#1 Gladiator
Story: When a Roman general is betrayed and his family murdered by a corrupt prince, he comes to Rome as a gladiator to seek revenge.
Review: Big, Powerful and top notch though out. Crowe is perfect and his journey is epic. In the top ten for the Decade.
#2 X-Men
Story: Two mutants come to a private academy for mutants whose resident superhero team must oppose a powerful mutant terrorist organization.
Review: Best of the comic book adaption to date. First Batman a close second along with Blade. Jackman nails it. And anything with Famke gets my vote. Fight scenes worked but all were a bit dark.
#3 The Perfect Storm
Story: An unusually intense storm pattern catches some commercial fishermen unaware and puts them in mortal danger.
Review: Simple premise with excellent performances and effects. Wolfgang knows how to do tension and nature. ILM almost has the water thing down. Still a bit confused how a story can be told about an incident where everybody dies.
#4 Pitch Black
Story: A group of marooned space travelers struggle for survival on a seemingly lifeless sun-scorched world.
Review: Like SPEED, its a simple story that becomes great due to the performances and details the Twohy puts together. Low budget, but not a penny wasted. More of a guilty pleasure than a ‘Greatest of 2000’
#5 The Replacements
Story: During a pro football strike, the owners hire substitute players.
Review: The Slap shot of football, Fun all the way through, If you have hang ups about Keanu, this and the MATRIX should show his range…none at all. But he is perfect in this roll. And the music fits like a wet t-shirt. Orlando shows he is a good second banana.
#6 Unbreakable
Story: A suspense thriller with supernatural overtones that revolves around a man who learns something extraordinary about himself after a devastating accident.
Review: M. Night know how to make supernatural movies. His slow but steady pace follows characters around like a ghost. You become glued to the screen, afraid to blink. This movie is right on par with the great SIXTH SENSE. And is a true life comic book.
#7 Chicken Run
Story: Chicken Run is a comedy escape drama with a touch of passion set on a sinister Yorks chicken farm in 1950’s England
Review: Park is the new god of claymation. I’ve loved every one of his shorts. Most of all the hard to find ZOO short. It’s a funny remake of THE GREAT ESCAPE (if that is possible). It is an enchanting and very funny 80 minutes..
#8 Vertical Limit
Story: A climber must rescue his sister on top of K2, one of the world’s biggest mountains.
Review: New Zealander Campbell knocks his third (Mask of Zorro,Goldeneye) actioner out of the park. He is better with real bad guys, but nature as the true bad guy works just fine here. Visually perfect, and the tension hits its mark every time.
#9 The Legend Of The Drunken Master
Story: Returning home with his father after a shopping expedition, Wong Fei-Hong is unwittingly caught up in the battle between foreigners who wish to export ancient Chinese artifacts and loyalists who don’t want the pieces to leave the country.
Review: Made in 1994, it gets released in the US officially in 2000. A big set piece shows some of the best group fighting ever. Jackie is in top form and even fights with fire. No big death defying stuff, but it is not needed here at all.
#10 Hollow Man
Story: Scientists discover how to make people invisible, but their test subject becomes an insane killer who stalks them.
Review: R-rated and unflinching account of the corruption of invisibility (He He). Paul Verhoven has some the cleanest images ever put on film. Add that to the fact that he likes to show everything: sex/violence/gore. And you have a voyeuristic hyper-reality that you cant take your eyes off of.
Runner-up’s :
Cast Away –
Meet The Parents –
Scary Movie –
Charlies Angels –
The Patriot –
Frequency –
Rules of Engagement –
The Legend Of Bagger Vance –
Memento