Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The 25 most disappointing films of 2008 are:

25.Pride and Glory

How can a film with Edward Norton and Colin Farrell actually be this bad? It was a failed attempt to look at corruption within the NYPD with brothers being on opposite sides of the issue. A bad film that was rightly buried by its distributor New Line Cinema.

24. Blindness

I still have no idea what this film was about and when I saw it at a Korean theater, no one in the audience did either. My guess was that it a statement that mankind is evil. The film was an insult to my intelligence and never should be seen again.

23. The Bank Job

According to the producers, this movie is intended to reveal the truth for the first time, although it includes significant elements of fiction with the main female crook (Martine Love) being a fictitious person. I never could believe anything about this film and it never worked for me because of it.

22. Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D

A cell phone works in the middle of the Earth? All of this in 3D just fails for me on every level. They are also trying to make a part 2 to this film. I have no idea why this film was popular.

21. The Rocker

The only reason I can think of for this film, is that the makers thought that, "The Office's" Rainn Wilson as Robert “Fish” Fishman would work. All it accomplished was the film loosing a lot of money and a comedy, in which, I did not laugh at all. Better luck next time Rainn.

20. Valkyrie

I guess that the film had some good intentions. To try and show that all Germans were not Nazi's. That Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg was and is a hero. To me the film could never recover from the horrible miscast of Tom Cruise as von Stauffenberg and the films fails for me because of it. Has this film killed the once famous UA Studios?

19. Che Part 1: The Argentine

I knew that watching a film about about Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara was going to be a huge stretch for me. I have never been a fan of "Che" so I saw this as a man who hated his revolution. i could see a real;y good film here but the way that it was shot and paced just never seemed to work and the film seems to be stuck and can not move forward. I will try and rewatch the film in a few months with both parts of this film together.

18. Jumper

Hayden Christensen as David Rice plays a man who can leap all over the world and guess what? They have people that want to kill them called Paladins. This story was over the top and never really could be believed and I have heard that we may have more of these films. What a waste of film this was.

17. Hellboy 2

I have never been that huge of a fan of the comic book and it has carried over to the movies. I saw the film and went so-so and so did the box office. if you like the first one then please see #2 if not then pass on this and save the time and do anything else.

16. Max Payne

What happens when an adult video game is made into a PG-13 movie? You get this soulless turn of a farst of the video game. What an insult this film was to anybody who liked the game and what is even sadder that they could actually be a part 2 to this crap.

15. Righteous Kill

When Robert De Niro and Al Pacino star in a film together, it is at least worth a viewing. Sad to say, this one was not worth the time it takes to watch this film. I have no idea why these 2 great actors even agreed to do this film. It just dos not work as a movie on any level.

14. Frost/Nixon

I really can not believe that this film was nominated for Best Picture by the Academy Awards. I sat down to watch it and for 2 hours, I was bored to death. The film will open in Korea on 26 February 2009. When Veteran journalist David Frost called Frost/Nixon 'fiction' because movie chiefs changed some of the key historical facts for entertainment value, the film lost what small respect I had for this film.

13. Cadillac Records

As a music history fan I was really looking forward to this film, so I restudied the history of Chess records and watched the film, what Jim Harrington of the Mercury News stated in his review were my exact thought on this film, "Praised Knowles' vocal performance and wrote in his review that, "Beyoncé Knowles' captivating voice and the film's other pluses can't outweigh the glaring omissions from the story line for this critic" and "Chess Records deserves, and will hopefully someday get, a better spin than the one delivered by Cadillac Records." I stopped counting all of the errors in the film and just could not believe that they had a golden opportunity to make a great film and they blew it.

12. The X-Files: I Want to Believe

It was a film that I was just honestly expecting more of that what I got from it. I was a fan of the TV show so when I saw this with the X files name, I felt cheated and really hated this film. If this is the future of the series, then lets please end it now.

11. Babylon A.D.

After I saw this film I read that the Director Mathieu Kassovitz was very unhappy with the distributors, 20th Century Fox, producers and other partners. He described the film as "pure violence and stupidity" and stated that "parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24. I have heard that the DVD of this film is a much better version of this film. I honestly can not see how it could be any worse that what I saw.

10. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

When you take a book and then fictionalize everything in the book so you can make a movie, you are left with this crap. What ever joy was in the book did not come across in the film and has left me wondering why Simon Pegg even agreed to do this horrible film.

9. Body Of Lies

This film stars stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe and I should have loved it. Instead I am given this rejected plot of a "24" episode and could not believe anything that I saw on the screen. A huge disappointment from these 2 stars.

8. City of Ember

I knew that the film was a popular children book but lately they have not been made into great movies. After I saw this film, I never wanted to read another book by Jeanne Duprau. I just can not believe that the film, with all of these great ideas, turned into this.

7. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

I liked the slow pace of this film but a lot of people did not like this film and it did not do as well as the first one did at the box office. One of the main complaints of this film was that they had changed a lot from the book into this movie and it left the hard-core fans of this book very upset. In December 2008, Disney opted not to produce the next film because they feared the budget would only grow during filming and post-production. The Los Angeles Times also reported "creative differences" led to the split. So as of now, this may have been the last film in the series.

6. Twilight

As I stated in my review...I like High School films but this one just never seemed to be a real high school, To me it was a small town version of 90210 with vampires thrown in to the mix and the film soon lost me. If you feel the need to see a teen vampire film, then please see Let the Right One In instead.

5. The Day the Earth Stood Still

Is Will Smith actually trying to make his son, Jaden Smith, into an actor? I could not believe this film and every time Smith was in the film, the film would fall apart and never become what I thought this film could have been. I really thought this film had the potential to be a great film but in the end the PC message of this film was just too much and destroyed it in the end. I have heard that Will Smith wants to remake, "The Karate Kid" and place his son in the student role.

4. Wall E

Of all of the reviews I did in the year 2008, this is the one that I have been questioned about the most. It appears that a lot of my readers loved this film, while I absolutely hated it. As I said in my review...What would happen if Wal-Mart took over the world? What else would happen to the planet if Wal-Mart killed all of the trees on the planet? Would you believe a robot would save all of the humans? If you can actually follow this inane plot, then you might actually like this film. To me it just did not work. When you do see the “love” in this film, I kept thinking, “You have got to be kidding me.” This is the basis of this film? To me it just never worked. Whatever magic they had in their prior films, just fails to resonate here with me. " I recently sat down and watched the film and once again I really hated this film.

3. The Good, the Bad, the Weird or Jongheun Nom, Nabbeun Nom, Isanghan Nom

This film was the box office champion of South Korea 2008 season with over 6.9 million tickets sold. In my review of the film...If you suspend reality for awhile, the film will work for you. I kept watching the film and I kept wondering, “What in the heck were they thinking when they were making this film?” The song that kept playing over and over was written in the 1960’s not the 30’s when this film supposedly takes place. It was this error and a lot of the little historical errors in this flick that made me turn against this film." The film was was inspired by Sergio Leone's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." After watching this film, I can only hope for no more Korean "Western" films.

#2 Meet Dave

I have no idea why Sci-Fi and Eddie Murphy hate each other. The last time Eddie went into a Sci-Fi film was the disastrous, science fiction comedy, "The Adventures of Pluto Nash." I saw the previews of this film and had a very bad feeling about it and the film went on to bomb at the US Box Office.

#2 WAS BAD BUT IT WAS NO WAY NEAR MY #1 Most Disappointing film of 2008

#1 Speed Racer

Once again, I am in the minority of critics, I loved the film and they have absolutely trashed it.
I thought so much of this film, that I purchased it on Blu-ray and loved seeing it on the HD format. I still do not see why the majority of the viewers hated it. I thought that it was a very honest version of the classic 60's Japanese cartoon. please rent it and judge for yourself.

Now it is time for the the 25 films that I like to call "The 25 What The Frack films of 2008"

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