SCI FI PI

2008 was definitively the year of the superhero flick, with The Dark Knight and Iron Man redefining what the comic book means to both audiences and Hollywood alike. Now, instead of agents combing through unpublished novels to get ahead of the pack, actors are creating comic books to have a property that they can attach their careers to.

But whilst The Dark Knight and Iron Man remain fresh in the mind, it wasn't a year of just two movies. It was a year of surprises, of disappointments, of expectations exceeded, and hopes dashed. A year of sequels and re-imaginings.

In short, another year of Sci Fi & Fantasy that may have had many elements of greatness, but lacked the one thing that we all know a great year needs when it comes to talking about the movies.

Giant futuristic space ships duking it out in space.

Fingers crossed that Mr Abrams and his team at Star Trek deliver the goods in '09.

In the meantime, let's go back (way back) to a time when Mr Abrams wasn't directing, but producing. Cloverfield to be exact. It was January 17, 2008...





JAN 17 Cloverfield - When Clover the Monster Met New York. Shakey cam extraordinaire - the monster attacks Manhattan from the frightened public's point of view.





FEB 7 The Mist - Stephen King's tale retold by Frank Darabont. You didn't forget this one, did you? One of the most fascinating endings in horror movie history gave a fresh twist to the Stephen King classic.





FEB 14 Jumper - Doug Liman directs the teleporting thriller with Hayden Christensen that turned out to be more pilot than feature and ended up irritating more than entertaining - despite some cool special effects





MAR 6 10,000 BC - The mammoth (literally) action sequences was not enough to save this ridiculous film from Roland Emmerich's hammy clutches. The re-hash of the Stargate plot showed just how far the TV franchise has come in the years since Emmerich made the feature.





MAR 13 Speed Racer - The Wachowskis came back, eager for a hit after the fizzlement of the later Matrices and V for Vendetta. Gigantic bubblegum coloured worlds and hyper-action gave the film an almost epileptic quality - too much for most critics, but there's now a growing underground of cult followers, ready to follow the film into HD TV.





APR 3 The Spiderwick Chronicles - Fans of the books were eager, and got them all, in one. Not quite Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, but an admirable effort, propped up by excellent aproximations of childhood fantasy, and rather evil faeries, but let down by a logic flaw that saw tomato sauce as a powerful weapon against icky things.





May 1 Iron Man - Robert Downey Jr went super hero in the other side of The Dark Knight's coin - less dark, more 'Marvel', it provided exactly the kind of comic book film that fans had been waiting for - it was the perfect triangulation of star, director and material for Marvel, and now looks set for super-franchise status, despite being based on a 'minor' character. Get ready for Imax, 3D!





MAY 22 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - the one quesiton was: does the Ford still run? And he did, to the tune of $770 million, worldwide. Whilst no one can argue against those kinds of figures, the broad nature of the comedy, action and humour gave many fans and critics pause, some seeing it as a rather poorly devised cash in. Still, many were just happy to see the Man in The Hat come back.





JUN 5 The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - was better than the first one, with obvious lessons learned, with a slightly harder edge. That said, the 'underlying' Christianity was even more pronounced, giving the film a wretch-worthy undertone, ignorable for the most part, but somewhat deflationary for a film that promised much for the pre-teen battle hungry.




JUN 12 The Happening - M.Night Shyamalan directed his suicide epidemic in his last chance before got the the Uwe Boll rating. Result - the Uwe Boll rating. A great premise that was undone by Shyamalan's refusal to find someone to help him finish his movies. Not one since Unbreakable has an ending that didn't suck balls and blow chunks simultaneously. The fact that he is now directing The Last Airbender is a complete mystery.




JUN 12 The Incredible Hulk - Ed Norton got green with anger in a film that promised much for the Marvel Movie Empire - and got the fledgling studio off to a steady start. Not without quibbles, but the film was a definite improvement on the Ang Lee escapade starring Eric Bana.





JUL 3 Hancock - Will Smith as a lecherous broken down super hero got hammered by critics who saw the film's change in tone from light hearted superhero stuff to rather dark, (literally) Greek tragedy stuff. Sci Fi fans who went with it got a fresh take on an old story and a few chuckles along the way.





JUL 17 The Dark Knight - Heath Ledger's best ever performance as The Joker will soon be recognised at the Golden Globes and the Oscars. Let's hope they don't overdo it and make it revoltingly cloying. The big quesiton though - will the film that literally redefined it's only character (even though it's prequel already did that) and redefined what an R-rated movie can do at the box office, be recognised as a whole? For many, the film of the year, and deservedly so.






JUL 24 The X-Files: I Want To Believe- the truth was behind the couch all along, along with the one abiding fact - there's a 'X' in X-Files for a reason. The unexplained. The uncategorisable. Not some iffy stuff about medical skullduggery and backyard head transplants. The 'shippers' were happy as we delved into the real Mulder and Scully, but the wider audience just wanted something slightly weirder, despite the beautiful snowy backdrop and Gillian Anderson's great hair.




AUG 14 The Clone Wars - the best ever kid's TV cartoon was foolishly released as a feature film to help engage the world in Lucasfilm's transition to the small screen. It will be fantastic, but this 'film' offered little for the fanboys screaming out for some kind of Second Trilogy Excorcism.





AUG 28 Hellboy II: The Golden Army - saw Pan's Labyrinth director Guillermo Del Toro bring that otherworldy quality to the world of superheroes, giving the third definitive twist on the genre for the year. If Dark Knight was 'dark', and Iron Man was 'light' Hellboy II was 'other' - it didn't explain itself beyond its central theme of animism versus humanity, of the fight for freedom versus the chains of obedience. And in quite the twist, after the hero saved the day, he literally quit. Genius.





SEP 18 Wall-E - whilst many were worried by it's perceived sugaryness, it soon became apparent that this film was more about charm than smarm, and a Tomatometer of 100% backed the fact that literally EVERYBODY loved it. Except of course for a few disgruntled cynics. Or for one character who didn't like the film because it 'didn't have enough dialogue'.





OCT 2 Babylon AD - a real theme for 2008 for many movies - the 'cut off at the knees' syndrome. Disowned by the director Mathieu Kassovitz after production problems saw the film's ending butchered




NOV 27 Quarantine - the Blair Witch Project done right. A real treat for horror fans looking for a good scare, with an original spin on traditional scenarios. Best remake of the year!





DEC 26 The Day the Earth Stood Still - Keanu Reeves as Klaatu. Woah. Close, but no cigar. Still, enough moments to enjoy for Sci Fi purists looking for something in the wreckage, but again, amputations meant the film could not quite stand by itself.