It’s been 12 years since we’ve had a James Cameron feature and with over $500 million spent on his return to Hollywood, does he maintain the crown of ‘King of the World?’ You bet he does! Cameron is back and delivers exactly what he always does – reinvents epic Hollywood filmmaking, gives the audience a huge sense of awe and gives us cliché after cliché of dialogue. But despite the screenplay being clumsy and at times laughable, he gives us a vision we’ve never seen on screen before. He borrows story elements from Dances with Wolves and even his own films such as Aliens sure but it’s his abilities as a filmmaker and knowing how to deliver to an audience that adrenaline rush that makes Avatar such an accomplishment. His use of 3D IS revolutionary from the little subtleties such as the leaves in the forest or the insanely realistic close-ups of the Na’vi. When you enter Pandora, you are there and the border between live-action and CGI is inching ever so close. Cameron has blended it so well, you never feel like you are watching CGI characters moving across screen. The human characters are typical Cameron fodder and using Sigourney is a nice touch. Worthington does a good enough job although he falls in and out of accent a fair bit. Stephen Lang plays the one dimensional Colonel as good as any army character in Cameron’s Aliens. However it’s the character of Neytiri, played by Zoe Saldana, that is so life-like and expressive. She steal the show and rightly so. Cameron again uses the uber strong female archetype to give us a truly great lead character. In the end though, Avatar misses the mark in terms of cinematic classic status due to the script and I just wish he’d fleshed out the characters a little more and given us a more compelling script. In terms of a business decision and selling a film to a wide audience, I know WHY he delivered the script the way he did but yeah. Enough of the review already – just go see it in 3D, preferably in IMAX and sit back and be swept away.

Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

Just like Cameron, you have to give director Spike Jonze credit for realizing his vision on the big screen and no-one else’s. Sure Jonze based his on the classic Maurice Sendak book, but he has made this his own and given us perhaps the best cinematic representation of the book one could hope for. The Wild Things themselves are wonderfully realized, an excellent blend of Jim Henson’s creature shop design and CGI. He also cast Max Records as Max who could have easily slipped into cheese and emotional manipulation but never falters. My main problem with the film and perhaps the book is there isn’t much that happens. Max is crying for attention within his family, sets sail to the magical world of Where the Wild Things Are and essentially plays with them for the rest of the movie until he has to go back home. There isn’t really a huge range of cinematic ‘moments’ that take place. I’m not sure if really young kids will have the patience with this one either. It probably runs 20 or so minutes long. However, despite the film outstaying its welcome ever so slightly, Jonze gives us perhaps one of the best cinematic representations of what is it to be a lonely child. The isolation, the anger you feel when you want to connect with the world but people think you’re being silly or stupid. Oh and the soundtrack by Karen O and the Kids works fine but compared to the trailers with Arcade Fire, it never gave me goosebumps.

The Hurt Locker (2008)

There is no film this year that has kept me on edge as much as Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker. Easily her best film (she gave us Point Break and Near Dark by the way), her examination of an American bomb squad unit in Iraq is so gripping, you will find it very hard to look away despite biting all of your finger nails down to the very nub. There are a few notable actors appearing in the film including Guy Pierce, Ralph Fiennes and David Morse but they only turn in extended cameos really. The real stars are the central three bomb squad members – Jeremy Renner as the fearless bomb disposal leader, and Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty offering cover. Watching this reminded me of HBO’s Generation Kill, another excellent piece of work on the effects of the Iraq war on soldiers. However The Hurt Locker doesn’t offer any political messages. It’s just two hours of raw nerve filmmaking at its very best. There is a side plot in the film which feels a little unnecessary but this is still one of the best war films made this decade.

Extract (2009)

It’s easy to embrace Mike Judge comedies since he gave us the now classic Office Space and the under-appreciated Idiocracy. Extract isn’t the return to Office Space form as much as I had hoped but it’s still one of the better comedies of the year. Jason Bateman again plays the straight man, Mila Kunis his object of desire (although she is rather underused), Kristen Wiig is his wife (playing it straighter than normal) and J.K Simmons as his business partner. That cast alone and Mike Judge would assume hilarity from beginning to end but it doesn’t quite get there. The biggest surprise is Ben Affleck as the mellow bartender friend of Bateman’s. He’s actually very funny and probably shares the funniest scenes in the movie. The film also reminded me of Burn After Reading in a sense but isn’t as successful or clever as a whole. As with all Judge films though, this may improve with age and probably become a cult favourite with Judge fans.

Halloween II (2009)

Oh man. Well, if you want to know the worst film of the year or in fact of all time, then look no further than Rob Zombie’s uber disaster Halloween II. This is a complete train wreck of a film that Zombie wrote and directed himself. I wasn’t a fan at all of his ‘reimagining’ of Carpenter’s original classic but compared to his, that 2007 film looks like a modern masterpiece. This time, Zombie wanted to separate from the existing universe completely and he does succeed in that. However, why not make a completely separate film rather than using the Halloween name? I would hope Zombie didn’t want to make this film at all and as a result, decided to just make a complete pile of dog turd to piss off the producers so he would never have to make another Halloween film again. I mean, the film doesn’t have the signature music theme at all, Michael’s white trash (ugh!) mum turns up as a ghostly figure with a white horse (seriously wtf) informing him to kill everyone and if you thought the dialogue for Avatar was terrible, then just watch five minutes of this and re-assess your thoughts. Scout Taylor-Compton is truly awful, Michael walks around like a hobo for the entire film and there isn’t one single, likeable character to be found anywhere. Zombie gives us the worst of all Halloween films (and that is saying A LOT!). I know this franchise will never die but please producers, let Zombie go and hire someone who at least loses the hillbilly, Manson hard-on styling’s of Zombie’s work and give us a protagonist who is likeable and keep Michael a mystery!