Throwing Things at the Screen - Five Worst of 2008

These are my five worst movies of 2008. To be fair, I avoid watching obvious clunkers if I can. So you won't find Disaster Movie or Meet the Spartans on my list because I will never watch them. What's the point really? Anyway, these are five movies I had the unfortunate displeasure of watching:

5) Twilight

This movie undoubtedly accomplished what the studio wanted - a truckload of cash and a fanbase clamoring for sequels, but as a standalone movie it is not very effective. You get ninety minutes of brooding, tortured expressions and supermarket romance. But at least we got the all-time classic line, "Hold on tight, Spider Monkey."




"Hold on tight, Spider Monkey!"


4) Wanted

A haphazard mess of an action movie with a hyper-annoying lead character and one of the stupidest contraptions in cinematic history, the Loom of Fate! Half the run time was spent showing the "curve the bullet" technique. This movie's most glaring shortcoming was a supporting cast that was merely going through the motions.



"Ugh, why did I sign that contract?"


3) Punisher: War Zone

Wow, this was a miscarriage of a movie. I had a slight hope that this would be a passable action movie since it was supposedly influenced by Ennis's Punisher comics, but that hope died at about the time the tenth person died in this uproarious comedy. This movie is worth a look if only for the deluge of unintentional humor. With some of the least intimidating, most dimwitted villains this side of "Ghost Rider," War Zone probably killed the Punisher franchise for a few decades.

"Time to punish the real criminals,
Lionsgate."


2) The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Sometimes people want to watch mindless eye candy. But everything about this movie is uninspired and terrible. It is completely derivative. Imagine you have a handwritten drawing by Picasso. You Xerox it. You Xerox it again, and again, and again, and again. Twenty more times. That last copy is going to be of inferior quality and probably pretty faint. Well that last copy is this movie, but on top of the faint image, a line of text has suddenly appeared which reads, "This paper gives you cancer."

"Here we go . . . again?"


1) Max Payne

This was an eggshell of a movie. That it was going to be style over substance was abundantly evident from the trailers. What was not evident from the trailers, however, was how little style this movie would actually display. The trailers hinted at an action movie, but Payne failed to deliver on that as well. This movie suffered from an unengaging plot (how hard is it to screw up the revenge arc?), wooden acting, cardboard characters, and a tired visual style.


"Kill me now."