Despite the box office records that were broken in 2009, no one can deny that the lack of quality films was universally felt. Sure there were good movies, some of them dazzling too, but in general they either didn’t live up to their hype or were outright disappointing. As for bad films, boy, did we see a lot of those! Below you will find a list of what we consider the worst of the year. Some of them are in this list because even though we were excited about them, the final product left us cold, while others were just plain friggin’ bad, and should never have been made!
#10: Sherlock Holmes
You know that feeling when there’s someone in the audience who keeps announcing to the world what next to expect from a scene in a movie? That irritating annoyance building into anger as the movie progresses? He then laughs loudly when what he predicted does happen? That most annoying member in the cinema, in this particular case, was the movie itself. Robert Downey Jr. and Guy Ritchie transformed Doyle’s suave and intelligent Sherlock Holmes into a filthy know-it-all rascal with a faux English twang unable to get over his love for Jude Law’s bum. The movie further suffered from the hammed-up theatricality of Mark Strong’s Illusionist-inspired Lord Blackwood. With Sherlock Holmes, Guy Ritchie seemed to have one intention: to make the world more mediocre.
#9: Angel and Demons
A very long, very boring wild goose chase. Peppered with theological mumbo-jumbo and conspiracy theory fluff, this stuff should have been fun like the Indiana Jones films, but was instead stuffy and uptight. Blame not just director Ron Howard for the ponderous serving (so generic you could almost smell the packaging the film came out of) but also the writers of this mess. Buried under endless layers of exposition was dialogue that sounded like meaningless trivia tied together with moments of extreme sensationalism (Pope dying, Vatican bomb threat etc). Bland, mechanical and sedating, the film took what once would have be considered simplistic, summer movie fun to new ridiculous lows.
#8: Funny People
The unfunny Funny People continued talentless uber hack Judd Apatow’s attempt at pretending to be a director (i.e. rolling the camera while he nibbled on some breakfast in his trailer and let his actors “improvise the script”). If there is anything worse than a disease-of-the-week movie, its a disease-of-the-week movie masking itself as humane tragicomedy. Apatow regular Seth Rogen teamed up with Adam Sandler, as stand up comedians (honestly, not a single one of their routines tickled our ribs) who go on a journey of self-discovery. The only good thing about the film, Eric Bana playing his badass native self, couldn’t save how lifeless everything felt. Apatow can now go back to TV.
#7: Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
Frankly, we don’t even remember Underworld 3 that well – that’s how totally pointless and ultimately dull this offering was. In an uninspiring, overused movie franchise cliche, this film was presented as a prequel to the drama that took place thus far in the previous two Underworld films. Vampires enslave werewolves, one of them being the more superior race, but the vampire lord’s daughter, a super strong and sexy female, had the hots for a werewolf – but because they were from different clans, their love became unacceptable, or something like that. A few underwhelming fights here and there, and then it suddenly dawned upon us – the movie had ended and we had wasted our time completely.
#6: My Bloody Valentine 3D/ Final Destination 3D
3D really took off in 2009, a technology that historically was found fitting for horror films. Which is why it seemed natural, dare we say, exciting to see cheesy, over-the-top kills on the big screen. Alas, the two 3D horror films that we did get in 2009 were just plain appalling. Both stories didn’t make sense even by slasher horror standards (especially My Bloody Valentine – what was up with that ending?), but more unforgivable was the fact that both film were derivative, lacked imagination, had awful actors and not in a sincere, B-movie campy way either. Making us choose the worst between the two would be like having to choose between getting your head chopped off by a flying axe or by a flying spinning wheel.
#5: The Spirit/ Watchmen
Frank Miller is a legend in the comic book world. The Spirit was realized for big screen by the same mind (based on artist Will Eisner’s original comic series). Miller, who we always knew as a writer of brilliant graphic novels, cannot direct; he proved himself utterly incapable of translating the conceptual ideas behind the book to the format of narrative cinema. The Spirit was a mishmash of technology and celebrities hungry to immerse themselves into pop culture. Wanting to be cool, there was a sad desperation in its longing to be the next Sin City, which at least had the reputation of becoming funny after several rounds of beer. For a film with the word ‘spirit’ in its title, there was a devastating irony in its failure!
Watchmen was a failure on another level. It was over-hyped, preceded by controversy, and everybody expected it to fail, which it did. Alan Moore’s graphic novel of the same name is considered one of the greatest book (and not just comic) of all time, but always deemed unadaptable, and perhaps it should have been left that way. It might seem unfair to equate The Spirit, which was utter rubbish, with Watchmen, which was colossal disappointment, but everything boils down to potential. No one expected anything from Frank Miller as the director of The Spirit so it was easy to dismiss it; this was not true of Zack Snyder’s helming Watchmen, which turned out to be a cartoonish imitation of the greatly significant themes from Alan Moore’s seminal work.
#4: X–Men Origin: Wolverine
The graphic novel “Weapon X” is considered one of the most brutal, bloody and imaginative origins of any mainstream comic book super-hero. Adapting this book into a child friendly, PG-13 movie was a mistake. Merging the character of Weapon XI with Deadpool was outrageous. To top it off though, nothing could be more unforgivable, in a movie about fictional superheroes no less, than mediocre special effects. Crammed with many unnecessary blink-and-you’ll miss cameos from the X-men comics, the movie reached appalling heights of gaudiness with an over-the-top, superficial, climactic battle that was probably conceived by (and possibly for) 7-year olds. If Hugh Jackman’s consistent performance were not complemented by Liev Schreiber’s menacing Sabretooth, X-Men Origins: Wolverine would be relegated to the worst of the franchise (below even the dismal X-Men: The Last Stand), something it managed to avoid, just barely.
#3: Paul Blart Mall Cop
Have you ever been to a mall? Have you ever seen the security guards there? If so, then watching them do mundane things would probably be more amusing than watching this Kevin James starer. The movie lacked in comedy, a compelling storyline, decent performances, music, and every area of movie making. It didn’t surprise us that the movie was so dumbed down - it was a Happy Madison production after all, made with the lowbrow American moviegoer in mind. If you wanted a movie about security guards at mall, you were better off watching the underrated black comedy Observe and Report.
#2: Knowing
We here at WM pride ourselves opposing popular critical opinion, being the minority at hating a loved film or loving a hated film. With Knowing, we were comfortably with the masses. The minority in this case was uber-famous critic Roger Ebert who gave it four stars and later wrote an article wondering why other critics reacted so negatively. Well, Roger, since you asked: the script, direction, CGI effects, and of course Nicholas Cage’s overzealous bad acting could only be described with a four lettered word which starts with S and rhymes with HIT. Not just your normal, popcorn fun type of S**T, but the stinking, freshly defecated, thrown at your face kind.
#1: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
The success of the first Transformers movie fooled the masses into visiting cineplexes a second time with the promise of watching more cool robots smashing each other up in an orgy of awesome CGI fights. While the first film was mindless, silly fun, this one was just plain silly. What went wrong? Michael Bay’s career as a director was never centered around good writing or coherent stories, instead he always allowed himself to cater to the A.D.D side of the adult male psyche, the part that appreciates action scenes, huge explosions, wisecracking jokes et al. This trait served him well many times in the past, but not with this film. Blame it on a stretched runtime of over 2 and a 1/2 hrs, a messy and convoluted plot that didn’t make much sense, or better yet, blame the greedy studios and its hired director. Anyway you look at it the result was a loud boring carnage. The 7 Razzie noninations (including Worst picture of the year) are truly deserved.
Dishonorable Mentions (in alphabetical order):
2012
Dance Flick
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Copra
The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3
Wendy and Lucy
Films We Never Saw But Know Are Bad, Really Fucking Bad:
All About Steve
G-Force
Love Happens
New Moon
Old Dogs
Pink Panther 2
Street Fighter: Legend of Chun Li
The Ugly Truth
Excellent list, keep up the good work guys