|
BIG D PITCHAS PRESENTS:
THE TOP TEN WORST MOVIES OF 2007 THAT I SAW
by Diego Kontarovsky
This is not a list
of the ten worst movies of 2007. That list might contain
Codename: The Cleaner, or Epic Movie, or Because I
Said So, or Norbit, or Wild Hogs, or In the
Land of Women, or Delta Farce, or Georgia Rule, or
Evan Almighty, or License to Wed, or Rush Hour 3,
or Mr. Woodcock, or Good Luck Chuck, or The
Heartbreak Kid, or The Comebacks, or Alvin and the
Chipmunks, or The Bucket List. But I didn't see
those because I had limited moviegoing funds and they all looked
really bad.
This is a list
of the ten worst movies of 2007 that I saw. I actually paid to
see all these movies.
Except #'s 3, 4, and 5. I saw those for free, and without
them, this list would have been a lot harder to write.
The Ten was a sketch comedy movie that tied itself together
with the running comedic theme of the Ten Commandments. Each
sketch was about a different Biblical Commandment. It had a
lot of good actors in its cast, but it committed the
teensy-yet-unforgivable crime of not being that funny. This
movie certainly behaved as if it was hilarious, but I don't think it
was. Mostly, it tried too hard. The sketches are
exceedingly over the top with some admirable attempts to provide
grounded contrast, but alas, not enough.
Some of the stories have barely anything to do with the Commandments
they are ostensively about. There's one about a shy woman who
goes on vacation and carries on a sexual affair with a guy that
seems to be Jesus Christ. This very tenuously carries the
theme of not taking the Lord's name in vain. Then there's one
about stealing that has Winona Ryder stealing a ventriloquist's
dummy, falling in love with it, and fucking it.
How is that about stealing? I suppose it's funny that Winona
Ryder is playing a thief, and she does do a tremendous job, but the
whole schtick was already done to perfection 25 years ago in Woody
Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But
Were Afraid to Ask), when Gene Wilder fell in love with a sheep.
There was one sketch I liked at the time I saw this, and that was
the one about not coveting thy neighbor's goods. I won't give
away the premise of this sketch, since the premise is essentially
the entire story, and it's a good one. Plus, Liev Schreiber
really made it fly.
Everyone in this movie was good, though.
I didn't hate this movie. I was mostly indifferent about it. But I needed ten movies to fill this list, and I suppose this was
about the tenth worst movie I saw in 2007.
Wanna own it? I can't recommend The Ten, but if you
like sketch comedy movies, click here to buy
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.
You'd think it would be impossible to screw up a movie about warring
robots that turn into trucks and planes. And if so, then
Michael Bay and friends can at least be recognized for having done
the undoable. But this movie simply fails at being either a
fun turn-off-your-brain movie or a serious action movie. And I
think it's because it tries to be both in ways that don't mesh well.
Half the time, this movie wants to be taken seriously. Tyrese
and his fellow soldiers yell things at each other while putting
their fucking lives on the line. Shia LaBeouf stares death in the face. And the Decepticons are,
like, giant robots that like to kill people. But then the other half of the movie is full of
wacky characters and, just, endless schtick. John Turturro
hams it up as a goofy government guy. Anthony Anderson
provides further amusement. There are extended scenes where
the Autobots just stand around and embarrass themselves, like when
they have introductions and Jazz (the AFRICAN-AMERICAN Autobot)
break dances and calls the humans "little bitches." Do they
have black hip hop culture on Cybertron? There's also the
painful sequence where Shia LaBeouf is trying to get something from
his house and, for what seems like a solid hour, the Autobots lumber
around his backyard, breaking things and making noise, as he
comically tries to hide them from his parents. On paper, I
should have loved that, in a good way. By its execution, I can
only love it in a bad way. Serious action movies can have
humor in them and succeed. Bay's own Armageddon is an
excellent blend of the two, because the humor always feels natural
against the drama.
But Transformers doesn't work, because the humor is too
in-your-face dumb, and sometimes, even the straight drama is too
inaccessible. I'll admit, it was hard to give a
shit about the gigantic magical All Spark cube that all the characters
are after.
Part of the reason I initially disliked this movie so much was
because, as a child of Beast Wars, I was expecting the robots
to be the main characters. But then the main character turned
out to be a teenage kid. I've since forgiven this detail,
partly because Shia LaBeouf is always so damned likeable. And,
as unwelcome as some of the lighter moments are, I can still enjoy
them on some level. But ultimately, the movie never really
comes together into anything worthwhile. Yes, there are robot
fights and hot chicks and instances of comedy. But a lot of
the gags are still tedious. There's still a spazzy little robot
that turns into a bedazzled cell phone. Megatron still "smells" Shia
LaBeouf. And Bumblebee still pisses on John Turturro's head.
Wanna own it? I can't recommend Transformers, but click here to buy
The Rock, Disturbia, Short Circuit, and
Short Circuit 2.
Shoot 'Em Up is an outrageous action movie with lots of
excessive gunfights. Like the Transporter series, but
with a lot less maturity and subtlety.
The story is fairly simple. Unexplained hero Clive Owen sees a
pregnant woman in trouble and decides to help her. Then
ruthless villain Paul Giamatti shows up to kill the baby, and Clive
Owen spends the rest of the movie protecting the baby with the help
of sexy prostitute Monica Bellucci.
Now, the makers of the movie wanted to make the main hero and
villain smarter than everyone else, but writing smart people is
hard, so they just made everyone else an idiot. That way, Paul
Giamatti comes off as a genius for noticing simple things that no
one else does, and Clive Owen continually proves his intelligence by
coming up with creative fighting techniques, such as stabbing someone with a
carrot, or very slowly getting someone to drop a gun by holding
their hand under a hand blower, or spending what had to have been several hours setting up
an elaborate array of guns tied to strings... in the villain's warehouse...
unnoticed. Basically a series of dumbass cartoon gags that are
meant to seem brilliant, but only seem brilliant if you're a dumbass.
So the action starts straight away, and the movie concerns itself
mainly with showing you all the amusing quirks the characters have.
Like Clive Owen's tendency to bitch about everyday things that
bother him while more pressing action is happening. So if you
ever wished your action heroes were more like pissy standup
comedians, check this one out. Also, Clive Owen is always
eating carrots. The movie seems to intimate that this is an
homage to Bugs Bunny, perhaps to pay tribute to the roots of its
cartoon violence. But I think this is where the movie fails.
It's too much of a cartoon, so by the end, you just don't give a
shit about anything that's happening. It's not a complete failure. The two
leads are likeable just because they're fantastic actors. And
there is a sex scene/shootout that ends in a pun so stupidly good, it's
worth sitting through the rest of this noise.
There's a
chance you may get something out of Shoot 'Em Up if this is your kinda humor. Or
if maybe you're from a distant land and you've never seen a movie
before.
Wanna own it? I can't recommend Shoot 'Em Up, but if
you like movies where Clive Owen has to protect a pregnant woman,
click here to buy
Children of Men.
I went into this movie with zero hope, because the first Fantastic
Four movie was garbage. I was pleasantly surprised to find
that this movie was way better than the first. Unfortunately,
even that was still fairly awful. The main problem with this
series is that, in its seeming aspiration to capture the more
humorous aspects of the original comic book, it creates a tone of
lame desperation. The characters are insipid caricatures.
There's nothing real or serious to provide contrast for the gags, so
I am never prompted to laugh or care. Here's a rundown of
what's wrong with each character (I will also explain their powers
in parentheses like this, in case you don't know):
- Invisible Woman (who can turn invisible) is pissed at Mr.
Fantastic (who can stretch his body) because he keeps bailing on
their wedding to SAVE THE WORLD. So she's either a moron or
just a huge bitch. Which wouldn't be so annoying if the entire
plotline wasn't
just there to provide pointless conflict between the characters.
- Because the Silver Surfer (who has every power in the world)
touches the Human Torch (who can light himself on fire) early on in
the movie, Human Torch develops the ability to magically switch
superpowers with anyone who touches him. Later, everyone
touches him at once and he absorbs all their powers at the same
time, like the science behind it is as simple as that. Then
when the movie's over, the affliction magically goes away.
- The Thing (who is a giant rock man) is supposed to be something of
a tragic figure, in that he can never return to his former human
form. But in the first movie, Mr. Fantastic devises a cure for
him that he briefly uses, and in this movie, he goes back to being
human when the Human Torch switches powers with him. This
curse is not such a big deal when he keeps turning back into human
form every seven minutes.
- In the comics, Dr. Doom is one of the most intelligent, powerful, scary bad
guys in the entire Marvel Universe. He rules his own European
nation. And Galactus is a GIANT
WHO EATS PLANETS (he forces the Silver Surfer to herald his arrival
before he eats each new world). But for the movies, they
changed the characters slightly. Instead of a badass
supergenius monarch, Dr. Doom
is more of an obnoxious jerkoff who can shoot
electricity from his bare hands, somehow. And Galactus is not so
much a character as he is a cloud. Don't read that again; you
got it the first time. Galactus is a cloud. Because a
villain made of weather worked so well in Ang Lee's Hulk.
In the end, Silver Surfer defeats Galactus with the powers Galactus
GAVE him. There's also a fakeout where the characters think
Invisible Woman is dead. Like Invisible Woman is gonna fucking
die in this piece of shit movie.
Wanna own it? I can't recommend Fantastic Four: Rise of
the Silver Surfer, but if you like movies about superhero families,
click here to buy The Incredibles.
Ghost Rider is about a guy who makes a deal with the devil or
something, and he gets magic skull powers. I don't really
remember what happened in the movie because the execution was so
mindless. It was like watching a feature length montage of video
game cutscenes.
The fault falls squarely on writer/director Mark Steven Johnson, who
took a comic book and adapted it by closing his eyes, covering his
ears, and smashing his face into a computer keyboard till he had 80
or 90 pages. And I actually like this guy. He wrote
Big Bully and both Grumpy Old Men movies. But I'm
gonna say he lost his mind somewhere between Daredevil and
Electra.
Also, Wes Bentley is in this as an over-the-top villain. Remember American Beauty? What... what is he doing with
his career? It's clearly not that he was waiting for the right
script to come along. Maybe he thought this was gonna be a
"Ghost Writer" movie. You know, that children's TV show
where the kids solved mysteries with the help of a ghost who wrote
things in the air? I mean, that's also crazy, but it would've
been a slightly better career move.
Of course, it's not like this movie had terribly lofty goals, so we
have to account for that. And I think there were things about
it that were cool. Nicolas Cage, for example, is a real life
superhero in that he can act in the biggest piece of shit ever made,
but still submit a performance that's genuinely engaging and
hilarious (in a good way). I seem to recall thinking that the
transformation scene where he first becomes the Ghost Rider was
worth the ticket price alone. For real, few people can do what
he does with a role. In fact, I would say there are only three
actors that I will go see in any movie, no matter what. One is
Christian Bale. Another is Nicolas Cage. Who's the
third?
I'll get to that in a minute.
There may have been some other scenes in this I enjoyed for purely
juvenile reasons, like the flaming motorcycle from hell, or the
mantastic awesomeness of Cage and Sam Elliott teaming up, or
the fact that Eva Mendes is nearly bursting out of her wardrobe at
all times. Under the right circumstances, there may be a
decent B-movie in here. I would rewatch it to confirm, but I
can't conceive of a scenario where any theater or TV channel or
community rec center would reshow this movie, ever.
Wanna own it? I can't recommend Ghost Rider, but click here to buy
Raising Arizona.
Jim Carrey is the third. Anyway, I went into this movie completely
blind, because I saw it at an advance test screening, before any
promotional material ever came out for it. All I knew was that
I love Jim Carrey, and this was a movie about the number 23,
starring Jim Carrey. And I was digging it in the beginning,
but I really started not liking it as soon as plot points started
happening.
The problem with this movie is that the story is stupid and
irrelevant to anyone's life (Jim Carrey reads a book about someone
obsessed with a number, so he gets obsessed with it too). It's
filled with twists that don't inspire the slightest thrill or
fulfillment. It even has a scene where Jim Carrey goes to a
professor who is an expert on the number 23. When the movie is
over and all is finally revealed, get ready to have the most
depressing, not-even-worth-it discussion of logic issues you've ever
had with your fellow moviegoers.
Wanna own it? I can't recommend The Number 23, but if
you like movies where Jim Carrey's world is turned upside down,
click here to buy
The Truman Show or
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
It's been so
long since I first (and, simultaneously, last) saw or thought about
these movies. Luckily (or unluckily), they were showing Shooter on HBO or
something recently and I was able to rewatch it and refresh my
mental notes on it. I wasn't so fortunate (or unfortunate)
with some of these other entries. I think the next entry on
this list was recalled by the studio and they like, burned every copy
so now it's impossible to see it. But now I'm getting ahead of
myself.
Before going into the countless problems in Shooter, I think
I can guess what's at the root of them. I mean, it's poorly
written, which is bad enough. But it's also based on a book.
Which means it's poorly adapted. This introduces a whole new
set of problems, because the writer is forced to lop off
certain parts of the movie's story, while leaving in other parts
that were connected to those amputated parts. So the story
flails around inexplicably, trying to execute meaningful plot points with its phantom limbs, resulting in,
just, horrifying confusion.
This movie is about a sniper named Bob Lee Swagger, played by Mark
Wahlberg. It starts off okay, with a really cool opening shot.
But then, possibly while the credits are still rolling, Mark
Wahlberg's spotter pulls out Kate Mara's headshot and starts talking
about how much he misses his wife. Oh no, what's gonna
happen?!
Listen, I think people should probably see Shooter.
This is a movie that's bad in an awesome way. So maybe you
shouldn't read the next few paragraphs, because I'm going to go
against my usual policy, and I'm going to write about big spoilers
to worthwhile scenes.
Okay. You have been SPOILER WARNED.
Seriously, stop reading.
Anyway, Wahlberg gets recruited by DANNY GLOVER AND ELIAS KOTEAS
(kickass casting alert!) to stop a presidential assassination, and
then all hell breaks loose. Things happen and he's on the run.
Luckily, there's some clichés hanging around to help him. Like
his ex-spotter's gorgeous widow (the aforementioned Kate Mara), and
an insightful FBI rookie who picks up amazing clues, but is verbally
berated nonstop by his superiors, for no reason other than to have
hurdles in his way. This is one of the inexplicable details
left over from the drastic book subplot amputation. However,
rookie does get some help, from the supermodelesque hottie who also
works at the FBI, as well as a gun expert in a chat room that he
visits at an Internet donut shop. Just like the real FBI!
At one point, the FBI guy gets kidnapped by some bad guys who beat
the shit out of him and then strap a device to his arm that is going
to force him to shoot himself in the head. Presumably this is
so that the CSI guys will look at the bullet trajectory and the
gunpowder residue and rule it a suicide. But how are they
going to explain the bruises all over his body left by the beating
and the plastic suicide gadget strap marks all over his arm?
Simple. A line of dialogue. And I quote: "This thing
works. It's not the first time we've used it." Great!
That explains everything all right!
Speaking of villains, these are some of the most one-dimensional
villains ever burned onto celluloid. It turns out (and this is
the part I didn't want to have to spoil) that Glover and Koteas are
framing Wahlberg for the planned assassination and are working for a
corrupt U.S. Senator played by Ned Beatty (yes, that kickass casting
alert is still in effect).
Elias Koteas is one of my favorite actors, but his character is so
bizarrely underdeveloped. Halfway through the film, he becomes
a raving psycho. We see him kidnap Kate Mara (which we get,
plotwise). Then we cut away to some other stuff. Then,
we see him drunkenly dancing around the bound Kate Mara for 15
seconds, and we cut back to the other stuff with no explanation.
We are later asked to deduce that he possibly raped her offscreen.
And when Wahlberg starts blowing off his limbs with a rifle, Koteas
finds it hilarious. Who is this guy? And why wasn't the
movie ONLY about him?
Glover's character is handled in an equally peculiar fashion.
He's supposed to be a United States Army Colonel. But towards
the end of the movie, during a closed hearing with the HEAD OF THE
FBI and the UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL, he just stops even
pretending that he's not a villain. He basically tells
everyone to kiss his ass, then he villainously storms out of the
room by pushing open both of the double doors, as only a being of
pure malevolence can. Then he and Beatty retreat to a log
cabin with a roaring fire and laugh wickedly while smoking cigars
and drinking brandy. Boy, these guys are evil!
So, yeah. This movie sucks. At one point, Danny
Glover puts his shades on at a weird angle, with the frame temples
aimed way above his ears, which I think he probably did to avoid
showing a reflection of the lights and camera crew in front of him.
Did they not even care about making a real movie at that point?
Also, Mark Wahlberg has TWO slow-mo walking
away scenes, one of them from an exploding building.
Wanna own it? I can't recommend Shooter, but click here
to buy I Heart Huckabees,
Lethal Weapon,
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and
Superman.
The Ex is a... comedy... about this couple who's having a
baby. The guy (Zack Braff) goes to work for his father-in-law
(Charles Grodin), where he is secretly tormented by his wife's old
friend, Chip (Jason Bateman).
This is one of those "imitation" comedies. Most of the story
here is on loan from better comedies like Meet the Parents
and The Cable Guy (they couldn't even name the "Chip Douglas"
character something other than Chip).
The best part of this movie is Jason Bateman, who is so hilarious
and spot-on as the wheelchair-bound asshole, I can't honor him
enough with mere words. As far as I can remember, no one else
is really funny or interesting for the rest of the movie. You
can't even care about the characters, because every scene is treated
like a crazy comedy sketch, so it's hard to think of them as real
people that, you know, might exist in our world. The worst
part of this movie is that they had to drag comedy legend Charles
Grodin down with them. I would rather Charles Grodin be erased
from existence than act in another piece of shit like this.
Wanna own it? I can't recommend The Ex, but click here to buy
Clifford.
I didn't expect Shrek the Third to suck. I expected
Shrek 2 to suck. Shrek had been such a good movie,
and the awesome Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio weren't writing the
second one, so I figured it was going to be a typical disappointing
sequel. But Shrek 2 was all right!
There were lots of new characters and gags, which you never expect
from these cinematic clones looking to capitalize on good original
movies. See, perfunctory sequels are usually just a
reenactment of the first movie, carried out with far less wit. And that's where Shrek the Third
comes in.
The only way in which Shrek the Third is innovative is that
it's really the first Shrek movie to be filled with uninspiring dialogue
and uninteresting plot twists, such as Puss and Donkey's body
switcheroo (which was strangely reminiscent of the Fantastic
Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer superpower switcheroo). If
we're not careful, we may end up killing the switcheroo as a viable
form of fresh entertainment.
Another problem with this movie is the constant inappropriate pop
songs, like "Live and Let Die" playing during a funeral scene.
How hard is it to just pick a cool song to play over a scene or
montage? It's probably the easiest thing to do, ever.
But I guess in some way, it's better to do everything wrong than
just some things wrong. Sometimes, good things will go to
tragic waste in a bad movie. This movie is noble in that it
was not even close.
Wanna own it? I can't recommend Shrek the Third, but click here to buy So I Married an Axe Murderer.
The story of why The Simpsons Movie sucks starts in 1987.
Or, probably like 1986. A young cartoonist sat in the lobby of
a producer's office and made up a pitch for a cartoon five minutes
before he went in for his meeting. Some months later, The
Simpsons debuted in some weird commercial bumpers for The Tracey Ullman Show. A couple years later, they were given their own
series.
Now, from day one, this show was brilliant. As the characters
evolved, both in how they were animated and written, the show turned
into something the likes of which had never been seen. In what
you could call The Simpsons' "golden age," this show was responsible
for some of the funniest, most cleverest stories and gags ever
produced by human beings. Nothing touches The Simpsons' golden
age, or even comes close. What is the golden age, enumerated?
In my opinion, it's the first eight seasons, though I will admit
there is an implied quality curve within this period.
Depending on who you ask, you might get some different answers, but
I believe the general consensus is not far from my own conclusions.
Anyway, the show was pure scripture. It spoke to a generation.
Every character had something to say about the modern American
nuclear family. And I think part of its charm was in its rich,
yet subtly crude animation. I saw unadulterated beauty in the
look and movement of The Simpsons' cheapy hand-painted cels.
It was art in countless ways. But it was not to last.
Somewhere around Season Nine, there seemed to be a distinct lack of
quality in the show. It wasn't an abrupt change, but it was
now no longer deniable. Something was wrong. In the
writing, the animation-- even the voice acting. I could write
forever about all the little things that changed, but the point is that
the show was never the same after that. It has run
indefinitely ever since, with varying levels of failure, and as of
the release of The Simpsons Movie, there existed more bad
episodes than good ones. That blew my mind at first, but it's
true. And The Simpsons Movie sucks for one very simple
reason.
It is a movie adaptation of a rotting, sucking corpse that has lain
putrid for over a decade.
And it suffers from all the same problems the show presently does.
The story meanders pointlessly, with nothing to say. The
characters are empty gag vessels who don't even remotely resemble
their precious former selves. The animation is flat and ugly.
The voices have grown lazy and bored. And, maybe most
significantly-- it's just not funny anymore, in any way that counts.
It's funny for idiots, and once in a while, they may
accidentally stumble onto a joke that, ever so briefly, works.
But the real magic is long gone. I'd have had this same
reaction if I had never seen a bad episode of the show. This
movie is unworthy of The Simpsons name. And if there's
anything worse than a bad movie, it's a bad movie that purports to
represent something so good.
Wanna own it? I can't recommend The Simpsons Movie, but
if you like the Simpsons when they're still funny, click here to buy
The Simpsons: The Complete
First,
Second,
Third,
Fourth,
Fifth,
Sixth,
Seventh, or
Eighth Seasons. Season Nine has a few shining
moments, but is, make no mistake, the beginning of the end.
And that was the ten worst movies of 2007 that I saw. Hope you
found it as unpleasant to read about them as I did to remember them.
-- Diego Kontarovsky
Back to Writings.
|
