WORST. MOVIES. EVER.
So far, 2017 has been a great year — for really horrible films. Two have cracked critic Peter Howell’s Top 10 worst movie list. A look back at two decades of celluloid stinkers,
My job as the Toronto Star’s movie critic is great.
I get to see many wonderful films before the public does, often months before at festivals like Cannes, Sundance and TIFF. I can hardly wait for my fellow movie buffs to catch such recent Cannes favourites as The
Florida Project and The Square and earlier Sundance faves like Call Me by
Your Name and The Big Sick (which opens next week).
But I also see an awful lot of really bad movies, which makes me earn my keep as critic. I was reminded of it earlier this week while enduring Michael Bay’s latest abomination,
Transformers: The Last Knight and also earlier this month while sitting through Alex Kurtzman’s insanely stupid remake of The Mummy. The blockbuster summer of 2017 isn’t going so well.
Both of these films are now in my Top 10 list of the worst films I’ve reviewed in my more than 20 years as a Star movie critic. And for this week’s column, I thought I’d actually compile and publish that list, along with the reasons for my ire.
I had plenty of bombs to choose from, but I decided against amateur efforts such as Troll 2 and The Room, which are so incompetently made they’re a hoot to watch. I also steered clear of factory-issue horror movies, most of which are pretty dreadful for all the wrong reasons, because the beating of a dead (or undead) horse came to mind.
I instead sought to list movies where the filmmakers and actors ought to have known and done better, and you’ll have to allow for matters of personal taste in my selections. My No. 10 choice, for example, was deemed worthy of an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, go figure.
I’m indebted to Star librarians Astrid Lange and Rick Sznajder for their invaluable assistance in trawling the files for my past put-downs. I also want to give a shout-out to the great headlines written by my editors, with such gems as “Mucus of the Night” for my Phantom of the Opera pan and “The Feel Manipulated Movie of the Year” for my thumbs-down review of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
I haven’t included the star ratings, because over the years I’ve employed a single star, a half star or zero stars for the movies I truly despise. Just know that I have no love at all for any of the films on this list — and that my No. 1 choice, identified only at the very end like the killer in a feeble B-movie thriller, I consider to be the Worst Movie of All Time.
Without further bloviating, here’s my list of the Top 10 Worst Movies of the Past 20 Years, along with excerpts explaining my critical savaging: 10. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2012): “The film feels all
wrong on every level, mistaking precociousness for perceptiveness and catastrophe for a cuddling session. It’s calculated as Oscar bait, but the bait is poisoned by opportunism and feigned sensitivity. In my opinion . . . the movie should have been called Extremely Maudlin and Incredibly
Awful. The teardrops that the film so cravenly summons, beginning with a dreadful scene of bodies falling from the twin towers, are entirely unearned.” 9. The Mummy (2017): “Did (Tom Cruise) even bother to read the script for this toxic CGI dump site? I’m being generous by assuming there was a screenplay — the risible dialogue sounds like the writing committee merely passed around a Magic 8-Ball and scribbled down inane non-sequiturs as they floated up. This movie is so bad, it makes me want to write a personal apology to Brendan Fraser for hating on his dumb-but-fun The Mummy franchise of nearly 20 years ago.” 8. Grown Ups (2010): “Three general rules were obviously in effect on this Boyz ‘R’ Us movie set: (a) Any joke that entered anyone’s head would be used, no matter how old, stupid or gross it might be; (b) no topics, especially sexist and racist ones, would be considered off-limits; and (c) any gag, once belched or farted out, would be repeated numerous times, until even the most tolerant viewer would feel like screaming, as (Rob) Schneider’s character does at one point, ‘Grow up, will ya!’ ” 7. Basic Instinct 2 (2006): “Even the ice pick looks like it really doesn’t want to be there. And can you blame it? Sharon Stone’s iconic chiseller from the original Basic Instinct makes barely a cameo flash in this misbegotten and soon-to-be-forgotten sequel, and that’s only because it had no choice in the matter. Those who had a say about joining the film, with the exception of Stone, wisely chose to steer clear of this iceberg, which has been floated from San Francisco to London for no good reason.” 6. The Phantom of the Opera (2004): “The celebrated chandelier takes its sweet time smashing down in the long-awaited screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The
Phantom of the Opera, waiting until near the end to make a climactic clamour. The movie itself crashes to Earth long before that. In attempting to update the story while also remaining true to its popular stage musical rendering, director Joel Schumacher commits the cardinal sin of choosing sex appeal over sincerity.” 5. 88 Minutes (2008): “A movie as astoundingly awful as (this) requires more than the critical drubbing and box-office punting it is guaranteed to receive . . . I’m thinking of a letter of apology from star Al Pacino for every ticket sold to this steaming mass of idiocy, along with an offer to cut your lawn, weed your garden or empty your dryer lint filter. Anything to make up for the 107 minutes that 88
Minutes steals — no one involved with this picture knows how to count, either.” 4. Cop Out (2010): “Given a choice between watching Cop Out again or driving iron spikes into my eyeballs, I would probably choose Cop Out — but I’d have to seriously think about it. This pitiful excuse for entertainment is utterly bereft of wit, intelligence or craft on any level. The only thing left to screw up would have been to leave the lens cap on the camera. Wait, that would have been an improvement. (This) isn’t so much a movie as it is a cinematic suicide note for Kevin Smith’s directing career.” 3. Transformers: The Last Knight (2017): “Every few years, Michael Bay and his giant digital robots sally forth from their gilded dungeon to inflict damage on the world’s brain cells . . . (This) is their most concerted assault yet, making me fear for the sanity of the planet.
“Anyone attempting a drinking game whereby shots were consumed for each explosion would be unconscious within 10 minutes. Public showings of this movie, all 148 intolerable minutes of it, should be referred to as bludgeonings . . . ” 2. Battlefield Earth (2000): “Let all challengers take heed: Anyone hoping to surpass these Olympian heights of badness will have to do something drastic, such as rolling blank film through the projector. Or maybe shooting the projectionist . . . so ineptly written, directed, acted and photographed it seems as if it were made by circus chimps.” 1. Movie 43 (2013): “There’s just one use for (this movie), apart from it being ground into the landfill that it deserves to become sooner rather than later. It provides me with a handy new answer to a question I’m often asked: ‘What’s the worst film you’ve ever seen?’ . . . Employing every conceivable gross-out gag, from feces tossing to testicle waving, the film is cynically designed to make you cringe, hurl, avert your eyes or cry out — and possibly all four at once.” Peter Howell is the Star’s movie critic. His column usually runs Fridays.