| 2 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Ang Lee directs the movie adaptation of the third of five books, creating a beautiful masterpiece with amazing Wuxia fight scenes and performances which transcend language barriers. |
| 3 Swordfish A return to Face/Off-like cooldom for John Travolta as homocidal government operative Gabriel Shear in this stylish, sexy thriller that also sees Hugh Jackman between X-Men movies and Halle Berry get her baps out. Seems strangely dated after the war against terrorism in Afghanistan; it's hardly a secret war any more. |
| 4 The Mummy Returns Even bigger and better than the outstanding original, with much the same cast, although woefully underusing The Rock. Loads of cool fight scenes and dialogue make this an extremely enjoyable romp. |
| 1 The Fellowship Of The Ring Now you're Tolkien; this three-hour epic forms the first in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. It's a fairly faithful adaptation that rattles quickly through the book-version, thankfully leaving out potentially cringe-worthy character Tom Bombadil. Good performances and special effects leave expectations high for the other two parts, particularly the battle-heavy Return of The King. |
| 5 Lara Croft: Tomb Raider The impossibly gorgeous Angelina Jolie brings computer game icon Lara Croft to life perfectly in this action-packed adventure that sees the titular heroine save the world from a time-freezing artefact. |
| 6 A Knight's Tale Excellent jousting scenes and a superb soundtrack combine to make this anachronistic spin on Chaucer hugely enjoyable. |
| 10 Enemy At The Gates The most expensive European movie ever made does not disappoint, with battle scenes to rival Saving Private Ryan, a tense duel between Germany and Russia's best snipers and some bizarre accents. |
| 8 The Score Robert De Niro stops slowly destroying his credibility in weak comedies to make a decent film. De Niro's not really on form, but Edward Norton and Marlon Brando contribute to an enjoyable heist movie. |
| Movie Review 2001 |
| Top Ten Movies |
| Coolest Movie Character Not such a strong year for this category. Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser, The Mummy Returns) lost a lot of points for having a family now; Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen, Fellowship Of The Ring) wasn't as cool as he is in the novel; Brad Pitt and George Clooney were cool in Ocean's Eleven, but didn't kill anyone. Professor Snape (Alan Rickman, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone) lacked screen-time. Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun Fat, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) was a close second place, but in the end wasn't quite infallible enough. First place has to go to Gabriel Shear (John Travolta, Swordfish) for a superbly cool performance. Surrounded by weapons, gadgets and girls, Travolta creates a character even cooler, harder and more manic than his Deacon in Broken Arrow. |
| Movie Babe of the Year Worthy mentions have to go to babelicious temptresses Ginger (Halle Berry, Swordfish) and Page (Jennifer Love Hewitt, Heartbreakers). Kate Beckinsale was as beautiful as ever in the appalling Pearl Harbor. But in second place; Zhang Ziyi was delightful in both Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Rush Hour 2. And in first place, without a shadow of doubt, is Angelina Jolie for incredible sultry sexiness in both Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Original Sin. |
| Most Disappointing Movie The most potentially disappointing movies this year, Fellowship of the Ring and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, both adaptations of phenomenally popular books both more than lived up to expectations Hannibal suffered a little from comparisons to the superior Silence Of The Lambs, but wasn't too disappointing. As sequels go American Pie 2 was a much bigger disappointment, and couldn't hold a candle to the original. Most disappointing Movie has to go to Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes 're-imagining.' It could have been as classic as the original, but it somehow just didn't work that well. Mark Wahlberg's bland performance didn't help |
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| 9 Jurassic Park III Not exactly taking the franchise in a radical new direction, this is very much a re-tread of the other two movies, but without the body-count and mainland action of The Lost World. Fast-paced, action-packed and funny all the same. |
| 7 Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone An amazing all-British cast bring JK Rowling's first of seven Potter books to the big screen in this impressive movie. Not quite as good as the book, and could have used the literary version's second Quidditch match, but bodes exrememly well for the rest of the stories. It would be great if director Chris Columbus achieves his dream retaining the whole cast for all of them. |
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