The Year in Review: Movies of 2005

Andrew Prince / Reviewer

It was a very good year in movies, perhaps the best year so far this decade. I have been wondering for a few years now if our best filmmakers would take advantage of the events and emotions going on in our country and our world, to create great works that would either serve as a commentary on our times or as a lesson for the future.

This was the year I had been waiting for? a year in which many movies either captured the recent tones of America and her people, taught us a lesson relevant to our times, or simply provided us with great entertainment.

The best movie I saw this year was Steven Spielberg's "Munich," about the aftermath of the killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Some critics said it was anti-Jewish, others said it was anti-Palestinian and others condemned the movie for not taking a side at all.

In my opinion,"Munich" is not prejudiced against either group and tells both sides of the story while trying to argue that acts of vengeance don't get anybody anywhere. There are some great sequences in the film apart from its lessons and they are all handled with masterful cadence by Spielberg.

Stephen Haghan's politically charged "Syriana" is a great movie about the oil industry. The film was disliked by many who could not keep up with the plot. For these people there is good news: you are not supposed to follow the plot. Roger Ebert said people are supposed to be surrounded by it.

"Syriana" does not try to explain the oil industry to the audience because the characters themselves do not understand the oil industry. Many would attack this film as too liberal, but the active viewer will realize that the film is apolitical because everyone in it is guilty for one reason or another. Haghan creates a fractured, entertaining tale that has great performances and writing, including a great speech by Tim Blake Nelson defending corruption.

Maybe the most powerful and most important film of the year was Paul Haggis' "Crash." This is a film that still has me thinking about how I, and other people, view those who are not of the same race, religion or ethnicity.

The film's characters say things that real people only think to themselves, making it almost as hard to listen to as "The Passion of the Christ" is to watch. At first, the characters seem to be racist or the opposite, but as the movie goes on, coincidences in the story reveal that these same characters are not as bad, or good, as they first appeared.

Aside from these great and serious films, Hollywood also gave us some of the best entertainment in a while this year. "Batman Begins"surprised me with its dramatic value while being thoroughly entertaining, making it the best of the Batman pictures.

"King Kong" had great action sequences that, even if they didn't make much sense, were so fun I didn't care about anything else. There are very few, if any, dull moments in this 187 minute movie.

"Star Wars: Episode III" proved to be the best of the prequels by cutting down on the boring political dialogue and returning to the space opera that made the first three pictures so good. The scene where Anakin Skywalker transforms into Darth Vader will stay with me for quite some time. It was a great Greek tragedy and great trash.

Normally, a critic will see around 250 films a year, but I have seen a tenth of that or less this year. Some other movies I would love to see that were released in 2005 are: "Brokeback Mountain," "Good Night, and Good Luck," "Chronicles of Narnia," "Capote," "Lord of War" and many others.

This was not the best year for individual movies. "Memento" (2001), "Minority Report" (2002), "City of God" (2003), "Kill Bill Vol. 2" (2004) and "Million Dollar Baby" (2004) are all better than any film that I have seen recently.
But this year was more balanced and had far fewer bad films than any other year so far this decade. I feel honored that 2005 was my first year as a film critic.

Contact Andrew Prince at pendulum@elon.edu or 278-7247.