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Dan Owen reviews

DAN'S   MOVIE   DIGEST

2 0 0 4   r e t r o s p e c t i v e

P a r t   O n e

2004. The year movies got serious. No, seriously!

Hollywood will always rely on special-effects for their big money-spinners in the summer, but this year we were blessed with a more varied choice for cinemagoers: the eco-friendly The Day After Tomorrow, the politically-charged Fahrenheit 9/11, a battlecry against fast-food in the Super Size Me documentary, religious blockbuster The Passion Of The Christ, and many more. Even Will Smith's I, Robot had brains behind its CGI, being based on an Isaac Asimov story!

Take a look below and you'll realize just how many of the year's most popular movies were great leaps forward in terms of ambition, creativity and genuine quality. Hollywood is even becoming more accepting of world cinema - with Britain's Shaun Of The Dead becoming a hit Stateside, as well as foreign cinema's Hero and House Of Flying Daggers raking up cash. A Japanese director was even allowed to direct the English-language remake of his horror smash The Grudge!

All this bodes very well for next year, but let's take a look at 2004's most popular movies and how they fared in the year.

Modern cinema's greatest double-act, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, teamed up yet again for their affectionate parody of Starsky & Hutch. Managing work as a traditional buddy-cop comedy, while also taking swipes at 70's culture, the movie was a big success and has prompted next year's Dukes Of Hazzard remake. Of course, beyond the sublime casting of Snoop Dogg as Huggy Bear, the laughs in S&H are actually pretty few and far between, but it's still an entertaining but mostly flat adventure.

A star was born with Scarlet Johanssen receiving plaudits for her role in Lost In Translation, the romantic fish-out-of-water comedy drama from Sophia Coppolla, and co-starring Bill Murray. Unfortunately, the domination of The Lord Of The Rings at the Academy Awards meant LIT only took away Best Original Screenplay.

2004 was definitely The Year Of The Zombie, with three cinematic offerings from the walking dead. First to make its mark was Zack Snyder's remake of George Romero's Dawn Of The Dead (2004). Despite predictably low expectations and ridicule from fans of the original, this update was a pleasant surprise - managing to improve on the original in quite a few key areas and provide enough bloody scares to keep zombie aficionados happy!

By far the most controversial movie of the year, and perhaps the decade, was Mel Gibson's The Passion Of The Christ, with James Caviezel as Jesus and Monica Bellucci as Mary. Focusing on the final hours of Christ's life before his crucifixion, the movie divided opinion - with many people appalled by the movie's excessive violence. Despite this, many Churches used the publicity to their advantage and the movie became the most successful independent movie made... ever!

Occasionally, Britain manages to make a movie that finds success around the world. These movies usually star Hugh Grant and have Richard Curtis in the credits... until now. Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright, fresh from cult sitcom Spaced, brought their skills to the big-screen with a low-budget English take on zombie lore in Shaun Of The Dead. A hit in Britain, the movie found an audience in America thanks to word-of-mouth, and entered the Top 10. Not bad for a debut movie Working Title has almost forgotten about while prepping their big-budget Wimbledon and Thunderbirds movies!

Easily the most mind-bending movie of the year arrived courtesy of cranium obsessed writer Charlie Kaufman, in Michael Gondry's beautifully executed Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslett as lovers who decide to erase each other from their memories, the film is a sublime mix of romance, science-fiction and fantasy.

Eagerly awaited sequel Shrek 2 bounced into multiplexes in the summer, now packed with more characters and more startling CGI animation. Of course, none of the technology really matters to children, so it was a good job the story and characters remained as entertaining as the first time. However, while entertaining and technically superior to the original, the movie never quite hits the same high for adults.

Another hotly anticipated sequel arrived in blue and red spandex, with Toby Maguire returning in Spider-Man 2 as everyone's favourite (and only) web-slinging superhero. The effects were better, the action more elaborately staged, and the villain more monstrous in the guise of Alfred Molina as the eight-armed Doc Ock. While Spidey deservedly set the box office alight, the film was continually crippled by a romantic subplot that quickly became repetitive and a somewhat silly sense of humour. Still, no doubt superior in most respects to the original and amongst the best in its genre.

M Night Shyamalan has quickly become the Stephen King of the movie world after The Sixth Sense in 1999. Now, every time he releases a movie the weight of expectation grows heavier and the quest to predict his stereotypical "twist endings" a global sport!

The Village was Shyamalan's first foray into period drama, but his tale of a small village community surrounded by terrifying creatures in the woods, met with a lot of criticism. The Village is another beautifully constructed and meticulously filmed piece of gentle spooking, but maybe it's time Shyamalan moved away from twists in the tale before they bite him in the hand once too often...

Five years ago you'd have thought it crazy that a political documentary would ever be released to worldwide cinema audiences, but Michael Moore proved there was a market for such cerebral movies with last year's Bowling For Columbine. In 2004, Moore went one step further, winning the coveted Palm D'Or with Fahrenheit 9/11 - a biased, yet extremely persuasive argument against President Bush and his "War On Terror". The movie split audiences, but at least provoked debate amongst usually apathetic voters. Still, perhaps the movie's message didn't hit home quite as strongly as it seemed, with Bush voted to stay in office until 2008...

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2007 Retrospective: Part One 2007 Retrospective: Part Two 2007 Retrospective: Part Three 2007 Retrospective: Part Four

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2006 Retrospective: Part One 2006 Retrospective: Part Two 2006 Retrospective: Part Three 2006 Retrospective: Part Four

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