Time for a bit of a retrospective for 2012 so here is my personal choices for best films of 2012… I didn’t get to see everything I wanted so if I redid this list in 12 months time after I catch up on some DVDs it would probably change, but for what it is worth here’s my top 10!
1. Skyfall
It seemed to take forever for this film to come out in Australia and so I snatched up tickets to the Aussie Premiere and they were worth every penny. I loved the characters, the story and the stunning visuals. If only they hadn’t killed the car! Everyone in it was just brilliant and it is already on my Pre-order list for Blu-ray.
If you haven’t read my review then mosey on over there and you’ll see why! Just stunning adaptation of one of my personal favourite things. So close to being Number 1 but there can be only one and Bond snatched it by a chrome bumper.
3. The Avengers
This was one of those films that could have been so bad and after watching all of the individual run in films for the solo characters I was hopeful that this would be no turkey. Well hats off to Joss Whedon as he didn’t let me down and the ensemble in general were perfectly hammed as befits a comic book conversion!
4. I really enjoyed the culmination of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy although it floundered at times with its pacing and the unintelligibility of Tom Hardy’s Bane. I would say this probably had the best plot twist of 2012 as well as I never saw Miranda coming! I’m sad to see Christian Bale depart from the role, and it would be great of someone would reboot using Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Batman but I doubt it will happen.
5. This one caught me by surprise. It was one of those Saturday afternoon’s with bugger all to do and I had seen everything else at the appropriate time, so I stepped into this ‘Kids Film’ with no expectations or pre-knowledge at all. Well blow me down if this wasn’t just great fun with so many in jokes and adult references that I could have been watching a Pixar movie. This film also gets my award for ‘Best Use of 3D’ for 2012. I do think the technology works best in animation and this film just enhanced that opinion further. Catch it this holiday with the kids if you have missed it.
6. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
I’ll be reviewing this film shortly, but I thoroughly enjoyed this return to Middle Earth. It has its foibles, which I will discus in depth soon, but the cast, new and old are great and the visual style that Peter Jackson introduced with the help of WETA has not gotten tiring to these old eyes yet. Shame we will need to wait another 2 years to complete the cycle, but I will wait happily if the quality continues in this vein.
7. Looper
This was another film that completely caught me by surprise. The three leads were excellent and despite some weird temporal paradoxes (which I handled like a true Star Trek veteran) the plot was unlike anything I had seen before. This JG-L’s second entry in my Top 10 and after these two roles and my previous encounter with him in Inception his transition from TV kid to serious actor seems to be well on track.
8. Prometheus
Prometheus could have been so much better… However it also could have been so much worse! Due to timings I caught this one in 2D on the big screen and only watched it in 3D once the Blu-ray came through. I have to say that the 3D was very well done and added rather than subtracted from the spectacle. It also watched better the second time around once I had a better handle on who’s who. Some interesting subtext and I loved how so many people jumped into the ‘hater’ camp. Well I liked it.
9. The list above was looking a bit ‘mainstream’ and I had to dig right back to the start of 2012 to find a worthy drama to add some real culture to my list. I know this film came out in 2011 just about everywhere in the world, but we got it in January 2012, so it is staying in my list! What can I say? The source material is excellent and Gary Oldman was just stunning as George Smiley. This one is a good old fashioned slow burner and even if you just watch it on Channel 4 or BBC2 (whichever nabs it), I encourage you to set yourself for 2 hours of classic cinema.
10. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Let’s finish this list off in completely the opposite direction… Popcorn movie… There were plenty of contenders for this one, but Abe Lincoln pipped Battleship off the list. This film never sets out to be anything other than just plain fun and it succeeds so well.
OK, that’s my list of 10 and I could ramble on for hours about others that missed out, but I just wanted to add one more…
10000000. (aka 2012’s Turkey) Magic Mike
I mean… Just NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Lives 'down under' now so also enjoys getting stereo-typed as Butlers and White Imperialists when treading the boards.
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