The 15 Worst Movies of 2011
It is a sad fact that my life as an amateur movie reviewers is not all picnics in a field of daisies day after day. I enjoy movies, and there are definitely times when I think I might have found my calling. However, there are days when watching movies feels more like a job than you would imagine it would, and that job somehow involves getting repeatedly kicked in the groin.
Thus we come to the movies that made me wish I had opted to start a blog reviewing the many different manhole covers I encounter during my daily life. These are the films that make you wonder if the production office is located under a spiders web of power lines and the producers all have a healthy paint chip salad for lunch while watching Keeping up with the Kardasians and throwing billiard balls at each others heads during commercial breaks. The movies where the real question is if the writers, directors, and actors all started off brain dead or if their brains somehow died a slow, twitching death while writing, directing, or acting in these films.
I originally was going to only do the 10 worst, but as I filtered down my list, cutting out movies that almost made it but had some camp redeeming qualities like Drive Angry or Twilight ,I realized I had an obligation to warn you people what to avoid. It’s like if I were moping up a floor I would be responsible to put up a wet floor sign, although in this case I was not at all responsible for any of this production.
15. What’s Your Number?-Anna Faris tries to convince the world she is at the same time a sexual being and a prude, and more or less botches it. This is one of those romance stories that makes you wonder if the writers have ever actually dated someone in their lives.
14. Johnny English Reborn-Ever wonder what a hamburger would be like if you held the meat, bun, cheese, and all the condiments? Basically leaving you with a wrapper? That’s pretty much what Johnny English is. A comedy movie, hold the comedy.
13. The Three Musketeers-This movie accomplishes the remarkable in keeping as close to the original story as possible while diverging as far from the original story as humanly possible, all at the same time. It’s like if you filmed an episode of Star Trek but made the bridge of the Enterprise look like an Apple Store (oh, wait, that was done. Suck it J.J. Abrams). Maybe it would be more like if you were to film Romeo and Juliet scene for scene with the correct language but put it on the set of Outland (geek cred for anyone who saw that in the theater). Also, completely worthless 3D.
12. Season of the Witch–I almost stuck Drive Angry in here as well, but realized there were some parts of that movie that I found entertaining in an extremely Americana way, thus saving Nicholas Cage the ignominy of having two films in my Worst of 2011 list (that honor is about to be visited upon Ryan Reynolds). Season of the Witch is that special kind of film that leaves you wondering if at any time during the production did the director, writer, producer, or studio executives actually sit down and watch the film? Dopey, dumb movie but perfectly adequate for Nick Cage to display his Terminator-like acting style.
11. The Hangover Part II-I will say this is one of the movies that really caught me by surprise last year, in that I was surprised they bothered to make it. If there was ever a film that did not call out for a sequel it’s the Hangover. When I say sequel, however, I am really saying clone, as this movie is pretty much scene for scene the same movie without the slightest effort at originality other than putting it in Thailand. However, I think some grease was left in the cloning tube as this movie is not remotely funny like the original. Take the Hangover and drain it of pretty much everything that made it fun and you will get this film.
10. The Green Hornet–A super hero should never be the comedy relief. That’s the sidekicks job. Also, Seth Rogan should never star in a PG-13 movie that does not in some way involve him smoking pot. It’s what he’s good at, and honestly it’s what he should stick to.
9. Abduction–We are now at the point where I want to make all these films number 1, and have to start rating them based on which movies made me want to murder the projectionist the least. Abduction sucked on many levels, but if I try to remember that it was made for teeny bopper morons and can ignore the fact that it actually features no abduction whatsoever (or anything else that might be mistaken for a plot) then I suppose it goes to simply stomach turning. If you like wolf boys abs this movie might do something for you.
8. Green Lantern–If I were doing my list of top 10 most disappointing movies of 2011 this film would get numbers 1 through number 7, with Green Lantern at number 8, The Immortals at number 9, and Columbiana at number 10. As I am doing just general badness this one gets number 8, but on a different day it could qualify for any of the top 10 slots. Too much humans (especially Ryan Reynolds), not enough aliens. Action that was criminally short and stupid. Characters Mother Theresa would be OK seeing die. CGI used to cover up massive holes in the plot and direction like a fresh coat of paint on a pickup truck dredged up from a lake after 10 years. Green Lantern image courtesy of the Comic Book T-Shirt category.
7. The Zookeeper–There aren’t a lot of movies that make me want to slowly pick all the skin off my face, but this is one of them. Dumb story, dumb dialog, dumb physical humor, dumb movie. Plus it’s painfully predicable.
6. One Day–If you feel like your life is OK but are somehow motivated to find the right excuse to kill yourself, this movie will push you over the edge. Also, for the first 2/3rds of the movie you will hate every character in the film with the burning passion of 10,000 suns. Feel free to laugh at Anne Hathaways on and off English accent, but that is about the only entertainment you are going to get.
5. The Change Up-Ryan Reynolds rates special acknowledgement for piloting two films into my Top 10. The only thing this film really has going for it is that it is rated R. Otherwise it is neither funny or entertaining. In fact, I think the desire to end up rated R is what caused this movie to suck so badly. In my minds eye I see the director waking up late at night in a cold sweat with the burning question “What if it’s not raunchy enough for rated R yet? What if we end up with PG-13??”. He pulls out a pad of paper and writes down the next raunchiest thing he can think of, leading us to the inevitable conclusion: babies excreting into daddy’s mouth.
4. New Years Eve–What’s worse than a movie based on a really dumb romantic concept? How about a movie based on 20 different really dumb romantic concepts? I guess I could say that New Years Eve is proof that lightning doesn’t strike twice. This movie was like if you swallowed 20 different colors of paint one at a time and then vomited them all over a canvas to see what kind of picture you ended up with. I often find myself wishing I were in a different theater (or unconscious) during the watching of some of these movies, but this time I found myself really praying that I had walked into the wrong movie and was watching an extended introduction for Cloverfield.
3. Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star–There isn’t enough alcohol on the planet to make this movie anything other than cringe-worthy. If you ever wanted to lose all desire to have sex with any human, man or woman, again in your life, then see this film. As for the “humor” of this film I think I can sum it up nicely with the following statement: THE MOVIE IS CALLED BUCKY LARSON AND IT STARS A GUY WITH HUGE BUCK TEETH!
2. Tree of Life-I know I am probably ruining what little credibility I have by calling this film the second worst movie made in 2011, but it is really a steaming pile of crap. I know there are people who call this an amazing film, but I say they are all pretentious asses. There is very little of artistic merit in this film, and what is left is some of the most boring cinema in the history of movies. I think you could have the same impact on the audience with 1/3 of the work if you just had the projectionist pause the film every 10 seconds for 20 seconds. The film watches like a child’s diorama made with a Little People play set and some plastic dinosaurs.
1. Jack and Jill–When I look back on 2011, the movie I wish I could find a memory enema for the most has to be this failed Adam Sandler monstrosity. Not even Al Pacino could save this film from contaminating the higher brain functions of the few of us unfortunate enough to watch it. It’s like Adam Sandler is an evil scientist with a plan to conquer the world, and step one is to make the worst movie in cinema history. I think the only way he could have made this movie experience worse is if he had hired thugs to wait outside the theater to beat up people as they left. That’s kind of how it felt. However, I feel a certain amount of justice is served by the movie costing $79,000,000 to make and grossing $74,158,147 domestic (damn the foreign market for supporting bad film).
That’s it. Thanks for reading. Feel free to disagree with me via comments on here. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu or email me with ideas, suggestions, or questions at [email protected]. If I have the energy I might see a midnight showing of 21 Jump Street. It looks kind of good. Have a good day. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.