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Rants-mas - My 12 Most Hated Movies

Random Thoughts #17

By Adam WallacePublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 10 min read
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2020 has been an absolute nightmare of a year. It's been hell for everyone, and I'm no exception. Ever since I started writing on Vocal, I've done my best to stay as positive as possible since the Internet is already overloaded with negativity. Even when I devoted articles to lashing out at the live-action Ghost In The Shell and The End of Evangelion, I only did so because of strong connections to the franchises in question.

Well, when it came time to decide what big thing to write about for Christmas, I decided to give myself a much deserved Christmas gift, something that I truly needed this year... a chance to vent. This year, I will be celebrating the season of "Rants-mas" by giving two articles to bashing 24 pieces of media that I absolutely can't stand. The twelve movies I talk about today and the twelve games I talk about next time stand as some of the worst experiences I've ever had with my favorite forms of entertainment.

Just to be clear, I am not a professional critic like Roger Ebert or Sushi-X from EGM. I'm not handed movies to watch or games to play for assignment. Thus, I have managed to avoid most of the ones that frequently make "Worst Ever" lists like Freddy Got Fingered or Plumbers Don't Wear Ties. In fact, there are some "Worst Ever" entries that I will defend somewhat like Howard the Duck and E.T. on the Atari 2600. I will only list those that I have experienced myself; so, there are very few of the easy targets on either list.

Well, enough stalling. Here are the twelve movies (in alphabetical order because they're not worth trying to rank) that I NEVER want to watch again.

Batman & Robin

Hey, I didn't say there wouldn't be ANY easy targets! This is just one of the few I suffered through. The movie that put the Batman film franchise on ice (...sorry...) until Christopher Nolan came along, Batman & Robin is absolutely horrible. All the tragedy of Mr. Freeze's character that was so well depicted in the Animated Series was lost the instant Arnold Schwarzenegger started with the ice puns. I have nothing against Joel Schumacher's directing style, even defending it in my second Vocal article, but the design of Gotham here looked like the entire city got hammered on cheap vodka and ecstasy during a three-month-long rave. This plot about turning a telescope into a giant freeze cannon would've been too campy and corny for the Adam West TV show! Yes, I went there! Empire magazine readers chose this as the worst movie of all time in a poll in 2010, and I won't even try to argue it.

Beverly Hills Cop 3

The original Beverly Hills Cop is my #4 favorite movie of all time. The second one is not as good but still a lot of fun. The third one is outright garbage. What happens when Eddie Murphy stops being Axel Foley and, instead, tries to be John McClain? You get no wisecracks or fast-talking (which were the funniest parts of the first two movies), you get action scenes that are below average at best (especially with the excessive bluescreen), and you get a plot that is almost a carbon copy of the first except without the stuff that made the first one awesome. Even Inspector Todd's (Gil Hill) fun rants got neutered in this one! Bringing back Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Serge (Bronson Pinchot) stank of desperation. Eddie has apparently been trying for years to get a fourth movie off the ground to make up for this one, and I honestly don't know whether to support it or not after how this one turned out.

The Black Dahlia

If I were ranking these movies, than The Black Dahlia from 2006 would rank as my most hated movie of all time. Ally & I went to see this one on the strength of its trailer. A film noir based on a real life unsolved murder case with an all-star cast, written by the guy behind L.A. Confidential and directed by the guy behind The Untouchables, should've been a slam dunk. Instead, it was one of the most boring, nonsensical films I've ever wasted money on. I know film noir tends to have dry performances as part of its style, but Josh Hartnett's monotone nearly put me to sleep. The violence, even on the titular victim, seemed blasé when it should've been disturbing. This movie even managed to make a revelation about a lesbian affair feel about as hot as a walk-in freezer. This was the biggest disappointment I ever had in the theater, and that's why it's my most hated film of all time.

Highlander: Endgame

You're probably wondering why I have the fourth Highlander film here and not the widely ridiculed second film, the one that claimed the Immortals were aliens from the planet Zeist. Here's the thing... the second film's stupidity is fun to laugh at. Endgame's stupidity isn't funny; it's aggravating. Bruce Payne made a terrible villain with none of the fun of Clancy Brown, Michael Ironside, or Mario Van Peebles but all of the cheese. The way this movie engineered Duncan MacLeod (Adrian Paul) killing off Connor (Christopher Lambert) [BTW, spoiler alert... if you actually care] felt horribly contrived. In fact, "horribly contrived" are the perfect words to describe the clusterf*** of a plot. Why were all those Immortals following Kell if they all knew he was just going to kill them and take their power? If Kell cared nothing about the rules of the Game, then why didn't Duncan and Connor take him two-on-one? After this travesty, I wasn't surprised that the follow-up The Source turned out to be garbage, as well.

Jingle All The Way

I know this will hurt my mother since she plugs this one in every Christmas. However, I have to be honest and say that I absolutely can't stand Jingle All The Way. For a moment, let's ignore the fact that there are only two moments that are actually funny in the whole movie. Let's ignore the terrible performances all around, especially from Jake Lloyd (who's worse here than in The Phantom Menace, seriously) and Phil Hartman (who turned up his trademark smarmyness to intolerable levels). What makes the movie awful is the message it sends. It outright glorifies rampant commercialism and psychotic competition for gifts. This movie makes me cringe just as much as the Black Friday violence footage that ends up on the news. The screwed up morals when combined with the stupidity and lack of charm make this one of the worst movies to get a guaranteed annual audience. Not even Arnold could save this one.

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

The first Mortal Kombat movie is a legitimately fun martial arts action movie, leaving aside that it's based on a video game. The sequel deserves to be beheaded by Kitana's fans. I get that the producers wanted to get more characters from the games in this time, but that only benefits those who already know the games. Can anyone tell me anything about Rain or Ermac in the movie beside the colors of their outfits? Funny enough, Rain and Ermac were the best actors since, at least, they didn't have to talk. The acting from the speaking roles was horrid, especially from Musetta Vander who played Sindel. Even the fighting sucked with lame choreography and shoddy camera work which made it even lamer. While the first movie was a lot of dumb fun, the second was just dumb.

The Next Karate Kid

Oh, great, another abominable sequel to one of my favorite movies. While the original Karate Kid would be my all-time favorite movie if RoboCop didn't exist, the fourth film in the franchise deserves a crane kick right in the gonads. The plot involving a militaristic school security group is outright retarded, Michael Ironside chews the scenery like a starving termite, and Hilary Swank's acting is so abysmal that it seems unbelievable that she would score two Oscars later. Even Pat Morita barely goes through the motions as Mr. Miyagi. It felt like no one cared during the making of this movie, and that is outright criminal. At least, the franchise did salvage itself with the 2010 remake and Cobra Kai, which is more than I can say for other franchises.

Not Another Teen Movie

Let's face it; every spoof film that came out after the heyday of the Zucker brothers and Mel Brooks has been outright trash. Not Another Teen Movie has just been the only one I was stupid enough to watch from beginning to end. Like the worst of Seltzerberg, this one tries to spoof everything under the sun, resulting in a movie with almost no plot. Worse yet, almost nothing was funny. I say "almost" because I did get some immature chuckles out of the first scene to feature the foreign exchange student. In fact, so much of the movie is plagiarized that I'm surprised the producers didn't get hit with a bunch of lawsuits. The only thing that may be interesting is seeing Chris Evans long before he became Captain America. I think Mathew Buck, AKA Film Brain on YouTube, said it best when he was talking about another spoof film: "When the spoof is less funny than the film it's based on, you're doing it wrong!"

Star Wars - Episode 2: Attack of the Clones

I know a lot of Star Wars fans would want me to put The Last Jedi or The Rise of Skywalker on this list, but I still consider Attack of the Clones to be the worst Star Wars movie by far. The second prequel did the one thing no other Star Wars movie has ever done... it put me to sleep. This one is unforgivably boring. Say what you will about the stupidity or nonsense of The Phantom Menace, The Last Jedi, or The Rise of Skywalker, BUT AT LEAST STUFF HAPPENED!!! That two minute trailer up there shows all the exciting parts of the movie which make up not even 1% of the runtime. The rest is boring talking with absolutely no emotion. There was no heat when Padmé (Natalie Portman) and Anakin (Hayden Christensen) were attracted to each other. There was no fire when Anakin killed the sandpeople who killed his mother. I have only managed to stay awake for one showing, and I found I missed nothing when it made me nod off.

Total Recall [The Remake]

Let me be clear; I am not against remakes on principal. I thoroughly enjoyed the Karate Kid remake. However, the remake to Total Recall (the original was #25 on my favorite movies list) was a chore to watch. Colin Farrell was completely bland as Quaid. Jessica Biel had no personality as Melina. I flat-out hated Kate Beckensale as Lori; she chewed the scenery like crazy and didn't have one milligram of the "femme fatale" factor that Sharon Stone had. Worst of all, this remake took out the imagination and creativity that the original had in abundance and replaced it with absolutely nothing. Even the forced references to the original like the presence of a three-breasted hooker only told me that I should be watching the original instead.

Ultraviolet

I have a soft spot for the Resident Evil movies. Despite the liberties taken with the source material, the action scenes were fun, and Milla Jovovich had a great screen presence. Those reasons were why I went to see Ultraviolet in the theater... and I've regretted it ever since. While the plots of the Resident Evil films were thin, the plot here is practically nonexistent. Apparently, the writer/director Kurt Wimmer thought that pulling nonsense twists out of his ass were all he needed for a story. Sorry, Kurt, it doesn't work that way. The fight scenes were both dull and impossible to follow, partly because of the terrible camera work, and mostly because the over-saturated colors actually hurt my eyes! No joke, I had a throbbing headache when I left the theater afterward. No other movie before or since has ever put me in physical pain, but this one sure did.

Wing Commander

How could a movie written and directed by the creator of the very cinematic games the movie is based on turn into such a flying scrapheap? Seriously, Chris Roberts had high production values in the Wing Commander games; he even had Mark F***ing Hamill as Col. Blair in them! Yet, here, he could only get Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Matthew Lillard??? Beyond the awful casting, the special effects are amateurish. Sure, the Kilrathi looked silly in the games, but they still had a certain charm. Mickey Mouse would be a more threatening villain than the Kilrathi in this movie! Chris Roberts took everything people liked about his games and threw it out the airlock. You're better off just watching footage from the third and fourth games people uploaded to YouTube than this movie.

What do you think? Let's all vent together. What are your most hated movies? Let me know, and stay tuned for my 12 most hated games next time. Happy holidays!

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About the Creator

Adam Wallace

I put up pieces here when I can, mainly about games and movies. I'm also writing movies, writing a children's book & hosting the gaming channel "Cool Media" on YouTube! Enjoy & find me on Twitter!

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