Worst Movies Of 2007

For some time I pondered over the notion of posting a top ten movies of 2007, but depressingly it was the barrage of shite that stood out in my eyes. So here's the shitlist, 2007's five worst flicks in my opinion:


5. Die Hard 4.0

Obnoxious from the get-go, at least the movie's producers had the good sense to save our stomaches from turning at it's American title: 'Live Free Or Die Hard'. The flick proceeded to piss all over one of the action genre's greatest franchises with a plot lifted from a magazine article about computers that really had nothing remotely John McClane-y about it.

On several occasions throughout this farce the script writers embarrassed themselves by showing their ignorance of the technologies the plot revolved around; the most irritating of which was the assumption that whatever happened, some 'geek' could always 'hack' their way out of it. Fine, there were some ok setpieces, but they got more & more ridiculous as the movie went on. When McClane went head to head with a fighter jet, I'd had enough.

Tragic.


4. Smokin Aces

This movie promised to be so good- the trailers were excellent, promising mind-blowing, non-stop action. They lied. The stupid cardboard cut-out characters spent so much time loading guns and walking around in bloody slo-mo, that they never actually got to do anything. Whomever concocted this turd was clearly of the school of thought that style is everything. Or at least thought as much until (literally) the last scene of the movie, during which they embarrassingly try to fit in some twists to a plot that was never there.

Sigh.

3. The Number 23

Joel Schumacher has always been a shining beacon of crap for cinema. After some early slip ups with good movies such as 'The Lost Boys', he quickly learned the tricks of his trade and started spawning such abominations as 'Batman & Robin'. 'The Number 23' was one of those flicks that had a pretty decent looking trailer, until you saw Schumacher's name attached at the end. Sure enough, Joel came through, and delivered a laugh fest of moronity. There's something particularly awkward about watching actors prance about trying to take themselves so seriously, yet spouting the kind of crap that five year olds would be too embarrassed to say.

All this, and then after grinding your teeth to get the end of the movie, what are we rewarded with? The lame old 'It was me all along??' split personality drivel. Does Hollywood only have two or three twists? Because if the persist in recycling them year-in, year-out, they cease to be twists and become conventions. Which are not nearly as surprising, but at least maybe then we can avoid the ever tedious ten minutes or so of crappy explanation.

2. The Golden Compass

I really, really hope this useless wretch of a movie has put a humanely early bullet in this franchise. Granted, the first book was always going to be the weakest film offering, The Subtle Knife being a far better read; and The Amber Spyglass being so epic it would be difficult to mess up. And yet, this adaptation was so fantastically mishandled it's clear that the world of cinema is not yet ready bring these books to life. From the moment New Line hired Chris 'American Pie' Weitz, we knew this would be a longshot, and true to form, he delivered a horrible, soulless product that reeks of painting by numbers and 'just getting it done' to please the boss.

There is no plot, Weitz as a writer assuming that everyone will have read the book. The audience is treated to a set of decent actors lashing through a pared down script as fast as they possibly can. The scenery is grotesque, only bothering on very rare occasion to use the locations and concepts to their full extent. The CGI is a complete joke, so painfully bad that it would be completely pointless for me to break it down into particular examples.

To add to its list of crimes, just when the movie was approaching the climax of the novel, it ended abruptly, without reason or logical conclusion. It was as if the makers realised they were just taking the piss, and threw in the towel. Well, thank jeebus for that. I only hope that the high box office receipts the movie no doubt got from pulling in fans of the books like myself, will not justify the making of a further two movies. They would have to go a long, long way to claw back some respect after this pile of crap.

1. Pirates Of The Caribbean: At Worlds End

Of all the misled epics that have come in the wake of Peter Jackson's success with the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, none have been more epically shit than the third Pirates Of The Caribbean movie. The first in the series was a high point for Disney, being original, exciting & funny. The second wasn't quite original, or funny, but vaguely exciting, and at least had good CGI. This offering, however, proved just what level of mind-numbing crap studios were willing to knock out in order to capitalise on a trend and make a quick buck.

The story is mundane, unimaginative and basically a rehash of what we have already learned from 'Dead Man's Chest'. For a family adventure movie it is unforgivably boring, with long sections of humming & hawing punctuated only by brief action sequences that look like they've been shot by the 2nd Unit director in a couple of hours.

The 'humor' is reduced to catchphrases, the script forcing Johnny Depp grind a likable character into the dust until it's really quite tiresome. The special effects, while still excellent (notably Davy Jones' tentacles) offer nothing more than what we have already seen in the first two movies, and certainly nothing with even half the imagination of the original's moonlight skeletons. In a 3 hour 'event' movie it's shocking that not a single set-piece was in anyway noteworthy, from stunted opener to fizzling finale.

This poorly conceived 'trilogy' just proved that you cannot just make something epic, it really must deserve that mantle. Merely throwing in big, sweeping shots of ships arsing about while the music soars does not a good movie make. In fact it's just irritating, and should really incur some Python-esque shouts of 'get on with it!'.

Lets all just hope that next year the studios spend more than twenty minutes thinking about what shite they're going to offer us for our summer blockbuster. And lets also hope that some of the more reputable actors caught in all of these turds take a look at the script before they take a look at their pay packet (Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Chow-Yun Fat, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Christopher Lee, Jim Carrey, Jeremy Piven, Ben Affleck.. ok, that last one was a joke).

Think, people, think!



Things I didn't see but are probably also rather crap:

Norbit; Hostel II; Wild Hogs; Evan Almighty; I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry; Daddy Day Camp; License To Wed... the list goes on.