2010 in Retrospect: The Notable Disappointments

Clockwise from top left: Robin Hood, Alice in Wonderland, The Expendables, Salt, Dear John

Like any other year, 2010 cinema had its notable disappointments. Being a disappointment doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad film; but people truly expected these films to be better.

The biggest disappointment in my opinion was Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. It was one of my most anticipated films of the year, and the trailers and advertisements looked fantastic. Unfortunately, while the CGI and character designs were top-notch, the story turned out to be too ordinary, and the ending was merely a twisted crossover of The Lord of the Rings and Narnia. Johnny Depp stands out as the Mad Hatter but lacks his charisma as Captain Jack Sparrow, and his weird dance at the end of the film is embarrassing to look at. And while the movie looked amazing in IMAX, the 3D effect was underwhelming since it was merely converted to 3D in post-production, unlike Avatar or Tron: Legacy. Ironically, Alice was one of the biggest successes for Disney this year, grossing more than a billion dollars worldwide and snagging multiple (undeserved) Golden Globe nominations. Life is unfair: I found Disney’s other big-budget live-action film Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time to be relatively more enjoyable than Alice, but that underperformed at the box office.

I wonder why people never get tired of remaking/reimagining the classic tale Robin Hood, but that’s what director Ridley Scott churned out this year. With Russell Crowe as a slightly old Robin Hood, this could have been another solid epic like Gladiator. The end result? Not bad by any means, but there’s not much worth praising either, even for a film its genre. It’s not as emotional as Braveheart and not as exciting as the last major Robin Hood feature film: 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner. While that film wasn’t exceptionally good, it’s at least more fun and satisfying than this 2010 incarnation that takes itself too seriously. It’s a passable but unmemorable piece of work.

Another big disappointment is the Angelina Jolie vehicle Salt. It starts out as a potentially good thriller – the secret agents’ pursuit of Angelina is pretty exciting – but from that point onwards the film just drags on, with boring clichés and an uninteresting, predictable twist, at least in my opinion. It’s not even worth appreciating as a normal popcorn flick.

Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables was a missed opportunity since its cast is full of legendary action stars. Not that I expected it would be a deep and meaningful movie, but by macho action film standards it isn’t particularly thrilling or entertaining either. Honestly, I enjoyed the Arnold Schwarzenegger cameo more than anything.

The final movie I want to mention is not a disappointment, per se, since I never expected it to be really good. Still, it holds a special place in my heart as the worst movie of 2010… Dear John, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks. I’m not one of those chick flick haters, mind you – I do enjoy films like Love Actually, Music and Lyrics and The Notebook (which happens to be from Nicholas Sparks too) – but Dear John is just plain bad. It tries terribly hard to be tender and touching, but achieves neither and only comes along as pretentious. I like Amanda Seyfried, but she is wasted here with expressionless hunk Channing Tatum. Our lead characters have no chemistry whatsoever, and the development of the story is forced and pointless. Even an average rom-com is better than this.

OK, enough with the sub-par movies; next up will be my top ten films of 2010.

2010 in Retrospect: Return to Cinemas

This is the first in a series of retrospective looks at my movie-going experiences in 2010.

Clockwise from top left: Avatar, City Lights, Castle in the Sky,
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Toy Story 2, Toy Story

Theatrical re-releases of old films were once very common, but they have become rare since the advent of home video, which is unfortunate since some great films are worth experiencing again on the big screen. Thankfully, I was able to see re-releases of some exceptional movies in 2010, starting with two of my all-time favorites, Toy Story (1995) and Toy Story 2 (1999), in April (some countries got it in late 2009 already). The selling point of this re-release was 3D, and while some may complain, I don’t see a problem with it. I don’t especially love 3D, but I don’t hate it either. It’s actually quite beneficial in this case: most people normally wouldn’t bother to see a theatrical re-release, but 3D acts as a good gimmick to attract those people (and charge a bit more at the same time). If 3D is a good excuse for studios to re-release films I love, I’m all for it. The future looks bright: Beauty and the Beast (which has already been re-released in some countries in 3D) is coming to Hong Kong next year, and 3D re-releases for the Star Wars saga, The Lion King, Titanic and Ratatouille are also in the works. Bring ‘em on!

Then in July, thanks to a good friend, I had the unexpected chance of attending a special screening of Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights (1931) at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. I had never seen the black-and-white silent film before, and the special thing about this screening was that a live orchestra was there to play the score as the film unfolded. More importantly though, the movie was excellent: unbelievably funny and touching.

The movie itself may be rather new, but the Special Edition of Avatar (2009) in August was technically a re-release too, with 8 minutes of additional footage. Last year, I was temporarily stunned by Avatar, so much to the extent that I proclaimed it the best movie of the 2000s, but I take it back now. The visuals were undeniably strong, but during my initial viewing they blinded me from the film’s flaws in storytelling, which became apparent the second time round. Overall it’s still a solid film, but hardly the best of the 2000s and not even the best James Cameron flick.

Finally, the Studio Ghibli Film Festival in December was a treat. Five of the studio’s animated films were selected for re-release: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), Castle in the Sky (1986), My Neighbor Totoro (1988), My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999) and Spirited Away (2001). I didn’t have time for all of them, so I chose the first two. It was a pity they didn’t use the new remastered HD transfers for the films (and the Chinese subtitles for Castle were distractingly superimposed on the screen by a second projector), but seeing the beautiful animation of these classic Miyazaki films on the big screen was a breathtaking experience nonetheless. I had never seen Nausicaä before, and I was surprised by how intense and thought-provoking it was. It’s actually quite similar to Castle (airships, strong violence, environmental protection themes), though I prefer the plotline of Castle more. Anyway, both are great films and I’m definitely getting them on Blu-ray later.

Even a Blu-ray/DVD junkie like me thinks that certain films should be re-released in theaters more often. Unless there’s some major technological breakthrough in the future, there’s nothing that can replicate the euphoric theatrical experience... 3D or no 3D.