Jacqueline Monahan

Five Worst Films of 2010

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Jacqueline Monahan’s Five Worst Films of 2010
(Plus Some Big Disappointments)

Bad films will be with us to the end, like the cockroaches that are expected to survive nuclear war.  You can bet some trust-fund baby with his own RED digital camera will capture the atomic flash and resulting mushroom cloud with a Tommy Chong-like “Oh wow, man,” before the scene fades away, left for some post-apocalyptic wanderer to discover.   That would still be a better legacy to mankind than the following:

1.    Machete
Exploitation, bad taste, violence, a pot-smoking, profane priest, what’s not to like?  Everything, unless you’re a seventh grade boy.  Glorifies the worst of humanity for cheap thrills and gore.  You’d think it’d be good.  A hyperactive wallow in the muck, the Lohan scenes a real low, indeed.

2.    Grown Ups
Maturity runs for the hills in this misbegotten attempt at humor.  Insulting frat-boy mentality surrounds the despicable “message” that any woman less than porn-star quality is a misfit, unworthy of male attention.  Meanwhile, the men that make up this tight-knit crew of pinheads hardly qualify as GQ material themselves.

3.    Furry Vengeance
There’s not enough vengeance in this dimwitted Brendan Fraser torture-fest at the hands of raccoons, skunks and other wildlife.  Slapstick, uneven, and devoid of any type of insight (even comic), a porky Fraser pratfalls his way through the lunacy, dragging a hapless, miscast Brooke Shields with him.

4.    Monsters
You’ll get some right at the end, but the payoff (a cephalopod-like light show over a gas station) isn’t enough to sit through this boring quest to safety over the Mexican border by two strangers thrown together… yadda, yadda, yadda.

5.    Sex and the City 2
“I knew there’d be trouble when I saw the camels” I wrote in my original review of this contrived dreck, dripping with lavishness approaching obscene and intelligence approaching flatline.  And I’m a fan of the series – but sand-filled stilettos, nanny woes, and a menopause-crazed Samantha on the lam in the streets of Abu-Dhabi are light years away from the savvy quartet I used to know.


Disappointments:

Tron: Legacy
The 1982 original was just that – original.  This visually magnificent CGI-fest is just so-so, relying on predictable outcomes that produce a semi-invested shrug at the end.  The Grid deserves better.

Iron Man 2
When the villain (a very menacing yet intriguing Mickey Rourke) outshines the hero in every scene, it’s time for Iron Man to retool himself to equal or better the madman, not stand in his shadow.

Wall Street 2
Not enough Michael Douglas, and too much silly boyfriend/girlfriend melodrama interspersed with bubble allegories.  Investment jargon is flung around like confetti and makes about as much sense.  Charlie Sheen’s brief cameo only serves to remind us what’s missing this time around.  Oliver Stone, what happened?

Hereafter
After a promising start, the film takes much too long to set up circumstances that go nowhere and includes waste-of-time scenes (a Matt Damon/Bryce Dallas Howard food-tasting, for instance).  A trite, sappy ending, too.  Clint Eastwood, what happened?

Skyline
Only the trailer looks great.  Slogging through the inane dialogue with less-than-astute characters dilutes any sort of tension, replacing it with impatience and unintentional disaster-apathy.  Even the slimy brain-suckers parked above the skyscrapers don’t have much to work with here.

Clash of the Titans
A great-looking yawn. Talky and self-important, COTT misses the “Epic” turnpike on the film freeway, losing its way and ending up in the ever-increasing pile-up of lackluster remakes –accidentally igniting nostalgia for its predecessor instead.  Save us, Harry Hamlin!

Robin Hood
A better title would have been Robin Hood: Before You Cared.  The slow-moving production ends where most Robin Hood stories begin – and that’s just when it starts to get good.  Everything that comes before tries to explain the evolution of the legendary outlaw; trouble is, he just wasn’t that interesting before getting his posse together and pissing off the sheriff of Nottingham.


Bad films; they’ll never go away, and deep down, we don’t really want them to.  Gross, unintentionally funny (or boring), insensitive, or dimwitted, the bad film will endure and sometimes even prevail.  The best we can ever do is to try to have some fun with them along the way.  Drinking games, anyone?