally back on form.

Yes after directing turkeys like War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and producing turds like the Transformers movies, Spielberg has finally lived up to at least some of his reputation with his latest movie: The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.

Obviously based on the comic strips by the Belgian artist Georges Remi (Hergé), Tintin is done quite proud here in this movie. It’s fun, energetic, suspenseful, and thoroughly entertaining stuff! And yes that is a colon you see in the film title. Inevitable sequels ahoy!

Johnny English: Licensed to annoy continuously.

Rowan Atkinson was back on the big screen in 2011 with a sequel to the bungling spy flick Johnny English and as much as I love him, Johnny English: Reborn is below average at best.

Sure, the first movie was okay, but it wasn’t anything that really blew you away. The whole bungling spy thing has been done several times, take The Naked Gun for example. Johnny English never really added anything to the genre, it just existed within it.

The whole premise is essentially: what if James Bond was an idiot? And the filmmakers pretty much ran with that for the first movie. For the second they do very much the same thing. 

Smashy Robot UFC. To a T.

2011 was a year which featured a couple of movies that showed off large over-compensating robots beating the living hell out of one another. One was the boring conclusion to the Transformers trilogy: Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon and the other was Real Steel.

Real Steel stars Hugh Jackman as a down-and-out former boxer who now pits his fighting robots against other mechanical wizzbots. Think of it as Wolverine but with giant robots… that aren’t Sentinals.

Israeli Debt Collectors.

With the Summer blockbuster season over and done with, October started to throw out a few smarter movies onto the screens.

One of those movies was The Debt directed by John Madden (no, not that John Madden). Set in a post-war Berlin, three Israeli agents set out to bring justice to their people by capturing Doktor Bernhardt, the Butcher of Birkenau. The mission is an apparent success but decades later it becomes apparent that the agents lied about the death of Bernhardt, failing to admit he’d gotten away. 

Cage Rage.

Mark Wahlberg’s The Fighter made a large impact on the movie scene earlier this year, so it probably isn’t too much of a surprise to see another fight movie pop up towards the end of it.

Starring the ever impressive Tom Hardy, Warrior is like the brutal step-brother of The Fighter, grappling and pummelling its way to our affection.

Is it as good as The Fighter? Well, no. But it’s a good effort all the same.

Head stompingly good fun

Every year cinema provides a few hidden gems. Those movies you’ve heard nothing about and see with little-to-no expectations and yet they become one of your favourite films of the year. 2009 saw District 9 become a favourite of mine from absolutely nowhere, 2010’s gem was The Social Network and now 2011 has given me Drive.

The story centres around a character who has a very Daniel Craig from Layer Cake vibe about him; so much so that he doesn’t even have a name. Played by Ryan Gosling, this silent hero goes through the movie trying to do what’s right for those innocent around him, how he succeeds and how he fails.

Cast of the decade?

One of the most absorbing films of modern cinema was released this summer, filled with more British talent than the 1966 World Cup winning team and a screenplay that does the original proud. I am of course talking about Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Set in the 1970s the film focusses on the British Secret Service and their search within themselves for a mole. In order to smoke him out, the top dog brings in retired agent George Smiley, played by Gary Oldman.

Smiley knows the mole is one of four men: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, or Spy; his mission is to find out just who it is.

Rootin' Tootin' Cowboys (and Aliens)

If you’re looking for the most ridiculous movie of the year you’d be hard pressed to find something more bizarre than Cowboys and Aliens starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford.

Set sometime in the old West the movie centres around a cowboy called Jake (Daniel Craig) who gets abducted by aliens, as was quite common in them there days, and finds himself mysteriously back on the cold sandy planet we call Earth with an alien weapon attached to his wrist.

Harrison Ford plays baddie come goodie, Woodrow, who owns much of the land in the town and becomes distressed by the mysterious disappearance of his cattle and therefore money. He gets no such alien weapon, plenty of normal guns though.

Colin

With Summer near enough over the movies started to slowly dry up. All that remained was the remnants of the Summer blockbusters and of course The Inbetweeners Movie, and I didn’t really fancy that due to the fact I’m 25 years old.

I’m fairly sure there are plenty of people out there who like The Inbetweeners, well I’m definitely sure, I have Facebook, it‘s the only thing people spoke about for about seven weeks. I’ve never got into the hit E4 show, from the stuff I’ve seen it’s okay, crude but it has it’s moments. These moments aren’t laugh out loud, but they raise a smile.

Hail Caesar.

As the Summer blockbuster season drew to a close it dawned on my that it had been largely underwhelming. It all kicked off with Pirates of the Caribbean 4 which was average, had sprinkles of mediocre with Cars 2 and The Green Lantern, and a large dollop of boredom with Transformers 3.

It’s no surprise then that I didn’t walk into Rise of the Planet of the Apes with high hopes, and yet I walked out pleasantly surprised by it.

The movie is obviously a prequel to the movie: Planet of the Apes, I don’t think it matters if it’s Burton’s version or Schaffner’s. It starts off with a scientist called Will Rodman, played by James Franco, who is working on medication that will treat, and possibly cure Alzheimer’s. His father has the illness and so this motivates him to carry on his work.