The FilmFanMan's Year in Review: The Best & Worst of 2012

Well it's the end of the year. 2012 has been a pretty great year for movies. There have been some amazing films, but there were also some movies that were absolute GARBAGE! Keep in mind I still have to see "Amour", so this list may change when I see the film. So keep checking back.

Also keep in mind some of my rating's might not match, meaning a movie I gave a 4, might be ahead of one I gave a 5. It's just going by how much I ENJOYED them and one's I'd rewatch over and over. The movie's that I did full reviews on have links next to them that say "Review", that link will take you to my full review. Now without further ado, click the jump to find out the FilmFanMan's Best and Worst of 2012 in Movies!

My Review of Les Miserables

 

 

I love musicals, in fact it's one of my favorite genres of movies. So when I heard they were making "Les Miserables" into a movie I was pretty excited. I have to admit though, I have not seen any of the live Broadway Musicals so I am quite new to this particular story. After seeing it though I can say I was pretty impressed with "Les Mis", however it sadly did not exceed my expectations.

In 19th-century France, Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), who for decades has been hunted by the ruthless policeman Javert (Russell Crowe) after he breaks parole, he agrees to care for factory worker Fantine's (Anne Hathaway) daughter, Cosette (Amanda Seyfried). The fateful decision changes their lives forever. The movie mainly takes place during the French Revolution.

I very much enjoyed the story for "Les Mis" and I can say it kept me interested. However, the movie is REALLY long. So if the movie would have been maybe 30 minutes shorter I could have enjoyed it a bit more.

The cast is pretty much the reason I thought the movie was good, not just OK. Because the cast is FANTASTIC! Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe, and Hugh Jackman all give AMAZING performances and are all really good singers. It was kind of weird hearing them all sing, but they were good! I'm gonna predict Anne Hathaway has an Oscar coming her way for Best Supporting  Actress, her performance as Fantine was incredible and I think she gave the best performance of the year for an actress. But besides those guys, I also loved Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen, the Innkeepers, whenever they were in a song I just smiled the whole way through it, they were great! Also in the movie is Amanda Seyfried, who I think gave a pretty good performance as Fantine's daughter! And Samantha Barks who was also fantastic! But overall, I have not nothing but wonderful things to say about the cast.

My Review of Jack Reacher

The movie "Jack Reacher" is based on a series of books, which I have not read. I am personally not a big fan of Tom Cruise, who plays Jack Reacher, and did not have an interest at all in seeing this movie when I first saw the trailer. However, when reviews for the movie came out the reactions were quite positive. I then decided to give this movie a try, the result is a VERY entertaining action/mystery movie!

The movie is about a homicide investigator named Jack Reacher who digs deeper into a case involving a trained military sniper who shot five random victims. The story for this film is actually really good and it's actually more of a mystery then an action movie. It was not at all predictable and by the end I didn't really know what was gonna happen.

The cast of the film all do a pretty good job, although I don't really like Tom Cruise. But I think he did a pretty good job in this movie. Some people were mad Tom Cruise was cast in this film because in the book Jack Reacher is suppose to be a lot taller then him. That did not bug me at all. Other then Cruise, the cast also includes Richard Jenkins, and Rosamund Pike, who both gave pretty good performances, although I think some of the performances in this movie were overdone.

My Review of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" is the first movie in a trilogy of prequels to the extremely successful series, "The Lord of the Rings". I am not the hugest fan of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, but I would still call myself a fan. Either way, I was really looking forward to seeing "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" and I honestly had very high hopes for the first film. However, in the end, I was very disappointed by the movie.

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is set sixty years before "The Lord of the Rings", only this time the story is all about the Hobbit Bilbio Baggins (Martin Freeman), who is hired by the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) to accompany thirteen dwarfs led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) on a quest across Middle-Earth to reclaim there home, Lonely Mountain, from the Dragon Smaug. This whole story is being secretly written by Bilbio as an older Hobbit for his nephew Frodo (Elijah Wood, who made that character famous in "The Lord of the Rings" films).

The script/story for the movie is OK. However, this movie is WAY to long and honestly that's pretty much the main reason why I didn't love the movie. The movie has a running time of about 2 hours and 50 minutes, and it should have been about 30 minutes shorter. Peter Jackson added scenes that just didn't need to be in the movie and in those scenes I was just bored, and sometimes I unintentionally zoned out. However, when the action kicks in the movie does get a lot better.

CONTEST: Win ‘Magic Mike’ or ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ on Blu-Ray

NOTICE: THIS GIVEAWAY IS OVER! CONGRATS TO KARIN FOR WINNING! THANKS AGAIN TO EVERYONE WHO ENTERED, THERE WILL BE MORE GIVEAWAYS COMING SOON! SO STAY TUNED!


Happy Holidays everyone! In honor of the holidays I am doing my very first giveaway! You could win either, "Magic Mike" on Blu-Ray (Combo Pack), or you could win "The Dark Knight Rises" (Combo Pack) on Blu-Ray. It will be completely random what movie you get if you win. To enter to win, tell me the best holiday survival tip in the comments below. I will pick the winner randomly (Via: Random.Org) on December 19th, then the winner must email me there address by December 20th and they will get mailed either "Magic Mike" or "The Dark Knight Rises" on Blu-Ray. You can get one more entry if your following me on Twitter: @FilmFanMan23. There will only be one winner.

 If you have any questions, just ask me! Thank you so much Warner Bros. and PartnersHub for providing me with these awesome giveaway prizes. The package will be delivered to the winner via FedEx and is open to US residents only. No P.O Boxes allowed. Good Luck! Also check out the Warner Bros. Widget below for fun games and a Holiday Survival Guide.

My Review of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2

I am honestly not a "Twi-Hard", mainly because I've never read any of the really popular books. However, I have found some of the "Twilight Saga" movies to be quite entertaining, not "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1" though. I just found it to be utterly boring. Now the second part to that movie, "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2", has arrived. Despite Part 1 being bad, I was still super excited to go see Part 2. After experiencing it I can say it was surprisingly.....very good.

At the end of "BD Part 1" we find out that Bella (Kristen Stewart) is alive, and she's now a vampire like her husband Edward (Robert Pattinson). She had just given birth to there child, Renesmee. Now, in "BD Part 2", after the birth of Renesmee, the Cullens gather other vampire clans in order to protect the child from a false allegation that puts the family in front of the Volturi and there leader Aro (Michael Sheen). Renesmee even has Jacob (Taylor Lautner) along the way to protect her.

The story is basically what you would expect from a "Twilight" movie, it's not great. However, this movie probably has the best and most interesting story of all the "Twilight" films. It never, at all, dragged on and I was interested the whole time. However, the dialogue was VERY corny.

My Review of Skyfall

James Bond is Back and better then ever! The franchise has now been around now for 50 years and I must say I was super excited for this movie, and I was very happy to see all the positive buzz and great reviews, especially after the last installment in the Bond Trilogy, "Quantum of Solace", which I was not a fan of at all! But I can honestly say "Skyfall" makes up for that gap.

"Skyfall" begins with an amazing opening sequence/chase scene, as the Bond movies always do. Those scenes are always usually great, and this one was to. After this scene, Bond is accidentally shot by another agent (Naomie Harris), while fighting someone on a moving train. He then falls into the river below and everyone presumes he's dead, but it turns out he's not, months later he turns up because he found out the hard drive he was after while fighting on the train got into the hands of Silva (played by Javier Badam). He then gets comes out of retirement to try to stop Silva. I must say though, the movie is mostly about Bond and M's (played by Judi Dench) relationship.

The movie's story was really good, it was divided pretty evenly between dialogue and action, and in all of those scenes I was quite interested. But it's the action that really steals the show! Most of the action scenes were completely awesome, and it was pretty much action packed from the opening chase scene, all the way to the epic ending, and I must say the ending was quite unpredictable!