For whatever reason -- a jacked-up interest in the extraterrestrial or just the simple hope that creatures more intelligent than our pizza-bombing, Catwoman crashing, Glee 3D-loving species exist -- Hollywood churned out a slew of movies this year that feature aliens. In honor of this trend (and the fact that both Paul and Mars Needs Moms were released on Blu-Ray and DVD today), Movieline figured it was as good a time as any to determine the winners and the losers in this year's crop of cinema extraterrestrials.
Read on to see who came out on top and the bottom of the E.T. heap -- and to forecast where this December's The Darkest Hour will fall in the comment section.
Worldwide Gross: $95.9 million
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 71% (critics)
Movieline's Take: "What's funniest about Paul however, is that each of its characters is stunned out of their complacency, right down to a humorous and touching revelation in the climax. That's what Pegg and Frost want the film to do; ironically, Paul is effectively screaming the 'Wake up!' message that Kevin McCarthy was driven to bellow in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He just does so without as many teeth."
Verdict: Because it boasted a smart script, the best comedic cast of any alien movie on this list and solid ratings, we've credited Paul as a year-end winner.
Worldwide Gross: $39 million
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 34% (critics)
Movieline's Take: "I salute the effort to go somewhere strange in Mars Needs Moms; if only a fully realized idea -- and not the same, barely concealed right-wing rap, different planet -- had been the destination."
Verdict: A waste of 3-D technology, Disney's budget and most criminally, Joan Cusack's talent.
Worldwide Gross: $201.8 million*
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 82% (critics)
Movieline's Take: "Super 8 springs from one of the great Spielberg traditions, an approach that makes kids the smartest and most sensitive people in the room. They're the ones who see that a poor, misplaced creature is just trying to return home; they're the ones who are willing to gaze up toward weird sights in the sky with more wonder than fear. Abrams gets the basics right."
Verdict: In spite of the criticism J.J. Abrams fielded for his familiar-looking creature and his wobbly third act, Super 8 was hands down the buzziest alien movie of the summer and the only one good enough to be called a Spielberg tribute.
Worldwide Gross: $160 million*
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 27% (critics)
Movieline's Take: "There's no way Reynolds can carry the weight of this overblown 3-D folly on his shoulders. It's not easy being green, not even for him."
Verdict: The biggest box office disappointment this summer, this Warner Bros. picture was an exercise in what not to do. It failed with critics, it failed with moviegoers (even after a pathetic, last ditch naked picture scandal featuring co-star Blake Lively) and worst of all, the studio is still planning on a sequel for this DC Comics superhero.
Worldwide Gross: $1 billion*
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 36% (critics)
Movieline's Take: "Bay doesn't care about your soul, he just wants your money -- but he at least makes sure you go home feeling exhausted and spent rather than vaguely dissatisfied. It's a fair exchange."
Verdict: It doesn't matter how bad your movie is or how many critics ravage it, if it grosses $1 billion at the box office, it is (and you are) a winner.
Worldwide Gross: $144 million
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 30% (critics)
Movieline's Take: "Though [Teresa] Palmer is an action-chick eyeful, not much about the climax works, from the chopped-salad clashes to the almost total lack of interest in who is left standing. In other words: A Bay franchise is born."
Verdict: Any time that you root for the bad guy aliens to destroy the movie's Adonis-protagonist during a football field explosion... and pray that a meteor lands on his love interest... it's safe to say that a movie is not winning. This movie's only redeeming quality was that it ended.
Worldwide Gross: $4.5 million*
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 89% (critics)
Movieline's Take: "Attack the Block isn't as high-minded as it wants to be, but at least it offers plenty of lo-fi kicks."
Verdict: On the flip side of Transformers is a low-key film with a thoughtful, original plot that did not destroy at the box office but because of its warm reception by geek boys and critics, earned spot on the victorious side of this year's alien competition.
Worldwide Gross: $202.5 million
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 33% (critics)
Movieline's Take: "The equilibrium-punishing visual style of the alien apocalypse flick Battle: Los Angeles suggests two possibilities to me, the first being that budgetary restrictions account for the epileptic, close-up camerawork sometimes used to convey a sense of 'action' and 'excitement' in films that can't afford to come by those things in a more interesting, inventive way. [...] The other possibility is that my mom is using her new iPhone to moonlight as a cinematographer."
Verdict: Possibly the most forgettable alien flick this year. Although the special effects were impressive, a cliched action script that gave Dark of the Moon a run for its idiocy (but unfortunately, not for its money) landed this Aaron Eckhart picture squarely in the Losers category. It didn't help that Roger Ebert summed this movie up as "stupid" either.
Worldwide Gross: $67.3 million*
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 44% (critics)
Movieline's Take: "The B-movie marquee title of Cowboys and Aliens suggests a picture that's more irreverent, imaginative, and fun than the turgid movie that stands behind it."
Verdict: Jon Favreau's big budget genre combo received mixed reviews after a mysterious lack of hype, landing it on the Losers list. But since Cowboys has spent less than two weeks in the multiplex, there is a distant possibility that the Harrison Ford/Daniel Craig/Olivia Wilde feature could leapfrog ahead of this year's weak alien pictures in time.
All worldwide grosses taken from BoxOfficeMojo.com
* denotes that the film is still in theaters