Ok, here is my take on the best, average and worst of the year 2007. It should be noted that i'm from the UK, and some of the films that are listed may have been out in the USA back in 2006, but only came out here this year.
Best
This Is England - By far Shane Meadow's most confident and most impressive film to date. The more I think about the film, the more of a masterpiece it seems. I'm gonna go ahead and bit my nails whilst giving it ****1/2. Amazing film with a career best performance by the outstanding Stephen Graham and charming Thomas Turgoose. If both
A Room For Romeo Brass and
Dead Man's Shoes didn't convince you guys that Meadows is a filmmaker of essential vitility, then
This Is England should be the film that makes you proud to be a fan of his.
Sunshine - I believe Yoda really hit the nail on this film in his review. It's absorbing yet franetic. Beautiful yet brutal. Most people I know found the film a bit boring. I would usually agree, but Danny Boyle just did such a fantastic job, treating each shot as if it were a piece of art that Picasso would be proud of.
Check out the scenes where the shioulette of the characters are placed in front of the huge, intimidating sun. They look so trivial in comparison. The prevalent themes of science vs faith is displayed so subtly that it's barely noticable. Really liked this even though the last 20 mins didn't exactly match the brilliance of the first hour. Oh, and the special effects were top of the range themselves.
Transformers - Sorry, but this was one ENTERTAINING film. I'm not scared to admit that I need films like these once in awhile. Almost reminded me of the first time I watched
Jurassic Park or, um,
Robot Jox. Anyways, I was blown away by the effects and found the film surprisingly funny most of the time. Hell, even my girlfriend enjoyed this as much as I did. Easily Michael Bay's best film.
Blood Diamond - Despite the overstated 'message' regarding the diamond conflicts in the African continent, this film was still a thrilling, poignant and effective enough to have me glued to the big screen for over 2 hours.
I thought that this was the best Edward Zwick film I had seen so far with two defining performances from Leonardo Dicaprio and Djimon Hounson. Leonardo gets better and better, and this is coming from somebody who used to hate the name alone at secondary school..
London To Brighton - Two of my favourite cities in England in ONE film? What's not to love!? No seriously, was pleasantly surprised by this decent little thriller. Performances were spot on (as you'd expect from an indie flick) and it featured some of the most disturbing scenes in recent memory. Don't want to say much more on this film incase I spoil it for you guys. Just bloody well watch it!
Average Joes
Vacancy - Thought this was a good throwback to the Hitchcock thrillers in the last century. I liked the first 20 mins of it, but then it got predictably cliched, without the entertainment factor. That said, that bloke from
Pulp Fiction in Ned Flanders gear was quite creepy..
Zodiac - I remember Sedai in the Christopher Nolan vs David Fincher thread saying that he felt that
The Prestige was "very studied and clinical". Well, that's EXACTLY how I felt about this film, mate! It's very well acted, but the amount of unnecessary information put into this film just put me off, a bit.
The only thing that saves this film from getting a weak 3 stars are the admittedly great performances. Jake Gyllenhaal is a bit of a revelation in this film, I must admit. But the story comes across as quite dull and uninvolving. I suppose I wanted to see a exaggerated vision of how the men "gave up their lives" for this Zodiac geezer.
Spiderman 3 - Not as bad as people have said but still not good enough to go stand toe to toe with it's predecessor. Special effects were great, story was dull and the music was alright. Average blockbuster, really.
Shooter - Not quite up there with the Bourne films, but still an alrightish actioner. Conspiracy, shoot outs, etc. It's everything you'd expect really.
Worst of the bunch
The Reaping - I can't even give this film two stars. Acting is very average, the direction sloppy. As for the special effects..I could produce better effects on a commodor 64..Rubbish and unoriginal film.
300 - I think I might be the only one who dislikes this
300 film.. Sorry, but this was shocking rubbish. I think the reasons why I dislike it might be obvious. I don't even think that the effects are any good. It's boring without an once of entertainment in any scene. Oh, tell a lie...the sex scene was OK. That's IT.
Next - A two star film. Nuff said. I could kinda tell this was gonna be rubbish, but I got to see it for free so I went along anyways. But yeah, it was a weak film. Guess what the highlight was, however? Yes, that's right. Jessica Biel!