10 Movies I Could Take or Leave in 2012

If you're just now tuning in, I'm counting down the 43 movies I saw in the theater last year. The bottom of the barrel was in this post, so we pick up with Number 30 this week: the part of the list where I found things in each movie to like and dislike, in more or less equal amounts.

30. The Bourne Legacy



I was more eager for this than I should have been. I hoped it would be a decent placeholder for the series until Matt Damon found a reason to come back, but it was a tired plot with very low stakes. Nice performances from Jeremy Renner and Rachel Wiesz, but they didn't have much to work with except for a couple of really effective action pieces.

29. Man on a Ledge



Another thriller in which the excellent cast is wasted on a generic, predictable script. Genesis Rodriguez steals the movie and brings Jamie Bell along with her though. I want another, better movie about just the two of them.

28. The Woman in Black



An effective, spooky movie with a welcome performance by Daniel Radcliffe. That ending though... It's designed to clear the road for Woman in Black 2, but is so cynical and obvious about it that it not only kills my interest in a sequel, it also makes this one un-rewatchable for me.

27. Men in Black 3



I'm not a fan of the Men in Black movies. They're disposable entertainment that I tend to forget about as soon as I leave the theater. This one actually stuck with me, but I haven't made up my mind about if that was for the right reason or not. The movie's point is unclear, but whatever it is, it makes it in a memorable way.

And Josh Brolin is super entertaining as Young Tommy Lee Jones.

26. Hotel Transylvania



I would've liked it a lot more if Dracula didn't sound like Adam Sandler doing a Lugosi accent. I mean, that's exactly what's going on, but I wish it wasn't so distracting. Other than that, it's a funny movie with some amusing interpretations of classic monsters.

25. The Expendables 2



The first one was pretty miserable, but they got me back to the theater by adding Chuck Norris to the mix and promising to expand the roles of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis. There were still some huge, ridiculous plot holes, but I loved the finale as everyone used their best moves (and best lines) to show each other up. What it has over the first one is "fun."

24. Flight



Not the movie I expected. I thought it was going to be more of a legal drama, but not being that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. Taken on its own terms, Flight is a powerful, effective film about addiction and the lengths people go to deny it and cover it up. I liked it a lot for that and enjoyed being surprised by it, but it's a difficult movie to watch and I can't imagine I'll ever want to see it again.

23. Argo



Nice thriller with some laugh out loud moments, some harrowing ones, and a couple of great, touching ones when reluctant participants in the escape plan decide to commit to it. Unfortunately, the script goes to great lengths to ramp up the tension in unbelievable and cheesy ways that kept reminding me this couldn't be how it actually happened.

22. Prometheus



I already wrote a long post about this one, but short version: There are some truly great and fascinating ideas in this visually stunning movie. It's just too bad that they're executed so very, very sloppily.

21. Brave



I just rewatched Brave the other night and liked it better than I did the first time. I don't know if I liked it well enough to move it out of this section of my list, but maybe. I'm certainly not as disappointed this time.

The biggest thing is that I was able to spot the moment where Merida and her mom resolve their conflict. It was right where it was supposed to be, but the first time around I missed an important, but subtle line of dialogue and some equally vital body language. Turns out, the point of the movie really is about compromise and the bravery it takes to do that when you haven't yet exhausted all the stubborn tantrum-throwing you'd planned on doing. It's a much sneakier message than I was prepared for, but I liked it more for that. Maybe next time, I'll like it even better.

Is Merida Brave or not?

SPOILERS BELOW

I finally got around to seeing Brave last week and I have mixed feelings about it. My expectations were high, but not unreasonably so, I don't think. Cars 2 notwithstanding, Pixar has an excellent track record and I loved how they marketed it as a female empowerment story without giving away much of the actual plot at all. That left a lot of room for surprises and I was hoping that Brave would do for girl power what The Incredibles did for superheroes and Ratatouille did for foodies.

There is a lot of girl power in the movie, but before I saw Brave I heard grumbling that it wasn't empowering enough. That it maybe made its female characters look good by making all the male characters look super dumb. I decided to lower my expectations for the movie's contribution to gender equality and just try to watch it as a movie about a girl who didn't want to follow the path her parents had set out for her. Everyone can relate to that on some level, so I hoped that I could enjoy it just for its message around that. Unfortunately, I was disappointed there too.

Brave has a lot of great pieces to play with. At the center of the film is the relationship between Merida and her mom, Elinor. Merida's dad goes along with whatever the Queen says, but it's really Elinor who has plans for Merida to be a traditional princess and follow the proper path towards marrying a noble son. Merida of course bucks against that and comes up with a way to change her fate (she hopes). Her plan involves some supernatural elements that I won't reveal, but look really cool. In fact, the whole movie looks really cool, but that's no surprise to Pixar fans by now.



There's a great story in there somewhere about having the courage (hence the title) to change your destiny. It's just that Brave never finds that story. There's magic, but there are no rules to the magic, so things just happen and don't make a lot of sense. Surely it's not spoiling anything to say that Merida and her mom eventually resolve their conflict, but it's impossible to pin down exactly when they do that. The whole story feels hasty and haphazard.

Since the central story is about Merida and Elinor's relationship, I paid the most attention to that and how the conflict is resolved, but I couldn't figure out where it happens. There's a cute montage showing them getting along after some tense interaction, but no moment where either gets any insight to the other's way of thinking. They have to work together to solve a particular problem and somewhere indefinable along the way, they decide to compromise. One gives a little, which leads the other to give a little, and by the end of the film, they've found their middle ground. It's enough to keep the story moving, but the message is no deeper than a call for compromise. I wanted dramatic revelations where mother and daughter finally understand each other. That never happens.

The title doesn't really work either. Merida gives a speech at the end about having the bravery to change your fate, but that's not actually what happens in the film. She's led to major decisions either by her own stubbornness or supernatural forces. Bravery implies courage in the face of fear, but there's never a moment in which Merida actually seems afraid of her future. She's angry about her mother's plans and refuses to go through with them, but she never resigns herself to that future long enough to let it frighten her. The only thing she ever seems afraid of (destiny-wise) is compromising with her mom. She does learn to do that, so that's brave, but it's the opposite of what her monologue claims. Is she brave because she compromised or because she changed her destiny? The movie shows us that its the former while claiming its the latter. Brave has a lot of cool stuff to work with - and you can enjoy it for those separate things - it just never puts everything together in a way that makes sense.