2012: The Worst of the Year, Thus Far
It’s easy to make a bad movie. Trust me, Youtube sketches, while they may be hard work, are easily terrible. In fact, if I had to say, I think about 97.3222222% of sketch videos are just that, with the remainder being your friend’s video which he makes you watch and pretend to like. But what I’m talking about are movies that have an actual budget (usually with at least six zeroes), people who get paid to work at their professional craft, and still manage to screw it up. Only being halfway into the year, there are already a lot of those end results out there.
Unlike This Movie Suuucks though, these haven’t really been so much fun to watch as they have been disappointing, mediocre to the point of being awful, or sometimes straight up frustrating to finish. I’ve had friends lean over to me during these movies to say “Come on, man. Let’s just go.” Though in mind the phrase comes to mind “For the review!” I feel the need to finish every single terrible second of celluloid Hollywood can deliver so as to give a complete and thorough review, as hard as it’s been in some cases. Once again, if there’s a full review, click on the title and you shall be taken to it. Can’t wait to see what the second half of the year has to offer…
5. Battleship
Watching themselves onscreen
There are several movies that I hate that I didn’t bother reviewing or ever even mentioning simply for the fact that the people who go to see it know what they’re getting into and love it regardless of how terrible it is. Twilight and Tyler Perry movies fit into that, while Channing Tatum seems to have headed in that direction. Yet there are other terrible movies that had potential if for nothing more than the sheer enjoyment of watching things gets blown up. This is how Michael Bay has made his entire career. So while I never expected Battleship to be good, although I did expect a coherent, simple, story made up of the Navy destroying aliens. What I ended up watching was a bunch of mindless action with one worded one-liners (need I remind you? “Boom.”) that made me cringe. Liam Neeson is in it, sure, for a bout ten minutes. He seems to have been bored and frigid. I imagine once he said his lines and they cut, He followed up with “Okay, I’m outta here.” Maybe he was just there to make quick cash to blow on antother house or recreating dinosaurs from DNA found in prehistoric mosquitoes (I don’t know what rich people do with their money).
The final climax involving the people who greet you at Wal-Mart getting on a ship as old as them and defeating the alien menace that doesn’t so much feel like a tribute as it does a laughable chance to make money off of that group by pandering. I saw it in a similar light to black preachers in film during the 90s. Think LL Cool J in Deep Blue Sea. When veterans are on the screen in Battleship it feels like the filmmakers behind it are smiling big and saying “Do you like us now? Do you??” You could say “Well, what do you expect? It’s based on a board game.” But I believe even then, it still could have been good, had they slowed down and taken the time to make a good movie that wasn’t in love with itself playing AC/DC every five minutes. Not that it would’ve resembled the board game any more but I have a feeling that this aspect is not something they cared about. Just a hunch.
Best part(s) of the film: Special effects aren’t always terrible, the credits eventually come up
Worst moment(s) in the film: Realizing Rihanna is supposed to be a main character and not just a funny cameo.
4. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Do they even LOOK like they’re standing on that train?
This one falls in a similar line as Battleship for me being that my hopes weren’t high, yet I saw that only as a positive to not be disappointed. Thankfully, I made the right choice in not giving a crap, because this movie is awful. Aside from the occasional axe swing, director Timur Bekmambetov seems intent that you need to see the same shots over and over again until by the end of the movie, you feel a sense of deja vu thanks to the first half of the movie. The editing feels jumpy, but not purposefully so, but rather like a 14 year old director on Youtube (I’ve seen a lot of Youtube videos). Through terrible make-up and computer effects that could’ve been awesome on a straight-to-DVD movie, I just didn’t understand how a group of millionaires would support this project, saying “Sure. Move ahead to the next step.” It sure seemed to think it was smart though, with multiple monologues by Benjamin Walker, the actor under the stove top hat, letting us know the “truth” behind Abe Lincoln’s life. The worst part to me was finding out it was the writer of the book this movie was based on that wrote the screenplay as well, sabotaging his own work.
Best part(s) of the film: The axe being swung around was cool the first couple times, the original idea
Worst moment(s) in the film: The axe being swung around for the eighth time as if we’d never seen it, the dialogue that gave me the idea they want you to take this movie seriously.
3. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
A physical representation of Cage’s career.
For every great comic book movie, there seems to be three terrible ones. Between Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man, and this year’s Dark Knight, hopefully we can break that streak and reverse the spell. But even if the curse is broken, we’ll still have started the year off with February’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance which truly showcases Nicholas Cage’s ineptitude at what we once thought was acting. I’m now convinced Cage is a bet between Francis Ford Coppola and a demon who Coppola wagered against Cage ever becoming a successful actor. To which the demon replied “Can to!” Every twitch, every bizarre facial expression Cage has ever wanted to make gets played out in this. I wonder if directors Taylor/Neveldine looked at old Nicky boy during a screening, after witnessing audience members lowering in their seats and/or puking from nausea and saying to him, “You happy now?!” Would they have made a better movie without him? Probably, since he is the biggest problem. Would it have been good then? Eh….
Either way, this one might have been my biggest disappointment of the year so far being that the trailer looked legitimately closer to the comic. Who knew Cage would be able to run like a crazy man all over this one. I play out the scenario in my mind of a decent enough (albeit flawed) screenplay being handed to Cage, with him saying in his murmuring voice that goes from 0-60 in a fraction of a second “Yeah, yeah…s’not bad, s’not bad….but what if I DID THIS?!” Cage promptly stands up throws the screenplay on the ground, and pisses all over it. From the end product, the producers and everyone else must’ve looked around at each other and just said, “Uhhh… Sure.”
Best part(s) of the film: Ghost Rider always looks cool
Worst part(s) of the film: The first of many times Cage is allowed to freak out. The third or fourth time he freaks out and you realize it’s going to happen as many times as he wants it to.
Picture above: something not funny
Oh, Adam Sandler…what can I say about you that hasn’t already been said. As mentioned in the review, I can’t stand up for Sandler as I’ve done over the years as he just doesn’t care to try and be funny anymore. Box office numbers are proving to him that a solid start and a bunch of fart jokes later, somebody will always pay to see a movie with him in it. Last year’s Jack and Jill made a $150 million. $150 MILLION. So why wouldn’t Sandler think he can get away with anything- he can. He proves it by creating That’s My Boy; a near two hour movie that is about a kid who has sex with his teacher, impregnates her, becomes estranged from his son and eventually tries to get money from the grown up child played by Andy Samberg. All of that sounds like a Lifetime movie to me but the delivery is what’s supposed to be funny. It’s not. I’m wondering how the crew felt standing around watching the kid who plays a young Adam Sandler hump his naked teacher in front of the school? Were they laughing? Feeling a little strange? Did they have Chris Hansen on the set to make sure it wasn’t really happening?
There are a couple moments that may or may not have been funny had they been in a different movie and weren’t surrounded by the multitude of bad jokes Sandler and his team came up with. But even as I’m typing that, I don’t remember what they were. I guess this movie is funny if you really want to be that guy that annoys everyone, has no money, a bad haircut, and a terribly failed attempt at humor through a grating voice. Annoying characters work great for comedy but not if you’re supposed to like them. The only character more annoying than Adam Sandler’s is a character from our number one worst movie of the year so far.
Best part(s) of the film: Understanding and accepting that Adam Sandler can’t make movies forever
Worst Part(s) of the film: Asking what the worst part of this movie is is like asking what a person’s least favorite side affect of their herpes medication is.
1. Project X
I can’t think of anything for a caption. I just hate this movie.
Thankfully I forget about this film for the most part until someone else brings it up. I called it about 3/4 of the way through, if not before then, that this would be the absolute worst movie of the year and as of right now, I’m still sticking with it. Some people have defended it saying that soundtrack was awesome. I’m not going to argue necessarily, although if the soundtrack is the best part of your movie, that’s just pathetic. It means people don’t have to go to your movie to get the best part. Kind of like watching Terry Crews clips from White Chicks rather than the actual terrible movie itself. As mentioned above, this Superbad wannabe has one unique feature in that it’s the first movie to present to us a character that’s actually more annoying than Jar Jar Binks, which is pretty damned annoying. Oliver Cooper did such a good job at playing this character of the high schooler who puts the party together that I’m actually convinced he’s that stupid in real life.
Since their are enough people out there who paid to go see this, and enough underage kids that went it illegally to make anyone think there’s something positive to say about this movie, there’s a sequel coming out. Huzzah. This is also one of those movies that is so bad, the marketing campaign consists of telling you how much critics hated it and acting as though they were complimenting the nature of the film. Stephen Greenblech of the Blahblah Times says “It’s the most degrading movie you’ll see this summer. I’m actually sick to my stomach.” This is followed by people saying “I’ve got to know what happens!” Most of these people will be twenty years old and younger, followed by frat guys and people who neglect responsibility on a daily basis while pretending that other people are sheep because they have jobs. See what this movie made me do? I’m insulting potential readers! That’s how bad this movie is!
Best part(s) of the film: The time in my life before I watched this movie.
Worst Part(s) of the film: Hearing Oliver Cooper’s voice, seeing Oliver Cooper’s face, having to see or hear anybody in the movie attempt to be funny, forcing myself to sit through possibly the most pointless movie ever created while they veil it with something they thought was a plot, seeing anyone react positively to this movie and having to think less of them for it.
So there you have it, my Top 5 worst movies of the year so far. I hope this is as bad as it gets for the rest of the year, but we all know that won’t be the case.
Opening today. See? We’re already there.
Zombies Ruin Everything 
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