June 9, 2012

Al's Top 100 Least Favorite Movies Part 3

Part 1
Part 2

59:  Prom Night (2008)
Stop talking during the movie!
Could a slasher film be any more generic?  This remake looks really slick, but nothing about it really stands out.  The story is weak, and filled with characters that I just couldn’t care about (so why should I care if some creep stabs them all?).  The film overall feels so generic that it becomes a bore to watch.

Entertainment:  Poor | Story:  Poor | Film: Average | Resonance:  None
--------------------
58:  Miami Vice (2002)
What? A script?!
I wanted to enjoy this modern take on the old cop show.  But, jeez, this movie just dragged on and on and on! As long and dull as this material is, I couldn’t get into the story at all.  And while the film looks stylish, it was pretty gaudy at times too.  At this point, I don’t even remember that much about it.

Entertainment:  Poor | Story:  Poor | Film:  Average | Resonance:   None
--------------------
57:  Brother’s Justice
This movie looked like it’d be a bad action flick at first glance.  Then I read the back cover and saw that it’s really a comedy about a guy pitching a bad movie idea to Hollywood.  As a comedy, it sounded promising.  And even though the basic concept is amusing (especially in the way the main character deludes himself), the film overall failed to induce laughter.

Entertainment:  Marginal | Story:  Marginal | Film:  Poor | Resonance:  None
--------------------
56:  Street Fighter
Many people will probably file this film under “so bad it’s good.” In a way it is; the action is pretty frequent and thrilling, and there is plenty of hilariously bad dialogue to keep it funny.  However, it is a poorly-made film with an incredibly weak story.

Entertainment:  Average | Story:  Very Poor | Film:  Very Poor | Resonance:  Marginal
--------------------
55:  Heart of America
Okay, who does Dr. Uwe Boll think he is to tell us what lurks in the Heart of America? This German dude’s attempt to peel away at the issue of school shootings is probably the most tasteless and pretentious act of butchery any director can do to a sensitive issue.  While the film is somewhat entertaining, the story is very contrived, and the film is extremely poorly-made.  As a result, we’re left with a bad drama that only claims to be the all-revealing mirror of human truth.  In reality, it’s garbage.

Entertainment:  Average | Story:  Poor | Film:  Awful | Resonance:  Low
--------------------
54:  Lost in Translation
Yeah, I was this bored too, watching this movie...
I know I’m going to get flack for listing this; this film is pretty well-revered.  I don’t see why; there’s no story to this! It’s two hours of a guy and a chick wandering around Tokyo.  I understand that this is meant to be a film exploring transient souls devoid of meaning in their lives (hence the film’s title, and parallels to a foreign country), and a film that explores the dynamics of a short-term relationship.  Okay, so it’s a film with a subject and theme, but no running story or conflict, no scenes that really stand out and grab interest, and to me it has no lasting power.  It feels less like a film and more like an amateur video essay; something that a traveling student could have made.  As such, I found it completely uninteresting.

Entertainment:  Quite Poor | Story:  Poor | Film:  Average | Resonance:  Very Low
--------------------
53:  Supernova (2000)
With its special effects (which include a nice-looking binary black-hole system, and later a supernova that wipes out a whole planet), I wanted to like this film.  I just couldn’t.  It’s way too boring and uneventful.  The story doesn’t really make much sense, and is filled with characters I couldn’t care less about.  The film looks okay enough, but offers little redeeming value.

Entertainment:  Poor | Story:  Poor | Film:  Poor | Resonance:  Quite Low
--------------------
52:  Dungeons and Dragons:  Wrath of the Dragon God
The first D&D movie ought to be worthy of this list, with its supreme amount of cheese and horrid special effects.  Surprisingly, they made a sequel, and it managed to suck even worse.  The story for this is made worse; the filming and special effects are still bad; worst of all, the movie only entertains to a point.

Entertainment:  Average | Story:  Poor | Film:  Awful | Resonance:  Low
--------------------
51:  Star Runners
At first glance, this looked a little bit like Star Wars, so I was thrilled.  Then it turned out to be a hodgepodge that included a few cups of Starship Troopers, a tablespoon of Pitch Black, a dash of The Fifth Element, and perhaps a pinch of Ultraviolet. In spite of these ingredients, the story came out horridly underdone and lacking in any original flavor.  Did I mention that the film is made from cheap ingredients?

Entertainment:  Good | Story:  Very Poor | Film:  Poor | Resonance:  None
--------------------
50:  Second in Command
In this film, we see the illustrious Jean-Claude Van Damme playing an officer who becomes "Second in Command" of this embassy where a bunch of terrorists are trying to bust in and take over the place.  Lots of shooting ensues.  Unfortunately, none if it is really that interesting, the film is not great, and it’s quite forgettable overall.

Entertainment:  Average | Story:  Poor | Film:  Poor | Resonance:  None
--------------------
49:  L'avventura
This is as exciting as it gets...
Somebody once claimed that I haven’t seen enough “good” movies, and listed this one as an example of what “good” apparently means.  L'avventura is a “good” film, certainly; it has very pretty photography and locales, and there’s nothing wrong with its acting or writing.  Problem is, absolutely nothing, and I mean NOTHING happens in this film.  It’s two hours of rich snobs wandering around, trying to figure out what to do with themselves.  Then somebody goes missing, and in an act of perfect stupidity, the characters looking for this missing person falls in love and forgets about her.   I can understand that this is a story that emphasizes the loneliness and isolation of rich, disillusioned couples, having to forcibly search out adventure to break up the dull monotony of their lives.  And yet, they’ve also succeeded in making the film itself dull, monotonous, and lifeless.
Entertainment:  None | Story:  Very Poor | Film:  Excellent | Resonance:  Very Low
--------------------
48:  Lawnmower Man 2
The first Lawnmower Man movie was a pretty weird trip, but man, tripping through this sequel is weirder yet! This movie can’t figure out if it’s catering to adults (since there is one bad curse word, and quite a lot of explosive action) or kids (because the tone overall is very light and fluffy, and a bunch of light-cycle-riding kids are featured in the film).  At times it entertains with its bad dialogue, its cheap special effects, and its poor craftsmanship.  But let’s face it, this story really sucks, and makes the first film look like The Godfather.

Entertainment:  Average | Story:  Very Poor | Film:  Awful | Resonance:  Marginal
--------------------
47:  Caligula
This movie will make your eyes bleed too!
Everybody’s going to remember this film, because it’s loaded up with lots of perverse, hardcore sex and violence.  Going through this movie is like a benchmark to see just how much R-rated and X-rated material you can stomach.  It’s still the most graphic movie I’ve ever seen (although, not necessarily the bloodiest or the most disturbing).  But if you strip away all that perversity, there’s not much of a story left, and the film looks incredibly gaudy.  It’s a shame too, because the star power here is strong, and Malcolm McDowell makes a good Emperor Caligula.

Entertainment:  Average | Story:  Awful | Film:  Very Poor | Resonance:  Marginal
--------------------
46:  Recon 2020:  The Caprini Massacre
This came as a bonus feature to Battlespace, which was listed above.  This feature does have its action and a few amusing lines, but the story is pretty bland.  It looks like the filmmakers went to some construction yard and filmed a bunch of stuff; it’s all rather cheap.
They’ve made more Recon 2020 films since, but I’m not interested enough.

Entertainment:  Pretty Good | Story:  Poor | Film:  Awful | Resonance:  Very Low
--------------------
45:  Galaxy of Terror
Insert hentai joke here.
One of many horrid B-movies that Roger Corman produced, but this one takes place in space! This film does boast some nifty special effects, and a memorable scene involving a woman and a scary space worm.  Regardless, the story isn’t very substantial, and the film is still very cheap in a lot of areas.

Entertainment:  Marginal | Story:  Very Poor | Film:  Poor | Resonance:  Quite Low
--------------------
44:  Chaos (2005)
This is basically the exact same story as Last House on the Left, which in itself is a weird, gaudy, violent piece of work.  Chaos is quite a bit rougher with the style, and is also rougher with the violence (which is sickening at times, and ultimately most gratuitous).  It’s a dark and brutal film that holds up a thin veil of a message, trying to tell the audience that you really shouldn’t let your beloved teenagers run free on their own without telling anyone where they are.  It might have all been more effective if the film actually had a story, and wasn’t all that trashy and tasteless.

Entertainment:  Average | Story:  Marginal | Film:  Awful | Resonance:  Very Low
--------------------
43:  Titanic II
I always thought that a sequel for Titanic was meant to be a joke.  Because, you know, the ship sank! Well, leave it to the Sci-Fi channel (still refuse to call it “Sy-Fy”) to take the joke seriously and produce this low-budget affair.  It involves a modern ship called the Titanic which unsurprisingly undergoes a disaster.  Entertaining, more or less, but not particularly good or memorable.

Entertainment:  Average | Story:  Poor | Film:  Awful | Resonance:  Very Low
--------------------
42:  Warbus II
The wheels on the bus go round and round...
I haven’t even seen Warbus I.  Ah well, this sequel does have a few entertaining war scenes, and once they bust out the actual warbus, it is quite novel.  Still, I really couldn’t feel much for the story or characters, and the film looks cheap.

Entertainment:  Average | Story:  Poor | Film:  Awful | Resonance:  Very Low
--------------------
41:  The Omen IV:  The Awakening
Here, they attempted to generate the drama of the Antichrist’s birth from a little girl’s point of view.  The result isn’t particularly thrilling.  It didn’t make for a very good story.  It wasn’t even well-made at all.  And after all this time, I’ve forgotten most of it.  Stick with the original instead.

Entertainment:  Average | Story:  Very Poor | Film:  Quite Poor | Resonance:  None
--------------------
40:  The Specialist
Don’t remember much about this generic action picture either.  All I know is that Sharon Stone and Sylvester Stallone are in it, shooting people, stopping bombs from blowing up, and stuff.  It was a dull story and a dull film altogether.

Entertainment:  Poor | Story:  Poor | Film:  Poor | Resonance:  None
--------------------

No comments:

Post a Comment