To make things simply, Uncle Waterloo is making this a list, so without further adieu:

1. Inception
Christopher Nolan has been a favorite of mine since for the past decade, so it was no surprise to me when he once again managed to wow me at the theater, and this was perhaps his biggest wow yet, a mind-blowing journey into dreaming with a truly all-star cast (props to Leo, but Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt were the really stars, with Ellen Page gamely trotting along). Seriously, if you haven’t seen this one yet, stop wasting your time here and do it! Do it now!

2. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
This was geekdom’s version of last year’s (500) Days of Summer. Michael Cera has become a tad ubiquitous lately, but this is a perfect project for him, and there’s a lot to love even if you sorta hate him, or have never and don’t have an intention to read the original graphic novels.

3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
I’ve been writing about my love for Harry Potter at Lower Decks for years now, so it shouldn’t come as much surprise to see this one somewhere on this list. What helps this one stand out is that it’s basically a road trip movie, wizard style, one that cleverly splits the difference with the climactic final film to come next summer from the original book material. Props to Nick Cave for landing a song from one of my favorite albums in the movie!

4. The Losers
This is here because it was originally a comic book, plus it’s also awesome, with arguably 2010′s best all-around cast, anchored by Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Zoe Saldana, besting a formula that was also evident in The A-Team and The Expendables. This is the movie that most deserves greater awareness from the newly concluded year.

5. Alice in Wonderland
Lots of people saw this thanks to their 3D hangovers from Avatar, but it’s also a keenly inspired Tim Burton update from a familiar tale, with lots of action, and Johnny Depp.

6. Devil
I’m one of the last remaining M. Night Shyamalan devotees, and this unoffical addition to the canon is a lot more familiar to what originally gained him fans than anyone seemed to realize. Another virtually unknown film that deserves to be seen. I would call it a cross between The Sixth Sense and Lady in the Water, on the off chance that it’s helpful.

7. The Last Airbender
This official M. Night Shyamalan flick is his first for-hire production, but plays like his version of The Phantom Menace, with an improbably boy hero coming to the rescue, with lots of kick-ass action. Critics trashed it, but critics have hated Night since the credits ended on Signs, his last substantial hit.

8. The Book of Eli
Denzel Washington helps put some fresh spin on the traditional post-apocalyptic tale, with, ironically, an M. Night Shyamalan (circa Sixth Sense twist at the end.

9. Clash of the Titans
A lot of people soured on this one quickly (thanks to that 3D hangover), but I enjoyed it. Sam Worthington wasn’t as fresh in it as he was in Terminator: Salvation or, y’know, that other movie, but then, he did keep insisting that he was just a man, and his was to downplay his awesomeness, and that worked pretty well here. Things like Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes as gods served to compensate. Plus, the year’s first glimpse of the captivating and movie-stealing Gemma Arterton.

10. RED
Another movie based on a comic book. Part of the fun is that it’s secretly a Bruce Willis movie, but another part is waiting to see all the stars eventually show up, the ones waiting right there in the opening credits. That’s refreshingly nice.

That’s not all there was, but that’s the top ten from my book…

1. The Dark Knight (2008)
2. Watchmen (2009)
3. Star Trek (2009)
4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
5. Hancock (2008)
6. Superman Returns (2006)
7. Revenge of the Sith (2005)
8. The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
9. Star Trek Nemesis (2002)
10. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
11. The Fall (2008)
12. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)
13. Attack of the Clones (2002)
14. Moon (2009)
15. The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
16. Unbreakable (2000)
17. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
18. The Happening (2008)
19. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)
20. Frank Miller’s Sin City (2005)
21. The Prestige (2006)
22. Batman Begins (2005)
23. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
24. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
25. Lady in the Water (2006)
26. Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince (2009)
27. Daredevil (2003)
28. Children of Men (2006)
29. The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009)
30. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
31. Cloverfield (2008)
32. Doomsday (2008)
33. Grindhouse (2007)
34. I Am Legend (2007)
35. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
36. Avatar (2009)
37. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)
38. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
39. Shrek (2001)
40. Planet of the Apes (2001)
41. Terminator: Salvation (2009)
42. V for Vendetta (2006)
43. Minority Report (2002)
44. Signs (2002)
45. Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
46. The Mist (2007)
47. Dawn of the Dead (2004)
48. The Island (2005)
49. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
50. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)

You may ask how I ended up compiling the list, and why it ends at fifty without including some of the movies referencing in the opening. Believe it or not, I’ve got a list of my 400 favorite films (all considered), versions of which the Observation Lounge regulars are well-familiar with. The rankings on this list reflect where they fall, and what falls, excluding 2009 films, which I improvised into the list as they compare to other selections. It’s not surprising to me that only one of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films makes the list, and none of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man flicks, because while they were massive box office and popular favorites during the decade, I was never quite as enamored as a lot of other people. I was surprised, however, that none of the X-Men movies made it, because I generally like those. (Heck, my favorite Marvel adaptation was ‘Daredevil.’ Thank you, Jennifer Garner. You managed to trump Hugh Jackman.) I just happened to be a bigger fan of the Harry Potter films, for instance. I’m still a big fan of the Matrix trilogy. I loved the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and adored the second Star Wars trilogy. I actually liked the final pre-‘Star Trek’ (2009) entry in that series, too. ‘The Dark Knight’ is a great film regardless of genre distinctions. I enjoyed ‘Watchmen’ as a film more than a graphic novel (another cardinal sin). I thought Bryan Singer did an excellent job with ‘Superman Returns.’ I included ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,’ ‘Stranger Than Fiction,’ and ‘Shrek,’ even though they would hardly be considered conventional examples of genre filmmaking. Rolling Stone magazine called ‘Children of Men’ one of the ten best films of the decade, but here it doesn’t even crack the top twenty-five. I love ‘Shaun of the Dead,’ but it’s another film that mysteriously didn’t crack the top 400. M. Night Shyamalan, meanwhile, might be considered my favorite genre director of the decade, scoring four films on the list, one more than Christopher Nolan (who would more conventionally win out, with the additions of ‘Memento’ and ‘Insomnia’). Yes, I’m an odd duck. But I find plenty of things amusing, and I expect the next decade to provide just as entertaining and dynamic a film experience as the 2000s.

Here’s the basics of the movie everyone seems to be dismissing on visual charm but short on story, because yes Virginia, there is a story: ex-Marine Jake Sully ends up taking his brother’s place in a project to relocate aliens from their home so humans can exploit their resources, ends up going native (literally and figuratively). It’s helps to contextualize what is essentially a very familiar story by comparing it to Pocahontas, which was recently dramatized quite excellently in ‘The New World.’ Sully is John Smith in the future, one that feels completely contemporary, one of the most modern-feeling movies that doesn’t try to ape it with teenage stars or situations that I’ve seen.

By putting it in the context of the European conquest of America, ‘Avatar’ does run the risk of seeming irrelevant to current audiences, who would be more likely to think of more recent events like the Iraq War (which reviewers, when they bother to mention the story at all, like to conjure), but the fictional (and comically named) unobtanium in the film is not oil. It’s just an excuse to clear “primitive people” from their land and pretend that “our way” is better than “their way.”

If for no other reason, you will want to see this movie for Sam Worthington, who ironically already performed in a similar film this year, an extension of a franchise Cameron himself created, ‘Terminator: Salvation,’ that serves as a one-two punch introduction for a bright new star. He’s a lot more accessible here, but as an attraction he’s as undeniable as everything else, apparently isn’t. The only other name actor here is Sigourney Weaver, who has finally begun to age, so it’s weird seeing her look that much more vibrant in her big blue avatar. She’s going at least as much for ‘Gorillas in the Mist’ as Ellen Ripley in this one. Oh, and Michelle Rodriguez has a supporting role, too.

‘Avatar’ is funny, because Cameron’s been working on it so long he’s outlasted the only other film that might serve as an accurate comparison, ‘The Matrix,’ which came and went in popularity ten years ago. You could call it a revamped ‘Dances With Wolves,’ too. It also has the feel of a Disney animated feature, in the vein of ‘Tarzan’ or ‘Mulan.’ Although Robert Zemeckis has been doing a lot of unappreciated work in motion-capture projects like ‘Beowulf’ and ‘A Christmas Carol,’ you may find yourself thinking more about your Pixar experiences. Personally, the whole Pixar phenomenon has really started to bug me, because it’s gotten to the point where critics and audiences will accept whatever the studio does and call it brilliant, when there isn’t actually a huge different between their CGI movies and what their competitors do, except for a typical strong emotional moment, which might in any other context be called the same kind of manipulative experience critics hate in films like ‘The Blind Side.’ Pixar specializes in the unexpected star, but otherwise, the majority of their films are almost exactly the same. I do like Pixar, but I don’t believe there’s anything more than hype keeping it afloat (ha).

‘Avatar,’ meanwhile, won’t get the respect it’s due even though it’s doing far more revolutionary and complicated things simply because Cameron can’t be relied upon to create something on a clockwork basis. His work comes off more like a vanity than something that can just be enjoyed, even though it can, on any number of levels. It’s asking too much.

But like I said, if you get past everything you know about it, just the movie ‘Avatar’ itself is exactly the kind of transformative moviemaking that people should expect more often, not simply from a single creator working years on a single project, but what films should be capable of doing all the time, like people expect of Pixar, but in a more genuine way. Critics love things they can feel nostalgic about, or that press buttons they were already thinking about. ‘Avatar’ bucks that trend in every best possible way.

‘Surrogates’ the graphic novel is perhaps more relevant than, say, ‘Men in Black’ the comic book, but it’s not necessary to have read the source material (which I haven’t, but am formulating plans to), so I’m not going to bother rehashing my opinion on that subject (and I suspect, most critics wouldn’t either). I’m far more interested in how ‘Surrogates’ the movie fits in with the tradition of sci-fi movies exploring similar ground, all the way from ‘Blade Runner’ to this summer’s excellent ‘Moon,’ in which the validity of using clones as if they’re a disposable way of tricking a particular individual into an increasingly thankless job. In
‘Surrogates,’ fourteen years have let the world grow quite comfortable in carrying on life through a robot who does everything for you, except sit in a special chair that allows a completely innocuous connection to make it happen. This has had the effect of allowing people to lead exactly the lives they want, and therefore virtually eliminate crime.

Not so much for Sam Greer (Willis), or for the Dreads, reactionaries led by the Prophet (Ving Rhames, unrecognizable and the more revelatory for it), who believe Surrogacy is an abomination. Greer works in law enforcement, so when the first murder case involving Surrogates is opened, he’s drawn in immediately, tracking down the killer into one of the reservations for Dreads while trying to confiscate the weapon, which causes an overload in the robot and feedback that kills, in turn, the human. Right there, you can see parallels in Steven Spielberg’s ‘Minority Report’ (it’s not hard to see ‘Surrogates’ as a descendent of Philip K. Dick’s work) and Will Smith’s ‘I, Robot’ (or Isaac Asimov’s). Before, however, you assume that it plays too familiarly, ‘Surrogates’ has a number of tricks up its sleeves to maintain a distinctive stamp. Even James Cromwell, who portrays the creator of the Surrogates (much the same role as he had in ‘I, Robot’), keeps it fresh, putting another stamp in an increasingly lengthy and distinguished genre career.

Spielberg’s ‘A.I. Artificial Intelligence’ was a film that explored at length a version of what the Dreads would like to do to the Surrogates and their hosts, but ‘The Matrix’ or ‘The Island’ might be a better example of the way Greer slowly wakes up from the haze his life has become. Haunted by the death of his son, he and his wife, portrayed by Rosamund Pike (who’s joined by fellow underrated actress Radha Mitchell as Greer’s partner), serve as a window into the psychological traps that would allow for such a world to develop, which itself is not as bad as the Prophet would suggest, or as good as Pike would have it. By the end of the film, Greer makes a radical and unnecessary decision that the audience is forced to think about, which is one of the reasons ‘Surrogates’ becomes such a memorable example of this story archetype.

This summer, ‘Terminator: Salvation’ explored the same story in the plight of Marcus Wright, a murderer offered a second life he would soon come to realize as cursed, in the plotline that elevated the film to a standout in that franchise. A few years earlier, ‘Revenge of the Sith’ hammered home the inhumanity that twisted Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader, perhaps the most subtle demonstration of the machine debate in film history. ‘Surrogates’ adds a cosmetic twist that can almost seem beyond the point, but it’s difficult to miss when you contrast any number of differences between Surrogate and human host, from Willis with a full head of suave blond hair as a robot to his bald head as human to Pike’s flawless model features as her fantasy and scarred, bloated real self. At one point, the inevitable gender-bending fetish is put on display, while Cromwell spends a great deal of time being anyone but Cromwell (which includes the kind of twist common in M. Night Shyamalan films, but equally justified in the scripting here). This is the rare Hollywood movie that will actually have you rooting for the more homely people.

‘Surrogates’ is a movie you might see for any number of reasons. I became interested mostly because I’m a Bruce Willis fan, but the story looked intriguing, too. It turns out I was rewarded on both accounts.

And I’ll answer immediately – no, it doesn’t.  I’m not going to say that the movie is bad because I don’t think it is.  It has a very interesting premise, but it doesn’t try to be anything that it isn’t.  It is a Bruce Willis action movie that takes the plot of I, Robot, tweaks it, and runs with it.  It even uses James Cromwell as the original inventor of surrogates, further connecting this movie to the Will Smith film from a few years ago.

But I don’t think it tries too hard to make itself about social commentary, and it’s only about 90 minutes long.  If you go in expecting too much, you’ll probably be disappointed.  If you go in expecting a summer movie, I think you’ll enjoy it just fine.

The plot revolves around Tom Greer, an FBI agent who is investigating the murder of a high-profile victim while using a surrogate.  Since the destruction of a surrogate isn’t supposed to lead to the death of a human operator, it’s a big deal to the FBI.  Like one of the characters says early in the film, it would defeat the purpose of surrogacy.

Greer gets pulled into the clash between a world run almost-exclusively by surrogates and a small faction of humans that are determined to rid the world of the robot “abominations.”  This faction has a self-governing, but highly impoverished, community outside the city that doesn’t allow any robots inside.  But when the humans are suspected to be involved in the murder, Greer realizes that the skirmish is a lot deeper than he originally imagined.

There are a couple of plot twists in the movie, but none are really that surprising.  If you don’t sit back and enjoy the ride, you’ll probably figure it out and be a bit disappointed.  The ending of the movie, which differs from the ending of the graphic novel, is also probably a bit too clean for this kind of movie.  But all in all, I think it is what it tries to be.

However, after thinking it over, I think this was the kind of idea that probably should’ve been a television series instead of a movie.  Because this is a world that is really fascinating to me, and a 90-minute action film isn’t going to satisfy the curiosity that I have about it.  We see glimpses of the different ways that surrogates are used, but they’re just glimpses.  And, to me, it wasn’t enough.

Because ever since I saw the first trailer for the movie, I’ve been thinking about how this would all play out in real life.  If such technology existed, would the movie be correct in assuming that the great majority of people would use it?  Would I use it?

And it’s an interesting question.  But when I read that the original idea came from the true cases of people “losing themselves” in their internet personas, I have to think that the world of Surrogatesis what we would get.  To me, it’s a bit of a frightening idea because, in a lot of ways, we’d be creating our own version of the Matrix.  One movie views the idea as a utopia, and the other views a similar idea as a dystopia.

Yes, there are differences between the two, but it’s funny when you start to think about the similarities.

So I would’ve loved if this idea had been done as a TV show, really allowing us to get in the heads of these people.  Let us see the people who happily live through surrogates and the people who do it just to fit in.  I’d also love to see the lives of people living in the “humans only” reservation, and how they live.

Because when I see a movie like this (or, say, Children of Men), I find myself much more interested in the world than in the plot.  And this movie is really no exception.

Simply put, ‘District 9’ is an astonishing revelation, and yes, that’s probably what you’ve heard a thousand times over by now, but it bears repeating. From South African director Neill Blomkamp, set in his homeland and starring his countryman (and good friend) Sharlto Copley, the movie is so far from the average blockbuster map, its origin needs to be explained every time it’s talked about. Blomkamp had originally been enlisted by Peter Jackson to adapt the popular ‘Halo’ videogame series into a feature film, but when that fell through, Jackson had the idea to suggest that Neill expand on a short film he’d made years earlier instead. The rest, as its frequently said, is history.

‘District 9’ tells the rather unusual story of an alien spacecraft coming to Earth, and not only arriving at the most unexpected destination of Johannesburg, but just sitting there in orbit. Eventually, its residents are relocated to District 9, where bureaucrats eventually decide they must be removed from. Much of the film is presented as a documentary that makes all of this fairly matter-of-fact, and Copley’s character is introduced as the paper-pusher who gets the task of evicting the Prawns, as the aliens have come to be called (even though in the decades since all this began, it apparently became fairly easy for humans and aliens to understand their mutually exclusive languages), an office man far from the typical action figure mold, who shows no fear only because all of this is just business to him. When he stumbles upon the results of a long-standing project by one of the Prawns, however, everything changes.

The most obvious result is that Copley’s character finds himself with a hand that has suddenly been transformed into a Prawn’s appendage, which is significance because it closes one of the gaps that remains between the two species. Humans can’t use Prawn weapons because they’ve been genetically signatured to only work in the hand of a Prawn. Mindless agents quickly realize the advantage, just as the audience learns how important that project was to the Prawn. As Copley’s character struggles free, escaping another in a series of gruesome workshopping, he reunites with the Prawn, who has the command vessel that will get the alien ship moving again, and could potentially fix everyone’s problems.

A lot of this has been seen before, whether on film (much of the action scenes aren’t so different, say, from this summer’s own ‘Terminator: Salvation’) or on various anthology TV series, but taken as a whole and presented as even a surprise blockbuster, it’s somewhat wildly new, nail-biting and unpredictable to the end (which, in its way, is not all that dissimilar to last summer’s equally innovative ‘Hancock’). There are a lot of implications that make for an entirely unique experience, however.

For a lot of moviegoers, any experience that doesn’t heavily involve Americans or English-speaking peoples is as foreign as a foreign-language film. Much of this film is in English, but not from any typical vantage point. Critics have enjoyed pointing out the allegorical nature of this South African experience, from the land of Apartheid and Nelson Mandela, but as the film progresses, it becomes less and less easy to see it in such simple terms. Eventually, you find yourself thinking a lot more about the more obvious circumstance, that this is set in anything but a traditional location for this kind of experience. You find yourself wondering how this would play out somewhere else, if that ship did end up in a more traditional setting.

The hero would be a lot different than Sharlto Copley, and that is to take nothing from the amazing journey of his character. The last time a story of comparable profile stormed theaters, it was family man Tom Cruise (I confess, I still haven’t seen Steven Spielberg’s ‘War of the Worlds,’ or any other incarnation; though I own a CD of the famous Orson Welles radio performance). ‘Independence Day’ certainly played out a lot differently, of course, and in ‘Men in Black,’ Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones might be said to carry on interspecies relationships in a similarly casual way as Copley, but again, with vastly different results. ‘District 9’ becomes as much a rousing adventure as a cultural study, whose implications maybe haven’t been thought all the way through. It is certainly unforgettable.

When I finally got to read Green Lantern comics a bit, ah, more extensively, the letters pages were filled with readers comparing ring mythos to Star Wars, a scale that completely eclipsed anything else being printed. I think you’d have to explore Jack Kirby’s Fourth World to even begin to approach a vision of similar complexity, ambition, and laser-focused scope. While he was the second character to bear the name Green Lantern in a DC comic, Hal Jordan revolutionized the way superheroes could be envisioned. He became, in an instant, a recognizable figure on Earth, a singular costumed adventurer at home with his brethren of similarly colorful figures in the Justice League, and just another of hundreds of other Green Lanterns in space, all in almost the exact same garb. Hawkman was technically from the planet Thanagar, where there was a police force who approximated the same look, but Carter Hall was human through and through, and the origin that mattered had nothing to do with Thanagarians, and no story that seems to count for much (having just been killed off in ‘Blackest Night #1,’ you can guess how important Hawkman actually is to readers, anyway) explores that connection.

But Hal Jordan’s story is as much about the Green Lantern Corps as his life on Earth. Famously, Hal was a mere test pilot before receiving the ring of the dying Abin Sur. His most recent animated appearance, in ‘Justice League: New Frontier,’ plays this up well enough, while the alternate Green Lantern, John Stewart, became most familiar to cartoon fans during the ‘Justice League’ and ‘Justice League Unlimited’ series, which helped establish the basics of the concept’s appeal in such episodes as the “In Blackest Night” two-parter (no relation to this summer’s event, but rather a reworking of John’s great ‘Cosmic Odyssey’ failure), which featured various famous members of the Corps as well as the Guardians, creators of the Green Lanterns.

Hal’s origin as Green Lantern has been retold many times over the years, from ‘Emerald Dawn’ to Geoff Johns’ recent “Secret Origin,” so it’s no surprise that ‘First Flight’ chooses to retell it again. For fans, it’s famous and familiar enough to sustain a film, and the great part is that it includes a built-in complex adversary, so one doesn’t need to be created or grafted on to provide drama. Hal’s nemesis is Sinestro, once the greatest of the Green Lanterns, whose pride was his downfall. In the comics, the rivalry has been driven to such epic proportions that it can easily be considered the source of ‘Blackest Night,’ which Johns has weaved together by picking up the threads left by past creators, first when he defined the Yellow Impurity that once signified the sole weakness of the power ring all Green Lanterns wield while bringing Hal back from the brink of the villain he had become as Parallax, and then when he had Sinestro build an entire corps of his own around the yellow power ring he’d had for years (the fans will know that the third human to hold the Green Lantern ring, Guy Gardner, had that ring for an extended period, a fact that hasn’t really been exploited).

This is somewhat relevant to the review because when he defects, Sinestro in ‘First Flight’ assumes the Sinestro Corps-era yellow costume rather than the slightly more familiar blue and black outfit he more traditionally wore in that period. This is one of several changes the film makes. Others include a cosmetic change to doomed Green Lantern Abin Sur’s face (adding protruding chin nubs; the same is done to Kanjor Ro, a fact that kind of obscures a fan’s explanation that the animators wanted to avoid any confusion between pink-skin aliens Sur and Sinestro…and Ro, to differentiate species) and a near-successful attack on the Central Power Battery on Oa (home of the Guardians and the Corps) at the climax of the film, which is a story point few villains in the comics seem to have ever considered, and the defection of another Green Lantern (one who was actually central to another of Johns’ recent evolutions in Lantern lore).

Another of the interesting choices the film makes is another modification of Green Lantern lore, in representing the source of the rings (whether green or yellow) not so much as a force of will, per say, or a representation of the emotional spectrum (fear, for example, under Sinestro’s rules, the opposite of what he once supposedly represented, as Johns has emphasized), but as a physical element, a crystal that resides in the heart of the Central Power Battery, green and yellow. It’s also worth noting that, technically, the film doesn’t even include the power batteries each member of the Corps has to recharge their rings, which come in the green lantern shape that gives name to the whole deal.

Even as a fan very much beholden to how things have been done in the comics, though, I’m not really bothered by the ways ‘First Flight’ deviates from established elements. Why complain when, hey, Green Lantern is finally getting his due respect? Clocking in at about an hour and a quarter, there’s just about time to tell the essential story, Hal’s rise and Sinestro’s fall, and the scope of it (the final fight between the two can be described as similar to the cinematic duel between Voldemort and Dumbledore in ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’), without getting too much into Hal’s life as a pilot, or relationship with Carol Ferris (which itself could carry a second film; fans will know that Ferris eventually becomes a Star Sapphire, which has become one of the corps in Johns’ sandbox).

The two-disc version of the DVD comes with a load of bonus material, including some ‘Justice League’ episodes (including “In Blackest Night” if you get it at Target, and another that has a cameo from Hal) and a ‘Duck Dodgers’ entry featuring the Green Lantern Corps (and a cameo from Hal), which helps establish the animated historical context and comic book lineage for those just starting out.

The vocal cast in the film is impeccable. ‘Law & Order: SVU’ star Christopher Meloni voices Hal in a way that doesn’t make you think of a cop show, perfect as the star of an animated film, while Victor Garber infuses Sinestro will all the confidence and presumption fans of ‘Alias’ have long associated with the accomplished actor. Michael Madsen is an unusual but perfect choice to bring Kilowog, one of the most notable members of the Corps, to life, while Tricia Helfer serves a dual purpose as Boodikka.

At once its own vision and a perfect representation of comic book lore, ‘Green Lantern: First Flight’ is exactly the kind of movie DC was looking for when it launched these animated films a few years back, capitalizing on its greatest assets and establishing for a wider audience characters who weren’t so easy, a few years ago, to bring alive on the screen. The timing is perfect in so many ways it’s impossible to say that Green Lantern isn’t ready for maximum exposure, and hey, his due, at last. There’s much more to Hal Jordan’s story than this, but ‘First Flight’ is an excellent starting point.

I knew ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,’ the third entry in the series, was my favorite book, and would probably remain my favorite book, as I originally read it, but I felt a greater impact in the film adaptation of the next book, ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,’ when the cinematic appeal of a world of magic began to truly blossom, and I think that marks the difference and only real divide between mediums. Fantasy is by no means new because of Harry in either one, but Rowling’s triumph was in making it relevant perhaps for the first time since Arthur first met Merlin. She made a living, breathing reality of it, a culture and a heartbeat all its own, and came about it at the same time where adaptations could be made for films to begin release as Peter Jackson was adapting a slightly earlier tale of comparable grandeur, which had a different kind of momentum altogether. Where Harry Potter was a recent phenomenon, the Lord of the Rings trilogy (and a continually expanding backlog of supporting material) had become almost classical, though it was written in the same century as the first few of Rowling’s books.

Now we reach the point in the films where we can begin to truly compare the movies, if not the books (which are written so much differently that it would always be a point of opinion), because ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ is revealed, in this form, to be very much the ‘Fellowship of the Ring’ of this particular series, five previous films, if one were wont to do so, seen as mere prologue. That would, of course, drastically reduce much of the appeal of the Harry Potter films, which audiences have grown with much as the cast has, where Jackson filmed and released his in quick succession, so that the whole was basically one experience all along. Still, as with one particular development most fans of either story will be familiar with but should still be left unsaid for the possible few who aren’t, there’s a fair parallel to be made between the stories, which counts back and forward to the lasting impact the films, at least, will have. At this point, the Harry Potter films have finally won a greater impact.

This may be unfair in some respects, because the final tale, split as it will be, has yet to be released, and the same will be true a year from now as it is now, but the filmmakers have such an established tradition now that unless they thoroughly mess ‘Deathly Hallows’ up, ‘Half-Blood Prince’ once and for all exposes the rich and bankable treasures inherent in this series, which the Lord of the Rings, ultimately, couldn’t sustain.

The format is the one thing that will always differentiate the books; whereas Harry Potter stuck to a formula of a school year throughout the first six books, Tolkien was more free to do as a single narrative allowed him, but while Rowling was allowed to nurture a similar, singular story along, the Lord of the Rings became grounded in a sense that this one instant was but a moment in history that dwarfed it in importance, and it was only in heroic deed that its characters distinguished themselves, in courage to allow a single redemptive act to be made. Harry, of course, has one destiny as well, a final duel with Voldemort, but it’s a sense of a culmination, of a denial and steady acceptance, depending on who you are within this story, that defines the work.

‘Half-Blood Prince’ is a film that understands quite thoroughly the transient nature of the moment its story takes place in, indulging in flighty romance that sees no real resolve within, but rather suggesting, as other elements do, about future developments, lingering on insignificance as the weight of the future, of inevitably, threatens to crush each of the important members of the cast, as never before. Draco Malfoy, who has been a constant presence in the series, has never really had anything important to do until now, which must have come as a relief to Tom Fenton, who was an early voice of dissension in the cast, who might have been the first one to leave, several films ago, because he wasn’t happy with a nakedly antagonistic role with no real substance to fall back on. It’s easy to envision Rowling, several years ago, telling Fenton about this moment, as a reassurance, and we might as well be watching an impatient Tom waiting for it as Draco broods throughout the film, plotting uncomfortably for a task too big for him, but to which he grimly dedicates himself.

I guess I lied, earlier, when I implied I derived no comparable pleasure from the third film as from the third book, because Sirius Black provided in both instances a bridge between childhood and maturity for Harry, of dawning responsibility, which is felt keenly in ‘Half-Blood Prince,’ which begins directly after the events within the Ministry of Magic from the last film, and Jim Broadbent’s Professor Slughorn references them, and the fact of Black’s death in them, just as casually, as the filmmakers once again naturally assume that their audience will know what they don’t say. This has the problem of once more addressing the central riddle of the films, in how they appeal to an audience that may not be so familiar with the books; what must they think, when they aren’t told everything, film to film? To that, I think the truth must be, they will understand by the end of the film. Especially this one.

I compare ‘Half-Blood Prince’ to ‘Fellowship of the Ring’ also because I find the latter to be the best, most complete of its family, most accessible and singularly epic, and ‘Half-Blood Prince’ is like that in its utter concentration, its foreboding, the sense that something is going to happen, which in the right hands is the same as something happening, and these films have by now shown that they are undoubtedly in the right hands, which is remarkable in the sense that since the Harry Potter craze began, there have certainly been many other writers and filmmakers attempting to duplicate the success, and until the Twilight saga began, there was never any real comparison to be made. But I humbly submit that Twilight, for all its charm, is no Harry Potter, if not because it is a completely different story, but because it also doesn’t carry even a semblance of the scope. There are four of those books, and probably will be four films, and even in count can’t begin to compare in scope.

Nothing does, in fact. There will be, when all is said and done, eight Harry Potter films, and that is incomparable, two more than there are Star Wars (no matter how one appreciates the second trilogy), five more than Lord of the Rings, and as I’ve said, the mounting appeal is all in evidence during ‘Half-Blood Prince,’ as well as a singular sensation, that finally childhood’s over, the games are over. Harry has become comfortable enough at Hogwarts where he commands himself almost as a peer with the staff. I won’t go into performances or characters, which and who are by now quite familiar, suffice it to say, in their brilliance, and because there is still more to come, conclusions to be made, which in a series counts for something, a cumulative effect. This is the first time in three films Ralph Fiennes doesn’t appear as Voldemort, but there is no real loss at the absence of this increasingly essential element of the films; my sister went from a neophyte to an expert within a matter of months as the books go, and her perspective on the films always points out what’s been changed (what’s been “lost,” as she suggests), but the scripts for me have always been judicious in what must be done, what told, to round out each individual installment, and this one is no different. In fact, as I’ve said, it’s probably the best so far. As the films really started to heat up with ‘Goblet of Fire,’ it’s nice to see many of the cues for ‘Half-Blood Prince’ picked up from that entry, but there’s less time left for the romance in that film, more time needed to ruminate on the gravity of the situation.

‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ is a film that reflects well on what has come before and asserts confidence in what is to come, but as this series has done for most of its run, provides a strong individual stamp of entertainment, which is always the key for something like this, especially, when you’ve got to wait for each new installment. The time’s coming fast when there be no more waiting, just reflection, and here’s a good place to start that, too.

‘Moon’ is described as hard science fiction, which is to say not so much the kind operatic drama embodied by something like Star Wars or the new ‘Star Trek,’ but a movie that spends its story on the mechanics of a life that is removed from our specific experience. Based in the future, it’s got its own rules to live by, and it’s those rules on which ‘Moon’ concentrates.

The premise is that Rockwell is a technician on, well, the moon, overseeing technology that’s mining the new and efficient substance that’s allowing humans back on Earth to live at a better standard of living than ever before. He’s all alone up there, besides Gerty, voiced by Kevin Spacey, an inelegantly designed robot that mechanically though pleasantly assists and interacts with Rockwell during a supposed three-year assignment that keeps him from a new family he can’t communicate live with back home, because there are some repairs he can’t make.

Or, well, so he’s told. There’s more than meets the eye. There always is. So when I report that Sam Rockwell ends up talking with himself, there’s a very specific explanation you probably haven’t heard yet, and that’s cloning. From ‘Blade Runner’ to ‘Star Trek Nemesis’ (even the ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ episode “Whispers”), sci-fi fans have long become familiar with the concept of human cloning or replication, but this has got to be the most sustained and substantial example of the implications inherent in the idea that there’s been, and it’s because Rockwell’s character, Sam Bell, becomes so wrapped up in the discovery of it that the audience learns about them right alongside him. Like Neo’s initial experiences in ‘The Matrix’ or an M. Night Shyamalan film, there’s a dawning horror, but so much humanity in Rockwell’s performance you find yourself forgetting that you’ve ever seen Sam Rockwell in a film before, that anyone could have failed to understand what he has always promised to deliver on film: a deeply human alienation. Except this time, instead of being comic or grotesque, he’s finally allowed to strip away all the layers, which is sort of symbolically suggested early on, when he shaves away shaggy hair and a beard that have been obscuring his face as Bell reaches the final weeks of incredible isolation (or so he believes).

‘Moon’ is exactly the kind of film that would be a sensation if it had any kind of substantial release, or adequate coverage, but as much as critics love it, it will never be more than a cult hit, something that could perhaps one day inspire perhaps an even greater achievement to wider acclaim, but will have to be happy with its own achievement on a small scale. Even the minor fame of its director, Duncan Jones, always identified as the son of David Bowie in those reviews, stands to gain in a later career from this great film, but not for this film.

There’s no pretension, here, however, and that’s the deal winner and the deal breaker. There’s nothing flashy about it, just an underrated star giving his best performance, in a story that never flinches away from itself. How rare indeed. It feels familiar and completely new at the same time, but unforgettable. The moral implications feel like ‘The Truman Show,’ but the victory like ‘Forrest Gump,’ hard fought but softly won. Bell concocts a scheme, once he realizes that in one form or another he is going to be stuck on that outpost, to eek out an eventual vindication, and it’s the sort of ending that you wish you could follow up on, but know that it’s all too appropriate that you never will, because you won’t have to.

Far more than this summer’s ‘The Fall,’ ‘Moon’ is better even than that. It’s a transcending experience in every way.

As you’ll recall, back in the winter of 2007, there was a strike among Hollywood writers that crippled that TV season and cast a pall on a block of some future cinematic release slate. ‘Star Trek’ (2009) wasn’t delayed by these events, but it was affected to a certain extent, and that’s one of the few cases where I heard anything at all about a film being affected. No one’s said it (so I’ve heard, anyway), but I’ve got to suspect that ‘Wolverine’ was another victim. There’s an interesting movie in there somewhere, but it’s so obscured that you’d hardly notice. Instead, we end up with a mash-up that skims around some of the basic backstory material that’s developed around comics’ most famous mutant over the years.

Okay, so there’s a bit of a problem there already. Unlike a Batman, Superman, or Spider-Man, Wolverine’s origins were never crystal clear. You’d have to slog through years of continuity shifts and creators to even begin piecing it together. Some of it is quite famous, classic. The Weapon X program elements are well-known, even that he seems to have lived quite a longer life than he’s been able to remember, names he’s gone by wars he fought in, an arch-foe or two that have become integral to his private battles. But he doesn’t have that single telling, much less that Joker, Lex Luthor, or Green Goblin for which he can invariably pivoted around. In fact, this film becomes as much a defining source of that story as there has ever been.

Trouble is, the pieces are still left dangling. We begin with a sickly James (not given the surname of Howlett in the movie, though fans would know it anyway) being raised in the same house as Victor Creed, later known as Sabretooth, in nineteenth century Canada, who exhibits a barely useful healing factor even then. But his own father is at the mercy of Creed’s, an apparent belligerent drunk who murders him one evening. James stumbles down for vengeance, Creed’s dad says it’s not what it seems, sober as a whistle, but the boy pops bone claws and kills him, only to learn that he’s just killed his real father. James runs off, Creed right after him, with a new pact as brothers to unite them. Then we just sort of leapfrog through a sequence of famous wars they fight and heal-factor their ways through, never to hear another word of whatever their dad might have wanted to say about what the true circumstances were, until William Stryker recruits them during the Vietnam War to join a mercenary team of mutants.

Now, I love Ryan Reynolds, I really do (‘Smokin’ Aces’ is a great film no one is quite ready to acknowledge), but he is not really the Merc with a Mouth his Wade Wilson, later-to-become-Deadpool, is supposed to be; despite everyone saying how obnoxious he is, he ends up being a perfect example of where the movie turns south, an inability to capture any real authenticity (which is a basic Marvel failing, really, an almost pathological clinging to “the comic book, youth-based appeal”). Except in High Jackman (and Liev Schreiber). Jackman is never the problem. It’s the material that lets him down. When his love interest is dropped in the middle of the story, it’s either to say she’s ultimately not really so important, or as it turns out, there’s superficially more than meets the eye about her. Waste of character development. We end up feeling more genuine human concern for him when he meets the kind of good old farmers baby Kal-El rocketed toward, who feel like some classical element of his story no one ever knew about.

(Some of the story feels like it’s got more influence from Richard Donner than can in all right be chalked up to him, brought in as he was into production to help smooth things for director Gavin Hood. Still, I couldn’t help wondering what Donner could have done if he’d had the project himself from the start.)

Well, like I said, I was a fan of the X-Men movies, all three of them (I hold no illogical vendetta against Brett Ratner, as so many seem to, and besides, after two Bryan Singer entries, if someone else couldn’t work the same material with the same cast, then Singer should by all rights have been deemed a failure, not a success, with his), but I never quite held them in the regard that others did. They were clever, but they weren’t groundbreaking. They made Marvel fans go see, in droves, big budget versions of characters they had long been enthralled with. It was never as hard as it seems to have seemed. All these fans had to wait for was the technology to catch up with all the effects-heavy mythology Marvel always required. The real success, the real find, was always Wolverine, Hugh Jackman. Ian McKellen, yes, as Magneto (it amazed me that the comics, which under Grant Morrison assumed the aesthetic of the X-Men costumes at least, never quite took up the cerebral approach McKellen mastered of this grand villain, except in the inconsequential Ultimate version), which makes it both ironic and appropriate that Magneto is the subject of the next spin-off, but likely without McKellen.

It’s hard to say that any other Marvel character has struck a cord in the modern age with audiences, whether as readers or viewers, as Wolverine. There’re certainly supposed to be more famous ones but none other than can be turned to quite so ubiquitously as cigar-chomping Logan. His indestructibility has advanced to a point where in this film, it’s taken visually for granted. Even his claws take on an assumed air. They’re just supposed to be there. So the film can get away with throwing a fair portion of his own film at a bunch of other mutants, as if, once again, he really is co-starring in just another X-Men film; even the future Cyclops gets thrown in for no other reason than, well, the visuals. The film, his own film, takes him for granted at this point. It seems to say, he’s too famous to bother with covering all the material himself.

That’s not really the problem so much as most of it amounting to nothing but a distraction. The war between brothers ends up with a quick reconciliation, even though in the chronologically later X-Men films we know there will still be no resolution (as I suspect there has yet to be in the comics, at least to any famous degree). I love seeing Dominic Monaghan from ‘Lost’ again, but Kevin Durand from a season later (and another death on that show) turns into an unnecessary joke, with the only real outcome being Logan using the term “Bub” for the first time, and even that’s wasted. We learn how he gets that cool leather jacket, too, but not how he remembers how to retrieve it after, well, finally losing his memory. Loose ends that never really get tied up, the story of this story.

It’s not the action that I object to. There’s no point in that, because Wolverine would not really be at home in a story without a significant amount of action (as even the recent “Old Man Logan” story arc in the comics can attest). It’s how there’s no cohesion. There’s so much mess to the story that in losing so much focus from Wolverine himself, the movie forgets that it had an incredible opportunity here to really tell a definitive story for an iconic character. Instead, it fritters away, less a ‘Batman Begins’ than what ‘Elektra’ was supposed to have been, basically a huge, inconsequential mess.

For fans of Jackman, this would not be a waste of your time. He glows. Schreiber glows. Danny Huston as this version of Stryker glows. Wolverine himself glows. But there’s so little real substance here that this film could ultimately become the Wolverine equivalent of Ang Lee’s ‘The Hulk.’ Or even ‘The Incredible Hulk,’ because I haven’t really heard anyone speak all the more glowingly of that version, either. Someone could come along and try this again, hopefully with Jackman or someone of equal fiery passion in the title role, but this isn’t what it was supposed to be.

Close, but you know, no cigar.