Film of The Year 2012

Well it’s that time of the year when I pick my favourite movie of the past 12 months. The qualifying criteria is only that the film is one I have seen in this timeframe and not necessarily related to the date of release. 

It has to be said that 2012 saw some amazing movies released over the course of the year. Big ticket blockbusters were commonplace with films such as The Avengers, The Expendables 2, Skyfall, The Dark Knight Rises and Men In Black 3 all heading up the earnings charts. Indeed, there were so many good films I have yet to even see Looper, The Dark Knight Rises and Skyfall!

A number notables to me included This Means War, Act of Valor and Iron Sky - all very enjoyable in their own ways, especially Iron Sky given it’s small budget and fan-sourced funding approach to deliver a suitably daft but enjoyable movie about Nazis from the Moon! Also, Jason Statham’s Safe was also a terrific film.

However, my choice for the main awards came down to a difficult decision from five movies. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Battleship, Prometheus, Bourne Legacy and Total Recall all were in the running...

Ghost Protocol was a welcome return to form for the M:I franchise with a great story, terrific pace and booming audio. Battleship was an audio/visual treat despite a nonsense storyline whilst Prometheus was a deep contemplative film that kept me thinking for weeks after watching it despite my feeling that the storyline was ripped off from the Halo videogames. The Bourne Legacy was a very enjoyable movie that has set up the storyline nicely for a run of sequels and quelled my fears that the memories of the original trilogy were set to be ruined by a money-milking side-sequel. Total Recall was the biggest surprise of the year for me. The original was dumb but this remake was a far smarter affair, beautifully shot, amazing audio (with hefty drops of Hybrid goodness mixed in which helps), a better storyline and terrific action.

However, there can be only one and the choice for my 2012 Film of the Year went to Mission Impossible:Ghost Protocol with Total Recall and Bourne Legacy coming in very close in the runners-up spots but to be honest, any one of them could have won it - it was that close. 2013 has a high target to achieve the same level of greatness, it really does!!