What movies have surprised you this year? Positively or negatively. And in terms of the actual movie, not box office (because we all know we'll see Shrek 2 and Passion of the Christ one million times).

For me, this year was filled with some surprisingly awesome movies, but at the same time, major dissapointments.

Positive Surprises

Mean Girls (I would have never expected something that good)
National Treasure (I thought it would be a dissapointment, but it's one of the most fun movies this year)
Collateral (Great, great action flick, with surprisingly strong performances from both Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx)
Saw (Amazing movie, period.)
I, Robot (Awweesome)

Negative Surprises

The Village (Why, M Night? WHY!?)
Alexander (Didn't see this coming)
Hero (Beautiful, but nothing much else)

Positive
Garden State
Mean Girls
The Notebook
50 First Dates
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Collateral
The Butterfly Effect (probably the biggest surprise for me)

Negative
Troy
I Heart Huckabees (the most disappointing movie this year)

Oh, I completely forgot about The Butterfly Effect. That movie was extremely surprising to me. The first good movie I saw in 2004, and definently a great movie.

Positive

Village
Butterfly effect
Mean girls
Man On Fire
Grudge

Negative

Saw(still liked it, not as much as I thought I would)
National Treasure (Was hoping this would be good, biggest shitfest I have seen in awhile)
Lemmony(not as good as I had hoped)

Those two were very good positives for me too! Especially Butterfly Effect. I really didn't see that one coming because when my friends dragged me to it all I could say is why the hell would I want to see Kelso do seriousness?! But in the end it was great.

Another great one was Man on Fire & Passion of the Christ.

I knew I would love Anchorman. Man on Fire was a nice surprise, as well.

By the way ...



Ron Burgandy? :wink:

Guess Kelso was on her mind

Positive:
Saw
Man on Fire
Herry potter 3

Negative:
Hero
Seed of Chucky
Blade Trinity

Positive
Mean Girls
The Incredibles
Closer
The Butterfly Effect

No negatives, Shark Tale was pretty bad but I wasn't surprised.

Movies I expected to suck donkey balls, but didn't
Mean Girls
Dodgeball

Movie that sucked more then I thought possible
The Village
Troy

Positive Surprises:

Alien VS Predator( Great movie and for me, the best next to Spiderman II For 2004 despite what the army of internet film nerds said about it and it's director, it was still hands down better than the last 2 ALIEN movies anyday of the week)

Spiderman II: Probably the Best Superhero movie I've ever seen and easily right up next to Superman II.. It had the perfect blend of Drama and Action and the Villain was hands down far better than the Green Goblin and also a perfect setup for Spiderman III...

Kill Bill Vol 1: Awesome awesome action with the best body count I've seen in a long time.. Bravo to Tarrantino and Uma Thurman for this movie.. I have a total new respect for female superhero's now..


Negative Surprises:


COLLATERAL: Sorry filmbuffs, but this movie wasn't near as good as everyone made this out to be and clearly Michael Mann's weakest crime drama yet when going next to "HEAT" which combined both dialogue and action perfectly.. My problem and biggest complaint about COLLATERAL was the fact there was too much TALK TALK TALK and not enough Action.. However, when the Action was present, it was really good and I enjoyed the Nightclub scene, but the ending sucked donkey balls.. Considering I'ma big fan of Michael Mann and his past stuff like "Miami Vice", "HEAT" or "Last of the Mohicans", I'm willing to forgive him for this..

How can AvP be a surprise to you when you guaranteed it would be great .. a surprise is something that turns out good when you werent expecting much from it to begin with ..

Considering the amount of posters and critics that dumped on it before it even came out, it was a susprise to me at how great it was and how wrong everyone's slam of it was... It was surprisingly great and a step in the right direction for steering this franchise back on course.. :wink:

Positive:
Maria Full of Grace
Dodgeball
Mean Girls
Napoleon Dynamite
Garden State

Negative:
The Manchurian Candidate (VERY Disappointing)
Troy
A Dirty Shame

BUT THE BIGGEST SUPRISES...

WERE...THE TWO DEAD MOVIES:

Dawn of the Dead & Shaun of the Dead

Positive
Shade -- Direct to video movies usually mean they weren't good enough to be shown in front of an audience, but this was one of the best films of the year. If you see this at Best Buy, especially at a price of $5.50 which is the price I bought it for (Now knowing how the movie turned out, I would've payed more), get it. It's well worth it.

National Treasure -- It looked stupid, but it turned out to be an extremely fun movie to watch.

Dawn of the Dead -- Nothing can come close to being in the same ballpark as the original, but this one came pretty close.

The Butterfly Effect -- Ashton Kutcher was pretty damn good, and that in itself is kind of shocking.

Negative
Saw -- A very good first act, but then it completely falls apart.

Totally, out of nowhere good surprises...(basically films I wasn't following in production at all and fell in love with when I saw it)
Super Size Me
The Notebook
Mean Girls
Man on Fire

Good surprises
The Incredibles
Harry Potter 3
Finding Neverland
Garden State
The Bourne Supremecy
I, Robot
The Butterfly Effect

Pretty cool surprises
National Treasure
Spider-man 2
Hellboy
Collateral
Ocean's Twelve

Bad Surprises
Shrek 2 (didn't live up to the first....still a good movie)
The Village (same)
Godsend (I was intrigued by the premise, but the final result was far beyond anything in my worst dreams)

Overall, I think this year was a lot better than last year, in terms of quality and surprising films.

Good:
Saw
Mean Girls
Shaun of the Dead

Bad:
Envy
Hidalgo
Hero
The Passion ?(yeah I said it, what now)

Biggest Surprises
Mean Girls (Was exepting something girly but got a fanastic movie)
Dodgeball (the first time I saw the trailer I though BOMB, but I was wrong, it was very very funny)
HP3 (Couldn't believe how much better the franchise got)
Hellboy (Very cool surprise)
Shrek 2 (Was expecting a bad sequel but this movie is soo funny)

Biggest Dissappointment
Johnsons Family Vacation (Wasn't expecting anything good, but this was just awful)

The Biggest surprise for me was Saved. I thought is was going to be just a teen movie, but this was really intellegent.

My biggest have to be:

Saved
The Passion ( not even that it was good, just a huge suprise )
HP3 ( mainly because of what a new direction it was )
Bourne Supremacy (because I had only seen Identity 2 days before I went to Supremacy)
Mean Girls
Closer

Dissapointments
Shrek 2
King Arthur
Saw

Positive:
Man on Fire - I never expected it to be that great
National Treasure
I, Robot
The Village
Dogville

Negative:
Shrek 2
The Passion
Van Helsing
The Notebook (just a bit)