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2004: The Year in Film

By: Daniel Leonhard

     Last year, I posted my picks for the best and worst ten movies of 2003.  While 2003 did have some very enjoyable masterpieces such as The Lord of the Rings: Return of The King, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and Lost in Translation, it was not a very good year for movies, overall.  I was very much looking forward to 2004, hoping that it would be a huge improvement for the cinema.  Sadly, I was quite disappointed by it.  2004 has been one of the worst years for movies in recent memory.  In fact, there were hardly any moderately enjoyable movies worth paying $7.50 to see released in it, let alone great films.  With so many sequels, prequels, remakes, and adaptations in 2003, it seemed that Hollywood was simply running out of good ideas for movies.  I now believe this more than ever.  Based on what I have seen in 2004, I feel that great movies will become scarcer and scarcer as the years move on.  Now, more than ever, we should probably just be grateful for the few truly great movies we have left to enjoy, and prepare to find another source of entertainment, outside of film.  After all, who knows how long it could be before something better than The Grudge will pass as a decent horror flick? Go Directly to the Top 10 ->.

The Worst:

10. Fahrenheit 9/11—Michael Moore seems obsessed and desperate to stop George W. Bush, at all costs.  Fahrenheit 9/11 certainly was not a boring movie, but it seemed painfully obvious that many of Moore’s main points were often greatly exaggerated or just purely made up.  I did learn a few shocking things about our commander-in-chief that seem entirely plausible, but that, by itself, does not make a good movie.  Moore tries using arguments such as the fact that many soldiers are dying in the war in Iraq, in order to prove his point that Bush is a horrible person and we should not be in Iraq.  However, Moore does not seem to realize that, in war, there will always be deaths and that probably every American is already aware of the fact that there have been some casualties, in this war. Such arguments do nothing to further his case.  As far as Moore’s documentaries go, stick with Bowling for Columbine.       

9. Van Helsing—While there were a lot of things I didn’t like too much about this movie, I’d have to say the worst thing about it was the horribly annoying Transylvanian accent most characters spoke in.  It seriously made the entire movie almost impossible to enjoy.  Don’t get me wrong, though—besides that, there were a lot of things wrong with this movie.  Though this may not seem like a big deal to others, I was very mad at the fact that Van Helsing strayed from traditional vampire/werewolf legend.  And while some of the fight scenes between Van Helsing and the monsters were enjoyable, they were, overall, greatly lacking and boring.  The idea of combining Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman was interesting and original, but it was very poorly done in this instance.

8. Hellboy—Hellboy isn’t really all that bad, but it sure as hell isn’t all that entertaining.  Until I saw this movie, I had never heard of the Hellboy comic books, and I suppose that, if I was a little more familiar with them, it would have been a lot less confusing and maybe a little more fun.  But, putting the confusing plot aside, Hellboy himself is really not much of an entertaining hero.  He’s always acting bitter and annoyed, which really didn’t make me want to watch him fight off the evil Nazi monsters. Not to mention, they were not scary at all.  At the end of the movie, I had gained nothing of value from the experience and felt as though I had just wasted almost two hours of my life.     

7. The Grudge—I’ll admit that there were a few moments in this movie that were a little disturbing, but, in the end, I was simply left questioning how exactly the plot was supposed to make sense or why the little meowing boy featured in it was supposed to be scary.  According to this movie, anytime someone dies in a moment of extreme rage, a curse is born. This curse never forgets you if you cross its borders and it will hunt you down to kill you if you do.  What the writers don’t seem to realize is that the world has approximately 6.8 billion people living in it, and I’m sure that more than a few of them that have died were extremely pissed off.  Over time, this would amount to potentially millions of cursed ghosts wandering around ripping off people’s jaws.  Yet, for some reason, The Grudge seems to ignore every other person that has ever died in a terrible rage and focus solely on one Japanese girl and her son, who is, apparently, also a cat. What was up with him, anyway?     

6. Chasing Liberty—Chasing Liberty and First Daughter, my pick for the third-worst movie of 2004, have almost the exact same plot, except this movie is slightly better.  The reason: we get to replace the laughable Katie Holmes with the somewhat more charismatic and enjoyable Mandy Moore.  However, I am certain that only immature little girls will fall for any other of this movie’s more horrid aspects.

5. What the Bleep Do We Know? —There isn’t one thing that makes What the Bleep Do We Know? a bad movie.  The premise is interesting and original enough.  The problem lies in many different things.  For one, I cannot even begin to tell you how many times this film contradicts itself.  It also makes amazingly unrealistic claims.  The “scientists” in it try to tell us that simply having a positive attitude towards life could solve all of the world’s problems (we’re talking famine, diseases, and unemployment, here).  I thought that this was insulting to those who actually suffer from such situations.  Secondly, this movie tries to prove its theories with preposterous examples.  The quantum physicists featured mention nothing of experimentation; all of the material which they discuss could be entirely inaccurate.  All in all, What the Bleep Do We Know tries to be smart and is fails miserably. 

4. Anacondas: The Hunt for Blood Orchid—I never saw the original Anaconda film, which spawned this wretched sequel, and I can sleep happy knowing that I will never have to.  I suppose it is possible that the sequel is, perhaps, simply much worse than the original, but I highly doubt that the original is any more than slightly better, at best.  I don’t even know where to begin when discussing the movie’s problems.  Let’s try acting, first.  Oh wait, were the “actors” really even trying to act? Never mind.  Not even the computer-generated giant snakes’ desires of gulping the characters down could make me feel anything for them, other than pity.  This movie is not scary, suspenseful, interesting, or at all worth watching.

3. First Daughter—Katie Holmes is a joke, and not a very funny one, at that.  In fact, this movie is almost entirely the same as 2004’s other president’s-daughter-offering, Chasing Liberty, which was slightly better.  College students everywhere should be offended when watching the obnoxious antics of the characters their age in First Daughter.  They claim to be mature adults, but act almost like Jr. High School students.  Perhaps the director, Forrest Whittaker, intended for viewers to find the characters as symbols of the stress in the White House.  If so, he made a horrendous mistake, which made the film’s clichéd and stupid plot even worse than it already was to begin with.

2. You Got Served—Oh man, did this movie suck or what?  I suppose maybe, just maybe, if I listened to hip-hop music, there might’ve been a chance of me finding it to be entertaining.  But, seeing as how I find the genre to be about as entertaining as a dead ferret, I was extremely irritated by this movie.  The plot is stupid, the characters are obnoxious, and every scene either bores the audience to death or insults their intelligence.  You could not pay me enough to watch You Got Served again.

1. Super Babies: Baby Geniuses 2—People who know me know that if there’s one thing I hate, it’s children.  When viewing the pile of trash that is Baby Geniuses 2, I tried to not allow any of my prejudices against kids to affect my judgment of its quality.  However, I simply cannot accept the idea of four super-human toddlers beating up a very large team of professionally-trained adult soldiers.  If that doesn’t sound demeaning enough already, let’s keep in mind that the babies’ super-human names include “Bounce Baby” and “Cupid Girl”.  It doesn’t take a baby genius to see the incredible stupidity behind this movie.

Dishonorable Mentions: Miracle, Paycheck, The Punisher, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, The Spongebob Squarepants Movie, Starsky & Hutch

The Best:

10. Napoleon Dynamite—The first time I saw this movie, I had no idea what to expect.  Its style was certainly far different than anything else I had ever seen before and I was confused as to whether to laugh at the main character or to just feel sorry for him.  But, by the end, I was cracking up and had thoroughly enjoyed myself.  Napoleon Dynamite is one of the most unique comedies I have seen in a very long time, even if I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it’s one of the greatest of all-time, like so many of my high-school peers have.

9. Spider-Man 2—While the original Spider-Man was a fun superhero movie, the sequel is superior in almost every way.  For one thing, the villain is much scarier and more interesting than “The Green Goblin” was, in the first movie.  Toby Maguire’s acting was also far better than it was, before.  He was actually believable as a geeky college student with super-human powers.  With much more action, excitement, and a better plot and characters than the first, Spider-Man 2 could possibly be the best superhero movie I’ve ever seen (although that’s not really much of an accomplishment when you think about it).     

8. Freeze Frame—If there were a category for Best Depiction of a Clinically Insane and Delusional Character in a Movie at the Academy Awards, Lee Evans would take home the Oscar.  His work in this movie is disturbingly wonderful.  He plays a paranoia-filled man who resorts to videotaping every moment of his life, out of fear of being wrongly accused for a crime.  But, when the police suspect him of a young girl’s murder, the one tape that can prove his innocence is missing and he must prove that he has been framed.  As if the plotline, alone, wasn’t enough to make me shudder in excitement, there isn’t a single actor in this movie that doesn’t deliver a great performance. This is truly a unique and wonderful movie.    

7. The Village—When The Village was first released, it received some very bad reviews from many critics.  I feel that the only reason this occurred was because it was marketed entirely wrong.  The previews for it made it out to be look like a disturbing horror film about huge beasts that terrorize a small village.  But in reality, the plot is much different and much more complex than that.  This movie is far more intelligent than it is scary, although it does have its suspenseful and frightful moments.  Those who have seen The Village know that the monsters that terrorize the village are, in reality, a very small portion of the genius behind the plot of this awesome flick.

6. The Terminal—Tom Hanks is one of my favorite male actors, and this was true long before The Terminal was released.  There is no real way to describe this movie fittingly, although warm-hearted, comical, and refreshing are great terms to start with.  Even though it does run a bit long (over two hours), I was so enthralled in the main character’s adventures, I found myself enjoying every minute of it.  This movie has everything one would expect from the great Hanks and Spielberg.   

5. Kill Bill: Volume 2—After seeing Volume 1, I expected great things from Kill Bill: Volume 2, but I was doubtful that it would surpass the awesomeness-level of the first.  But, I must say that, as great as Volume 1 was, Volume 2 takes the cake for greatness.  Although not quite as action packed as the first, it certainly gives us plenty of gory-thrills and leaves us in suspense, as we wonder how the hell Uma Thurman’s The Bride will make her way out of various hopeless situations.  The audience actually feels connected to the main character and wants her to succeed, even if her intentions are morally wrong.

4. Secret Window—Johnny Depp has recently become one of my favorite male actors and this movie is one example of why.  Secret Window has the perfect formula to keep the audience in suspense up until its shocking ending.  The ending, itself, is probably my favorite part of the film, because it caught me completely off-guard.  It takes skill to make this kind of movie and pull it off so well, but Depp could not have been better, and the talent behind the camera is terrific, too.

3. The Ladykillers—Watching this movie is like watching Ocean’s Eleven while under the influence of Marijuana.  Thankfully though, we don’t need drugs to find ourselves bursting out in laughter while viewing The Ladykillers.  The comedic writing is unlike anything I have ever seen before and the plot is immensely intriguing.  Tom Hanks is probably the only person in the world who could have played the lead role and he does a fabulous job with it.  I can only imagine how hilarious this movie would’ve been had I actually smoked Marijuana before watching it.    

2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind—I have been a fan of memory-loss themed movies ever since I fell in love with 2001’s Memento, and the idea of voluntary memory loss was an interesting new concept for me to absorb.  We’ve all been through times at which we wish we could forget a previous relationship, and this movie shows us the dangers of being able to.  The genius plotline, by itself, is more than enough to make this film the most unique and interesting movie of the year.  It is a work of art; watching it can only be described as beautiful. 

1. The Passion of the Christ —It is possible that the reason I liked this movie so much is simply because I follow the Christian faith, but I don’t think that anyone anyone, religious or not, can deny the amazing power and emotion packed into this movie.  The Passion of the Christ displays the most graphic and historically-accurate depiction of Jesus’ final hours ever shown on film, and I don’t think it will ever be outdone in such an area.  Mel Gibson has done an amazing job of showing viewers the torment that the most influential man in history had to undergo, leaving them in awe throughout the duration of the movie.  Bravo.

Honorable Mentions: The Girl Next Door, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Notebook, Ray, Saved!