(THERE ARE NEWER STORIES BELOW. WE’RE JUST KEEPING THIS AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE FOR TODAY) It’s getting to be that time of the year again… time for us to start talking about the best and in this case, the worst movies of 2007. This year gave us some truly awful films (but surprisingly, not as many as last year) that all deserve an honored place on this mighty list.
There is a little bit of everything on this year’s “Worst of” list. Some sequel action, some comedy, some horror… but all of them celebrating sucking. So let us celebrate the suckage together as we are pleased to run down for you The Movie Blog’s 10 Worst Films of 2007.
1) SPIDER-MAN 3
There was only 1 film I was looking forward to more in 2007 than Spider-Man 3, and that was Transformers. I really liked the first Spider-Man film… and I thought Spider-Man 2 was one of the best Comic Book movies ever made. No reason to suspect anything less than brilliance for Spider-Man 3 right? RIGHT??? Wrong. Sam Raimi (who I think rules) just ran out of creative gas for this franchise and just mailed it in. Oh how creative… the bad guy is going to get at Spider-Man by kidnapping MJ and hanging her from a high place… just like they did in #2…. just like they did in #1. Emo Spidey. Raping the image of Venom. Stupid story. Needless new side characters. Dance scenes. And ultimately this movie should have been called “Spider-Man 3: MJ’s Career Troubles”, because the film spent far more time on MJ’s struggles as an actress than it did on either villain, including the one we all wanted to see more of. I could go on and on and on and on… but I’ll leave it there. Ladies and Gentlemen, The Movie Blog presents to you the worst film of 2007. Spider-Man 3.
2) THE NUMBER 23
Also high on my “anticipated films of 2007” list was this amazing looking thriller with Jim Carrey in the lead. The concept sounded so very good. Carrey himself looked like he would knock this one out of the park. The trailers and images looked fantastic… and then I saw it. Wow… just wow. The whole movie you’re just waiting for something to happen… but it never really does. Ridiculous story “twists”, major continuity problems, and just a total disregard for common sense and the intelligence of the audience. The most boring and painfully slow film of the year… and when it finally gets to the pay off at the end, it just makes it worse. I can understand why Carrey took this role. On the surface it looked like it had a lot of promise… but those promises were dirty dirty LIES (said in high pitched german female voice)!
3) THE CONDEMNED
There are certain films that should be no brainers and pretty easy to make. Zombie movies for example. Make some virus, it turns people into zombies, the zombies kill a lot of people… it’s not hard. A simple action film with “Stone Cold Steve Austin” should have been the easiest thing on the planet. Just have lots of over the top action, some witty macho one liners and a few hot chicks. It’s not classic cinema, but it would appeal to your target audience and keep them happy. Well, they screwed it up. Steve Austin should have never opened his mouth in the film, the action was sub-par, and for some reason they tried to integrate a political espionage element with the grieving wife back home sub-plot. Ouch this movie sucked.
4) SHREK 3
Another franchise I just adored. 1 was really good, 2 was hilarious, so I had high hopes for Shrek 3. Here’s the thing… if you’re going to have a comedy, then the one thing it absolutely MUST have is laughs. A weak story in a comedy can be forgiven if it has great laughs. Bad acting can be over looked if it has great laughs. Bad pacing, bad direction, bad effects, bad dialog can all be over looked if a comedy movie has great laughs. HOWEVER, you can have everything else in spades… but without the laughs the movie fails. This movie (without exaggeration) had 1 laugh that came near the end of the film. Even the kids didn’t laugh. Such a let down from such a fun franchise.
5) DADDY DAY CAMP
Hey everyone, gather around the camp fire. I’m going to tell you a story. It’s a story about a time long ago when Cuba Gooding Jr. actually had a career worth talking about. I know that sounds like a far fetched story… but it’s actually true. This guy even won an Oscar once. But then, some big bad evil agent started feeding Cuba poison apples disguised as scripts, and Cuba ate them up. But seriously, how on earth did any studio anywhere end up liking a pitch that involved a follow up to an Eddie Murphy comedy without Eddie Murphy?!?! Such an awful movie. Cuba, you’re better than this… we’ve all seen what you can do. Wake up and stop eating those damn apples.
6) BRATZ
Do you get the irony? A group of plastic teen girls who’s moral message is for young girls to “be themselves” all while trying to convince them to conform to modern popular trends. Oh yeah girls… and dress like sluts too. I’m hardly qualified to be the moral compass of America… but holy crap, if I had a daughter I’d never in a million years let her watch or be influenced by this crap. I’d rather she listen to Manson for heaven’s sake. Unlike Daddy Day Camp, I can understand why a movie like this would get the green light (having such a popular brand following, it was guaranteed to at least make back it’s money) but come on… at least PRETEND like you care about making a half decent movie. Just pretend. We’re not expecting Oscars out of it… just make it so I don’t want to scratch out my eyes when watching it.
7) ARE WE DONE YET?
Yeah, we’ve come a long way my friends from the bad ass mo’ fo’ Ice Cube from straight out of Compton. Now he a neutered wussy bad disney-esque family man comedy whore. This movie was just all kinds of horrible. Every cliche and over used formula and sight gag that could be pulled out of cold storage was used to cheese supremacy. If you’re going to do a film like this, you’ve got to at least make the family endearing… or somewhat believable. Neither were the case here with Are We Done Yet. The one good thing I can say about Are We Done Yet, is that unlike most movies today, it lived up to the potential of the trailer. Yes, it was one of the worst trailers of all time. How on earth this movie made more than $2 million is beyond me.
8) FANTASTIC FOUR 2
Hey, I’ve got a great idea! Let’s do a sequel to Fantastic Four… only this time let’s put more cheese into it, take out even more of the action, and let’s do what Spider-Man 3 did by introducing to the screen a character all the comic fans want to see, and then hardly ever have him on the screen… oh… and make sure he doesn’t get into any fights in the movie. Fantastic Four 2 took the failures of the first one, and built on them instead of building on the few things the first one did right. A comic book action movie where the BIGGEST fight was the Fantastic Four vs a Ferris Wheel. Yes, you read that right. The big fight involving the whole Fantastic Four Team was then they has to combat the evil forces of a falling Ferris Wheel. Go team! The film was called “Rise of the Silver Surfer” and yet the Surfer has just a little more screen time in the movie than I did.
9) I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY
Is it just me, or does it feel like the better and better Adam Sandler is becoming as an actor, the less and less funny his comedies are becoming? It used to be the other way around. Sandler was hilarious but couldn’t act worth beans…. but he’s grown. This past year “Reign Over Me” was one of the best surprise movies of the year and Sandler was brilliant in it… but then comes I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry and it seems like Sandler has just totally lost his edge/touch. Ranchy does not equal funny. Raunchy can be funny, it can be very funny. But it’s not an equation. The jokes and feel for this horrible film got really tired about 5 minutes into it. And I’m sorry, but Adam Sandler always beening the great looking, hottest, toughest guy around roles are just too much and are starting to come off as pretty damn narcissistic. The whole movie felt like a great idea for a 7 minute SNL skit… but it got dragged out to almost 2 hours.
10) HOSTEL 2
Someone needs to remind Eli Roth that gross does not equal scary. In Hostel 1, Roth gave a nice mixture of grossness with tension and suspense. There was also a mild dash of mystery to it as well. In that kind of environment, torture porn tactics can be VERY effective, and they were in Hostel 1. But for some reason all of that got thrown out the window for Hostel 2, and all we were left with was “He guys, watch this awful thing we’re going to do to this girl”. It becomes nothing but a demonstration of gore without any of the substance of horror to go along with it. So instead of scaring us, it just made us want to cover our eyes. When you do both, it’s classic, when you do just the one, it’s a waste of time. That pretty much sums up Hostel 2… a giant gory waste of time.
AND LET’S NOT FORGET THE DISHONORABLE MENTIONS
Pirates of the Caribbean 3
Licensed To Wed
The Last Legion
Wild Hogs
Norbit
Hitman
Awake
Reno 911: Miami
Stay tuned as next week we hand out our Movie Blog Awards to the Best of 2007!