Top 5 Movies 2014

Top 5 Movies 2014

So while most people were out drinking a large quantity of alcohol during New Year’s Eve, my friend and I were eating Jaffa Cakes and playing Pokémon. We at one point discussed cool movies from last year and thus this list was born. It is important to know that I didn’t see all the movies I would have liked to last year and also my standards fluctuate dramatically and because of this I doubt I single person will agree with me. But that’s cool now onto the list: (This will contain spoilers)

 

5. Godzilla

Of all the films on this list, this is the one which most would probably think shouldn’t be here. Personally I thought this film was great, however unlike the other films on this list, I wouldn’t argue its case against someone who didn’t like it. This film defiantly did have its flaws, the main one being the films main protagonist, partly because the main protagonist was a random Human and not Godzilla and partly because for the most part he was about as interesting as a butter sandwich.

 

An easy solution to this could have been to keep Brian Cranston’s character in the film rather than Aaron Taylor Johnson’s I believe would have been an improvement. While looking at the distraught faces of people who had come to watch the film solely to see Brian Cranston was funny, I will admit he was the most interesting human element of the film. After what was an incredibly strong opening, where we got more attached to Cranston than we ever did to Taylor Johnson, killing him off in such an anticlimactic was a mistake.

 

It sounds like I despise this film but there was a lot I enjoyed. I loved the atmosphere of the film. It always felt like there was a looming threat hanging overhead, which is exactly how it should be in a monster movie. Whenever it was during a section where there was no monster present, it always felt like a delicate peace, like complete disaster could strike at any moment.

 

I was one of the few people who didn’t complain about the lack of Godzilla in the movie and that’s because I thought the finale was such a huge payoff. Admittedly I would have like to have watched a MUTO smash up Vegas but the ending battle felt like a real desperate scrap. My inner 8 year old jumped with joy watching giant monsters savagely fight to the death and my personal favourite movie moment of the year when Godzilla shot fire into the MUTO’s head melting its neck away and thus beheading it. This movie may not have been for everyone, but it was certainly for me.

 

4. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I had pretty low expectations going into this film about everyone’s least favourite Avenger. I expected a standard there’s a new villain who will test our hero in ways he has never been tested before. He’d be broken half way through and then he’d go beyond his limits to defeat the villain. That didn’t happen. Instead we got an exciting thriller, a film that was a completely different genre to what we expected. We got a huge conspiracy within shield and it was great.

 

It was great to see the conflicting ideologies of Captain America, a World War II soldier who believes in right and wrong and freedom for the people, while shield and Nick Fury see much more of a grey area. This in fact is without a doubt Nick Fury’s best movie. We get so see more into Fury’s ideology than we ever have before, we see him in a weaker state than we ever had and while perhaps not quite as important we get to see him in a seriously cool car chase.

 

This film was more like a spy film than a superhero film but this is not a bad thing. One issue I was having with the film was the Winter Soldier himself but then they revealed his identity and I loved it. This gave us the confliction in the Captain while fighting the villain. However really he isn’t the villain at all. Shield has never really been explored in the movies but here we really see the true nature behind them.

 

This may be a film of ideologies and conspiracy but on top of this it has some sweet action scenes. This film makes Captain America a complete badass and not just a boy scout on some steroids. This movie has it all, in fact it was my favourite movie ever made …

 

3. Guardians of the Galaxy

A few months after watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier I had a new favourite marvel movie. I like a good serious film as much as the next guy, but sometimes it’s nice to just watch something light-hearted, something that doesn’t take itself too seriously. If nothing else this film is that. That’s not to say it doesn’t have heart, its emotional moments hit hard, but above all else this film is quite simply and absurdly entertaining movie.

 

I saw this film three times, more than any other film on this list. While I did only have to pay once (The benefits of working in a cinema are definitely apparent here) the point is that not for one moment did I find myself feeling bored. This is by far the funniest film marvel has made, this is epitomized by Chris Pratt’s character who seems to be making sarcastic jokes about the absurdity of the world and people he encounters. Everyone has a favourite Guardian, mine personally being Starlord. He’s our eyes into this strange alien world. At the end of the day, he’s just a bit of a tool, but a likeable one, he’s almost endearing for it.

 

That’s not to say the others aren’t great to of course. It’s interesting to see Gamora start to open up and to watch her cold exterior start to melt, although it would’ve liked to have seen more into her relationship with her sister Nebula. However it is entertaining to see how above the rest of them she feels. I get more and more fond of Drax each time I watch the film. I wasn’t overly keen on his generic tragic backstory and how he wants revenge against the main villain but how he took everything literally produced some of the funniest moments in the whole film, my particular favourite being “I am not a princess”. Not quite as witty as Starlord maybe but it’s hard not to love some dumb humour. Rocket is like Tony Stark but in the body of a racoon. If that doesn’t make you want to see this film then I don’t know what will. Finally there’s Groot who doesn’t really need an introduction.

 

This film took a bunch of misfits and turned them into some of the most loved characters we’ve seen all year. Sure the plot was pretty generic and the villain was kind of forgettable but it’s so entertaining that I really don’t care. This film is fun, that’s all that really needs to be said.

 

2. 12 Years a Slave

For us in the UK this film was released in 2014, all you lucky Americans who got to see this film earlier can count your blessings. I liked guardians for being light hearted, this certainly isn’t that. 12 years a slave is without doubt the heaviest going film you’ll see all year, but this is by no means a criticism. I sat watching this film with my jaw on the floor. I did not want to blink, for that would mean taking my eyes of it for a moment. I watched and I knew I was witnessing a masterpiece.

 

People will often talk about impressive performances by actors, probably too much but this is a film where it is absolutely 100% necessary. The horrors of slavery are not glossed over at all. The film is graphic and horrific.  In Chiwetel Ejiofor’s portrayal Solomon Northup we see a man who goes from a normal citizen with a family to a slave, someone treated as not only a lesser citizen but less than a Human being. We often complain of our problems in today’s society, this film really put things in perspective.

 

Watching Northup lose all hope, watching him fall into complete despair is spine tingling. Michael Fassbender’s performance is just as impressive as his character is the lowest of the low. What this man does is so horrifying, it’s impossible to put across with words. I cannot think how this man could possibly have been any worse and what’s scary is that this man actually existed and so did countless others.

 

 We’ve all heard the stories about slavery, we all know of this tragic period in human history. This film is a better history lesson than any teacher or textbook can give. Perhaps what is so good about this film is that it doesn’t hide away from the disgusting horrific events, but it actually gets across some of how awful it was. We’re lucky. We will never experience anything remotely like what the people who were abducted as slaves did. It’s impossible for us to understand truly how awful it was but if anything can begin to exhibit how bad things got, then it’s this film.

 

Entertaining is most defiantly the wrong word to use to describe 12 years a slave. Perhaps that’s the biggest compliment I can give it, I can’t think of the right word to describe it. Whenever I finish watching a film, I’ll talk about it with whoever I’m with at the time. After this one we were all silent. I did not know what to say. I thought about it for weeks afterwards. Everyone should experience this film, it’s not just a film, it’s an experience, one I’m sure I will never forget.

 

1. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes            

What could possibly top what I’ve just described as a masterpiece? A flawless piece of art? I’m not for a moment going to claim that this is technically a better film than 12 years a slave. Quite simply Dawn of the Planet of the Apes did everything I want in a movie. Every time I thought I had figured out where this film was going it swung 180 and went somewhere else. I thought the apes would be portrayed as right and the humans as wrong and that would be that. It wasn’t like that at all.

 

This movie was intense, not a second of it was wasted. It did what you expect, it got us attached to these characters, despite some of them being apes and it made us care about what happens to them. I was on the edge of my seat throughout but there was so much more to it than that.

 

Caesar is one of my favourite movie characters of all time. He is such an inspiration, he makes you want to follow him, to believe in him even though he’s not even human. All sequels make their characters need to step up in new ways, but here Caesar not only has to stop up, he has to challenge everything he thinks about right and wrong. He has seen the mistakes humans and made and thinks the apes can be better.

 

Enter Koba. He only plays a small role in Rise of the Planet of the Apes but here we get to see how truly sick he is after being used and experimented on for what for him must have seemed like forever. It was great to see his transformation from loyal follower to Caesar to power hungry Tyrant. He is the first Ape we see who is far more interested in personal gain than he is in the greater good, so much so that he quite possibly initiated the war that could wipe out his entire species. Caesar knows that what Koba has done is possible because of him and we see that internal struggle.

 

Our main Human character played by Jason Clarke is to simply put it a good guy. He may be the run of the mill good guy with good intentions but it’s great to see his determination to do what he thinks is right. He is willing to do what’s necessary, including threaten to gun down his friends.

 

This brings us to Gary Oldman’s. I thought he would just be the power hungry tyrant human who wants to wipe out those damn dirty apes. But no. He does what realistically most people would want to do, save humanity. Gary Oldman is good in everything he’s in, this film is no exception.

 

Despite having apes on horseback with guns this is a clever movie. Ape society has the same problems as human society. Everything the characters do that perhaps would be considered extreme or even wrong is done with completely understandable reasons, even Koba despite how flawed he may seem you can certainly see why he does what he does and how he has become this monster. With intelligence the apes have become more human and have thus bought upon themselves the problems of humans. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes doesn’t do heroes and villains, it does different points of view. While we will want to follow Caesar others would see from Koba’s point of view. That’s why I love this film, more than any other I saw all year. To me it’s a metaphor for the society we live in today.