Hollywood rewind

T'was another year of romantic comedies, thrillers, animation, special effects and big budget extravaganzas in Hollywood this year.

The year 2005 may not have been Hollywood's best at the box office, but it definitely had its share of blockbusters, which caught the fancy of audiences.

Let us check out popular Hollywood movies released in 2005 which struck a cord with young moviegoers in the UAE.

In the romance and comedy categories, we had films like Wedding Crashers, 40-Year-Old Virgin, The Longest Yard, Are We There Yet and Kicking and Screaming. And then there was Hitch. Feroze Khan, 22, a media planner says, "Hitch was really entertaining with Will Smith at his comic best. It's a movie you think about and laugh at long after leaving the cinemas".

Horror and thriller films such as Boogeyman, House of Wax, Ring 2, Skeleton Key, Dark Water and The Amityville Horror all tried to give us sleepless nights. But according to Bessy Babu, 21, a sales and marketing executive, "No film in recent times was as creepy as The Exorcism of Emily Rose and in fact, I found the guys were more frightened than the girls were." 

Big budgets and special effects blockbusters came in the form of Star Wars: Episode III, Fantastic Four, Batman Begins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the Steven Spielberg directed War of the Worlds.  Adnan Yusuf, 22, a technical engineer, says, "War of the Worlds was easily the best film of the year, with great special effects. Batman Begins was surprisingly good and the best in the series."

In the rush of animated films such as Valiant, Robots and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were Rabbit, it was Madagascar that had the loudest cheer. Children streaming out of a cinema hall after watching Chicken Little compared it to Madagascar and said the latter was definitely their choice of the year in animated films.

Hard core action fans had lots to drool over. Films such as xXx2, Sin City, Sahara, The Island, Transporter 2 and The Legend of Zorro had flying fists, thrills and spills galore. Unfortunately, none of these movies had a strong content, but according to John M, "the action sequences of The Island was just too good and made up for its non-impressive content".

Harish Bhaskaran, a 23-year old sales engineer sums it up when he says, "If there is any film that had both lighthearted and emotional moments, awesome special effects, great action, thrilling sequences and a strong storyline, it has to be King Kong. I just loved the way Kong beats his chest and screams.

And what's more, the movie stuck to the storyline of the original.'' Oh well, with all the action and emotion that humans brought to life on screen, it took an ape to raise a winning cheer for Hollywood. Here's to special effects.