Top 10 Films of 2011
Number 10 - Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
A lot of people may not have seen this at it got a limited run in UK cinemas as far as I can tell, which is a shame because it’s a brilliant film. A twist of the “deliverance” theme, a couple of shy, nice blokes who just happen to look like hillbillys retire to their woodland cabin for a relaxing holiday and to fix the place up. Along come a group of teenagers, who immediately assume that our two ‘billys want to kill them and rape their mouths, and in a fit of panic, start to accidentally kill themselves in hilarious and fantastic ways. As Tucker and Dale grow evermore scared and concerned about the safety of the teenagers, the teenagers grow evermore feral and determined to get revenge on T&D for the ‘murder’ of their friends.
One of the main reasons this movie works so well are the guys playing Tucker and Dale (Tyler Labine, who you may have seen in TV shows “Reaper” and “Invasion”, and Alan Tudyk , Steve the Pirate from Dodgeball) are endearing and right from the off, make their characters truly loveable to their audience.
The teenagers are so wonderfully stupid that you can’t help but hate them, so seeing them die in self-inflicted gory ridiculous ways is all the more satisfying. A marvellous compilation of stupidity and cleverness.
Number 9 - Kung-Fu Panda 2
Considering my usual film tastes, an animated aimed-mainly-at-kids film might seem a surprise to find on this list. It certainly surprised me when I went to see it the first time. After the original (which I only caught on DVD thanks a random rental from LoveFilm) brought Jack Black’s loveable panda Po to my attention, I crept into the sequel expecting more of the same – but it turns out that it is so much more.
A touching story, brilliant character development, great animation, and fantastic voice acting had me back to the cinema 2 more times to see this while it was showing.
Number 8 - The Inbetweeners Movie
Possibly the film that has made me laugh the most during this year. Having never seen the TV show before I went into to watch it, in my mind I had this movie pegged as a sort of “Kevin and Perry Go Large” for the generation of people who won’t know who Kevin and Perry are.
Filled with hilarious moments ranging from gross-out gags to awkward encounters to pure embarrassment and beyond, the story of 4 blokes off on holiday to get “knee deep in clunge” had me crying with laughter.
Number 7 - Drive Angry
And so, my action-junkie side is revealed as Nic Cage escapes from Hell and goes on a rampage of violence to save his dead daughter’s baby from being sacrificed to bring about some kind of evil. Ok, so the story isn’t exactly Oscar-worthy, but from the first teaser trailer I saw it was clear this was never meant to be. It’s all about the high-octane stunts, gunplay, car chasing, and devils-accountant-killing 3-barrel shotgun that can take out the side of a car. This movie is just me all over.
Number 6 - Conan the Barbarian
Conan roars and beat his chest manly-style as he chops and slices his way through hoards of evildoers in search of revenge for the killing of his father and townspeople.
The opening scene, featuring a young-boy Conan taking on a bunch of would-be killers by smashing their faces open on fallen trees, breaking their legs by chattering their kneecaps and smashing their skulls in using a war-axe almost as big as Conan is had be grinning like the Cheshire cat merely minutes into this movie.
Sure there are problems, some of the fight scenes are jumpily-cut, CGI isn’t always great and acting is sometimes stiffer than the corpses Conan leaves in his wake, but nonetheless I saw this movie 5 times in the cinema, and would have gone back for more were it still showing.
Number 5 - Captain America: The First Avenger
The only ‘superhero’ movie on my list this year, seeing as how Green Lantern is sat firmly in the naughty chair for sucking more than your average vampire.
Captain America manages to do something that a lot of superhero/comicbook movies of late don’t do – it provides an almost perfect balance between Captain America being the hero, and Steve Rogers growing as a person (see Spiderman 3 or Green Lantern for how to cock this up completely).
The fact that we are taken from meek Rogers trying in vain to join the army, being recruited into the super solider program, discovering what his new abilities can do, becoming a mascot for the war effort, throwing that aside and becoming a self-made hero to his war buddies, moving up to being a hero for the whole nation and taking on the big bad guy, all within the 120 minutes of the film while at the same time seeing enough of the Red Skull’s planning and activities to accept him as a viable world-threat, blossoming a romance for Cappy Rogers, seeing enough screen time of his long-time friend “Bucky” to feel the sting when he appears to be lost and having the whole thing culminate with an ending that sets the stage perfectly for the upcoming Avengers film is nothing short of spectacular.
Number 4 - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
The only thing I love more than a good action movie is a good thriller/mystery/detective movie. I doubt I need to write any further justification for TTSS being near the top spot on my list. If you have seen the film, chances are you too would put it amongst the best of the year, if for nothing more than Gary Oldman’s performance alone.
It’s over 2 hours of a twisting head-scratching “whodunit” mystery, with intense screen presence from all the cast involved, and you really need to keep your eye on the ball while watching it. To quote a friend of mine when we left the cinema “I think I nodded off in the middle. I haven’t a clue what was going on for almost all of that”. Cinematic magic.
Number 3 - Unknown
Liam Neeson stars in this, another thriller/mystery but with some action thrown in for good measure. When Dr Martin Harris (Neeson) is involved in a car crash on his way to give a speech, he awakens 4 days later to find that someone else has taken his name, his career, his position – and even his wife.
It’s a race against time for Harris as he tries to prove the only thing he thinks he knows for sure; that he is Dr Martin Harris.
Or is he?
Number 2 - Source Code
Despite being release early in the year, I knew this would be almost, if not at, the top of my list this year. The ultimate in sci-fi thriller courtesy of Duncan Jones who also gave us the wonderful “Moon” back in 2009.
Captain Colter Stevens wakes up on a commuter train headed for Chicago. The woman opposite him talks to him like she knows him, but he has never seen her before and has no idea how he got there. When he looks in the mirror, he sees someone else’s face. 8 minutes later, the train blows up.
Captain Colter Stevens wakes up strapped into a chair, being given order by a woman on a screen. He has no idea who she is, or how he got there. There is a flash.
Captain Colter Stevens wakes up on a commuter train headed for Chicago. The woman opposite him talks to him like she knows him, and says the same thing she said before. When he looks in the mirror, he sees someone else’s face. 8 minutes, later the train blows up.
Captain Colter Stevens wakes up strapped into a chair, being given order by the woman on a screen again.
And so it continues, until Stevens figures out what the hell is happening, and why.
Now, the idea of the same 8 minutes spent on a train being played out over and over for 90 minutes sounds dull – and yet, with just the slightest changes on each “trip” through the 8 minutes, a brilliant and convoluted mystery begins to unfold, and as Stevens begins to unravel what is happening around him, there is a glimmer of hope that in 8 minutes, he could change everything.
Number 1 - Paul
Simon Pegg. Nick Frost. Seth Rogen as an alien. Jason Bateman as a no-nonsense agent. Bill Hader and Joe Lu Truglio as nothing-but-nonsense agents. Sigourney Weaver (cast in a film with an alien? Wonderfully comical). Jeffrey Tambor as Adam Shadowchild, sci-fi author of “Flux in Uranus” Voice-cameo from Steven Spielberg .
This movie is a nerdvana for geeks and sci-fi lovers, but also very accessible to anyone who loves the duo of Pegg & Frost, hell, anyone who loves comedy should love this.
Just as you would expect coming from the guys who brought us ‘Spaced’, ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and ‘Hot Fuzz’, there are so many subtle (and not so subtle!) references to other movies, characters, themes and of course, comic books laced throughout this movie.
Seth Rogen’s voice fits the alien ‘Paul’ perfectly, and the CGI for the film is so good that you forget that he isn’t really there – and that’s a credit to Pegg & Frost too, their acting towards a non-existing character is flawless.
There’s so much good in the film that it would take way too long to write about everything I loved, and take you longer than you’d like to read it. But it’s one of the rare times I can say that there was nothing (and I really mean nothing) that I didn’t like about Paul.
That’s why it’s my favourite film of 2011.
