Top 25 Films of the 2000s – Honorable Mention #2

Band of Brothers (2001)

Though not eligible for the Top 25 list (since it’s not a movie), Band of Brothers deserves a mention. As a miniseries, it’s far too long to be a feature film, but not long enough to be a television series. But living somewhere in the middle, it manages to be something all its own, almost novel-like in the depth of its story and the strength of its characters.

The thing that really gets me about Band of Brothers, though, is its accuracy. Most big historical movies take a setting and then just make up a story (or completely butcher a real one). Even Saving Private Ryan, whose story seems to confuse Operations Overlord and Market Garden and completely forgets about the hedgerow country. Band of Brothers, on the other hand, played it straight. It demonstrated that the actual history, what really happened, can be a great story without having to invent some silly plot contrivance.

And next year, the same team looks to be taking the same approach with the other side of World War II. No idea whether The Pacific will manage to match the greatness of Band of Brothers, but I look forward to finding out.

Top 25 Films of the 2000s – Honorable Mention

Avatar (2009)

There are a number of movies that arguably deserve a place in my Top 25, fine movies including Up, Thank You For Smoking, Juno, and a number I haven’t gotten around to seeing (Children of Men, 500 Days of Summer, Adventureland…), but honorable mention has to go to Avatar, which would have made the top 25, had it just come out earlier.

Thing is, by the time Avatar came out, I’d already written more than half the posts associated with this undertaking. And since I didn’t want to go back and edit a whole bunch of posts and displace a bunch of movies, I made the mental justification that Avatar is a tad too fresh in my mind, and that ranking it now would perhaps afford it favored status. But basically, I’m just being lazy.

The reality is, Avatar deserves a place in this list. The story may play off established archetypes (a nicer way of saying cliched), but its individual beats, the environment, the effects, and the direction all work together to suck you in. And where previous CG environments have come across as either too sterile (Star Wars prequels) or highly stylized (Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, 300), the world of Pandora feels immersive and, well, real. It has weight and depth.

The true leap forward, though, comes from the character work. With the exception of Gollum and maybe one or two other creations, most CG beings fail to cross the uncanny valley. No matter how detailed, there’s something…dead eyes, stiff movements, whatever…that makes them more creepy than real. With Avatar, Cameron has made the most significant advance in CG animation and expression since the aforementioned Gollum. After a while, you stop even thinking of the Na’vi (or anything around them, for that matter) as effects. And when you stop and think that they ARE effects, as is everything around them…it blows your mind.

Avatar also deserves mention for it’s masterfully staged action sequences. After a decade of close cuts and hyper edits intercut with Matrix-style slo-mo and random shaky-cam shots, it’s so refreshing to behold an action sequence you can follow. Even with the climactic final battle, there’s a sense of geography about the whole thing. It’s not just blue people versus pink people. The geography, the movement of forces, it not only builds the tension, it also lets you see strategy unfolding. And it’s so masterful it makes those other “masters” of action look ridiculous. Someone should make this movie required viewing for the likes of Michael Bay and Paul Greengrass.

All in all, I think Avatar represents the return of a master, as well as the most technically revolutionary film since the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And it’s a movie I will be buying the day it hits Blu-ray.

Top 25 Films of the 2000s – The Final Three

The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003)

I toyed with the idea of combining the Lord of the Rings trilogy into a single entry, but ultimately decided each film deserved its own place.

Overall, the trilogy took the top three spots for a number of reasons, from general awesomeness to their influence on the world of film, to their skill at adapting Tolkien’s story to the big screen. These movies are going to be regarded as classics in time, and rightfully so.

Now, to address them individually.

#3 – Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003)

As much as I love Return of the King, and as much as it owned the Oscars, I actually find it the weakest of the three movies.

My biggest problem with the film was the pacing. The theatrical cut feels rushed, almost to the point that someone who hasn’t read the books might be lost. Then, at the end, it slows to a crawl, and puts the audience through something like four different endings. The extended edition smoothed things out a bit, but even then, I thought it skipped around a lot, while managing to basically leave out some of the most emotionally powerful moments of the book (like the whole Faramir/Eowyn story).

None of this is to say I didn’t like to movie – merely that it is the weakest of the three.

#2 – Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

The movie that started it all. I have to give this movie massive credit for actually living up to and exceeding expectations. I remember 2001, I remember people crossing their fingers that this wouldn’t suck. Keep in mind that Fellowship was following on the heels of the massive letdown that was The Phantom Menace, which, if anything, taught everyone that a great trailer does not automatically = great movie.

But Fellowship delivered. It brought the goods and it blew people away.

#1 – Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

The Two Towers earns its place at the top of the heap in large part for sustaining the quality introduced in Fellowship of the Ring. So many sequels have taken things bigger, badder, whatever, and ultimately disappointed (see Matrix Reloaded, Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen…). The Two Towers upped the game and succeeded brilliantly.

The Two Towers also introduced truly revolutionary CG, from the Battle of Helm’s Deep to the animation work on Gollum (which basically remained the gold standard until Avatar’s release seven years later). In so doing, it changed film, and what film could accomplish.

#4 – Star Trek

#5 – Wall-E

#6 – Kingdom of Heaven

#7 – Pan’s Labyrinth

#8 – Hellboy II: The Golden Army

#9 – Gladiator

#10 – The Incredibles

Top 25 Films of the 2000s – #4

#4 -Star Trek (2009)

I’m sure some will scoff that I’ve placed Star Trek so high on this list, but here’s the deal. This isn’t a list of critically acclaimed movies, or award winners, or the deepest or most subtle movies of the decade. This is a list of my favorite movies, the ones I loved in the theater, the ones I pop in at home whenever I get the chance. Pure, flat-out enjoyment and replay value played huge roles in my rankings, and what can I say, I loved Star Trek.

Why did I love it? First and foremost, the characters. Recasting the crew of the Enterprise is a treacherous undertaking. It’s like recasting Star Wars. Yet this film…it pulled it off. It could have easily been a complete mess, yet somehow they created a Star Trek, and a crew, that appealed to fans and non-fans alike.

Second, I loved the new visual language the movie introduced. I loved the camera moves showing the ships hanging in space upside down, facing each other at bizarre angles, and in general taking advantage of the fully unrestricted three dimensional nature of space. I loved the idea that parts of this future are the clean shiny we’ve grown accustomed to with Star Trek, while other parts remain greasy, dirty, and industrial. Using a brewery as the main engineering set was actually a pretty cool decision…though yeah, I wished they’d managed to blend it a bit better.

Third, I loved that the movie managed to be a sequel, a prequel, and a reboot all at once. The alternate timeline was a ballsy move, but a brilliant one that frees any further adventures this crew has from the suffocating weight of Star Trek canon.

Fourth, Jamie dug this movie. Jamie, who typically scoffs at anything that even hints of sci-fi.

#5 – Wall-E

#6 – Kingdom of Heaven

#7 – Pan’s Labyrinth

#8 – Hellboy II: The Golden Army

#9 – Gladiator

#10 – The Incredibles

Top 25 Films of the 2000s – #5

#5 – Wall-E (2008)

Okay. So I had this whole post written, ready to be scheduled, and WordPress went and had an error or something, and now it’s ALL GONE.

I don’t feel like writing everything again, so here are the basics. Pixar has a knack for finding unlikely protagonists. Like a trash compactor robot. Wall-E is my favorite Pixar movie, one of my favorite sci-fi movies in quite some time, and an absolute revelation to behold in Blu-ray.

#6 – Kingdom of Heaven

#7 – Pan’s Labyrinth

#8 – Hellboy II: The Golden Army

#9 – Gladiator

#10 – The Incredibles

Top 25 Films of the 2000s – #6

#6 – Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

Ridley Scott directed two historical epics over the past decade – Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven. And while I love Gladiator, I have to admit I find Kingdom of Heaven to be the richer film. Stripped to its core, Gladiator is a fairly simple tale of revenge. Kingdom of Heaven – especially in its superb Director’s Cut – goes much further. The story raises a lot of questions about the nature of nobility, piety, conscience and victory, but to me it has always come across as a cautionary tale. The villain isn’t the Muslims. The villain is religious fanaticism, and the dangers inherent when religion and power move in the same circles. And this film shows that the villain exists on both sides of the religious divide, just as protagonists exist on both sides (including Saladin, played with brilliant nuance by Ghassan Massoud).

I have a feeling many of these undercurrents were lost on audiences in 2005, who went in hoping for Gladiator, but with knights. Granted, the theatrical release had its flaws, but it did not deserve the savaging it received, and the Director’s Cut remains, in my opinion, one of the best historical epics ever committed to film, and one of the most relevant to our own troubles.

#7 – Pan’s Labyrinth

#8 – Hellboy II: The Golden Army

#9 – Gladiator

#10 – The Incredibles

Top 25 Films of the 2000s – #7

#7 – Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Pan’s Labyrinth is one ridiculously hard movie to sum up for someone who hasn’t seen it. It’s been called a fairy tale for adults. The description fits, but doesn’t capture the haunting beauty of the film or the story. Rather than try to provide a summary, here’s what Amazon has to say:

Set in rural Spain, circa 1944, Ofelia and her widowed mother, Carmen, have just moved into an abandoned mill with Carmen’s new husband, Captain Vidal . Carmen is pregnant with his son. Other than her sickly mother and kindly housekeeper Mercedes, the dreamy Ofelia is on her own. Vidal, an exceedingly cruel man, couldn’t be bothered. He has informers to torture. Ofelia soon finds that an entire universe exists below the mill. Her guide is the persuasive Faun . As her mother grows weaker, Ofelia spends more and more time in the satyr’s labyrinth. He offers to help her out of her predicament if she’ll complete three treacherous tasks. Ofelia is willing to try, but does this alternate reality really exist or is it all in her head? Del Toro leaves that up to the viewer to decide in a beautiful, yet brutal twin to The Devil’s Backbone, which was also haunted by the ghost of Franco. Though it lacks the humor of Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth represents Guillermo Del Toro at the top of his considerable game.

This is not an easy movie to watch. It is riveting. It is emotional. At times, it’s terrifying. Del Toro knows how to build suspense and then twist, and twist, and twist.

This is the kind of movie that sinks its hooks in deep, and that sticks with you. Which is among the highest praise I can give to a film.

#8 – Hellboy II: The Golden Army

#9 – Gladiator

#10 – The Incredibles

Top 25 Films of the 2000s – #8

#8 – Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

I really dug the first Hellboy, but the sequel seemed to bring more of everything, including director Guillermo Del Toro’s crazy-brilliant creativity. Beyond the uber-imaginative creature designs, though, it’s the characters that make Hellboy tick, and here the Golden Army delivers above and beyond the first film. The interplay between Hellboy, Liz and Abe seemed markedly more natural this time around, and the addition of Seth MacFarlane’s unexpectedly great Johann Kraus proved an inspired addition to the team of weirdos.

This movie chock full of great moments…from the history-told-by-way-of-puppets opening, to the locker room fight between Hellboy and Kraus, the entire troll market scene, Hellboy and Abe getting drunk and signing along to Barry Manilow, and finally the epic battle with the Golden Army.

But it’s the passion that really sells this movie for me. As with Robert Downey, Jr. in Iron Man, you can tell the entire cast poured themselves into this movie, and had a blast making it. Ron Perlman especially. Acting beneath a mountain of prosthetics is no easy feat, but he brings a palpable charm to Big Red.

Okay, so it’s a pretty great movie, but why does it rank so high? For me, a big part of it has to do with replay value. The Dark Knight was a great flick, but not a movie I’d want to return to too often. Hellboy II, on the other hand, has tons of replay value. It’s highly watchable, imaginative, and fun in a way very few action flicks ever manage to be.

#9 – Gladiator

#10 – The Incredibles

#11 – 300

#12 – Casino Royale

#13 – The Dark Knight

#14 – Snatch

Top 25 Films of the 2000s – #9

#9 – Gladiator (2000)

I have a lot of problems with Gladiator. The ending, for one (no, the Republic was not restored upon Commodus’ death). The depiction of the legions advancing into battle, for another (the opening artillery barrage is pretty accurate…the legions stumbling toward the Germans is not). Even the look of Rome seems kind of sad, after the gritty glimpses seen in HBO’s Rome.

The thing is, for all its flaws, Gladiator still works. I watched the new Blu-ray release not too long ago, and was stunned how effectively the movie pulled me in. The atmosphere, the characters, and the acting are all top notch. Maximus could easily be a flat, cliched character, but in Russell Crowe’s hands he comes alive. Robert Harris’ Marcus Aurelius crackles with life, and I still think Commodus has to count as Joaquin Phoenix’s best role to date. The malice and petulant victimhood he brings to the character is something to behold.

After the success of Braveheart in the mid-90s and Gladiator in 2000, I’d hoped this decade would see a revival of the historical epic, backed up by the ability to literally recreate lost worlds. There have been a few attempts, but sadly one of them was Troy, and it pretty much killed the whole thing dead.

#10 – The Incredibles

#11 – 300

#12 – Casino Royale

#13 – The Dark Knight

#14 – Snatch

#15 – Zombieland

#16 – Ratatouille

#17 – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

#18 – Transformers

#19 – Iron Man

#20 – Monsters, Inc.

#21 – Inglourious Basterds

#22 – Hot Fuzz

#23 – Watchmen

#24 – Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl

#25 – District 9

Top 25 Films of the 2000s – #10

#10 – The Incredibles (2004)

In a decade replete with superhero movies, it’s truly stunning that perhaps the best of the bunch happened to be an animated movie geared toward kids.

Despite the animation and kid-friendly approach, The Incredibles managed to draw on elements of dozens of superhero stories and articulate them in a better and more entertaining way than most of the live action movies that came along, while at the same time managing to tell a story all its own.

Even after repeat viewings, this one remains high on my list, and just one off from landing as my favorite Pixar movie to date.

#11 – 300

#12 – Casino Royale

#13 – The Dark Knight

#14 – Snatch

#15 – Zombieland

#16 – Ratatouille

#17 – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

#18 – Transformers

#19 – Iron Man

#20 – Monsters, Inc.

#21 – Inglourious Basterds

#22 – Hot Fuzz

#23 – Watchmen

#24 – Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl

#25 – District 9