Director: Neil Marshall
Year: 2005
Score: 6.5/10
For what it is (a horror movie about six women trapped in a cave with subterranean humanoid creatures), this is pretty good. Actually, it’s hard to imagine the same premise being executed any better than this; but with a premise like that, it can only really be so good.
Director: Francis Lawrence
Year: 2005
Score: 3/10
One of those action/horror/thriller movies (e.g. Stigmata, The Ninth Gate, etc.) that confuse religious mumbo jumbo for intriguing premise and plot. The story is just so pointless and unengaging that it was hard to make it to the end. I have only one nice thing to say about it: some of the special effects aren’t bad.
Director: Shane Black
Year: 2005
Score: 7.5/10
Hugely enjoyable crime comedy pokes fun at the hardboiled detective genre while simultaneously following its tropes. Robert Downey Jr. is great as the lead and our narrator. In fact, it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role; without him this would have been a completely different, and most likely considerably inferior, movie. There’s solid support from a funny Val Kilmer, perhaps his best performance since The Doors. It’s clever and it knows it, but it isn’t overdone and it never feels like the style overcomes the substance.
Director: Sam Mendes
Year: 2005
Score: 7/10
This felt quite fresh, possibly because there still haven’t been very many movies made about the Gulf War. Engaging insight into the lack of action many marines and soldiers experienced over there, and the impact that would have had on them. My main criticism – beyond the fact that it didn’t pack as strong an emotional punch as the best war movies do – was that the protagonist’s semi-breakdown, seemingly triggered by being dumped by his girlfriend, didn’t seem consistent with what we knew of him up to that point.
