The films of 2010 - Part I

This list is probably going to reflect the fact that I sat through much of my film studies class thinking, “As great as the mise-en-scene is, I find this film boring.” I appreciate the difference between art and entertainment, but prefer a combination of the two. I’ll rank movies that were purely popcorn-flicks low, but when done well, those are my favorite type of film, and a lot of the movies that are supposed to be brilliant award contenders failed to get me to see them in the first place. I have yet to see Black Swan or 127 Hours. I mean to, but as good as I hear they are, they don't sound exciting enough get me to spend $10 at the cinema.

Overall, I saw forty-one of the 2010 releases and I'll start this list off with the ones that in retrospect, I would have been happy to skip. At the very least, none of these were worth the ticket price (especially with the 3D mark-up on most of them).

#41. The Last Airbender

This movie was just really bad. I kept getting the feeling that it was supposed to be some great epic, and instead got horrible 3D and Aasif Mandvi as a villain. On The Daily Show, when he explains how India will take over the world, I buy it. Here, not so much. I have no idea what M. Night Shyamalan was trying to do with this film. but I'm confident in saying he failed completely.

#40. Skyline

This was like bad version of Cloverfield. The last five minutes were interesting. Everything before that was painfully cliché, compounded by a fairly complete lack of character development.

#39. Jonah Hex

I thought this might be good. I was disappointed. There were lots of flashbacks showing how sad Josh Brolin was, and John Malkovich tried to destroy America with his giant balls. It was like at some point in the editing process, the decided the campy movie with giant balls needed to be an emotional tragedy and the result was kind of a disaster.

#38. Knight and Day

Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise and it was kind of fun and I keep forgetting I've seen it. That is the ultimate kiss-of-death for me and is the biggest reason that I've knocked some films that I didn't mind so low on this list. But I really didn't like much of anything about Knight and Day, though I don't know that I hated it.

#37. Despicable Me

It was a fine kids movie, but I didn't like it that much. I found it sort of boring, and Megamind ended up pulling off a really similar concept a lot more successfully. And they both pale in comparison to Dr. Horrible.

#36. Resident Evil: Afterlife

In 3D! That was probably the biggest selling point of this forth Resident Evil film. And the 3D was good in a "Look at this thing coming at you," kind of way. I've been told this was supposed to be a franchise reboot, and it felt horribly like a prologue. Like Robin Hood, it ended just where I thought the story should have started.

#35. Legend of the Guardians
Zach Synder does awesome visuals (how awesome will Sucker Punch be?), but this was still just a bunch of owls fighting each other over some really bizarre magic.

#34. Dinner for Schmucks
It had a few funny scenes, and made stuffed mice funny, but it was pretty forgettable. I had the feeling I'd seen it before, and didn't love it the first time around.

Up next: the movies that I didn't love, but don't think wasted my time.