“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two”
“Hugo”
“Real Steel”
“Rise of the Planet of the Apes”
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon”
OUR PICKS…
Alex: This is a tough one for me as I liked both Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Transformers: Dark of the Moon this past Summer. ‘Apes’ gave the apes emotion and the ability to express themselves. That last scene with the battle on the bridge was visually stunning in terms of scale and emotion. However the Transformers had giant robots destroying the sh*t out of Chicago with maximum destruction all over the place. With that my winner is Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
Denise: Hmm. I haven’t seen Hugo, so even though many critics have ooh-ed & aah-ed over that film’s effects I’m gonna have to go with the absolute brilliance of Weta Digital in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Though the Real Steel ‘bots were amazingly “lifelike” too.
Tatiana: I didn’t get a chance to see any of them, and the only one I have a genuine dislike for is Harry Potter. I’m going to go with Real Steel (since I assume no one else will), just ‘cause I think it’s pretty bad-ass to be able to make machines look like they are boxing in a ring like human beings.
Matthew: Anything Transformers should be banned from ever playing again. Rise of the Planet of the Apes all the way. Although I LOVED Harry.
Score Card…
Alex – Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Denise – Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Tatiana – Real Steel
Matthew –Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Late to the party, but Apes is the lock. I started disliking this category in 2009 when 5 films were nominated in all categories. For some reason that year, only 3 films were nominated for Visual Effects – and the Academy ignored Roland Emmerich’s ‘2012’ which may have been a lousy movie to some, but nobody can argue it didn’t deserve a shot at the Visual title. I can see if they actually found 5 other films that year, but they didn’t. That death and destruction were visual top notches in my opinion. If you’re curious, who actually did win that year, it was ‘Benjamin Buttons’ over Iron Man & The Dark Knight.
So my choice is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two. However, since Tatina has a genuine dislike for the movie, I say Hugo will win. Most critics picked Planet of the Apes as the winner, but I am still going to go against all odds and pick Hugo. If Hugo wins, I am going to buy a lottery ticket.