Best of 2001

A weird little film with no real direction, but great all the same. Why is it comedies can get away with being so aimless?

Fantastic. A near flawless film for what it was going for and I can completely understand why so many teenage girls are obsessed with it.

It's a fairly masterfully made film. Unfortunately, I'm probably (very unfairly) putting it up against Pan's Labyrinth in my mind without really wanting to. It's not even close to being that good, but it is similar (although I'd say it's a lot closer to The Orphanage). However, judged on it's own, it's a solid piece of work. A little slow and almost lacking, but that's just my tastes. It's very good. A little creepy too. Not much more I can say for it. I'm sure you all already know how good Guillermo Del Toro is.

Personal enjoyment: 7/10
Actual quality as a film: 8/10

What is this I don't even.

I hate "It's like _____ crossed with ______" reviews, but this genuinely is like Spider-man crossed with The Fly. It starts out as a poor man's Spiderman following some loser, nerd who has a thing for a girl who lives in the apartment down the hall from him and wishing he could be like his hero, the comic book character the Arachnid Avenger. He works at a genetic engineering lab doing work on spiders and one day injects himself with some spider-serum believing it'll turn him into the Arachnid Avenger.
It gives him spider-powers at first but he soon devolves into a giant spider/human hybrid who likes to hunt down and eat people.

It's an utterly bizarre mixture of horror, thriller, crime and comedy and it's the completely bizarre nature of everything about the film that makes me fascinated. How did this ever get funding? Not that it didn't deserve it, but it's just... things with no obvious market don't get greenlit... usually.
It's a shame that this had such a tiny budget. The cast, obvious (and re-used) sets and so forth don't do it any favours.

Personal enjoyment: 6/10
Actual quality as a film: 4/10

It simply isn't funny and lacks the power behind it to deliver the message it wants to get accross.

A film in which a group of video game makers working on an incredibly dated looking video game that happens to have actual AI (what?) accidentally bring an evil monster they designed into reality. It's as good as it sounds (which isn't very good at all).
To be fair to it, the explanation for how the monster becomes a reality is actually 20 times better than I expected. However, overall the film is still a big, steaming turd. Awful writing that makes little sense at times, horrible cliches, one set, etc. As far as awful horror films go, you could do a lot worse, but that doesn't stop this being bad.

Personal enjoyment: 3/10
Actual quality as a film: 2/10