I watch a lot of movies. That statement shouldn't be a big surprise to anyone. I feel like I should do a 'year in review' so I'll give my top and bottom 7.
I'm only considering cinematic releases, so all straight to DVD movies aren't up for consideration (number 1 would be utterly dreadful S. Darko) So I'll start at the bottom 7, the worst of 2009 (I haven't seen Old Dogs or Alvin and the Chipmunks 2, so they are omitted)...
Dishonorable mentions (the next 7 in no particular order); Transformers; Revenge of the Fallen, The Uninvited, Haunting of Molly Hartley, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Paul Blart Mall Cop, Fighting, and Babylon A.D.
7. Year One
Jack Black = funny, Michael Cera = funny, Harold Ramis = funny, Black+Cera+Ramis = amazingly unfunny. For starters, the idea of cavemen wandering through biblical times does have some comic potential (I was hoping for something like Mel Brook's History of the World). Ramis assembled a who's who of comedians for the supporting cast, including Hank Azaria, David Cross, Paul Rudd, Christopher 'McLovin' Mintz-Plasse, Kyle "Tenacious D" Gass, and Bill Hader. The problem is, Black and Cera lazily play their normal 'types' (Black constantly mugs, wiggles his eyebrows and dances around, Cera talks really quietly and is awkward around women, etc.) while most of the supporting cast get very little screen time and have little impact on the story. The worst offender of the supporting cast is the terrifically unfunny and overly hairy Oliver Platt as a high priest (and I even sort of liked Platt in Lake Placid, so that should give an example of how awful he is here).
Its like Ramis assembled his cast and forgot to give them anything remotely funny to do. The humor involves too many pratfalls, tired homophobic routines (yep, some things about the Romans would seem fairly gay by today's standards), and dumb scatological jokes (a poop joke that was better in the 3rd American Pie). A lot of money got put into the costumes and sets (the movie had a budget of 60 M, fairly high for a straight comedy) but none was put into the story or script. This movie makes the list over the other contenders because the three or four good jokes are all in the preview (only Bill Hader's sadly brief appearance would be the sole exception), making the following hour and forty minutes an extremely boring, unfunny affair.
6. Dragonball Evolution
This movie was poorly edited and written, had a delayed theatrical release, and then dumped to theaters in April 2009. Given the difficult to adapt source material and that the budget was slashed from 100 M in preproduction down to 30 M for production, I feel a little bad for this movie from the start. It seems like 20th Century Fox has been steadily accumulating the rights to a number of properties with a strong built in 'core' audience (The Seeker, Eragon, Hitman, Garfield, Fantastic Four, etc.). Then, the resulting movie adaptations get as little effort into budget and script as possible. The ensuing cheap cinematic abortions then are dumped to theaters hoping to lure in the enthusiastic fan base and thus cash in on the 'name' value (and so far have mostly tanked).
For casting, despite being set in Japan, Canadian Justin Chatwin is miscast as the lead Son Goku as is Emmy Rossum as the blue haired inventor Bulma. Amidst a sea of awfulness in the supporting cast, Chow Yun-Fat hammily enjoys himself as Master Roshi while an underwritten James Marsters evils it up as Lord Piccolo. Vegita, the most interesting and popular character from the anime, doesn't even appear at all. I think a good 30 M Dragonball movie starring a Canadian was doomed from the very start, so this is low on my "bad" list.
5. Knowing
Most of Knowing wasn't 'that' bad, having an interesting concept and being helmed by Alex Proyas, (who joins David Goyer in the "creative people I love that made a horrible 2009 movie" list) the director of Dark City and the first Crow. Nick Cage is only moderately irritating, there are a couple cool action sequences, and the cinematography is decent. However, with about a half hour to go, the movie goes from alright to a big bag of sloppy goose shit. Where do I begin?
If there was a giant solar flare, the levels of UV radiation would greatly increase thereby increasing the frequency and rate of cancer. The characters talk about UV radiation a couple different times... Yet, the climax (given away in the previews) features a giant ID4 style fireball engulfing most of the world. Apparently, people dying of radiation < stuff exploding! To paraphrase what happens in the end of the movie... what if at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, after Indy found the Grail and reconciled with his father, got crushed by the falling debris in the temple? Wouldn't that suck? Yep, it would, and so did this movie, featuring one the worst endings of any major movie that I've seen.
4. Street Fighter, Legend of Chun Li
There have been a lot of terrible video game movies, so I tend to give most of them a little more latitude given their weak subject matter. What's wrong with this sequel? For a game with literally dozens of characters, we only get 7 in this movie - Chun Li, M. Bison, Charlie, Vega, Balrog, Gen, and Rose. What's wrong with this list? For starters, the first Street Fighter movie focused on Guile, so his omission is fine, but to me, the sequel had to be about the HaDouken twins, Ken and Ryu (the 2 most popular characters). Not only are they not part of the plot, they aren't even in the movie at all (except for a name drop towards the end). This would be the equivalent of having X-Men 2 be all about Storm and leaving Wolverine completely out.
Next, some awful casting decisions... Michael Clarke Duncan as Balrog is about the only thing that works... In the opening montage, Chun Li grows up from being obviously of Asian descent to the Canadian Kristen Kreuk (who does a decent job with the martial arts and puts forth a decent acting effort). Neal McDonough seems more like a standard mob boss than the evil dictator M. Bison (He's no Raul Julia and he's the completely wrong physical type). The guy playing the martial arts legend Gen is far too young (the same actor played Liu Kang in Mortal Kombat!). For the fearsome clawed killer Vega, we get the hispanic guy from the Black Eyed Peas... ugh. The real reason this movie features on the list is the absolutely all time awful performance from Chris Klein as Charlie Nash. Klein's characterization features the worst acting (being hammy yet bland all at once) from a 'name' actor that I've ever seen in a major motion picture. Since he's only a supporting character, that saves this flick from the worst of the year.
3. All About Steve
Oscar award winning Sandra Bullock has been irritating and annoying before, but her performance of a shrill, stalkerish, obsessive crossword puzzle writer takes the cake for her worst career performance (I was wishing for her burping FBI agent from Miss Congeniality about twenty minutes in). Also starring the amazingly bland Bradley Cooper, this movie has three terminal flaws.
strike 1 bad acting
strike 2 bad plot
strike 3 bad writing.
The only thing that saves movie from being the worst of the year is the costarring tandem of Thomas Haden Church and Ken Jeong as an arrogant news anchor and a suffering camera tech. These two are trying to bring the funny into a painfully unfunny script, they have all the best lines (some of which have to be improvised) and make their part of the movie tolerable. Unfortunately, the movie is focused on a creepy Bullock-Cooper "romance" which makes the final project abysmal. I'll put it this way, when Bullock falls down a gaping hole (the only good physical joke and ruined in the preview) I was hoping for her death or at least serious bone breaking injury. Instead, I got another half hour of movie... ughhhh.
2. The Unborn
Out of the 2 Un movies released in early 2009 along with the Uninivited, this movie is everything that's wrong with most American horror. Using a combination of really cheap boo scares along with cheap rip offs of prominent horror movies like the Exorcist, the Grudge, and others does not scary make. The really sad thing about this one isn't the cool looking trailer, the waste of talent of David Goyer (who wrote Dark Knight, Blade, and Dark City), or a slumming Gary Oldman. The sad thing is that the movie is only PG-13, depriving it of the gore or nudity it would need to be at least entertaining (like the My Bloody Valentine remake).
1. Bride Wars
This might be one of the least funny comedies I've ever seen. It makes chick flicks look bad by being an offensive farce involving two lifelong friends who sabotage and destroy each others lives (using methods that might have been funny in Saved by the Bell) because their weddings get accidentally booked on the same day. Given the current 'bridezilla,' over competitive weddings of today, I truly believe that a script with good comic potential exists. Furthermore, you get a completely cheap "happy ending" because one of the male characters makes a script based decision to question the stupidity of the movie's plot. Anne Hathaway should have known better, Kate Hudson's agent needs a career change (Fool's Gold looked like an Oscar contender compared to this). Just amazingly unfunny, cliched, and completely devoid of any entertainment value whatsoever.
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