The Best Genre Movies of 2014

As much as we adore our beloved Horror Genre, there are other types of movies that we need to be a part of our repertoire, because things just can't be all Horror, all the time. Sometimes we just want to see a good Sci-Fi, Action, Thriller, Mystery, or Comic Book movie, and luckily for us, there are plenty of good ones that come out every year, the world over.

The movies below are basically the best Non-Horror movies that we saw in 2014.

• Sci-Fi, Action, Thriller, Mystery, and Comic Book flicks only.
• No Drama, no Comedy.
• The top 4 movies are in "Best of" order, after that, it's all random.
• We've included 5 "Dishonorable Mentions" at the bottom.

THE RAID 2

We're hard-pressed to think of a movie in 2014 that kicked as much ass, and wowed us as much as The Raid 2 did. There's so much violent action in this one, that by the time its 2 1/2 hour runtime was finished, we were exhausted from just trying to keep up with it; yes, it wore us out. It's a brilliant, beautifully-choreographed, unrelenting fight-fest, and we can't speak highly enough about it.

Read our review of The Raid 2 here.

SNOWPIERCER

It seems as if Snowpiercer was the critical darling of 2014 (at least as far as Genre flicks go), and it truly is worthy of every bit of that praise. Bong Joon-ho has given us a Post Apocalyptic adventure of the highest order with this tense, adrenaline rush of a movie, and as film geeks, this is exactly the type of movie that we wish would come along more often.

Read our review of Snowpiercer here.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

Marvel pretty much owns the Box Office lately, as everything they do seems to resonate with audiences in a big way, and Guardians of the Galaxy may well be the company's best offering yet. The thing that makes this movie so great is that amidst the spectacle of its Superhero adventure, it's got a ton of heart, and it's every bit as funny as it is thrilling. Groot was every bit as dynamic in this one as was Hulk in The Avengers, and we loved it. His big scenes may just have made the movie for us.

If this is a sign of how well Marvel is going to handle its lesser-known properties, then we can't wait to see what they do with Ant-Man and Inhumans.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

Had it not been for Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America: The Winter Solider would have been our favorite Marvel movie to date. We loved the first Cap movie, but this sequel operated on a higher level for us, and we loved it more each time we saw it (which was three times, BTW.) Chris Evans is a natural-born movie star, but it was Scarlett Johansson who owned this movie; for some reason it felt as if her Black Widow was an important part of this story, rather than just the background player that she's been in the MCU up until this point. That was nice to see.

The additions of Robert Redford, Frank Grillo, and Anthony Mackie to the cast only made it that much better.

DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

How a movie that primarily starred a bunch of CGI apes could be so damned effective and compelling, we can't say. The fact of the matter is though, that Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was, like its predecessor before it, one hell of an entertaining ride, and one of the best Sci-Fi/Post-Apocalyptic movies that we've seen in years. We can't wait to see what they do with part 3.

UNDER THE SKIN

Scarlett Johansson owned 2014, and her turn as a curious and deadly alien in the ethereal, dreamlike, Under the Skin only showed the world that she's as good of an actress as she at looking stunningly beautiful.

Read our review of Under the Skin here.

EDGE OF TOMORROW

Genuinely good Sci-Fi movies are a true rarity, and so it's a crying shame that Edge of Tomorrow did so poorly at the Box Office. This Tom Cruise vehicle was exciting, bold, and most importantly, it was loads of fun. What made people avoid this underrated gem, opting instead to spend their money on the latest Michael Bay shit-fest, we'll never understand. 

GODZILLA

King of the Monsters. What more do you need to know?

While we really enjoyed this one, we'll be the first to admit that Godzilla needed way more actual Godzilla in it. Then again that's always been our complaint with most Godzilla movies; we can't tell you how many Toho flicks we've watched where we had to endure long stretches of badly-dubbed exposition just to get to the rubber suited throw-down at the end. Given that this was an "origin" movie, we can forgive it a bit more, but going forward we definitely need to have a monster fight or two in the first half of the movie.

Read our review of Godzilla here.

ENEMY

This movie is an absolute mind trip. Mind fuck, even. It's hazy & ethereal, and feels like some sort of waking nightmare, and though it's contains no death or even any violence, it had us on the edge of our seats until the screen went black. As for the last shot in the movie, the one right before that screen went black... well, it made us whimper a little. Or a lot.

Read our review of Enemy here.

MYSTERY ROAD

For us, Mystery Road played like a Cormac McCarthy story set in the Australian Outback, in that it's minimalistic, poetic, and almost seedy. The movie's plot unfolds in a slow and quiet manner, bringing the tension that underlies everything to a gradual boil, until it eventually explodes in a crazy hail of violence and catharsis.

Mystery Road is a slick and gritty exercise in subdued atmosphere and blaring themes. It's one hell of an Action Western, and even though most of that action doesn't happen until well into the final act, it's an engaging ride none the less.

Read our review of Mystery Road here.

THE ROVER

The Rover is an unforgiving, unflinching tale of revenge that is chilling to behold. Director David Michod has established a bleak, sparse, and parched atmosphere here, and as gorgeous as the Australian Outback is, it seems the perfect setting for a gloomy tale like this. This world is a brutal one filled with desperate people trying to survive on barely anything, and it's truly captivating in it's feeling of hopeless dread.

Read our review of The Rover here.

Yeah, the following movies either disappointed us, pissed us off, or both. Mostly both.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2

I'm not sure how they fucked this movie up so bad, but boy did they ever fuck it up.

The first Amazing Spider-Man worked perfectly for us (make of that what you will), and even on repeat viewings, it still plays as well as it did the first time that we saw it. This sequel though was painful to endure from the get-go. We could go on and on about the things that made this movie suck so bad, but here are a few that bothered us the most: Electro was a goofy, shitty villain, and Jamie Foxx was terribly miscast; The Green Goblin felt rushed, and he sucked too. Completely; The Rhino was Paul Giamatti in an exoskeleton? Are you fucking kidding me?; where was the emotion? This sequel made us feel nothing for Peter or Gwen. We're emotional bitches, and if we feel nothing, there is nothing to be felt. The film just doesn't have the heart that the first one did.

In the end, it seemed as if ASM2 was more interested in setting up future installments in the series, than it was in giving Spidey fans a quality movie about Spider-Man. If this movie is any indication as to the level of quality that we can expect from Amazing Spider-Man 3, then they should just stop now. Marvel should be making Spider-Man movies, not Sony.

HERCULES UNCHAINED

Come on. Just, why?

ROBOCOP

Parts of this reboot of the 1987 Sci-FI Classic worked well, but for the most part, it lacked the combination of satirical wit and ultra-violence that made the original so damned entertaining. We love Joel Kinnaman, but they way they had him running around acting all moody, all while looking completely goofy without his full helmet, irked the shit out of us. Had they left Robocop fully masked, maybe it would have played better, then again, the second they decided to make this one PG-13, it was pretty much doomed.

Nice effort, but an absolutely underwhelming end product.

SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR

More disappointing than it was truly bad, it killed us that we weren't able to love Sin City: A Dame to Kill For the way that we wanted to. Maybe it took to long to make it to the screen, maybe Frank Miller & Robert Rodriguez have lost their edge. Whatever the reason, this sequel to one of our favorite Comic Book flicks of all time just fell flat on its ass. Whereas Sin City (2005) felt slick and razor-sharp, this tepid sequel felt awkward and uninspired. This movie was our biggest disappointment of 2014.

TRANSFORMERS PART 346

Fuck you, Michael Bay. Just fuck you.