The Worst Ten Movies Of 2008!
Nov 30 '08 (Updated Jan 19 '09)
The Bottom Line It has not been the best year for cinema and here are ten movies released in 2008 that you can safely avoid!
2008 might well be the year I went to the movie theater most in my entire life. I've seen more films in theaters this year than I ever have before and frankly, it's been a pretty poor year for American cinema. It hasn't been all bad; we had a summer blockbuster that actually had substance to it, a few surprise comedies and the return of Kevin Smith to the screen. But as the year winds down, I decided to take a moment to look over the year's films and I found it was much easier to come up with the bottom ten this year than to find ten films to laud.
Among other things, this year, American cinema was especially hampered by a plague of overzealous preview trailer creators who became obsessed with revealing the entire film the trailer advertised in the preview! Note to Hollywood: Fire all those people, hire whomever made the first "Watchmen" trailer! There are some people who know what they are doing: the trailer tells you nothing and it's easily the film I am most excited about seeing in 2009! But as for 2008, it's been a pretty dismal year in a lot of ways. Here are the worst of the worst (with links to my complete review of each!):
10. "The Incredible Hulk" - reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_433661578884 - This is one that improved on DVD, to be sure. Unfortunately, Edward Norton, William Hurt and Liv Tyler's acting is all wasted on some of the flattest characters seen on screen this year. Norton helped write the script which strangely equates pain with anger and presents a movie that is largely based on special effects. For sure, the Hulk effect is better than in the film's predecessor, but still too often this movie is plagued by physics that are nowhere near realistic or even visually interesting,
9. "Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull" - reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_430987841156 - I was so prepared to like this one and yet . . . The problem is not that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas created an Indiana Jones science fiction action flick or even tried to get Shia LeBeouf to act, but rather that they insulted our intelligence while doing it. Repetitive, ponderous and at times painfully dull, this Indiana Jones outing might seek to cap off OR reboot the franchise, but where it is not obvious, it's poorly assembled. One suspects Spielberg could reasonably bear a grudge now that Connery is looking like he'll come out of retirement for a new project; yes, Connery's presence in this movie could have done a lot to bring it up,
8. "Cloverfield" - reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_415053024900 - I was so excited to go see "Cloverfield" when it was released that I got a speeding ticket going to the theater. No kidding. Talk about your insult to injury! "Cloverfield" was a brilliant piece of hype by the whole J.J. Abrams machine, but it's little more than that. "Godzilla" meets "The Blair Witch Project," the first fifteen seconds of the movie ruin it for smart cinephiles and it's a shame that there is a sequel already in the works,
7. "Death Race" - reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_442126929540 - It probably comes as no surprise to those who know me to learn that I was not impressed by this movie. Prison inmates doing violent NASCAR, all I could think was "who cares?!" The acting is terrible, there character "development" is obvious and forced and the effects are not at all impressive. There is, no doubt, a target audience for this, but it ain't me, babe,
6. "The Clone Wars" - reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_441206804100 - "George Lucas, is there anything you won't screw up?!" First, those of us who were raised on "Star Wars" were asked to believe that the Force was actually microscopic life forms. Second, we were asked to believe that all of the venerable, experienced Jedi were slain by the lamest army in the galaxy before the younglings bit the dust. Now, we're expected to accept that this computer-generated schlock is supposed to be on par with the other "Star Wars" adventures?! To butcher poor e.e. cummings, there is just some excrement, I will not eat! Besides reworking the cinematic mythology to include additional Sith where there had been none before and a padawan who - let's be honest - there's no point in getting attached to and no reason in the film to become enamored with, but the entire exercise is pointless: the Cartoon Network already DID this years ago . . . it's out on DVD! As George Lucas ages, it seems he's determined to leave a legacy of being a true one-trick pony; it's too bad he keeps asking that pony to do the same trick with fewer legs each outing,
5. "You Don't Mess With The Zohan" - reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_458320547460 - Yeah, it's Adam Sandler's yearly flick with him playing an absurd character who has the ability to unleash a can of whoopass. In this case, he's an Israeli secret agent and I don't recall laughing at all during it, so it's hard to get it up to even write more,
4. "Speed Racer" - reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_429473566340 - One of two movies on this list I actually re-watched, "Speed Racer" (unlike "The Incredible Hulk," which I bumped up) took a ratings dive when I rewatched it. Why? I did not enjoy it the first time, so I got it out on DVD when it came out to see what I was missing. I fell asleep three times trying to get through it again! The characters are all flat, the plot is predictable and the color scheme is a bubble-gum color that induces narcolepsy when it is presented at great speeds. How the Wachowski Brothers got Christina Ricci, Susan Sarandon, and John Goodman to participate in this is a mystery to me, but it's probably the best work the chimp could get this year,
3. "Quarantine" - reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_447446486660 - After "Cloverfield," I had terribly low expectations for "Quarantine" if for no other reason than it took me seeing the preview once to realize that the preview showed the entire movie, including the last frames of the flick. Talk about ruining the surprise! If you see the movie poster, you've seen the movie; save yourself the hour and a half of getting there. It's not scary, not clever and everything about it is worse than in almost any other horror movie you've ever seen. I want to say more about the acting and character, but it's impossible: there is no character development and the acting mostly consists of running away from a shaking camera while screaming. Talk about your disappointments,
2. "Disaster Movie" - reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_443758775940 - From the guys who keep putting out movies in the "Scary Movie" school of making parodies by poking fun at whatever is out now and linking it together with a vague theme and a lot of anti-gay and fat jokes comes "Disaster Movie." None of the parodies in this movie illustrate any insight into the movies they are mocking, the jokes are generic and lame and the cast looks bored half the time. The participants are young people wandering around on the pretense of trying to save the world while running into mockeries of every major film released this summer. It would be clever if it weren't the same joke the same guys (including much of the same cast!) did in "Epic Movie," "Date Movie," etc.,
and the loser of the year is . . .
1. "The Love Guru" - reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_434470948484 - Mike Meyers tries to help a hockey player get back together with his wife who has been having an affair with a hockey player played by Justin Timberlake. Who gives these people millions of dollars to make these things?! "The Love Guru" is cripplingly unfunny, hinged on repetitive jokes that only the under thirteen crowd will appreciate, and made even worse by the idea that somehow all Mike Meyers has to do to be funny is show up, bug out his eyes and smile. There are some movies that are so dumb they are funny, but "The Love Guru" is just plain dumb and if Val Kilmer's political career is derailed by anything, my bet is that his participation in this utter waste of celluloid will come back to haunt him. I know, having sat through this, it still haunts me.
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