Bad movies

*Originally published on 7/2/09




Hollywood is a mixed bag. They're capable of creating amazing works of cinema like The Dark Knight, Wall-E, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Ghostbusters. Conversely, they're also capable of creating utter dreck. These are the movies that would scare Cthulu back into the depths of the ocean, the sort of movies that even jaded filmgoers who endured the last few seconds of Sleepaway Camp would turn away from in disgust.

The first is Frank Miller's The Spirit. It started off in that "so bad it's kind of enjoyable way", but after that it sank into one of the worst movie viewing experiences I've had in recent memory. "But wait, I heard you get to see Eva Mendes' tush!" you say? Yes, it's true there is a quick shot of her rear end, however the movie is so terrible that it not only negates the benefit of the glimpse, but goes beyond it to the point where you ask yourself why you thought it was worth seeing in the first place. That's not right. This movie is just terrible! We rented it through Netflix and we still felt ripped off. This movie is just wrong in every sense of the word.

Another bad movie is Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. This is an oldie, but it still bears mentioning. The final showdown in the great barrier is pretty good, but it takes so long to get there and doesn't really do anything. I know the general rule is that the odd number Trek movies stink (though Generations was good and the new reboot movie breaks the rule again) but this is definitely the worst of the bunch.

Despite what some may tell you, 28 Days Later is quite bad. I saw it in theaters and I was pretty much everything but scared. I was bored, disgusted and unimpressed.

I already mentioned 10,000 B.C in my reference quality blu-ray article, but it's bad enough that I have no regrets about bringing it up again. As awesome as the movie looks in high def, it is a very, very bad movie.

By and large, Halloween: Resurrection is a bad movie. Like Batman and Robin (another terrible movie) before it, it put the final nail in the franchise's coffin. It was only by finding a new director and rebooting the series that the caped crusader and the masked babysitter killer were able to return to theaters. My advice is to skip to the clip where Busta Rhymes beats the crud out of Michael with kung-fu, watch it, and then stop the movie. That's really the only part of the movie that's awesome.

Going back to the comic adaptations, a bad movie list would not be complete without Catwoman. The acting is terrible, the script is terrible, the action is dull, pretty much everything about this movie is wrong.

Eragon is also a stinker. It blatantly rips off better movies and it's just so "been there, done that" that you wonder why they even bothered making it in the first place.

Another movie I already ranted about was Twilight. I know, the series has it's fans, but I did not like this movie. You probably caught on to that from my reaction to it winning best picture at the MTV movie awards. Even fans of the book weren't all that crazy about the movie. Unless you're a die-hard fan of the book, this is one worth passing over.

While it was a massive success at the box office, Passion of the Christ is terrible. It's not that Mel Gibson's a bad director, he made Braveheart for crying out loud, but this movie has no redeeming qualities. It's an extremely long snuff film. I couldn't even finish watching the whole thing it was so bad.

Alien Vs. Predator is also a huge stinker. It makes the mistake of focusing on human characters who are boring, bland and undeveloped. The aliens and predators only spend about 5 minutes actually fighting and the whole human/predator romance undertones were downright creepy. You'd think that making a movie pitting two iconic sci-fi monsters against each other would be a can't miss, but it misses by a wide margin.

It's hard to quantify movies, given how subjective each person's taste is. A lot of people hate Stargate, but I found it to be a very enjoyable sci-fi film. It's not the best movie ever, but it's fun and entertaining. A lot of people complain that movies aren't all like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jaws, ET, or Ghostbusters, but we have to remember that those are great, classic movies. If every movie was as good as those, then those movies wouldn't be as good; they'd just be another forgettable movie. It's like Yogi Berra said "If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be". While we need the OK movies to show us what's truly great, movies like those listed above only show us that Hollywood will make pretty much anything. Even with subjective opinion, you'd be hard pressed to find people who enjoyed the above listed movies, 28 Days Later has it's defenders so that's really the only one I'd recommend checking out if for no other reason than to let you can form your own opinion. As for the rest, stay away, stay far far away.