Our Movie Year

From George Lucas' weird fat neck to Tom Cruise's inhuman enthusiasms, these are the film world moments of 2005 that will stay with us forever (or at least until February 2006)

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The squirrels in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
Johnny Depp's lispy, eccentric chocolatier was upstaged by the marvellous nut-sorting squirrels who saw for Veruca Salt. The scene involved 40 real squirrels alongside animatronic furries, a little computer jiggery-pokery and mirrors. It took four trainers 29 weeks to train the squirrels - the tree rats are notoriously stubborn when it comes to taking direction - and the result captured a glint of cold-hearted diligence in the nut-hoarding vermin.

The Island debacle
It was the big Hollywood blockbuster that blew up in the faces of director Michael Bay and studio DreamWorks. After a poor opening weekend, the producers broke cover to say that neither Ewan McGregor nor Scarlett Johansson connected with their target audience. Bay did the decent thing and engaged in a bout of soul-searching - well, it was more of a rummage around the psychological sock drawer, but it was a start. In an interview with the 'LA Times', the go-to-guy for the blow-shit-up brigade felt that the flop put him on a par with Stanley Kubrick, who also suffered some bad B.O. numbers now and again. Oh, the humility!

Darth Vadar: Noooooooooo
Revenge Of The Sith was an embarrassment. Only fans buried up to the neck in denial and the staff of 'Empire' magazine deny it. If there is one moment that defines the farrago, it is Anakin Skywalker discovering he is now Darth Vader. In full black armour, he makes a gesture like Atlas trying to shake some sense into the world and screams "Nooooo". We knew exactly how he felt.

Tom Cruise promotes War Of The Worlds
As our staff writer rather charmingly put it, "You must have that moment where Tom Cruise made a complete goose of himself on the sofa". Yes, Tom, you scared the shit out of us with your scientological zeal and romantic press-ganging of Katie Holmes. With one bound over a sofa, Tom Cruise opened up clear blue water between the A-list and the rest of the human race.

Next page • "He'd forgotten he was actually famous for making crap gangster movies"