10 movies I could take or leave in 2010

The movies in today's list are ones that I generally liked, but wasn't able to get really excited about for various reasons.

Number 30



I like Thomas Haden Church and Elisabeth Shue and the premise of Don McKay grabbed me. Church plays a lonely, high school janitor who gets an unexpected letter from his own high school sweetheart (Shue) asking him to come home. She's dying and wants a second chance at their relationship before she goes. When he gets there though, he finds his true love surrounded by a creepy caregiver, an even creepier doctor, and an awful aura of Something's Not Right Here. It's a great setup and while the movie's focusing on Don and his loneliness and teasing the mystery, it's good stuff. Unfortunately, once it reveals what's going on, the movie gets a bit nuts and hard to connect to.

Number 29



It's Green Zone's marketers fault that I was in the mood for another Bourne movie when I saw this, but even had I been fully on board with the different tone, the preachiness of the film would've been enough to keep me from fully embracing it. I really like the character of Freddy (Khalid Abdalla) though and the perspective he gives to the differences between American and person-on-the-street Iraqi interests in that country. That alone made the movie worthwhile for me.


Number 28



When this was first announced, I was thrilled. The original Wolf Man is one of my favorite Universal monster movies and I thought it was a great idea to remake it with new effects as long as they kept the story intact. Especially with an actor as great as Benicio Del Toro playing Larry Talbot.

Then came the reports of multiple directors and mid-shooting rewrites and re-shoots and re-edits and the whole thing sounded like a complete mess. And after that came the trailer with the Wolf Man tearing through London and all sorts of other things that didn't belong in a faithful remake and I gave up hope of ever enjoying the film.

To my surprise, it wasn't awful. It wasn't the loving homage to the original that I'd hoped for, but taken as its own thing, it held together and wasn't the complete train wreck that I'd come to fear.

Number 27



Not a great or original movie, but exactly what it needed to be: a fun warm-up act to The A-Team.

Number 26



Much much better than Predator 2 or either AVP movie. For a while there, I was thinking that I'd like it as much as the original, but a couple of things ruined that. Laurence Fishburne's character doesn't make a lot of sense, for one, but his actions are 100x more logical than the "twist" ending.

Number 25



A really fine noir movie about a man who'll do whatever it takes - however dark - to achieve his goals. The only reason it's not higher on the list is that Mel Gibson skeeves me out.

Number 24



I've already written about my major problems with Dawn Treader. But it is an adaptation of my favorite Narnia book and for the things that it does copy accurately from the novel, I can't dislike it. Still, it's a major disappointment to have it this far down the list.

Number 23



This was a very good first two-thirds of a story. Angelina Jolie is my favorite action hero right now, I just wish the movie had an ending. I understand that the Blu-Ray release has some additional scenes that help with that, but that's cheating.

Number 22



I had a lot of fun at this movie, but it wasn't as epically full of epic epicness as the poster promised. Unless of course "epic" just means "good" as often seems the case, but I've promised myself not to use it that way. Anyway, it could've used more.

Number 21



This was actually three different movies, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed. I wish it would've been just one movie though. Or three episodes of a TV show. I think I would've enjoyed that more.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)

In the first few minutes of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, it's obvious that the film's going to be taking some liberties with the book.That's okay though.Thanks to Peter Jackson, I've been trained for this. I've even learned to appreciate and often enjoy the changes that screenwriters and directors make in adapting literature to the screen. So, though it's not always an easy job, I determined early on to judge Dawn Treader for what it is instead of how closely it adheres to the book. Unfortunately, it doesn't measure up very well that way either.

Make no mistake, the movie also skips too quickly past or entirely drops some of my favorite sections of the book, but even if we grant leeway to that, it still fails in capturing the point of the novel. And I could even perhaps forgive that if the movie was able to find an alternate point and make it well, but it doesn't do that either.

The movie's primary mistake is that it expects its audience to be more invested in the Pevensie kids than is healthy. Listen, I love Peter and Susan and Edmund and Lucy, but any fan of the Narnia books will warn you not to get too attached to them. It's hard not to get attached, but as the series progresses, Lewis gently, but firmly moves us away from them. And Dawn Treader is where he does a lot of that work. He gives us one last adventure with Edmund and Lucy to ease the transition, but the hard work in the novel - all the growing and changing (you know, what the story's about) - is done by the new character, Eustace Scrubb. Dawn Treader is Eustace's story and the movie steals it from him in order to give it back to Ned, Lucy, and even Caspian.

If you're not familiar with the story, the plot is simple. Ned and Lucy are having to spend a summer with their self-centered, bullying cousin Eustace when the three of them are transported to Narnia through a painting. They immediately hook up with now-King Caspian and learn that three years have passed in Narnia since the events of Prince Caspian (only one year's gone by for Ned and Lucy). Having brought peace and stability to Narnia, Caspian is now able to turn his attention to searching for seven lost lords who were sent on an exploratory ocean voyage during the reign of Caspian's uncle. Ned and Lucy are of course thrilled to join the adventure. Eustace is significantly less so and spends the early days of the voyage crying, complaining, and threatening.

As the ship travels to unexplored islands - meeting pirates, sea serpents, wizards, dragons, and merfolk in the process - Eustace gradually learns that he's been acting poorly and is able to improve. He does this so much that by the end of the book readers aren't as sorry as they might otherwise be to learn that this will be Ned and Lucy's last adventure in Narnia. Eustace has faced so many threats and become so endearing and heroic in the process that even noble, chivalrous Reepicheep the Mouse considers him a kindred spirit. Because of this, you really can't wait to begin the next book and see Eustace return to Narnia for another adventure. The biggest disappointment of the movie is that it fails to create this response.

Eustace does go through a transformation, but he has to share equal time with Ned, Lucy, and Caspian who have their own growing to do. Ned wants to become a man, Lucy wants to be beautiful like Susan (something that's mentioned in the book, but far more quickly resolved and moved past), and Caspian is grieving for his father to the point of having a minor death-wish. Because the movie spends so much time resolving these fabricated flaws, Eustace's story isn't given enough time to be convincing. More pity: neither are any of the others. In trying to lend unnecessary weight to characters who are moving out of the story anyway, the film contrives defects for them that can't be satisfactorily resolved by anything that happens in the plot. Ultimately, the character flaws have to disappear as quickly and awkwardly as they showed up. And in the meantime, Eustace - the only character with a real flaw to grow out of - has been sidelined.

Character flaws aren't the only "improvement" the movie creates. The original story doesn't have a real villain, so the movie gives it one. The antagonist in Lewis' story is Caspian's mission. It's enough. There's plenty of danger in the sea and on its islands without concocting an evil fog to control everything. Tony Scott's Unstoppable lost not an ounce of energy or excitement by not having a bad guy. It's too bad that Dawn Treader's screenwriters didn't have as much faith in the story they were adapting.

But again, I could've gotten on board with a villain had they created a good one. The green fog has no motivation. It's just evil because it's evil. And the way the heroes are supposed to stop it is just as bland. Defeating an evil mist and freeing its captive slaves by collecting seven magical swords isn't CS Lewis. It's the plot of an '80s swords-and-sorcery flick.

As much as I've complained, Dawn Treader isn't a horrible movie. There are too many minotaur sailors and sea serpent battles and cool islands for that. Also, Simon Pegg makes an awesome Reepicheep and the other actors do great jobs as well. It's a good-looking movie too. It's just too bad the story isn't up to the rest of it.