5. Avatar
Right to kick off is James Cameron's sci-fi epic Avatar, which was his first film since Titanic (a 12 year hiatus) and it is essentially Dances with Wolves on another planet. And the film to recap is set on the planet Pandora where the humans are mining for a valuable mineral however their mining threatens the existance of a race native to the planet, the Na'vi. And the main character is Jake (Sam Worthington) a parapleigic marine who is assigned as a bodyguard to Dr Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) who explores the planet with the use of avatars, which are genetically grown bodies in the form of the Na'vi, which are controlled remotely by human operators, which Grace and Jake both have their own avatar as do the others in her group. And the story sees Jake infiltrate a Na'vi tribe where he at first is secretly sent to gather information for Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) but he soon becomes drawn to the Na'vi as a race and also becomes romantically interested in one of the female Na'vi, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). And from here this is where Jake's loyalties are torn to the humans and the Na'vi and he must choose whom he will fight for.
In terms of scale Avatar is not entirely dissimilar to Titanic its an overblown movie which tries to a bit too over ambitious. It also tries to convey some sort of environmental message as well but as a film it just feels like an exercise in self indulgence from its maker, James Cameron. And here Cameron has gone for a carbon copy of Dances with wolves where an outside meets a tribe of natives and eventually becomes one of them. So in the end there is nothing really new here on offer despite all its fancy technology and special effects and it has to be said that Na'vi tribe don't really make for a convincing use of CGI either.
And to sum up ultimately Avatar is a boring, overlong and above all overrated movie which left me yawning by the end rather than anything else so that's why its on here.
4. Marvel Avengers Assemble
So at No.4 is the Avengers movie, which saw all the superheroes of Iron Man, the Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow and Arrow all come together to form the superhero group that is the Avengers. The story to sum up briefly is about how to director of the peacekeeping organisation S.H.I.E.L.D. (the anacronym is a bit too long to spell out!) Nicky Fury (Samuel L.Jackson) recruits Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk and Thor together to put together a team of superheroes to stop Thor's evil brother, Loki from conquering the Earth. And well that pretty much sums it all up!
And the funny thing is this was one film I was really looking forward to seeing as I had heard quite alot of good things about it. But.... in the end I just felt the film was really boring and the characters didn't really connect that well together and its story was pretty dull and uninvolving as well and in the end I felt it left alot to be desired. The only bit that really stuck out as being good and was funny was when the Hulk kicked Loki's ass! The film itself isn't horribly bad but it just isn't that great either and for a film that was directed by Joss Whedon (the creator behind Buffy, Firely and Serenity) I expected alot more than what we got here with The Avengers.
And that was pretty quick but in a nutshell this film was a real bore and it fell way short of expectations in the end.
3. Fight club
At No.3 is Fight Club and again this may surprise some people and I actually do quite like this film myself BUT it has to be said it is still overrated and there are things about it that annoy me but I will get onto that in a bit. But to say a bit about the film quickly of course the story is about an unnamed office worker (although he is referred to as the narrator or Jack, played by Edward Norton) who suffers from insomnia and he tries to get over it by going to self help groups for people with cancer or other ailments. However Jack (as I will just refer to him as for the sake of it) ends up meeting a woman named Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) who puts a spanner in the works of Jack's idea which causes his insomnia to return. Not long after however Jack meets a someone on a plane named Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) and when he later arrives back at his apartment block he finds his apartment has been destroyed and he ends up calling Tyler and the two of the hang out and not before long they start up a fight club which attracts many members and it takes off but it soon grows out of control as Tyler's wild schemes get more and more ambitious and dangerous.
Fight club funnily enough wasn't a big box office success on its release but it soon developed a cult following and the film gained praise for its performances as well as for its intelligent script. However for me even though it is an entertaining film its just a bit overrrated and it is quite annoying at times as Tyler Durden is basically a pretentious and arrogant dickhead who keeps making self congratulatory speeches and tries to find more ways to create chaos. And the film also nearly chokes itself on its own cleverness as well given that it is filled with such knowingly smart dialogue but its delivered in a way that just makes you want to slap the writers. It also muddles the timeline between Jack meeting Tyler and Jack meeting Marla and when they swap telephone numbers its before Jack even met Tyler yet she calls him on the number to Tyler's house before Jack had even met him! Strange!
Anyway for me Fight Club is a good film but to be honest it is overrated and as such its not the classic its hyped up to be and so here it is at No.3.
2. Mad Max: Fury Road (updated 13.11.15)
And as bit of a rehash at No.2 now is Mad Max: Fury Road, which for some reason everyone raved about this film calling one of the best of the year. But is it really???!! But I will say more about that in a bit first off I'll mention a bit about the story.
So the story follows its main protagonist, Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) a survivor of a nuclear war as the film takes place in a post apocalyptic wasteland. Max is however captured by a war gang led by the tyrannical Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) and is used as a universal blood donor and a "blood bag" for a sick member of the war gang named Nux (Nicholas Hault). One day however Joe's five wives are taken by Furiosa who drives off with them in a gasoline truck prompting Joe to send out his forces to capture her and reclaim his wives whom he intends to use for breeding (one of whom is pregnant). Max is then strapped to Nux's car during the pursuit but during the chase Max manages to free himself and take control of Nux's car and he later catches up with Furiosa and after an initial struggle he soon becomes Furiosa's ally and tries to help them escape the clutches of Joe and his army.
When Fury Road was released earlier this year it was to widespread critical acclaim and some quarters even went as far as to say it was one of the best action films of all time. However I just don't get it and don't see what all the fuss is about. For me I just found this film to be too strange to really find it that great or engrossing or gripping in any way. The characters apart from Max and Furiosa and the wives (and Nux later on) are all pretty loathsome and even with Max and Furiosa its hard to really root for them especially as they have little chemistry together on screen. Tom Hardy's performance is also really monosyllabic and he rarely speaks more than maybe 10 words at a time! And despite the fact that Max is billed as the main character he really is more like a secondary one and its really Furiosa who is the more prominent character in the story.
So for me I have to say Fury Road is massively overrated, its lauded like it is one of the all time great masterpieces but it really isn't. To be fair though its not a bad film and the action is impressive and visually it looks spectacular but visuals and action on their own don't necessarily make a great film. And in view of all huge hype surrounding it the film just fell way short of expectations for me in the end and that's why Max Max: Fury Road sits here at No.2.
1. The Dark Knight
OK so this is the point where you all go "WHAT????????!!!". Yes I have put The Dark Knight rises at the top of this list. Why??? Well I'll get to that in a bit but here's a quick summary of the story....
And to anyone familiar with the film will know the plot (SPOILER ALERT WARNING JUST IN CASE!!) which follows Batman (Christian Bale) taking on the psychotic terrorist, the Joker (Heath Ledger) who... well terrorises Gotham city and he ends up kidnapping both D.A. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and his girlfriend and Bruce's sort of ex Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gylenhall). However as the Joker is captured, Batman brutally interrogates the Joker he gives out false info as to where they were located and Batman only manages to save Dent and Rachel dies in an explosion and this causes a distraction to allow the Joker to escape. And its from here Batman must try and track down and stop the Joker before he wreaks more havoc and destruction on Gotham.
So why have I put it at the top of the list??? Well I just think in comparison to the other two films in the Nolan trilogy this one just get's lauded just a bit too much and some audiences have went as far to say its one of the best films of the 2000s! But to be honest I just don't quite get it. I think it is a very good film but to call it one of the greatest films of the last decade is just a bit of an overstatement. The film also tries to be an epic movie in terms of its length but again it just feels too long and bloated with quite a few scenes that move too slow.
I also find one of the annoying things about The Dark Knight is this is where Christian Bale really decided to step up Batman's ridiculously raspy voice and from here you just cannot take his Batman seriously! I also think that Bruce and Rachel never really share any chemistry with one another at all even though Maggie Gyllenhaal is more convincing in the role than Katie Holmes was. Also another thing is that Harvey Dent's transformation into a bad guy isn't quite so convincing and not only that I also think it seems daft that a guy with his face half burnt off can speak clearly and fluently without any speech impairments not to mention this guy decided not take any painkillers! So basically how could they even justify Harvey Dent as being able to function normally after a horrible injury like that?!
And top it off the ending of the film is also incredibly silly as (SPOILER!) Batman decides to take the heat for the murders that Dent committed and also for Dent's death when surely the people of Gotham are hardly likely to accept his guilt. I mean this guy is the protector of Gotham, he's not a murderer and surely the people of Gotham would know that by now! And the one guy they should have pinned the murders on should have been the Joker, which would be far more plausible and it would give Batman no reason to go on the run!
But I don't mean to take away from the film itself too much as it is of course a very good one however and Heath Ledger is great and chilling as the Joker and his posthumous oscar was well deserved and it was just a sad loss that he passed away just before the film was released. And the film also has some tense and gripping moments such as the opening robbery and also Batman and Dent's attempt to capture the Joker.
However for me I still think out of the three films in the Nolan trilogy this is still the most overrated and as such a film that is highly overrated and deserves to be at No.1 given all the hype that is thrown at it, it doesn't quite stack up as high as people think it should but that's just my opinion.
Anyway so that was fun and I will be back with my list of the top 10 most underrated films soon, which will take some extra thinking!
So until the next un its bye for now and Happy Halloween!
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