Blame it on the decline in education, or our machines programming us. I started seeing stories about “…of the Decade” and went WTF, the first decade of the 21st century ends next December 31, not three weeks from now. (Come on, if a child was born in your family in 2000, that child will still be NINE at the end of this year, not 10. And try telling the bank that you only have 20 years left on that 30 year mortgage you took out in 2000.) Anyway, since everybody was doing a decade retrospective, against my better instincts, I decided to do one too. I am limiting it to genre movies—sorry, no books or television shows. Movies were bad enough.Because I didn’t want to wade through all the entries on the Internet Movie Database, I relied on Wikipedia’s listing of science fiction films for the “decade.” (Don’t scoff: in 1768, they were sitting around coffee shops and grousing, “These young people believe everything they put in that Encyclopedia Britannica. Whatever happened to good olde scrolls?”) There were some curious omissions on this list, however: they included Iron Man but neither Batman movie. Other omissions were Shaun of the Dead, The Prestige, Memento, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. No Harry Potter films, either.My original list was simply divided into “Good” and “Bad” but then I saw there were some movies that were good, but not unequivocally so, or bad, but not totally irredeemable. So I created the category “More Good Than Bad” for them. Some were borderline—they could have been good but just missed the mark, or bad but they didn’t suck completely. (For example: Spider-Man 2 was completely over-hyped. But Signs, for all its flaws, was pretty good.) Some were better on subsequent viewings (Watchmen) and others lost some of their shine (Minority Report).But the bad movies were still really, really, really bad.And I included movies of note that, for one reason or another, I just did not see. Some I actually own the DVDs but just never got around to watching them. (Like the remake of Rollerball.) If I did not actually see it, I will not venture an opinion of it. (Like Rollerball, although I already know whenever I do see it, it will suck.) And I did not include movies I did not see, but reviewed anyway (Star Wars: Clone Wars. I was going to do a review of The Box and 2012 but time has passed. One was a hit and the other was a flop but in my rough draft, they both sucked. That opinion hasn’t changed.) Some movies I refuse to see, like anything based on a video game. And I was surprised to see that I actually liked a Michael Bay film (The Island.)(Incidentally: There were something like 238 movies on the Wikipedia list; there are 75 (that I have actually seen) on mine. Sure, that’s only a third of them, but hey, I still think that’s pretty good.)And of course, Avatar hasn’t been released yet, so how complete can this “decade” review be? But we have to start somewhere, so without further ado, my (somewhat) complete list of the Best, Worst, and Not So Bad SF Movies of the “Decade.”GoodSpace CowboysX-MenA.I.: Artificial IntelligenceSignsSpider-ManEternal Sunshine of the Spotless MindX2A Scanner DarklyV for VendettaThe Incredible HulkIron ManWar of the WorldsWALL-EDistrict 9Star TrekWatchmenBatman BeginsThe Dark KnightShaun of the DeadThe PrestigeMementoC.S.A.: The Confederate States of AmericaThe IncrediblesMore Good Than BadK-PAXHollow ManMission to MarsRed PlanetSupernovaGhosts of MarsVanilla SkyMinority ReportMen in Black IIS1m0neSolarisStar Trek: NemesisTimequestStar Wars Episode II: Attack of the ClonesThe Time MachineCode 46The Matrix ReloadedThe Matrix RevolutionsPaycheckTerminator 3: Rise of the MachinesTimelineAlien vs. PredatorThe Butterfly EffectThe Day after TomorrowThe Final CutI, RobotSky Captain and the World of TomorrowSpider-Man 2Fantastic FourStar Wars Episode III: Revenge of the SithChildren of MenDéjà VuX-Men: The Last StandSpider-Man 3SunshineThe Day the Earth Stood StillSurrogatesTerminator SalvationBadHulkThe Stepford WivesBattlefield EarthPlanet of the ApesThe Adventures of Pluto NashA Sound of ThunderThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxySuperman ReturnsFantastic Four: Rise of the Silver SurferI Am LegendThe InvasionTransformersThe X-Files: I Want to BelieveKnowingMeet DaveThe League of Extraordinary GentlemenHaven’t Seen (Yet)Pitch BlackDonnie DarkoIdiocracy28 Days LaterCloverfieldThe Strange Case of Benjamin Button
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