The Smurfs (2011)

In the live-action/CGI hybrid “Smurfs” film, our Belgian-born heroes – blue, three apples high and each named for a character trait – are zapped to New York City, with evil wizard Garagmel in tow. There Papa, Smurfette, Brainy and – oh, you know what? Smurf this. I barely sat through the film, why bother with details. It took four screenwriters plus innumerable studio heads to drum up jokes about Smurfette as gang-banger, and toss the word “Smurf” into every sentence, and it’s from the director of “Scooby Doo.” Obnoxious even by kiddie fare standards. Record-breaking product placement. A New York so bland it could be the town I live in. Blah Smurf blah. Random thought: In all of New York, why must our heroes land in the arms of a white yuppie couple (Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays)? Be it “Alvin and the Chipmunks” or “Garfield,” “Marmaduke” or “Yogi Bear,” or even “The Muppets,” these pop culture throw-back affairs -- mostly based on older comic strips or cartoons -- play like a master class in the “Master Race.” So few people of color. Over-reaction? Prove me wrong. D+

Real Steel (2011)

“Real Steal” is a deft genre mash-up: “Rocky” meets “Transformers,” with a heavy dose of “The Champ” tacked on for good measure, and Hugh Jackman in the lead. My film snob tastes melted away. The boy inside me cheered. The simple story: In the near future, human boxing is outlawed, replaced by a Michael Bay fever dream: Massive robot boxers going at each other like Ali and Foreman in the ring, no blood or brain damage, just busted-up (and recyclable) metal junk. Jackman is an ex-boxer named Charlie who has gone from dishing and taking KO’s in the ring to running robot boxers for hayseed crowds. Here comes the Underdog Redemption kick as Charlie has an estranged son named Max who, A) Needs a dad after mom dies, and B) Happens to be a junior engineer and avid gamer. Hokey? Much. So what. This is a CGI-heavy effects film that doesn’t let computer wizardly bulldoze story and character. During the climax, Shawn Levy’s camera pans away from the robot action and focuses on the human players instead. We care about these people, lead robot Atom is a blast, and as Max, Dakota Goyo upstages Jackman and the CGI. KO. A-

War Horse (2011)

As a director, Steven Spielberg has been known to lay it on thick: Heinz 57 on shepherd’s pie. Sometimes it goes wrong: “Amistad” was weakened by obvious speechifying. But the great many of his dramas are draw-dropper movie epics -- the kind of big screen behemoths that inspired man to build movie palaces so a few hundred people could sit together and stare at light on a screen, and be carried away. Sometimes for joy and escape, other times to see a tear-jerker story of triumph over tragedy, or just the tragedy. Think “Saving Private Ryan,” or for my 13-year-old self in 1987, “Empire of the Sun.”

“War Horse” is among the later, an unabashedly, unapologetic and amazing big-screen World War I drama about a boy-turned-man and his horse that recalls a 1950s Techicolor epic long gone from cinemas, but with an important distinction, there is no glorification of war here. Rather, the carnage of war is more likely to break a man’s soul than leave him square-jaw John Wayne heroic. (Fact: Most of the war films of the 1940s through 1960s were propaganda flicks, designed to get young men to suit up and die for their country. Wise, bold liberal filmmakers ended that genre. Wayne and his patriotism-at-all-costs ilk were mad, and on the outs. “Green Berets” included.)

Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine) is a Brit teen who witnesses a thoroughbred foal being born, and instantly falls for the creature. The horse is bought by Albert’s father to serve as a plow horse, an unwise, but moot decision: For Joey, the horse, is conscripted to serve in World War I. Albert follows. From there, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski drops his sun-bright color palate and sinks Joey, Albert, and us, into an ashen and poison-gas-filled hell, as Joey is traded from one owner to the next, a British officer to two German Army youths to a young French girl, and on.

Is there a happy ending? Spielberg’s films almost always fall that way, and this is no different, but the path to the final “magic hour” shot is ghastly, full of the cruelty of mechanized war against humanity and nature, mud, barbed wire, blood, and much, much death. Going for mature older children and young teens, Spielberg pulls back on the gore and splatter to … great effect. We have experienced “Saving Private Ryan,” its endless up-close visceral bloodbaths, so the camera is set atop a windmill to shows two boys being shot point blank, the blade hiding the impact as bullets rip through flesh. And, damn if the entire audience didn’t gasp and shudder. I sure as hell did.

Oh, Spielberg is grandiose and sentimental without mercy, and John Williams’ old-fashioned score pulls out the full orchestra, and whips and pulls for every emotion, but when Joey is running shell-shocked and horrified through a godless battlefield, ripping through barbed wire, cut to pieces, the guy who made “E.T.” back in 1982 reduced me once again to blubber. Critics be warned, this is Hollywood film-making at its best. Horse enthusiasts be warned, this is a bloody film with ceaseless animal cruelty (faked and CGI'd, thank the gods). A

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010)

“Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole” is one of the best-looking animated tales I have ever seen: Golden hues of sunlight abound, and our owl heroes and villains at the center of this fantasy adventure are computer-animated with such jaw-dropping precision that the details of feathers and the glint of eyes make one stare with childish glee. But “Legend” is a wash, a gorgeous body with an empty soul. The story is based on a series of books, so far be it for me to proclaim this a rip-off of “Star Wars” and “Chronicles of Narnia,” but I’ll do it anyway, as our tale follows two brother owls (Jim Sturgess and Ryan Kwanten on voices) who fall into the clutches of an evil owl queen, with one sibling summiting to her will, and the other escaping to join a heroic rebel alliance. Bonus Lucas points: There’s a wise old warrior owl and an evil metal-masked owl. They duel. For all of director Zack Snyder’s (“300”) visual delights, I was constantly trying to sort out which owl was which, especially during a climatic aerial fight that left me squawking “Hoo?” “Hoo?” “Who!?!” Thankfully not out loud. C+

The Adventures of Tin-Tin (2011)

When Steven Spielberg said he was making a Tin-Tin movie, I was stoked. I was born in England, and although I can’t recall my time there, I did inherit piles of “Tin-Tin” books. The boy reporter and his little white dog, Snowy, are huge there. In America? Not so much. Which is why “The Adventures of Tin-Tin” crumpled at U.S. cinemas. Despite the Spielberg name, some of the best motion-cap animation ever made and 3D effects that make the format a blast of wondrous pop-up fun. The plot is Tin-Tin simple, and very “Young Indiana Jones”: Our ginger hero buys a model ship on a lark and gets wrapped up in a worldwide conspiracy that nearly gets him (and his little dog, too!) killed. Spielberg works with physics-defying action as if he’s thrilled not to worry about reality. It’s all too much, but this is a boy’s adventure. How else to explain a 120-pound boy fighting men three times his size? Bummer news: The ending is a let-down, a promise of cinematic godliness left to a sequel. Jamie Bell is Tin-Tin, Andy Serkis is a drunken ship captain, and Daniel Craig (smartly nasty!) the villain. B+

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

I read John Le Carre’s “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” long ago, and was stoked for a film version. That I barely remembered the plot helped. I was not bogged down as I watched Gary Oldman almost wordlessly soar to his best screen performance as the aging/defeated/solemn George Smiley, a spy who realizes his life was pissed away trying to dig up shit intel on the Russkies. The story: Oldman’s Smiley is tasked with finding a mole in The Circus, MI:6. His suspects include fellow spooks so high up, they hold onto power with an Iron Fist, their noses up the rear of the American CIA. As with many of 2011’s best films, this is a story of a person taking stock of his life and lost chances. This is a dark, grimy, and quiet film, startled with bloody violence. You can feel this film waft off the screen -- the dust and tweed jackets, and stink of a rotting body. The mood is by director Thomas Alfredson, the woefully hurried complex screenplay by the late Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan, a married couple. This is no feel-good “Mission: Impossible” thriller, but a spy-mood killer, and a damn good one. A-

2011: Best and Worst

This is my Best (and Worst) of 2011 List so far. Most of the Oscar bait have not come my way yet, and for those that have, I have not had the time to watch. Such is life. This list will be updated, changed and purged multiple times when I see films worthy (or, for the bottom, not).

First update: 26 February 2012
Second update: 14 March 2012
Third update: 19 March 2012
Fourth update: 29 April 2012
Fifth update: 9 May 2012
Sixth update: 25 August 2012

The Best
1. Tree of Life. The year’s head-scratching-ist film is king: A drama about the creation of the universe, God, and one family’s birth and shattering. A near religious experience from Terrence Malick.
2. Melancholia. A twisted sister to No. 1, this equally head-scratching film is about the death of all life, by Lars von Trier. Darkly beautiful.
3. A Separation. Writer/director Asghar Farhadi’s tale of two families at odds in modern Iran is universal, painful, and a slam of theocracies.
4. (Tie) The Artist and Hugo. Directors Michel Hazanavicius and Martin Scorsese create two wildly different films celebrating cinema and life.
5. Tinker Tailor Solider Spy. Gary Oldman gives the performance of his career as an aging spy in a game that takes your life, now or later.
6. Take Shelter. Michael Shannon plays a man stricken by either schizophrenia or divine knowledge. The question: Are they the same?
7. Shame Michael Fassbender stars in a cold, brilliant tale of man tortured by sex, the liquid inside him. More NC-17s, please, Hollywood.
8. Midnight in Paris. Woody Allen uses literary and artistic greats and a time travel trick to remind us that, no, life was not better back then.
9. 13 Assassins. Takashi Miike’s kick-ass, bloody violent samurai film is a throwback to Kurosawa's greatest sword romps. Nasty fun.
10. (Tie) Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Pina. Directors Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders takes us on two inspiring journeys, inside a cave and inside a dancer’s mind, to see art at its grandest and purest.

The Worst
5. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. A feel-good 9/11 movie about a mentally ill boy reconnecting quirky-like with his dead dad. Fuck no.
4. J. Edgar. Because of the scene where FBI director/dictator Hoover – played by Leonardo DiCaprio -- wears his mother’s dress and pearls.
3. (Tie) Just Go With it, Jack and Jill, and Zookeeper. Adam Sandler spreads his toxic film-making sensibilities to Nicole Kidman, Al Pacino, and Nick Nolte, the latter getting it easy as the voice of a gorilla.
2. Green Hornet. Star Seth Rogen and director Michel Gondry toss a snickering “F.U.” to comic-book movie fans. Right back at you guys.
1. Sucker Punch. Zack Snyder calls this a feminist shot against misogyny. Right, and “Birth of a Nation” is a call for Civil Rights.