The Best of 2004
Once again, another year has passed. This leaves us with several things to ponder. Are movies getting worse, or are my standards getting higher? Well, in 2004, I was pretty psyched for a great many movies. The Punisher, Spider-Man 2, Blade 3, Team America, Shrek 2, Alien VS Predator, it should have been a genre year to remember.
Should have been. It turned out to be quite a different thing. Most of the big genre movies were below pare, and some were just unwatchable. There were bright spots, but it was an underwhelming year all together. While I did enjoy some of these movies, I have come to realize that they were underachievers.
The winners were few, but they were there. In terms of spectacle and pure enjoment, Chronicles of Riddick was the best pure sci-fi film of the year. It thrilled, looked fantastic, and even made me almost like Vin Diesel again. I was also entertained by Aliens VS Predator, Van Helsing, and Resident Evil: Apocalypse. However, I wasn't blown away by them. I was anticipating all of these so much, and they came so close to being excellent. But, they were just slightly sub-par.
Of course, there were the real dissapointments. The Punisher was the one comic book adaptation that looked real, visceral, and bloody. However, it turned out to be directionless, mostly bloodless, and pretty annoying. Tom Jane was good, but the rest of the cast was pretty lame. Except for Kevin Nash. He was cool. And Blade Trinity was pretty dissapointing. Instead of closing a trilogy, it told a less edgy story than the last two, and it only opened the door for a possible spin-off. It spent less time on the original dynamic of the first two films, and more on the other cast members.
However, it was a great year for comedy. Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and Will Farrell tore the screen up all year with Starsky & Hutch, Dodgeball, and Anchorman. I lughed pretty hard this year, which leads to the #1 movie of the year in my mind. Team America: World Police. The only movie starring puppets, including dirty puppet porn, and swearing, and blowing things up. It was political, funny, dirty, funny, and wholly original. It was the only 10 movie from me this year, and was the most enjoyable movie I've seen in years. That's two extreme, groundbreaking, newsmaking movies from Matt Stone and Trey Parker, not involving real people. Here's for some more.
All in all, it was a dissapointing year, but here's hoping 2005 is better.
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