Top 5 Movies of 2012 (that I saw)

As it turns out, I saw exactly five new movies that came out this year. Here I am going to rank them.

5. THE THREE STOOGES

"While trying to save their childhood orphanage, Moe, Larry, and Curly inadvertently stumble into a murder plot and wind up starring in a reality TV show." - IMDb

While the success of this recreation of the iconic slapstick trio film is somewhat doubtful, I think this was a decent attempt. The Farrelly Brothers took on the impossible when filming this movie. The original charm of the Stooges isn't quite there, but I didn't think the movie was bad. I actually enjoyed it for the most part, and the best thing about it was Chris Diamantopoulos' as Moe. His performance alone makes this movie worth seeing. He pulls off the impossible and does the ringleader justice. Sean Hayes's performance as Larry is good enough, although his look is a little too forced, and Will Sasso's acting as Curly is annoyingly almost good.



4. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN

"Peter Parker finds a clue that might help him understand why his parents disappeared when he was young. His path puts him on a collision course with Dr. Curt Connors, his father's former partner. " - IMDb

I wasn't the biggest fan of the original Spider-Man movies starring Toby McGuire, so I was interested to see this one. I still wasn't that impressed with it, but it was a better movie I thought. Andrew Garfield looks much more like the proper age group than McGuire did (seriously, he did not look like a high school student, nor did Kirsten Dunst).






3. LES MISERABLES

"In 19th-century France, Jean Valjean, who for decades has been hunted by the ruthless policeman Javert after he breaks parole, agrees to care for factory worker Fantine's daughter, Cosette. The fateful decision changes their lives forever." - IMDb

I'm not at all big on musicals. The only ones before this that I liked are The Wizard of Oz and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Having not read the novel, nor the musical, but having seen the previous film version, I had an idea of the story. It's one of my Mom's favorite books. The manner in which they approached the filming and recording of this film is amazing. They did not record the singing before the fact, but rather recorded the singing live on set, which allowed for much better performances from the actors. Before this, I did not think much of Anne Hathaway as an actress, but after seeing this movie, she has gone up in my eyes. There were several things I didn't care for in the film, however, and at the top of the list is the Thenardiers. It was a bit of a stretch as my mom put it, because in the book, they were the most evil characters in the story, but the film treats them as comic relief. Indeed, in their introductory scene, it was almost as if the audience is throw head first into a Tim Burton film for at least five minutes... but not a bad movie.

2. THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

"A younger and more reluctant Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, sets out on a "unexpected journey" to the Lonely Mountain with a spirited group of Dwarves to reclaim a their stolen mountain home from a dragon named Smaug." - IMDb

It really pains me to put this at number two, but for reasons I will explain in the following entry, I decided this as number two. Just know that my top two choices were SOOOOOO close.

I am a huge fan of the Hobbit book and the Lord of the Rings books/movies, so I have eagerly been waiting for years to see this film. It is a bit disappointing that they are splitting this book into three movies, but that does not detract from the awesomeness that is this movie. I already wrote a review of this movie for this blog, so I won't really go into details, but the best thing about the movie is Martin Freeman's performance as Bilbo Baggins.

1. MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS

"Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. brings together a team of super humans to form The Avengers to help save the Earth from Loki and his army." - IMDb

The reason I picked this as my number one film instead of The Hobbit comes down to one thing: I went into the Hobbit expecting greatness and got greatness. I went into The Avengers fully expecting to be disappointed and came out utterly blown away. When you cross different movies with different movie stars together, the result doesn't always come out good, but this one worked. It combined the title characters from the movies Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), The Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and Captain America (Chris Evans), as well as some extra characters from the films including Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). The thing I was most impressed with is the character development of the film. Given that most of these characters had their own movies prior to this, I expect it to focus more on the action rather than the heroes. I also expected that Iron Man, easily the most successful character out of the others, would overpower all the others. Thankfully, I was wrong on both counts. I also enjoyed how much they developed the Hulk's character. They did a better job here than they did in the Hulk's stand alone movie! Also I liked Ruffalo better than Edward Norton. Just say'n.



You may notice that The Dark Knight Rises is not on this list. I have not yet seen it, so I didn't want to put it on the list. From what I've heard though, I think it'd be disappointing to me.