Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Lowlights of 2005

I see hundreds of movies a year and not all of them are good. Actually, most are kind of average with a small percentage being really great and a percentage being really bad. The good ones will come later—now is the time for the awful movies or performers of 2005. The fact that some of these made a lot of money is like a dagger in my heart. The first Android will be handed out to one of these films below when we get the statues delivered to the offices. Let the ridicule begin!

The Pacifier
Hands down one of the worst pieces of garbage I’ve seen this year belongs to this unfunny and unoriginal Vin Diesel comedy. Diesel comes from the Sly Stallone school of acting which often means monosyllabic grunts in place of actual lines of dialogue. The man is just an awful actor who has more screen chemistry with his biceps than he does with other actors. Everyone and everything else about The Pacifier is just second-rate moments stolen from other films and a leading candidate for the worst movie I saw in 2005.

Sahara
Sahara is a complete mess of an action film with probably the silliest, most full of nonsense story all year (I know, action films don’t have to make sense if enough stuff blows up but when you see 250 films a year—blowing up stuff is not good enough). Probably the biggest negative for Sahara to me is the worst actor in Hollywood cast in the lead. That’s right Matthew McConaughey I’m talking about you. McConaughey is so bad an actor he makes Vin Diesel seem like Robert De Niro in his heyday! McConaughey should stick to bongo playing, worrying about his hair weave and rogaine treatments and leave the acting to people with talent. Did I mention the story of Sahara is just an absurd excuse to blow stuff up? Even the great Steve Zahn can't save this disaster. Awful.

Orlando Bloom
When making the list of the worst of 2005 I quickly saw that Orlando Bloom happened to be the lead actor in two of the films so why not make him one of 2005’s worst? He deserves it for foisting two bad films like Kingdom of Heaven and Elizabethtown on us. Do teenage girls swoon at the knee regarding Bloom’s pretty boy looks? Probably, and it’s likely more than teenage girls. The problem with Bloom is that he has absolutely no screen chemistry. None. Zero. I don’t care how good-looking you are, looks have nothing to do with the mysterious quality known as “chemistry,” and Bloom is lacking in it. Bloom in Kingdom of Heaven and Elizabethtown makes weak movies even weaker by his being cast in the lead as he can't create chemistry with the romantic leads either in Eva Green and Kirsten Dunst. Any male who can't generate sparks with Eva Green must not be human. One thing that makes these two movies so disappointing and qualifiers for worst of 2005, they were made by very talented directors—Ridley Scott and Cameron Crowe. They are too talented to put out bad films like this but they both have a good excuse if they want one—Orlando Bloom.

Lord of War
While probably not the worst film of the year for me, I disliked this vile, heartless, soulless piece of satire that falls flat and is just a misguided waste of time. While I appreciate the “guns are bad” message of the film, it’s done with such a smug, sanctimonious way that it just filled me with bile while watching it. Nicolas Cage unearths a bad toupee (does he ever wear a good rug?) and pompous narration to send Lord of War into the range of one of my least liked films in years.

The Island
I actually kind of liked this in the beginning as it stole from two movies from the 1970s I love—Logan’s Run (1976) and THX 1138 (1971). Unfortunately the director was Michael Bay and anyone familiar with the name of Bay knows he likes to shoot and blow stuff up. And when I say blow stuff up, I mean blow stuff up. Bay has such a fetish for fire he should be put on wanted posters for being a pyromaniac. The Island devolves into a typical Bay film with everything that moves being shot or blown up with beautiful slow motion shots of the explosions. Jeez Bay, get help from a therapist and stop making us watch your obsessions with explosions and actually make a film with a good story that is worth spending 90 minutes of my life watching (I’m not holding my breath, Michael Bay is Michael Bay after all).



8 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's something unassailable about THE PACIFIER - anyone who walks into a Disney movie starring a beefy action star playing a commander nanny role shouldn't have been expecting any better. That said, it truly was one of the worst of 2005.

While traveling earlier this year, the three options for in-flight movies were Sahara, Love Song for Bobby Long (with Scarlet's brief semi-nudity edited out), and Miss Congeniality 2. I felt like the priest in Exorcist IV (both versions) who had to make the wretched choice of which random innocents were to be executed by the occupying forces.

Totally agree with you re: Bloom. Farley Granger had more charisma. I'm pretty sure that if elf fetishes didn't exist, he wouldn't be nearly as popular. At least Cage once ate a real cockroach for his art.

Joshua Blevins Peck said...

i hear what yr saying ragekid that i wasn't the intended audience for THE PACIFIER but i did sit through it and bad is bad. i'm not a kid anymore so i don't see a film run through the same spectre of childhood or maybe i would have liked it. i found it completely derivative and awful...but i'm not a kid.

i was reviewing the film for a paper and was there to judge it's quality as a movie--not pretend i was 9 and then judge it as a 9 year old might. granted, i wasn't comparing it to CASABLANCA or even THE INCREDIBLES, i was just hoping for a halfway decent little movie. it wasn't.

why would i think EXORCIST or BLADE RUNNER are good kids films? i think they are great movies and i did happen to see them when i was young but i wouldn't take any kid of mine to see them until they at least turn ten. ten is a good age for THE EXORCIST. ha.

Anonymous said...

If you relize that your not the intended audience for the movie then why are you reviewing it. Your opinoin in this case doesn't matter.

Joshua Blevins Peck said...

i was reviewing PACIFIER because my editor asked me to see it and give my opinion of it. key word: "my" opinion. not my 12 year old cousin's opinion of it, mine.

can you not have an opinion of a film even if you are NOT who it is directed at? i think that's kind of limiting as i think you should be able to give an opinion no matter the intended audience.

it doesn't really matter anyway, the viewing public loved it, the film made money--but my opinion stands--it was a bad movie.

Anonymous said...

O, I see its all about you. SORRY!
I hate Vin Diesel, but my grandkids loved the movie and it gave me time to spend with there grandma, if you know what I mean.

Joshua Blevins Peck said...

did you not ask "anonymous" why i was even reviewing PACIFIER? i gave you an answer. and it was my opinion so yr right, it was about "me."

question for you "anonymous": when reviewing/watching a movie, how is it NOT about the person watching (in this case me) the film--isn't it each person's personal opinion in how they see a particular movie?

good for yr grandkids that they liked it and spent time with you, i was watching it to hopefully be entertained in some way--i wasn't. but you saying yr grandkids loved it is all about "their" opinion isn't it? how is that any different than my opinion except in the fact one of us hates the movie?

Joshua Blevins Peck said...

Bob Saget might be on yr sides Raged Kid and "Anonymous" regarding me even reviewing THE PACIFIER according to this statement I just read in this month's Esquire regarding critics of his show FULL HOUSE.

Saget: FULL HOUSE was a show that was done for ten-year-olds. The critics hated it. They said terrible, terrible things about it. But it should have been reviewed by ten-year-olds. That's who it was made for. They loved it. And if they loved it, great. Why the hell does a fifty-year-old guy working at a big newspaper have to tell me I'm a piece of crap?

Replicant: FULL HOUSE is one of the worst shows ever and 100% crap. THE PACIFIER is probably not as bad as I make it out to be stacked against something as bad as FULL HOUSE.

Anonymous said...

does anyone know when full house will be available on DVD? i just love those olsen twins! i wonder if they'll do a reunion show. that would rock! wasn't superman's buddy named jimmy olsen? he wasn't very cool.