2007 Movies Ranked

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I wouldn’t say 2007 was a bad year for movies.  It was just a year in which there were a lot of overrated movies.  There was a lot of unavoidable hype surrounding movies like 300, Transformers and Juno, none of which I particularly care for.  Even though there wasn’t much hype surrounding Shoot’em Up, no one who watched that travesty seems to agree with me on it.  However, that doesn’t mean there weren’t good movies that year; it wasn’t as slow as 2011.

24. Shoot’em Up

D: Mike Davis

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I went into this expecting nothing more than a fun action comedy, not a rabid, sexist anti-gun diatribe.  I will say the movie has some excellent action scenes, which I find more galling than redeeming.

23. “Transformers”

D: Michael Bay

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I didn’t expect much from Michael Bay, but even then I was let down.  As someone who considers these characters part of my childhood, I was disappointed when, after all that build-up, they were nothing more than gag “characters.”  Aside from not allowing the Transformers to be protagonists in their own movie, Bay also sullied my childhood memories with inappropriately crude humor (Bumblebee’s urination, for instance).  What pisses me off about this movie is the lack of earnestness put into it.  It was painfully clear how little Bay cared about the source material, and his treatment of it bordered on active contempt.

 

22. The Mist

D: Frank Darabont

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A by-the-numbers representation of Stephen King’s weaknesses, particularly the troublemaking religious straw man.  Not to mention an ending that wasn’t just unfaithful to the book’s, but also insanely depressing.

21. Alien vs. Predator: Requiem

D: Greg & Colin Strause

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It's not every day you see a movie that make you think of the things that AVP got right.  Note to people who like this movie: Saying, “I genuinely think this is a good horror movie because my taste could be better” is preferable to, “I’m a disgusting, miserable, sadistic psychopath who giggles like a perverted madman when I see children and pregnant women die painful, gory deaths.”  The same sentiment applies to Drag Me to Hell.  Admittedly, some of the gore effects are well-done.  

20. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

D: Tim Story

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Utterly bland and forgettable. 

19. Enchanted

D: Kevin Lima

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Everyone else seems to like this movie for reasons completely unknown to me.  I thought it was just another one of those stupid cartoon-characters-in-the-real-world movies, nothing more, nothing less.

18. Juno

D: Jason Reitman

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With lines like “I’m the cautionary whale,” most of the jokes in this movie seemed so lame they were intentional anti-humor, and not even good anti-humor.  It also seems to trivialize teen pregnancy and, as I pointed out before, treats the issue of abortion immaturely.  .

17. Ghost Rider

D: Mark Steven Johnson

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While Nicolas Cage has some likable moments, it’s a pretty bad movie.

16 Blades of Glory

D: Will Speck, Josh Gordon

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Another overrated mainstream comedy.

15. Nobel Son

D: Randall Miller

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While Alan Rickman is fun whenever he’s on screen, I found this movie to be contrived and dull.  

14. Shooter

D: Antoine Fuqua

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A bland actioner made poor by the incredibly wooden Danny Glover’s pathetic attempt (or rather, lack of attempt) to play a villain.

9. Spider-Man 3

D: Sam Raimi

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The first indication of Sam Raimi’s status as a fallen creator.

13. 28 Weeks Later

D: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo

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Though it has some good violence and all the style of the original, it’s an idiot plot with a depressing ending.

10. Beowulf

D: Robert Zemeckis

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A tacky and gimmicky movie with a misguided attempt to the make the story more complex by changing Beowulf from being unrelatably  heroic to unrelatably corrupt.  At least it had some interesting visuals and music.

12. Eagle vs Shark
D: Taika Waititi
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Has some stylish and amusing moments, but it's not very funny and some the characters's actions (such as Lily's infatuation with Jarrod) don't make sense.  There is some poignancy with Jarrod's father. 

11. Knocked Up

D: Judd Apatow

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I was surprised by how much I liked this movie because I hated The 40-Year-Old Virgin.  Still, the movie has some good jokes, and a surprisingly good story for a comedy.

14. The Bourne Ultimatum

D: Paul Greengrass

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I like Greengrass’ action style, and this was a good conclusion to the series.

13. There Will Be Blood

D: Paul Thomas Anderson

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12. Smokin’ Aces

D: Joe Carnahan

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Although this movie wasn’t what I expected, it was original and has a lot of entertaining moments.  I just wish that Jason Bateman’s furry character had more screentime.  This movie also features some of Clint Mansell’s best work.

11. Ratatouille

D: Brad Bird

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This movie has some logical flaws, but its animation, originality and well-executed whimsy more than make up for it.

10. 30 Days of Night

D: David Slade

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With its atmosphere and well-done violence, this is a modern vampire movie done right.

9. Live Free or Die Hard

D: Len Wiseman

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I hate the Underworld series, so I had low expectations for this movie.  When I ended up watching this movie, it turned out to be surprisingly fun.  This, not Transformers, was the fun movie of the summer (that car/helicopter crash is one of the best stunts out there).  I turns out Len Wiseman actually can be a good action director.  My only major complaint is  a scene in which John McClane apparently shoots an unarmed man (and yet everyone else was bitching about how he didn’t say the F-word).

8. Charlie Wilson's War

D: Aaron Sorkin

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Surprisingly, this films witty banter made it one of the most genuinely fun movies of the year.

7. The Kingdom

D: Peter Berg
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Very thrilling, engaging movie, and one of the few times I felt genuinely sad when a character died.

6. 3:10 to Yuma

D: James Mangold

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A very thrilling Western and one of the best remakes I’ve seen.  I particularly liked Ben Foster’s performance as Charlie Prince.

5. No Country for Old Men

D: The Coen Bros.

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A fun, stylish movie with some good insights.  My only complaint is that it didn’t engage me on a level where I actually felt bad for what happened to the characters.

4. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

D: David Yates

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This was the first Harry Potter movie I watched after having read the book, so it was a tad disappointing to me what they left out.  Still, it’s a pretty good movie.

3. Hot Fuzz

D: Edgar Wright

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One of the funniest spoof movies ever made.

2. Persepolis

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D: Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud

An example of how animated movies can deal with serious subject matter.  The way in which the style of the comic was adapted onto the screen was beautiful and creative.

1. Grindhouse
D: Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez
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A great loveletter to B-Movies.







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