My Top 10 Favotire films of 2013

Happy New Year everyone! It's now time for another top 10 with 2013 gone and 2014 just beginning. Now while you are all probably aware of this, I still want to point out that this is about the movies that I personally enjoyed the most, not which ones where the biggest cinematic masterpieces, and that I have not seen every single movie that there is to see from this past year. In fact, I think I saw less films from this past year then I did for 2012. In fact the only movie I saw in 2013 that was genuinely bad was The Lone Ranger, so I didn't see as much as I did last time. But I digress. Let's dive into my personal favorite films from 2013.



#10 Saving Mr. Banks

Number 10 was a little hard to pick. It originally was going to be either Man of Steel or Pacific Rim considering either how Man of Steel did have some nice aspects to it despite it being less good then when I saw it the first time, and how despite the characters and especially the dialogue were horrible in Pacific Rim, it did a lot of cinematic things right with its cinematography, movement of the robots and aliens, and especially the creativity of the certain features that the aliens had and how one of them in particular delivered one of its abilities remarkably well. But ultimately the one that probably works the most as #10 for my personal choice would be Saving Mr. Banks. While it had some familiar beats, Saving Mr. Banks was a heart-felt and enlightening movie about creating the movie Mary Poppins and the importance it had to P.L. Travers' past. It's a great film to look into if you're a fan of Disney or Mary Poppins or both, and it fits the most to be # 10 on this list.





#9 Kick-Ass 2

This is the only underrated movie on this list, but this may be one of the most underrated films I've seen period. It's no The Dark Knight and it has some flaws, sure. But finding those flaws to be so bad that it has a 29% on Rotten Tomatoes right now? Now that's just going a little too far. It's not better then the first movie, but it's not suppose to be, nor did I really want it to be. It's meant to still give us likable characters, decent comedy, good fight scenes, sometimes go deep into what Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl are going through dramatically  throughout the film, and make some differences between it and the book it's based on that I felt were very important to make. And in all of those areas, Kick-Ass 2 did not disappoint, and it's a shame that the critics didn't see it.






#8 The Wolverine

Most people say that this movie is pretty loyal to the particular comic it was based on, other say it was just loosely based. But either way, this was a big improvement from X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Where that film had decent action but also had too many characters and not enough time to properly use them, this film also has some nice action but is more character and story heavy. We get new characters, we see Wolverine overcoming his past and trying to make do without his healing ability, and we get a little peak at the end credits that builds up to X-Men: Days of Future Past. My brother got me this for Christmas, and I hope the next film will be even better to the point of also joining my collection of films by this time next year.




#7 Star Trek: Into Darkness

After spending the past for years getting to know Star Trek as a franchise after watching the reboot, I finally watch the sequel with a more layered film that goes deeper into the characters, the all around universe, a great villain played by Benedict Cumberbatch, and some fun action and visuals. Just hope the next film has fewer lens flares and has more of them actually boldly going where no man has gone before.



#6 The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

What do you get when the first film had enough shaky camera to make Michael Bay envious and little reason to make you really give a flying feather about the characters or their relationships with each other? You get the next film which contains little to NO camera movement and character development that DOES give you reasons to give a flying feather about the characters or the their relationships with each other. As surprising as it was to find out when I went to see this movie, Catching Fire gave the right amount of development to help me actually like these characters and really see why I should in any way care about what's happening to them and how genuine the relationships are like between Katniss with her sister or with her whole love triangle between Gale and Peeta. The Hunger Games is still hardly one of my favorite franchises or anything like that, but this movie impressed me enough to hope they keep up the good work with the third movie...split into two films...just because Harry Potter and Twilight did that with their last films, doesn't mean you should too guys.



#5 Gravity

Well I guess this movie had to be on this list at some point. But that hardly means I can't see why. Gravity is visually astonishing with it's cinematography and it's CGI. It's also clever with its symbolism and has a great performance from Sandra Bullock. It has a very simple story with characters that maybe didn't really need any background story to them, but it's all meant to be that way for the sake of it being an experience more then it is meant to be in any way deep with its story or characters. But as great of a film everybody praises it to be, the next four just simply did the most for me personally as a fan of these specific franchises or companies, starting with...




#4 Thor: The Dark World

Thor: The Dark World just did a lot of things right to me as far goes as what a good sequel should do; that being taking the concept of the world in the film and exploring it more while going further into the story and raising the stakes. With this movie doing just that, we went deeper into the Asgardian lore, characters like Odin and Loki, Thor and Jane's relationship, as well and more action and comedy that falls a little closer to what Joss Whedon did for The Avengers. And let's not forget the scene during the end credits that I hope leads to a good Guardians of the Galaxy movie.



#3 The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

I know it's weird that this movie is ranked two slots higher then the previous film despite the fact that it is weaker. But weaker doesn't automatically mean it's bad. The Desolation of Smaug continues the story by giving us more of the characters and more of the world of Middle-Earth with great fight scenes, good comedy, and a perfect Smaug to finish it. While Jackson has probably added more stuff that are not in the book then me maybe should have, we leave it to the next film to find out if they pay off.



#2 Iron Man 3

Yes I know this movie has a good amount of flaws, but ultimately I still more or less find a lot of them minor compared to what this movie was doing on a whole. This movie was meant to be deeper and more about Tony Stark as a person then all about him flying and destroying things. It was funny, it was dark, it was dramatic, and just very satisfying when you look at Tony Stark growing as a person and watch the result at the very end of the film. Only time will tell what happens from here in The Avengers 2: Age of Ultron for the man in a can.



And finally...

#1 Frozen

Yeah if you find it messed up that this reached the top, do know that I do too. But I can't really help it. Ultimately if there was one movie  in 2013 that has so many clever and entertaining things to it to the point that it almost has no flaws at all, slightly similar to The Avengers from my list last year, Frozen is that movie. It's just a big return of the experience of Disney animated films that past movies like Princess and the Frog, Tangled and Wreck-it Ralph have been leading up to. The music, the animation, the two new princesses, the side characters (still surprisingly including Olaf), the story, there's just so many things to love about this film. I did eventually watch it a second time and I loved it even more. In fact I think it's a movie that you have to see twice. One time to see what it does to your expectations, and a second time to just watch and enjoy it. I don't have a certain list of who my favorite Disney princesses would be, but if I did, I strongly feel now that Anna and Elsa would be my second and third favorite princesses, inferior only to Belle (because it's freaking Belle.) they both where such smartly created and fun characters and I really enjoyed what Disney gave us with each of them. If this film doesn't succeed where Wreck-it Ralph "failed" in giving Disney its first Animated Feature Oscar win without Pixar, I might just officially lose all faith in the Academy Awards. And all of that is why I don't see any other movie but Frozen to be my #1 favorite movie for 2013.