The Best & Worst Non-Genre Flicks of 2012

We live and breathe Horror around here, obviously, but the world is a big place; it can't be all terror, all the time. We need variety. Lucky for us that variety can be had in genre's like Sci-fi, Fantasy, Action and the like, and many of the films within those genres are close enough in content to the Horror flicks that we love, that we don't feel like we're stepping out on our true love with a dirty whore mistress.

Plus, if all we watched were Horror flicks, we'd miss out on some pretty great stuff.

So here are our Top, Middle, and Bottom tiers of 2012 Non-Genre Cinema:

The Avengers ruled everything at this year’s Box Office, and deservedly so; it was one of the most fun and exciting Blockbusters to come along in quite some time. For our money, The Dark Knight Rises was every bit as good as The Avengers (though many disagreed), and it was an excellent end to an excellent Dark Knight Trilogy. The Amazing Spiderman surprised us, and we ended up loving it far more than we thought we would. It had a ton of heart, and it’s definitely one of our favorites of 2012.

The Raid: Redemption is an instant Action Classic, and may just be the most exciting film we’ve seen all year. It truly is in a class all of its own, and that class is Mind Blowing. Not far behind the action curve, was Dredd 3D; we dreaded (pun intended) seeing this movie, fearing it would be a schlocky mess that would serve only to waste our time, and we couldn’t have been more wrong. It was truly under-appreciated at the Box Office, and it was so enjoyable that we hope it finds new life when it hits BD/DVD.

The Hunger Games was better than it should have been, considering that it’s a story for young adults, and it definitely won us over.

James Bond is James Bond, and Daniel Craig’s version of the classic spy is perfect for us. Skyfall was simply amazing.

The flicks in this Tier are Must Own's for us, and I imagine that they are for most fanboys (and girls) out there too.

We really loved Prometheus, though it was met with a ton of scrutiny on release. It’s a movie that definitely works better with repeat viewings, because it's deeper than its pretty visuals suggest. Ditto for The Bourne Legacy; a movie that was just about as enjoyable as its predecessors, and yet it was also met with a bunch of scrutiny. Neither flicks deserved the hate that they received.

Snow White & The Huntsman was a decent Fantasy flick that dazzled us with its visuals, and Looper was the same thing, only in Sci-fi form.

On the mindless fun front, The Expendables 2 and The Man With the Iron Fists were both exercises in ass-kicking fun, and we enjoyed the hell out of both. They aren't really great movies, but they are great fun.

Most of the movies in this Middle Tier were really good flicks, and if you haven't seen them, you should give them a chance.

As “not good” as John Carter was, it was far better than most give it credit for. It’s at the very least a visually exciting film, and we didn't totally hate it. Same goes for Wrath of The Titans; it was a competent popcorn flick, and was enjoyable for what it was. That being said, neither flick was able to outdistance their flaws.

Total Recall was an ill-advised remake, and a waste of some good acting talent. It was pretty to look at, but we lost interest in it quickly, and have no desire to revisit its world again.

Finally we have Battleship; as shitty as we think that the Transformers movies are, this one was worse in some ways.

Again, like all of the rest of the Bottom Tier flicks this year, it was shiny and action packed, but it was so incoherent and sloppy that we didn’t care. We’ve seen much worse than this clunker, but who cares, it still sucked.