Appetite for Deconstruction

Inspired by the craptacular Tourist movie with Johnny Depp and Angelina Joile, I’m starting my 2010 wrap-up listmania with the worst films of the year.

Granted, I’ll admit this list is far from complete. I’m sure there are some real bottom of the barrel clunkers out there that I had the good sense to simply avoid. Of approximately 45 movies I’ve seen this year, here are the ones I personally found most cringe-worthy.

10. Shutter Island (D)

What I said at the time: Shutter Island feels like a bad M. Night Shyamalan movie with a really great cinematographer… the fact is that the movie is so heavy handed that you can see the plot “twists” coming from minute three. It also presents itself with such a bloated sense of self importance that you roll your eyes more than once (e.g., the laughably bombastic score, the downright silly plot contrivances, and the overacting on behalf of some – including Mr. All Time Overrated Himself, Ben Kingsley).

I was left to wonder what this film would’ve been like with a grittier filmmaker who would reduce the spectacle and focus on the character development/devolvement. Because I think someone like Darren Aronofsky (and a lesser known star) knocks this one for a ground rule double at the very least.

Postscript: Hmmm, Aronofsky did make his own twisty film, and it rocked. And looking back, while Shutter Island seems a small notch above some of the other dreck on this list, it still was a major disappointment.

Full review here.

9. The A-Team (D)

What I said at the time: Remember when you were kids and you used to get together with your friends and pretend you were characters from your favorite TV show or movie? Me, for example… I liked to pretend I was Buck Rodgers (he of the 25th Century). You’d make up your own loose plots – they didn’t really matter, so long as you and your friends ran around shooting at each other and pretending stuff exploded.

Well, that’s pretty much the A-Team… a game of dress up with some A listers (Liam Neeson, Jessica Biel and Bradley Cooper) and dead ringers (the UFC’s Quintin “Rampage” Jackson, who could be Mr. T’s first cousin). It hardly matters what the movie is about, so long as you know that it follows the 15-second opening narration from the original series.

Between the escape from a blown-up plane via an on-board tank (seriously) and an ending that rips off Pixar’s “Monsters Inc.” (seriously), The A-Team is way too heavy on the mindless and not enough on the fun for even the goofiest of summer movie fare.

Postscript: I can barely remember this movie now. That’s probably a good thing.

Full review here.

8. Get Him to the Greek (D+)

What I said at the time:  “Get Him to the Greek” reminded me a lot of “I Love You, Man” (and, no, that’s not a good thing)… There are actually a few funny moments tucked away in the corners of Greek, especially when Brand (wildly uneven, but certainly the best thing in the movie by far) is allowed to downshift into mellow, dry throwaway lines (much like he did in Sarah Marshall). You don’t laugh, but you smile… and that’s more than I did throughout the rest of the movie.

The movie was written and directed by Nicholas Stoller, who is clearly missing his writing partner from the “original,” Jason Siegel. As a result, the movie is too silly and too desperate.

Postscript: Yeah, I know I orignially rated this one a little higher than the movies preceding it on this list. But in retrospect, it should’ve been a D and not a D+.

Full review here.

7. A Nightmare on Elm Street (D)

What I said at the time: While not a shot-for-shot remake like van Sant’s crapfest, the rebooted Elm Street offers little more than a retread of the 1984 original. At least Rob Zombie’s Halloween re-do tried to forge its own identity via Michael’s backstory. Here’s we get the same stuff: teens on No-Doze, trying to stave off burned up child molester-turned-serial killer from murdering them in their dreams.

The problem is, [it's all so] boring. Instead of going all Michel Gondry, each nightmare inexpicably becomes a repeat of the last, with the teens being led back to the boiler room where Freddy died. There’s no creativity, no element of surprise. Just an inevitable one liner and a claw to the chest.

Postscript: One of those movies that wasn’t so much bad as it was painfully boring. And when it comes to horror movies, that’s the biggest cardinal sin of all.  

Full review here.

6. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest (D)

What I said at the time: And thus concludes the “Girl” trilogy, based on the Über-popular  Stieg Larsson book series, which started with a bang and ended with… well… silence.

Be warned: it’s an ass numbing 148 minutes with few moments of action or intrigue.

While David Fincher is going to have a rough go of it replacing the fantastic Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth (in his upcoming U.S. remakes), at least he should be able to churn out something better than this crappy finale.

Postscript: I was a big fan of  the books… but in looking back, I realize how ridiculous they were. The plot gets so over-the-top ridiculous by the third book, there’s almost no way you can make a quality movie out of it. Good luck, Finchy. 

Full review here.

5. The Lovely Bones (D)

What I said at the time:  It’s odd to me that Jackson strayed so far from his dark movie roots (beginning his career as a horror guy). This could’ve been a gritty, errie film – where Susie’s own need to

reconcile what happened to her keeps her rooted in the “in-between.” It could’ve brought the house down in tears watching a family collapse under the weight of the tragedy. But instead, every time you feel yourself wondering how you’d be able to find the strength to so much as get out of bed in the morning if this were to happen to one of your own, Jackson flips the switch back to the surreal and nonsensical Day-Glo land, watching Susie frolic in the fields with other children (who also turn out to be victims of the same serial killer. It’s just weird, dude.

Postscript: Okay, here’s where we start to get into the really abysmal stuff for this year.  These are the ones (starting with Bones) that you need to stay away from at all costs.

Full review here.

4. Devil (D-)

What I said at the time:  At this point, M. Night Shyamalan has become the Kevin Smith of thriller movies: Still living off the fact that his first two movies were low-budget, out-of-nowhere hits (Sixth Sense and Unbreakable for Night; Clerks and Chasing Amy for Smith). His movies (he produced and provided the story for this) still inexplicably getting greenlit despite a long list of galactically stupid films.

Here, his anti-Midas touch is all over Devil, a moronic waste of time.

Postscript: Yup… that pretty much sums it up.

Full review here.

 3. Jonah Hex (F)

 What I said at the time: I think we can officially put the “kiss of death” tag on Megan Fox, now that her past three movies includes “Transformers 2,” the abominable “Jennifer’s Body,” and now the even abominabler “Jonah Hex.” Megan, when you and Lindsay Lohan finally cave and decide to do soft core girl-on-girl movies for Cinemax, let me know, okay?

Postscript: I just re-read my review and, frankly, there’s no way to sum up just how jaw-droppingly bad this movie was. The only thing keeping it from passing The Tourist for the #2 spot was that it featured a Mortal Combat-esque mutant CHUD who drips acid on people when he fights. Sweeeet.

Full review here.

2. The Tourist (F)

 What I said at the time: Given the fact that “The Lives of Others” was such an intimate, tense movie, it’s beyond disappointing that [von Donnersmarck] churns out such a blasé piece of crap.

The highlight of The Tourist was when I had to go to the bathroom and “Bloodsport” was playing on the TV above the bar in the lobby. That say enough for you?

Postscript: This feedback was is pretty fresh, considering I just wrote the review right before taking on this article. So not much I can pile on here.

Full review here.

1. Just Wright (F-)

 What I said at the time: Just Wright is cliche-ridden. It is horribly edited. The music sucks. The basketball scenes are ludicrous (every play results in either a wide open dunk or a 10 foot jumper). The actors have no chemistry. And I am 98% sure this movie was shot without a script. An outline, maybe… but not a script.

I’d like to take this moment to apologize to The Last House on the Left, Jennifer’s Body, Bruno and Halloween II… I didn’t realize what an F was until I saw this. Well, since I don’t feel like going back and changing each of those, I’m issuing an unprecedented rating for this one.

Postscript: Yes, it is risky “inventing” a new rating. I mean, what happens if I encounter a movie that’s worse than this – what grade would that get? F-double minus? G+? To be honest, I’m not all that worried. This movie sucked to a depth I can’t imagine few others sinking to.

Full review here.

Did I miss anything? Feel free to post your own scathing suggestions below.

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