1. Commitment Has Payoff - The Avengers
It was a film with build-up over four years, where plenty could have gone wrong. But the addition of Joss Whedon and Mark Ruffalo just proved to be oh, so right, as The Avengers is the most critically and commercially successful film of the year (so far). It was a new-side (the flip side) to the comic world of movies, offering laughs, high-tempered and paced action, and gobs of hero-on-hero dueling to drive the general audience into a tizzy. Kevin Feige stuck to his guns and he and the whole Marvel family were able to deliver something altogether new and yet familiar to the best of anyone's abilities. Despite what you may say about the movie being a "child's" film or "juvenile," the odds are your complaints are going to go unheard through all the piles of money The Avengers continues to rake in. Good show, Marvel. Well done. What about you? As we enter the last two months of 2012, what have been your favorites so far? Which movies surprised you? And what do you have left to look forward to before the world ends?