As of this writing, the top ten movies contain approximately two good films, two films featuring animals, one film that brainwashed the children, one film that made an American tragedy neat, one film that featured a brain being eaten, one film starring a wrestler, and one film that was remade because the original featured…pastry poking.
Look, it wasn’t a good year.
If last year was a barren desert creatively, god only knows how to describe this past year. Where subtlety might have been better, Hollywood again elected to go with overproduced crap. Enough amorphous talk, though – aren’t specific insults better?
#1 – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone made $16 bajillion dollars to take first place at the box office this year. In the last three seconds, it made an additional $73 quintillion. Because Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is the most important movie ever made, it made far more than any of its domestic competition.
Oh sure, it’s just a rehash of every other fantasy movie ever made, but this one stars a prepubescent British kid! Does it get any more brilliant?
In a word, yes.
For instance, The Lord of the Rings will hopefully adhere to Tolkein’s exacting world of hobbits and elves. Directed by creatively insane Peter Jackson, The Fellowship of the Ring might be what a fantasy movie should be…more than a game of Quidditch.
#2 – Family fare was super popular this year – Shrek took second place with $267.7 million. But Shrek just isn’t easy to make fun of. Sporting a perfect blend of kids humor mixed with adult guffaws, the loveable ogre voiced by Michael Myers was a smashing success.
Featuring a hilarious song and dance sequence, Shrek was a film that appealed because everyone could come out of the theater with a smile on their face.
#3 – Rush Hour 2 inexplicably made $226 million.
A quick retelling of the plot: Chris Tucker’s black and Jackie Chan’s Asian and witness the supposedly hilarious interaction of the two. This time, Tucker’s in Hong Kong and everyone is shorter than he is. And they eat skinned chickens. Will the hilarity ever end?
Apparently not, as Hollywood plans to cash in on the relative humor of the first two with a third installment, hopefully starring an aging Tucker driving a decrepit Chan around in a film called Driving in Rush Hour.
#4 – Monsters Inc. took fourth with little fanfare – because it came right before the most important movie of all time, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for those who dared to forget.
Featuring the voices of Billy Crystal and John Goodman, Monsters Inc. was a hit with kids who were sick of sitting outside the theater waiting for the opening of Harry Potter. Having already read the insufferable Brit’s books twelve hundred times, children figured they needed a breather and they got it in Monsters.
#5 – The Mummy Returns made $202 million at the box office, thus indicating that the American public still supports Brendan Fraser’s inexplicable career. Has anybody made worse movies and continued to have success?
Monkeybone? Dudley Do-Right? Blast from the Past? Has Fraser no dignity? Airheads? Encino Man? George of the Jungle?
Stop it Fraser! Dear god, stop it!
The Rock also starred in Returns, setting up his major movie debut in The Scorpion King. Thus, America has again neared the precipice to hell.
#6 – Pearl Harbor reduced the worst military attack against America into a three-hour drama designed to remind Americans that, yes, Josh Hartnett is a cutie. Dear lord, do Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer have any tact?
Pearl Harbor is to war movies what Gone in 60 Seconds is to decent movies: a horrible abomination against man and God. Pearl Harbor did earn an astounding $198.5 million…of money that could have gone to orphans!
#7 – Jurassic Park 3 made $181.1 million.
The dinosaurs in this one are totally different. Ok, they aren’t. In fact, Jurassic Park 3 was considered a way to cash in on the previous success of some marginally ok films. And by marginally ok, it is implied that terrible is meant. Terribly awful.
#8 – Was that “Ape”raham Lincoln at the end of the Planet of the Apes?
Tim Burton can’t make a good movie. He can make a visually stunning movie, but he cannot tell a story to save his life. Was Planet of the Apes any different? No.
The only thing Apes really accomplished was breaking up Tim Burton and his psychotic girlfriend? The perpetrator was, as usual, Helena Bonham Carter, the star of Fight Club, Wings of the Dove, and the end of Kenneth Branagh’s marriage!
#9 – Hannibal ate a brain. He ate a brain!
He made $165.1 million eating a damn brain!
#10 – American Pie 2 made $145.1 million. Somebody drank urine in the film, which is pleasant. And Jason Biggs was sexually deviant…and what was the actual difference with American Pie?
Typically, there weren’t any.
The top ten movies this year sucked. There’s no other way to say it. And next year isn’t going to be any better.
