The Ten Worst Movies of 2008

Posted by Kevin Carr (kevin@filmschoolrejects.com) on December 28, 2008

2008review-worstmovies

We continue our jaunt through the world of film in 2008 by taking a turn for the worse — toward the bottom of the barrel. For every great movie there are at least ten bad ones released in a given year, and 2008 was no exception. So without further ado, here is our list of the Ten Worst Movies of 2008:

10. Meet Dave

The Ten Worst Movies of 2008

Eddie Murphy should stop making movies. From the trailer stage of things, this movie looked like one of the biggest turds of the summer. And people stayed away in droves. Maybe Hollywood will take the hint next time they want this (cringe!) Oscar nominee to star in something.

9. Disaster Movie

The Ten Worst Movies of 2008

Hands down, this was the most appropriately named film of 2008. And thank God the American audiences had some sense and refused to make this Seltzer/Friedberg flick a hit by any measurement. This was a national wake-up call that these movies just plain suck.

8. First Sunday

The Ten Worst Movies of 2008

Ah, yes. Time to travel back to the doldrums of movie releases known as January and February. Tracy Morgan and Ice Cube teamed up to make this preachy mess of non-comedy. The only thing worth seeing in this movie was the always funny Katt Williams. Too bad the never-funny Tracy Morgan had to be there too.

7. Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins

The Ten Worst Movies of 2008

And where there’s Tracy Morgan polluting movie houses, there’s Cedric the Entertainer trying to do the same. Another early release of 2008 that was so godawful that it will be remembered as one of the worst of the year.

6. Over Her Dead Body

The Ten Worst Movies of 2008

Who told Eva Longoria that she could act? Sure, she’s pretty, but listening to her deliver dialogue is like listening to a Shakespeare table reading with Jennifer Tilly and Joey Lauren Adams. Over Her Dead Body was a ghost story with a psychic twist that made me want to kill myself.

5. The Secret Life of Bees

The Ten Worst Movies of 2008

Here’s some Oscar bait from 2008 that has failed to turn any heads so far in award season. If you don’t remember which film this is, it’s the one where Dakota Fanning isn’t raped.

4. Wendy & Lucy

The Ten Worst Movies of 2008

The utterly un-unique story of a girl and her dog. There’s enough plot in here to fill about six minutes. The rest is padding with a homely version of Michelle Williams walking a lot and moping about her lost dog.

3. In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale

The Ten Worst Movies of 2008

Who can make a “Worst Films of the Year” list without giving a nod to Uwe Boll. The Uwe-meister struck early with this epic tale of miscasting, featuring Burt Reynolds as a king, Ray Liotta as an evil sorcerer and Matthew Lillard offering us his best Renaissance Festival accent.

2. The Love Guru

The Ten Worst Movies of 2008

Remember when Mike Myers was actually funny? Those days are gone, now that The Love Guru ripped through the summer. Spoiler alert… the movie ends with two elephants doing it. If that’s not a metaphor for the film itself, I don’t know what is.

1. Funny Games

The Ten Worst Movies of 2008

Michael Haneke re-directed his original German-language thriller shot-by-shot with bigger Hollywood names, and no one cared. It was torture porn for the art house crowd, featuring two young punks terrorizing and murdering a family on vacation. After interviewing Haneke, I hated the film even more because he insisted he wasn’t trying to include a message. What a douche!

RUNNERS UP

Delgo – This late-in-the-year CGI flop now has the distinction of the worst wide release gross in the history of time. And the filmmakers blamed the economy. I’m sure that’s why no one saw this movie.

Seven Pounds – I was tempted to put Hancock on this list… until Will Smith gave us this excruciatingly angst-filled ego piece featuring a lot of brooding and the most ridiculous plot since It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS

And a selection of movies from 2008 that sucked, but just didn’t manage to suck as bad as the preceding twelve: What Just Happened, Pride and Glory, Henry Poole Is Here, Witless Protection, Stop-Loss, W., Nights in Rodanthe, Strange Wilderness, Mad Money and One Missed Call.

Read More: 2008 Year in Review

What movies did you think were the worst of 2008?


Read more articles by Kevin Carr

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  • Delgo's BOM page is hilarious http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=delgo.htm

    And I second W. Incredibly disappointing.
  • Jenny Talls
    Wasn't "Funny Games" from 2007? It was a bad film, but wrong year, guys. Also, I wouldn't call it torture porn, it was torture watching it, and that was the director's intent, but it wasn't nearly as grotesque as, say, Hostel, the Saw sequels, or what have you.

    I suggest you slip Twilight into this list, a film about a thanatophile and her abstinent boyfriend. Hardwicke can't direct or frame a shot successfully. The entire film was aesthetically uninteresting, and the dialog was pure shit. It's just Meyer's wet dream on film, so all the other girls in America can wish they were Bella and had Edward for themselves. A repeat of 2007's "Blood and Chocolate," only this time successful because it features the perfect man. Can you imagine what the financial success of Twilight will do to future vampire films? As if the genre wasn't horrible enough already.
  • Funny Games played at the London Film Fest in 2007, but was not released in the US until March 18, 2008. It also made a run at Sundance in January 2008. Our criteria include any film that made a theatrical release in 2008, so it counts for this year, despite making its "World Premiere" in 2007.
  • I interviewed the director, and he was a pompous ass. The movie was pointless, and I don't buy the whole "it was the director's intent." I know that's what he was going for, but it was still an awful film. Hostel and Saw actually had some story behind them, where as Funny Games was just dumb. In fact, Saw has a certain morality play to achieve, and Hostel is nothing more than a modern slasher flick. I've never seen the original German-language Funny Games, but this English-language version was terrible.
  • Jenny Talls
    Oh yeah. I didn't mean to defend Funny Games in any way, shape, or form. If you take away the entertainment value of a film, what are you left with? Maybe an experimental art-house film, but that's not what Funny Games was. It was just an Andy Kaufman-like form of trolling the audience. And my comment on the Saw *sequels* and Hostel was just being critical of the term torture porn, which I see as using excessive blood and violence as a poor substitute for actual horror or suspense.
  • I've got to disagree with everybody on how terrible this film was. I loved it. I can't attest to Haneke being pompous or not, but I think it does take someone who's pompous to make a film that pretty much tells audiences they're assholes for supporting the kind of crap he's mocking (Saw sequels, Captivity, Hostel 2, etc.)
  • Come on, Funny Games wasn't that bad as a movie. I can think of at least two movies like it that suck more than it: Strangers & Saw V.

    I agree with the rest though... Nice list.
  • I thought Funny Games was really good.
  • I didn't think it was really good, but I don't think it should have been number 1. Truth be told I enjoyed it.
  • True that true that. But Strangers could've been done better.
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