Oscars 101: Best Visual Effects

In which I run down on the nominees (and likely winners) of the Academy Awards.

With the Academy Awards looming ever larger on the horizon, I thought that I would start breaking down each category's nominees and the likelihoods of any one of them winning an Oscar.  We have 24 categories to cover, so expect to see a lot of these in the weeks to come.  Now, here are the nominees for Best Visual Effects:

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Guardians of the Galaxy
Interstellar
X-Men: Days of Future Past

What immediately strikes me about these films is that Transformers: Age of Extinction is not among them.  Now, say what you will about the film as a whole (I personally thought that it was the only good film in the live action franchise), but it was certainly one of the year's biggest visual marvels.  I almost want to call it a snub, but there's no denying that every nominated film deserved to be there.  I guess it simply lost out to an especially strong crop of nominees.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier - This is probably the subtlest film on this list, which is really saying something.  The majority of the action in The Winter Soldier is punctuated by a series of punches, stabs and gunshots: nothing particularly flashy of effects-driven.  The whole production is so comparatively mundane that I didn't even think of it in the context of this category until it was nominated.  It's not until the last third (or less) than the CG kicks in.

The Battle Over the Triskellion really is a sight to behold: three hellicarriers and a Hydra insurgency (including the titular antagonist) locked in mortal combat against three superheroes and what few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents remain.  There are the three Insight Hellicarriers, a myriad of smaller ones, Falcon's exoskeleton (which really is the most visually striking piece of movie hardware since the Iron Man armor) and the high tech wreckage that ends up on the bottom of the Potomac.  At least in terms of its category, the battle is undoubtedly a case of too little, too late.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - There is no question that the special effects in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes are as exceptional as they come.  Any film that can base so much of its visual iconography off of purely computer generated effects and still look this convincing and fresh over a more than two hour run time is clearly doing something right.  Pair that with one of Andy Serkis' more engrossing motion capture performances, punctuated only sparingly with actual dialog, and you're left with what is perhaps the best realized cinematic worlds within recent memory.

The Apes blend seamlessly with their forested surroundings and human costars.  They are so realistically rendered that it's easy to forget that you're not looking at actual animals.  In virtually any other year, this would have been an easy choice for the win, but its facing some extremely stiff competition from this year's front runner and I am honestly unsure if it is up to the challenge.

Guardians of the Galaxy - It's really telling of the quality of this year's nominees when I can safely say that Guardians of the Galaxy has absolutely no shot whatsoever at winning the Best Visual Effects Oscar.  Like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, it would be an easy favorite in most other years.  The problem is that what it does well (and it does them extremely well), its competition simply does better.

Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel star in this movie as an anthropomorphized raccoon and a superpowered Ent.  They are so perfectly rendered that the most emotionally moving scene from the year was an muscle-headed alien consoling a crying raccoon clutching the splintered remains of a tree.  Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, however, already has the computer generated character vote secured.  Its shots of space are pure spectacle, but it loses out to Interstellar's infinitely superior effects.  Even its aerial combat over Xandar loses out to fellow Marvel nominee Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  Its only hope at pulling off a win in this category is to simply have broadly unoffensive appeal: something that everybody can agree on, even if nobody's particularly happy about it.

Interstellar - Without a doubt, Interstellar is the one to beat in this category.  What Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has going for it with ingrained and seamless realism, Interstellar has in epic majesty: awe-inspiring shots of black holes, nebulae and planetary bodies.  2001: A Space Odyssey won this category back in 1968 and Interstellar, quite simply, makes it look like an absolute joke.  That positive comparison alone puts a lot of Academy votes behind it.

It has more than just quietly imposing visuals on its side, however.  The monumental, planet-engulfing tidal wave sequence is among the most exciting of the year: exciting specifically because of how realistically rendered it appears to be.  The robotic marines, although head-scratching in their design, move with inventive flourishes that make them  both memorable and fascinating.  Interstellar is, quite simply, this category's heir apparent.

X-Men: Days of Future Past - This seems to be a common trend for Visual Effects nominees this year.  In any other year, things might have turned out very different for Days of Future Past's awards chances.  It would have been a titan among its competitors.  The Sentinels are beautifully rendered: rippling with an organic kineticism that is completely unlike any other version of them in comics or on screen.  The teams' mutant abilities were never better realized: offering spectacle upon differing spectacle throughout the film, used in increasingly interesting and interconnecting ways.  The effects are, without a doubt, absolutely sublime: flawless in every sense of the word.

Marvelous spectacles, brilliantly rendered, however, will not be enough for this film.  Its facing competition that is no less dazzling, but it far more nuanced and better showcases those effects that it does bring to the foreground.  It seems like Marvel adaptations really can't catch a break this year despite themselves.

Safe Bet:  Interstellar

Long Shot: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Longer Shot: Guardians of the Galaxy

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