By Gabriel “Big Gabe” Alcantara
On April 1st, most people like to play April Fool’s jokes by playing pranks or saying things that aren’t true just for laughs. On this April Fool’s Day, I’m not going play any pranks or say anything that’s not true. I’m simply going to do something completely foolish. I’m gonna post my late, irrelevant Worst of 2012 list. As I clicked on this saved document on my computer because I knew I’d have to revised a few things from this article, I realized that I wrote this back IN FEBRUARY!!! I never poster it because I wanted to post my best of list first, which I just barely did yesterday on Easter Sunday. I tell ya, I am the world’s biggest procrastination. I’m gonna be late to my own funeral. I know it’s far too late to talk about these films and others have put most of these films on their worst of lists already but I don’t care, I need to get these films out of my system. So please, indulge me.
Ah, 2012. While some people were worried about the Apocalypse, I was more concerned about the cinematic shit that was going to plague the movie theater. Now even though I didn’t believe for a second… well, maybe a few micro seconds, that all life on this earth was going to end, I did begin to think about how precious life is and how limited in time we are. You see, I’m the type of guy who watches as many films as possible. I especially try to watch most of the releases of a single year, good or bad. However, it was the thought of being short on time that got me thinking that I should try to avoid bad films when ever possible. So I kinda did. There were certain films I completely and willingly avoided. I even made a video about those films I refused to see.
Oh, look. That video just so happens to be right here, ha, ha, ha.
However, there were films I did not avoid and to be quite honest, I’m glad I saw the following films on this list, for the most part. I’ll be honest, I live for this shit. I love ranting on bad films. I get off on it. I won’t rant too hard though because for most of these films, I knew what I was getting into. Also, I am happy to say that none of my money was spent on these films. I feel that the people who deserve to rant the most are those who lost money seeing these films. Although, I did see some of these films through methods that some people would find inappropriate, I did see them in great to excellent quality so none of the directors’ “visions” were compromised. Hey, being a man on a small budget, I gotta do what I gotta do.
So anyway, without further ado… let’s get to these bitches.
First, I gotta go with some dishonorable mentions.
Fire With Fire and Freelancers
Chances are, you haven’t heard of these first two films. That’s because Freelancers, which stars Robert De Niro, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and Forrest Whitaker, got an extremely limited release the week before it was put out on DVD and Blu-Ray while Fire with Fire, which stars Josh Duhamel, Rosario Dawson, Bruce Willis and has a cameo by 50 Cent, was so bad, it went straight to DVD. Freelancers deals with a typical, ultra cliched, highly predictable police corruption tale and Fire is about a firefighter (Duhamel) who witnesses a murder and enters the Witness Protection program. After he and the agent (Dawson) who is assigned to protect him and has also fallen in love with him are attacked by the killer’s organization, he being inexperienced, goes on a manhunt for the killer. Both films are so poorly written, you’d think they were written by junior high school students who listen to an abundance of Gangsta Rap and played too much Grand Theft Auto. Add some terrible directing, highly implausible moments from both films and phoned in performances from all cast members (except 50 Cent because he can’t act worth a damn anyway) and you have two of the dumbest films I wasted my time with in 2012. Matter of fact, why am I even talking about these mo fo’s? They’re no even major releases, let’s move on.
Premium Rush
Quite a few people like this one and it even has a “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes but I thought this movies was whack. Although entertaining to some degree, the story was weak and dull to me, I thought it was a waste of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s talents and Michael Shannon as the villain was just plain annoying. And talk about anti-climactic, sheesh!
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2
Of course! What’s a guy’s worst of list without a Twilight film, right? Let me first say that I didn’t hate this film and despite all the bad acting, terrible effects (CG Baby, AAAHHH!!!), and all the regular things that make a Twilight film a Twilight film, I found this one to be more entertaining than the previous films. What added to a somewhat fun experience was probably due to the fact that I was giggling throughout the film in the theater, which is a small miracle that I didn’t overdue it and get myself either kicked out or in a fight. What made me so angry about the film however, was the big “F you” ending which I know I’m not alone on. I found its bait and switch ending very insulting and so should any Twi-Hard. Obviously, they defend it because anything Twilight is magical. Whatever.
Okay, now let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. Let’s talk about the reeeally terrible movies that somehow some dimwitted producers convinced naive studios to give the greenlight to. Here are my official pics for 2012’s worst films.
10. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and Resident Evil: Retribution
Yes, a tie. Why? Because in my opinion, these films have so much in common, it’s pathetic. Both are sequels that no one wanted, they both a wasted millions of dollars and most of the effects look cheap and finally, both films are so ridiculously bad, it seems like all the producers involved just said “Fuck it. Let’s make the dumbest possible sequels that we can make just to piss people off”. Well, I didn’t get pissed off. In fact, I wanted to see these films because I knew they would both be laughably bad. I laughed so hard during both films, I look at them as comedies. Obviously, they fail in their normal genres, so I have to place them here on this list and the fact that they are so incredibly dumb and mindless means they deserve to go on this list.
9. Taken 2
Everyone picks on this film and for good reason. It just plain sucks. I think the first film was a very solid action movie but I never fell in love with it like most people. The idea of this sequel existing is redundant. Everything was solved in the first film with no need to continue the story. I never want to watch an action movie and think about a random henchman’s family crying over his well deserved death. This film forces that on you. Having the families of a bunch of dead henchman seek revenge on the well trained killer who wiped them out may not seem like a bad premise for an action movie but this film sure as hell doesn’t utilize any common sense or skillful storytelling methods what so ever. Liam Nesson looks like he’s running around after taking Prozac because he seems so out of it. The action is so unbelievably poor. Terribly shot and frantically directed. There’s a scene where it takes around several different angles to show one man’s neck being snapped. That just shows how indecisive the director and editors are.
8. Red Tails
In 1995, HBO made a low budget film called The Tuskegee Airman starring Laurence Fishburne and Cuba Gooding Jr. It brilliantly showcased the trails and tribulations African-American pilots faced during World War II by focusing on its courageous characters, great performances and showing plenty of heart. This big budget, George Lucas produced mess seemed to focus more on flashy although admittedly impressive special effects and action sequences. The acting, the pacing, the score, the storytelling, all play out like a bad TV movie. They even try to cram in a useless inter-racial love story that you could give a damn about. The story of the Tuskegee Airmen is something that deserves to be told again and again but this film is so bad, it’s almost a disservice to those brave men who fought for their honor and country.
7. Three Stooges
Oh, how I hate myself for watching this movie. I’ve never been a big 3 Stooges fan, I don’t like slapstick comedy, why the fuck did I watch this? It was out of pure boredom, I can assure you. I’ll admit I chuckled a few times, watching Sofia Vergara’s sexy ass was a plus, seeing the Jersey Shore cast get smacked around was nice and the actors playing the Stooges did very well recreating those characters, but this film is so stupid. This type of comedy doesn’t work for this day and age. Plus, what sick son of a bitch honestly finds it funny when the Stooges pick up new born babies at a hospital nursery and squirts piss out of them to wet one another? Shameful.
6. The Woman in Black
My problems with this movie were it’s just plain boring and the ending made me feel like I wasted my time. I honestly don’t know what else to say about this film, I can barely remember any of it. I guess I should be grateful for that.
5. What to Expect When You’re Expecting
I did not enjoy this movie at all. It wasn’t funny and it featured too many story lines about expecting couples for me to care about. Matter of fact, I don’t think I cared about any of them because the characters were all poorly written as were all of the stupid situations and dialogue in this movie. It catered too much to the female audience which makes this a missed opportunity. This could have been a good film and both sexes could of enjoyed and learned something from it but it’s too glossy, too safe and feels like a shallow product.
4. The Babymakers
Another bad movie that involves babies, what the hell? There is one reason why I watched this movie: Olivia Munn. Not only do I think she’s incredibly sexy but I think she’s kinda funny too. Oddly enough, she plays a more serious role which does allow her to show that she can act but all of her sexiness and talents are wasted in this unfunny, overly raunchy crapfest. The film is about a man who is shooting blanks and can’t get his wife (Munn) pregnant. He then plots to steal some of his own sperm he donated to a sperm bank a long time ago after learning it’s successfully impregnated other women. Yup, it’s as gross and stupid as it sounds. Grosser, in fact. When you’re sitting in your chair watching a fat guy slip and slide over spilled sperm, you realize just how tasteless some films can be. With that, I’m just going to move on and try very, very hard to forget I ever witnessed a scene as gross and unnecessary as that.
3. Piranha 3DD
Wow, I mean… just, wow. And that’s not an enthusiastic “wow”, just so you know, it’s a “how could they make something so terribly tasteless, offensive and stupid?” type of “wow”. Goddamn, I can’t believe what a horrible film this was. The last Piranha film was not that great but at least they captured the correct tone of a gratuitous B horror movie. This shit got everything about filmmaking WRONG. Okay, yes, I laughed at David Hasselhoff as he parodied himself and Christopher Lloyd’s cameo was gleefully over the top but everything else about this cinematic cesspool pissed me off because they had no real direction or idea of what tone they wanted for this film. Everything is excessive to the max, including the nudity. There was so much gratuitous nudity that I, as a man who loves female nudity just as much as the next heterosexual male, felt uncomfortable. However, the real thing that makes me hate this film so goddamn much is a child has his head decapitated by one of the piranhas. I can’t stand violence towards kids in films. There must be one hell of a reason why you’d have a child die in a film. It better result in some incredibly intense storytelling. But in this film, it’s offensively unnecessary and to reeeeally jab the nail into the dome, they keep panning the camera back to the decapitated corpse repeatedly. Fuck this movie in its hollow, shameful ass!
Now Piranha 3DD should have been the number one film on this list. Most people have it ranked at their number one spot. However, I was stupid enough to watch the next two films. So how could these next two films be worse than the last piece of shit film I mentioned? Let’s get to it.
2. LOL
This is what I get for trying to be open minded, for trying to give Miley Cyrus the benefit of the doubt. Let me just say this now… I am done watching her attempt acting. She is horrible and useless period. The movie itself is deplorable. It’s a remake to a French film that I hope isn’t as terrible as this film. I am going to use a part of my brief review I wrote on RottenTomatoes.com because what I wrote on there says it all.
It is a shallow, lifeless, melodramatic mess that focuses more on social networking, lies and cliches rather than actually teaching something to the teenaged demographic it’s aimed towards. Miley Cyrus seems completely soulless, there are no likable characters, it’s poorly written and it pretty much encourages teen sexuality.
I really have nothing more to add than that. The only redeeming quality this film has is Demi Moore gets to slap Miley’s Cyrus in the face.
1. A Thousand Words
I could use a thousand unflattering words towards this insufferable Eddie Murphy vehicle but it wouldn’t be worth my time. This film was shot four years prior to its release. It remained in cinematic limbo because of the whole separation of DreamWorks Pictures from Paramount and Viacom causing most of the jokes to be dated. Not that it matters much because there is nothing funny about this film anyway. The film involves Murphy’s character who basically smooth talks his way through life and becomes linked to a magical tree. Every word he says causes a leaf to fall. Naturally, when all the leaves fall, the tree will die and so will he. So that means this film takes away Murphy’s comedic asset: his mouth. Murphy is know for being a fast and loud talker. What good does it do to take away his schtick? No good, that’s the answer. This film is awful, lacks any and all common sense and should of never made its way off the dusty shelve it came from. They even try to give you a message at the end that’s been told many times before. To have to sit through this garbage just to get a message, is totally not worth it. I have two words I do want to use on this film and the producers who made it happen… Fuck you!
Whew, that felt good. Sorry for being vulgar but films like the previous mentioned have that affect on me. No matter, it’s all over now. I feel cleansed. Time to move on and watch the films of 2013. No doubt, I’ll be back with at least 10 more bad films to rant about next year. I’ll try to be earlier though. No promises.
Any thoughts? Want to blow off some steam about the worst films you saw last year? If so, please do so in the comment section below. Also, check out my Best of list right here.
