There and Back Again: 2013 in Film Part 2

With my overall feelings of the year in film out of the way, it's time now to dive into my surprises, disappointments and worst of films of 2013.

First off is a new list for me and that is the surprises of the year, you know those ones that you walk out of either at the cinema or in the home and you think to yourself "Wow, I actually enjoyed that one more than I thought I would." and as a result it sticks with you more than it probably would.

And so without further ado here are my top 3 surprises of 2013:

3. The Great Gatsby: Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin's adaptation of the famous novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, this was a film that didn't do an awful lot for me in its previews not to mention the divisive reviews, I decided anyway to go and check it out.

And for the most part I was very glad I did as the first two thirds of this film are really excellent, the performances for the most part were very good most notably Leonardo DiCaprio, Joel Edgerton and Elizabeth Debicki, the look of the film was very good and I really loved the showmanship on display here.

But what kept it down is the third act where the tone changes for more emotion and fails to make that transition well, primarily because the focus shifts to Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan's characters and both of those actors are miscast in those roles because when they're on screen you just switch off as all they do is walk around and mope for the most part and it really holds back what could've been a big winner.

2. Warm Bodies: A rom-zom-com that got its release in April but I saw on DVD, I was really taken by well done this was as initially I didn't think it would be any good but I gave it a rent and boy was I surprised.

First of all, I found the chemistry between Teresa Palmer and Nicholas Hoult to be very good, the story was well done, John Malkovich chewed up the scenery in a fun way and the horror angle was nicely toned down though the bone creatures looked a little too digital for my liking which is a pity.

But my number 1 surprise film of 2013 is:

Ender's Game: Getting its release towards the end of the year, this was a fun sci-fi flick that I felt valued character moments as much as it wanted big special effects space battles, the film also had a very good cast that performed very well and in the case of Harrison Ford being the best he'd been in a film for a long time, a long time.

Plus it also highlighted some excellent young actors most notably Asa Butterfield from Hugo and Hallee Stenfeld from True Grit and I also really got a kick out of the space battle sequences which really reminded me of the space battle in Return of the Jedi, it is sure nice to have a good Sci-Fi film again as well as a small renaissance in the genre.

Now with the surprises of the year out of the way, we go into an area that inspires an opposite reaction, the disappointments of the year now surprisingly there weren't an awful lot of these this year and I struggled to think of some but there were indeed some so let's explain more what those were:

3. Oblivion: Oblivion got its release back in April and starred Tom Cruise as one of the last remaining humans on a ruined planet Earth sent to investigate a downed ship that crashes on the surface.

Going into this movie I was pretty keen as it looked interesting but sadly whilst it looked and sounded absolutely amazing and Cruise himself was a lot more natural here than in Jack Reacher where he just looked out of place in the role the story was old hat as well as very familiar of other more superior works in the genre such as Predator, Star Wars and Mad Max, a real missed opportunity if there ever was one.

2. Epic: Now I love going to see animated movies on the big screen, a lot of that comes from the Disney renaissance of the early to mid 90's which for a lot of kids from that time were huge and for some of them like myself helped to propel their love of film.

And this one certainly looked promising with its story of good vs. evil set in a rainforest but sadly with the exception of Amanda Seyfried who tries to do something with her role and some pretty neat action there is simply nothing here at all in terms of an imaginative storyline or interesting characters and I'm sorry but I just could not buy Beyonce Knowles as the queen of the rainforest, I only bought her as being another star doing a voice role and the end song on the soundtrack.

A real shame this one turned out to be a big failure.

But my number 1 disappointment of 2013 is none other than:

American Hustle: How could it not be anything else given my own path to seeing the film in cinemas, going to buy my ticket only to be told it had been cancelled due to a special school trip.

Heartbreaking and wanting to break down and cry were the feelings that went through my mind but when I finally got to see the film after 2nd time lucky all I saw was an incoherent storyline, weak performances from the male actors and the cynical use of an era that I really love that could've easily gone with a clever enough rewrite of the script.

And my heart broke once again given after all of that trouble and effort and waiting that was it, a real shame and because of that it sits as my number 1 disappointment of the year.

But from being heartbroken we go to just feeling downright cheated out of our money as well as 2-3 precious hours of our lives, those hours we will never get back but hey on the plus side we get to wind ourselves up like 1000 day clocks and shoot sprockets all over the place and then sit back and do them all slowly once again, oh happy days are here.

We start now at number 5 with:

Elysium: Director Neill Blomkamp's follow up to his surprise 2009 hit District 9 starred Matt Damon as a man who lives in the ruins of Earth while the rich live in a space station called Elysium where any injury, illness or terminal disease can be cured in special medical pod.

Ugh, give me a fucking break, the preview for this film was terrible with its tale of how the rich live in paradise and the poor live in the wasteland and how Damon will become the working class hero that will inspire a revolution amongst the downtrodden masses.

But the final film turned out to be even worse, the storyline was a mess, the performances ranged from decent to laughable and the action was pathetic with every single bad shaky cam and quick cut every fifth of a second but the real sin is that THIS was from the man that made District 9, that I find to be the worst thing of all.

I mean if you are going to do that story in a sci-fi setting then go for it, make it the heart of the movie and make it the framework to structure the story around and also give it to a non-white actor like Chiwetel Ejiofor instead of a safe bet like Matt Damon who just came across as a bore in his role, I suppose you could count this one as an interesting director coming up against the studio system and losing and when that happens, we all suffer.

4. After Earth: Billed as one of the big Summer movies starring Will Smith and Son Jaden, the story again concerned Earth being a wasteland but this time replete with giant monsters and toxic air while little Jaden has to traverse through it with a big stick to find a downed transmitter.

Now some of that sounds awfully familiar to me, oh that's where I saw it, IN A FUCKING VIDEO GAME called Metro Last Light where you travel through the ruins of Russia to stop a rebellion in the underground Metro where humanity now calls home.

And in that game it's FAR FAR superior to this big budget trash fest, first of all Moscow all ruined looks a lot more interesting, the monsters have teeth and you don't have this young kid who's about as appealing as getting flogged with a wet newspaper.

That said though, director M. Night Shyamalan does not deserve to be kicked around for this mess, Smith himself has to take the blame for it, this was his baby and he simply hired Shyamalan to do the job, happily the movie going public gave it the same level of support as a rope supports a hanged person and that makes me very happy.

3. The Counselor: Now surely if you saw the previews for this film you would think "Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Brad Pitt and Cameron Diaz in a film written by Cormac McCarthy and directed by Ridley Scott, how can this possibly fail?"

Well old son, it didn't just fail it went troppo and I am deadly serious about that, the storyline is a mess, the performances are a complete bore to watch and come across as nothing more than A list movie stars indulging themselves in the worst possible way, Michael Fassbender is criminally wasted in his role and Scott's direction feels like a bunch of scenes just edited together in a blender instead of a proper editing room.

What a miserable waste of all that talent but at the same time I don't think anyone, ANYONE involved with this movie from Ridley Scott or the producers or even 20th Century Fox the studio responsible had the gall to tell Cormac McCarthy the great novelist that A) He'd written a bad script and B) Another writer would be brought in to do a rewrite but no no no we wouldn't want to do that, it's Cormac McCarthy he's the great novelist behind No Country for Old Men we can't do that well you all bloody well should have, Ridley had an interesting script for his Alien prequel rewritten to become Prometheus which itself became a mess of a film so he could've ordered a rewrite here but didn't and as a result we end up with another mess from him, a real shame.

2. This is the End: It starred Seth Rogen and his friends as the Rapture came a calling during a party at James Franco's house with numerous celebrities in attendance.

The worst thing in the world that a cinema goer can sit through is a comedy with no laughs whatsoever and that was the experience I had watching this movie, I did not laugh once as all the joke was "Oh look, there's that celebrity doing something unlike them, isn't that funny", "Oh look, there's some jokes about male bonding and smoking weed and drinking and partying, isn't that funny" and lastly "Oh look there's jokes about the male and female anatomy, laugh guffaw chuckle"

NO IT IS NOT! You need much more than just man child celebrity humour to make a great comedy, you need a sense of energy, a sense of pace and performers willing to throw themselves into their roles not this snail pace improv style that is just so fucking boring to watch and just makes you think where is a good comedy director when you need them as boy oh boy I am getting sick to death of this style of humor.

And to think there was a time when the Americans made great comedies, films like Ghostbusters, The Naked Gun and the original and Christmas Vacation movies come to mind, now it's just become a barren wasteland occupied by nasty, unfunny adlib humour written and directed by people who have no idea how to inject energy or pace into these things, unbelievable.

But alas there was one film this year that was worse than that and that dishonor goes to:

Kick Ass 2: Now I was actually really looking forward to this one as I was a big fan of the first Kick Ass film (it made my favorites list in that year) and it looked kind of promising in the previews.

Boy was I shocked because this movie was just horrible on every level, it was nasty for no good reason, the violence towards some of the female characters is played cruelly for some sort of sick joke, the villains are just abhorrent and Jim Carrey who disowned this film (can't say I blame him) was just phoning it in to get a nice paycheck.

You know normally you would never say this about seeing in a film in a cinema or I wouldn't anyway despite the film probably being complete garbage like this and the other films in this dishonorable list but this film was the one exception where I honestly wished I never saw it, it was just that bad on every level and it made me uncomfortable at times in terms of its violence.

Now the first Kick Ass film was very violent but it had a steady hand at the helm to make sure things didn't get too out of hand, here much like another famous sequel Robocop 2 there's nothing here to bring it together, to make it meaningful or even funny, instead it was just an uncomfortable, unfunny and just plain nasty watch that I just wanted to wipe from my memory after it was over.

And so that is the disappointments, the surprises and the worst films of 2013 to my mind, keep an eye out soon for my favorite films of the year.