I only have 2 and they aren’t that original. And I only saw them once so I hope I remember them correctly.
#2 is Hannibal, the sequel to Silence of the Lambs. This entire movie just made no sense to me and ruined such an interesting character. Between Julianne Moore and Hannibal falling in love, the hogs trained to eat people, the weird guy in the wheelchair, and the ridiculous scene with Ray Liotta sitting there as his brain is being removed/eaten, I hated everything about this. I still regret seeing it, and don’t like Julianne Moore still because of it (that and the Lost World).
#1 is the new King Kong. I loved the original as a kid. I had it on tape and watched it many times. But this version really bothered me. There’s plenty not to like, such as Jack Black’s involvement or the T-Rex scene, but the absolute worst is the “romance” between Kong and the girl. I understand that in the original he shows some attachment, but I will never, never understand why they had to take that to such extremes in this remake. In the original, she is absolutely terrified of him at all times. Here, they practically start making out. They ice skate together, sign that they love each other, and she does her best to protect him from the evil men trying to save the city from this huge monster. By the end, I had a genuine fear that they would change it so she manages to save Kong from the airplanes, and they go off and are married. I truly thought that might happen.
That’s a bit weird Mk. 56. I’m with you 100% on Jack Black, and the action scenes were super-contrived CG-a-thons, to be sure. But the central relationship is what made the movie work for me.
It’s not a romance. You’re a perv! To me, it’s the bond that people can feel with animals. The connection that’s established between King Kong and Ann, which is a fantastic collaboration of animation and Naomi Watts’ acting ability, is the same connection we have with our pets. And there’s no small amount of pity there as she sees that the animal is intelligent, and in pain, and lonely.
The King Kong remake is basically playing on the same level as Old Yeller or Marley and Me, but as an adventure story.
Pearl Harbour
In the filmography of Michael Bay, I think that the Transformers and Bad Boys movies are actually “worse films”, but Pearl Harbour is the only one I would call truly unforgivable. For everything that it tries, and fails, to do, but mostly for taking an important historical tragedy and filming it like an action movie. Also, I could have lived the rest of my life without hearing Ben Affleck say the word “Japs”.
Very Bad Things
I know people who really love this movie and think it is hilarious. I was revolted. Not because I was offended, more because of the smug, smirking tone. I think Peter Berg wanted to make a black comedy a la “Shallow Grave”, but he basically films murder and obnoxious frat-boy racism using comedy-movie pacing and hopes that will be enough to make it funny. It isn’t.
The Other Sister
Tom mentioned in the podcast that he disliked A Beautiful Mind for its glib presentation of mental illness. How about using mental retardation as a modern day minstrel show? Just horrible. Plus anything with Juliette Lewis should be an automatic candidate for this list.
BTW - I’m an atheist, and I agree with xtien that Passion of The Christ was offensive - so I don’t think it’s a matter of upbringing.
Although like Kelly I did think the production values were high (as they usually are in a Mel Gibson movie), I felt that the film was very manipulative. It’s not just that it is brutal and violent, it’s that the brutality is filmed with this kind of lurid, voyeuristic quality which subtly invites you, the viewer, to enjoy and savour it…possibly as some kind of weird form of worship (ie: worshipping the suffering itself, rather than the man/God?).
But then, in addition to that, the centurions in Passion of the Christ who are performing the violence are portrayed as such over-the-top, mustache-twisting villains that you want to see them receive their comeuppance in spite of what Jesus’ actions towards them are (forgiveness). It was a total clash between story and style. The movie wanted to have its cake and eat it too, which pissed me off.
I’m with MattKeil on Transformers 2 and X-Men 3. Neither should have ever been committed to film. Transformers 2 is the worse movie, but X-Men 3 is more enraging because Transformers 1 wasn’t exactly great, and the first two X-Men movies got it so right.
One of my own? Blindness
A great deal of beautifully shot wallowing in misery and human degradation to no point, purpose, or redeeming value. Also, the acting is wooden and awful. I honestly cannot fathom how this movie was made by the guy who made City of God and The Constant Gardener, two of the best movies I’ve ever seen.
Ok perhaps making out is a slight exaggeration. :) But whether it’s a romance or a “connection” I completely can’t buy it. Kong is not a lovable family pet, or anything of the sort. He is a monster (in the monster-movie sense of the word) who kills other people during the movie. And Ann becomes attached to him simply because he hasn’t killed her too?
My love of the original movie is a big factor here, and it bothers me when a Hollywood remake changes what I see as fundamental aspects of a movie just because they consider it “deeper, or more meaningful” or change for the sake of change. That’s why I thought of this movie for this topic; they changed one of my favorites.
Surely you can’t include National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation? Now that I think about it, that is an excellent candidate for best depictions of parenting, both for the Griswolds, and their parents, as well.
For my other two, Jesus, there’s so many lately - can’t narrow it down: Redacted, Shooter, Lions for Lambs, Valley of Elah, Rendition, Syriana, W, Stop Loss - just wretched, irredeemable, heavy-handed and utterly disingenuous polemics for dolts. And the “documentaries” are even worse.
A week or two ago, Murawski was talking about the end of a movie being a betrayal of the audience because it trivializes all the events that came before it. I’m thinking it was Shutter Island. That is Identity’s problem, and I was absolutely furious after watching it. Don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t liking the movie before the ending, either, but it was the laziest way they could have chosen to escape from the ludicrous corner they painted themselves into.
Good call JPR – I made a thread about how Identity cheated a long time ago, that’s how much that movie pissed me off. It had so much promise and a really interesting cast, could have been so much more.
To be fair, none of those things necessarily make this a bad movie. Which is to say: it is a bad movie but not because the main character starts out as a venal, superficial cow. It’s a bad movie because she pretty much ends the film without having changed much.
‘The Sweetest Thing’, a Cameron Diaz vehicle was absolutely awful for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the oh-so-hilarious ‘Penis Song’.
I considered putting this at #1 but decided to keep the list more recent. Very Bad Things may be the most unpleasant “comedy” I have ever seen in my life. “Revolting” is indeed the best way to describe it. The girl I saw it with had nightmares about it for a couple days, even. Horribly nasty, racist, misogynist trash with nothing redeeming in it whatsoever. I was floored when I found out that there are people who love it, although I suppose I really shouldn’t be surprised by such things at this point.
I will happily back up the hate towards Very Bad Things. One of the few movies I turned off less than halfway through.
The Manchurian Candidate remake is a very good choice. I’ll happily steal that one for my own list too. Among other flaws, it completely missed that the first one was actually pretty funny and playful in a playing-it-straight way; the remake was just bland tedious by-the-numbers thriller crap. Also, it had a scene that just gobsmacked me. I’m going to go ahead and spoil it here.
Our remake’s brainwashed hero discovers a tracking device that’s implanted just under the skin in his shoulder. He digs it out in one of those scenes that such movies only insert in order to make teen and undergrad girlfriends squeal eww unconvincingly and grab at their boyfriends. But he drops it into the sink, what with his grip being slippery with all the blood. That’s not the gobsmacking part. This is that part: he despairs because dropping it in the drain means it’s GONE FOREVER! (So he has to find another one by biting it out of a fellow brainwashed POW’s shoulder.) That was the moment when I realized that there were screenwriters who had no idea that just about any modern sink’s pipes have a U bend down below that you can retrieve things like dropped wedding rings and subcutaneous tracking implants from; that to some screenwriters, basic practical plumbing is like a 2001 monolith to primitive hominids.
Ordinarily stupid oversights of practical reality like that don’t bother me, but by that point in the movie it was most akin to how you’ll forgive annoying little things from friends and family and even lesser acquaintances you generally like, but how the same annoying little things on the part of an enemy seem like justifiable grounds for violence.
To complete the stealing trifecta, I’ll pick Blues Brothers 2000 as well. Pointless, soulless, sad. It was in no way on a mission from God. It didn’t come close to ruining the original for me, though. The devil may quote scripture, but he can’t ruin it!
