EDIT: I forgot about The Arrival. That was a pretty bad movie, too.
9. The Island of Dr. Moreau
D: John Frankenheimer
**********
A plodding film with disappointing creature design.
8. Jack
D: Francis Ford Coppola
**********
Contrary to popular criticism, the movie does acknowledge
the tragedy of the situation. Francis
Ford Coppola’s sappy attempt at a family movie has its moments, but suffers due
to cloying 90’s whimsy. Some people turn
up their noses at sentimentality, but it seems that some masters of cinema can’t
pull it off (see also: Stanley Kubrick’s A.I.). Also, why
the hell does Miss Jennifer Lopez insist on making her class write an essay on
what they want to do when they grow up when she knows that one of the students
has a terminal condition?!!!!!!!
7. 101 Dalmatians
D: Stephen Herek
**********
Hey, here’s a great idea!
Let’s remake this Disney classic in live action! The dogs won’t be anthropomorphic, so that
way they’ll no longer be actual characters that the audience can identify with! I remember seeing commercials for this as a
kid, and thinking that the only appealing thing about it would be watching
Cruella’s magnificent car wrecking get recreated in live action (Spoiler: it
doesn’t happen). I didn’t watch it until
earlier this year and it was quite an underwhelming film. The low point was how the efficient first
meeting of the couples was turned into an interminable and overwrought slapstick sequence in a live-action adaptation. The only good part was the well-cast Glenn
Close as Cruella De Vil and the art style of her office. There was also a refreshing lack of CGI manipulation
of the dogs’ faces until a brief moment at the end.
6. Bottle Rocket
D: Wes Anderson
**********
I like Anderson for his visual style and dry wit, but
this comedy has none of his distinctive visuals and it’s so dry that apparently
he forgot to put jokes in it. It’s an utterly generic “art” movie that
critics go apes—t over. Luke Wilson’s
character gets into a sex-based “relationship” with a girl even though they can’t
understand each other’s languages, and I’m supposed to be invested in
that? That’s insulting. Also, the bumbling thieves trope has been a
million times better a million times before.
I guess I shouldn’t begrudge this movie’s success because I like Anderson’s
filmography. Part of me thinks he hacked
this out just to get into the position to make the movies he actually wanted to
make.
5. Broken Arrow
D: John Woo
**********
An utterly cheesy and underwhelming movie that set the
tone for action legend John Woo’s unimpressive career in Hollywood.
4. Romeo + Juliet
D: Baz Luhrmann
**********
I don’t how many times I was made to sit through this
tacky adaptation at my high school just because of its slavish faithfulness to
the text. That doesn’t even make sense
because we already read the play in class, so why not just show a more
competent adaptation with a few cut lines?
At least John Leguizamo has fun playing Tybalt.
3. Space Jam
D: Korey Coleman
**********
I didn’t watch this until recently, but it even as a kid
I thought it looked stupid. I thought it
would be more painful, though. It was
bland, but mercifully short.
2. Escape from L.A.
D: John Carpenter
**********
Lacks the subtlety and consistently good visuals of the
original. Remember the ingenuity of the
practically simulated computer graphic in New
York? This movie actually has real
CGI…real bad CGI. So bad it almost makes the plane crash from Air Force One look good. The movie starts off with establishing a
ham-fisted satire of the Religious Right with a fundamentalist president who’s
supposed to be a straw man even though he
correctly predicted a natural disaster.
In the end our hero knowingly activates an EMP device that puts the
world back into the Stone Age. Most of
the movie is fun camp, so it’s too bad that it’s sandwiched with crap.
1. Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace
D: Farhad Mann
**********
Lawnmower Man
according to the guys who gave us Max
Headroom. It’s the king of the bad 90’s cyberpunk
movies, and it is just awful from to beginning to end. I’ve never seen a sequel that so blatantly
ignored the ending of the first movie.
Jeff Fahey is replaced by Matt Frewer, who’s like a store brand Jim
Carrey…not as expensive, but arguably just as good. Also, the movie insists on reminding us over
and over again that the secondary corporate villain is a Republican. We get it, movie.
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