2001 Movies Ranked

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20. Pearl Harbor

D: Michael Bay

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Quite possibly the most insulting war movie I’ve ever seen.  Yet another Historical Love Triangle movie.  I’m usually not a stickler for fake accents, but Ben Afflecks Southern accent is beyond awful.  At least it produced a good soundtrack and this hilarious song.

19. Evolution

D: Ivan Reitman

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A really unfunny and crude comedy.

18. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

D: Kevin Smith

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Will Ferrell was the only enjoyable part of this spectacularly unfunny comedy.

17. Cats & Dogs

D: Lawrence Guterman

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When this came out I liked it just because it sided with the dogs, but now that I'm older I would like to see something more complex and ambiguous  It’s just a mediocre live-action talking animal movie.

16. Jurassic Park III

D: Joe Johnston

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Forgettable.

15. Enemy at the Gates

D: Jean-Jacques  Annaud

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The movie does a great job depicting the brutality of Stalinist Russia and has a great cameo by Krushchev (Bob Hoskins), but the story is ridiculous.  I’m tired of “historical” movies about love triangles.  The Battle of Stalingrad was interesting  enough without petty daytime talk show drama.  Also, I’m no fan of communism, but pointing out its failure to keep people out of love triangles is not a compelling argument against it. There’s also a ridiculous and utterly tacked-on sex scene.  In an insanely cheap move, the movie realizes that Ed Harris’ character is more sympathetic than any of the “heroes” and has him murder a child at the last second so we’d want to see him die.  The movie has a Moral Compromise Spectral Release Phantasmatron! 

14. Osmosis Jones

D: Tom Sito, Piet Kroon, The Farrelly Bros.

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Get it?  Chris Rock is a white blood cell?  You know…even though he’s actually black?  A sub-par Farrelly Bros. movie combined with a typically dated “hip” turn-of-the-century animated movie.  At least there are some amusing moments and some really good voice acting from Laurence Fishburne.


13. A.I. Artificial Intelligence

D: Steven Spielberg

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It’s visually arresting and has a promising premise, but it suffers from poor execution and a terrible ending.  I definitely admire Kubrick’s artfulness, but he apparently wasn’t particularly good at whimsy.

 

12. The Royal Tenenbaums

D: Wes Anderson

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I think Wes Anderson is hit-or-miss, and this is not one of my favorites.  I know that some people may accuse Arrested Development of ripping off the voiceover, but whereas that show uses it effectively for humor, Alec Baldwin’s soporific narration just seems more like lazy exposition.  It even ruins one punchline by giving it away at the beginning of the movie.  Also, I’ve seen funny narration used effectively before, like in Freakazoid!  I’m not sure why Ben Stiller’s character and his sons are constantly dressed in jogging suits; it’s more distracting than funny.  Maybe if it was some subtle act of defiance of the director when faced with a forced product placement, which would be funny, but I don’t know.  The movie has some interesting ideas, but I just didn't find it that funny.

11. Shallow Hal

D: The Farrelly Bros.

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It’s like a lesser version of The Nutty Professor but it does have some laughs and some effective emotional moments (Cadence's reveal is actually quite effective).

10. The Majestic

D: Frank Darabont

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I was really enjoying this movie until halfway through when it started becoming painfully predictable.  I could practically recite Jim Carrey’s final speech before it happened.

9. Suckers

D: Roger Nygard
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An interesting look at the inside world of car sales, but it unfortunately bogs itself down with cliched subplots of drug trafficking and loan sharks.

8. Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone

D: Chris Columbus

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The first entry in this series is a little visually bland and childish, but it’s a decent family fantasy.  Fortunately, it would mature with its audience.

7. Amelie

D: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

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A charmingly imaginative and quirky romance.  Jeunet made some great-looking gold-hued movies, but this time he got lazy and clearly used digital color filtering, which does not look good with yellow.  As a result, the film’s style suffers.

6. Shrek

D: Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson

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This movie’s satirical tone was fresh when it came out, but now it’s been played out, leaving us wanting more sincere animated features.  However, it’s a fun movie, and the Harry Gregson-Williams score is excellent.

5. Monsters, Inc.

D: Pete Docter

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One of the better earlier Pixar movies.  Great characters and an imaginative setting.

4. Spirited Away

D: Hayao Miyazaki

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I don’t have much to say except that this is a great, imaginative movie.

3. Black Hawk Down

D: Ridley Scott

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Saving Private Ryan set a new standard for war movies, and this film does a great job following up without a contrived plot.  There are a couple moments that bug the shit out of me, though.  There’s one amazingly dramatic moment from the event revolving around the first confirmed American KIA.  Accounts refer to all this chaotic background chatter that made communications hard, but when that one guy says, “He’s dead”…DEAD SILENCE.  Despite being lucky enough to have this given to them on a silver platter, they still figured out away to fuck it up.  I also heard one account describing a Little Bird pilot flying his helicopter with one hand and shooting at people with an MP5 with another; I didn’t know how that didn’t make the cut.

2. Zoolander

D: Ben Stiller

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It’s got a some stupid jokes, and Ben Stiller’s mugging can get annoying, but the humorous plot and the abundance of hilarious jokes more than make up for it.

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings

D: Peter Jackson

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Not much I can say; this is a near-perfect fantasy film.

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Least Favorite Movies of 2001