Ten Not-So-Bad Bad Movies

Posted by Mister Hand (misterhand@filmschoolrejects.com) on September 11, 2007

There are many films beloved by the masses that I absolutely despise. The Lion King (Hakuna Ma-Kill Me), Gone with the Wind (Racist crap), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (video games have more depth), The Sound of Music (turn all the kids over to the Nazi’s and get on a boat to America, for cryin’ out loud), pretty much anything starring John Wayne (jingoistic, nonsensical war films, insipid westerns, and craptacular historical epics), and the first Pirates of the Caribbean (my compass points toward the thing I want most–a nap) are just a few very popular or classic films that I absolutely detest for one reason or another.

On the other end of the scale, however, are a number of highly reviled films that I happen to love. So, just to show I’m not a hater, I present this list of some of my favorite “bad” movies.

THE RULES: All of the films below hold a special place in my DVD collection, or I have viewed and enjoyed them multiple times, or after a single viewing I came away totally enthralled. None of the films listed score higher than 50% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomameter (anything below 60% is considered “rotten”). Films that do not have ratings on RT are not included. That’s why none of them are more than twelve years old. The films are ranked in no particular order, really. Be warned, spoilers will be in abundance as you peruse the list. Proceed with caution.

10. THE MESSENGER: THE STORY OF JOAN OF ARC (1999)

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 30%

Some friends told me this post-Fifth Element Luc Besson film was terrible, so I skipped it at the movie theaters. When I finally saw it on DVD, I thought my so-called “friends” had lost their minds. The film boasted impressive period detail, nice acting, and a slew of awesome battle scenes–replete with the necessary gore and utter disregard for human life appropriate to the times. But the film has a decidedly anti-religious conclusion that I imagine turned a lot of people off. It is suggested that Joan was schizophrenic, and her burning at the stake is played more as irony than tragedy. (Personally, I believe Besson’s version of the story is far closer to the truth than anything the Church will tell you.)

Still, there’s plenty of good pouring of boiling oil, blowing people apart with catapults, and disembowelings in this film–which definitely deserves better than a paltry 30%, regardless of your religious views.

9. HIGH TENSION (2005)

RT Rating: 40%

I am a horror movie buff who hates slasher films. I find them boring and every bit as misogynist as even the most militant feminist activist would claim. I didn’t even like the Scream movies. (In those films, Wes Craven merely slapped a post-modern sheen onto what was otherwise standard, boring, laughably predictable slasher fare.)

High Tension is a slasher film that didn’t bore me. If it didn’t go totally wrong in its final act, I would rank it as the best slasher film ever made. For once, I really got a feeling that anything could happen. And even the wrong turn in the end is far more interesting than what most films of this genre typically muster up for a climax.

I was surprised to find this one had such a low rating on RT. I believe Richard Roeper summed it up the best by calling the film, “An extremely well-made, very grisly and ultimately dishonest slasher film that’s too clever for its own good.”

I agree with every bit of that statement, but I love it anyway.

8. DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE (1995)

RT Rating: 47%

Renny Harlin is one of the worst directors alive, ranking with Joel Schumacher and Michael Bay for sheer crap output. But, like Schumacher, somehow this asshole keeps getting the opportunity to make movies, despite an abysmal overall track record at the box office. So it just plain irks me that John McTiernan’s Die Hard with a Vengeance is ranked lower than Harlin’s Die Hard 2: Die Harder (64%). There’s no way in hell Die Hard 2 is a better movie than Vengeance. The fact that Sam Jackson is in Vengeance should be enough in and of itself to get this film a fresh rating. And the title Die Hard 2: Die Harder should alert the viewer to exactly how much imagination is involved in that crapfest.

7. UNDERWORLD (2003) and UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION (2006)

RT Ratings: 36% and 13%, respectively.

I really hated the first movie (well, what I saw of it between naps) the first time I saw it at the theaters. I subsequently sort of fell in love with the extended cut on DVD. I saw the sequel at the theater and once again got some good nap time, but now have all sorts of warm feelings for it on DVD. Admittedly, that probably has a lot to do with Kate Beckinsale. The Ten Hottest Ladies of Summer got nothin’ on Kate in her black leather killer vampire duds with her eyes all glowing blue.

As for Kate’s leading man, Scott Speedman… well, he sucks. I mean… like… this has to be the worst actor since Harold P. Warren of Manos: The Hands of Fate fame. Maybe they were afraid a strong leading man would overshadow Kate somehow, so they told him to speak with an effiminate lisp and deliver his lines like a hostage.

I would like to see more Underworld films. But I would implore the producers to give Kate a real leading man. She can handle it.

6. THE ALAMO (2004)

RT Rating: 31%

I suspect I mostly like this film because it shouts, “Screw you, John Wayne–this is what it was really like at the Alamo!” The 1960 version of the film, starring and directed by Wayne, is a flag-waving shitfest–as boring as it is full of stupid lies. Billy Bob Thornton was born to play Davy Crockett in this far more true-to-life account of a group of men who would rather die than give ground to the enemy. And as a bonus, we get some much-needed after-story–where Sam Houston runs down the men responsible for the slaughter at the tiny Texas parish.

I’m truly mystified at the rating on this one. What are the critics’ complaints?

“The movie is a mild compeller for history buffs, and occasionally it’s better than that. But the teenage mall rats, on whom box office success largely depends, are more likely to zoom away in Alamo rental cars.” –Mike Clark

Well, okay, I am a bit of a history buff. And it has been many, many years since I was a mallrat.

“For all the gun smoke, the image of the fort’s defenders silhouetted against a blood-red Texas sky and the unrelenting bombast of Carter Burwell’s score, the filmmakers never make the case why we should remember the Alamo.” –Manhola Dargis

What are you smoking Mahnola? We remember the Alamo because it’s history. John Wayne would have you believe everyone who died there was seven feet tall and ate glass for dinner. This version reminds us real human beings died there, possibly for a lost cause.

I thought the movie made it pretty clear that the tragedy at the Alamo basically paved the way toward Texas becoming a part of the United States. Perhaps that’s a reason worth remembering it for?

Still, I get it. If you’re not a history buff, or if you think John Wayne isn’t the poster boy for self-hating homosexuality, then maybe you won’t like this version of The Alamo. But I enjoyed every minute of it.

5. DOMINION” PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST (2005)

RT Rating: 28%

The good news is, at least Paul Schrader’s director’s cut of the fourth Exorcist film ranked higher at 28% than 2004’s Exorcist: The Beginning (11%). Commissioned to bring in some popcorn hurling summer horror fare, Schrader instead wrote and directed a thoughtful meditation on the nature of good and evil that, while containing some chills, was bound to go over like a lead balloon with the mallrats. So the studio took the film and hired Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2: Die Harder) to recut it into something more “horrific.” The result was predictably awful.

While neither film is great, it is quite interesting to compare them side-by-side (if you are a harcore film geek like me). Watch Schrader’s version first and I think you will be infinitely amused by the changes in Harlin’s version. Stellan Skarsgaard, destined to be a major Hollywood star (I hope), shines in both incarnations of the film. But his performance in the Schrader cut of the film is especially fascinating and fun to watch.

4. RED PLANET (2000)

RT Rating: 13%

Those of us who love sci-fi have to enjoy the small morsels Hollywood throws out to us all-too-infrequently. Red Planet is a perfectly respectable sci-fi flick and deserves better than a measly 13%. Is it a shade on the dumb side? Yeah. A little. Does it star Tom Sizemore, whose best career move after Saving Private Ryan would have been to die in a car accident? Yes. Still, I’ve found myself re-watching every dumb minute of Red Planet three or four times.

3. UPTOWN GIRLS (2003)

RT Rating: 13%

I can’t make any excuses for this. I laughed, I cried, I’m a big fat girly man. And I happen to think Brittany Murphy is a good actress.

No, I’m not in therapy. Why?

2. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END (2007)

RT Rating: 46%

My girlfriend, my best friend, and I walked out of this one after the closing credits, and I noticed they seemed a bit disappointed.

“Best… pirate movie… ever,” I said.

They gave me a look like I’d just grown a second head. Fans of the first two films, their complaints about the final installment very much mirrored some of the critics:

“It won’t matter whether you’ve seen the first two Pirates movies or not. You’ll still be confused.” –Gene Seymour

“…overwrought and convoluted three-hour misfire.” –Claudi Puig

“…overplotted extravaganza.” –Bill Muller

I enjoyed every convoluted, talky minute of it. Keep in mind, I despised the first film. And while I enjoyed the second film considerably more, I loved this one. (I would suspect that maybe I have a “third film in the series” fetish if I didn’t hate Return of the Jedi with a passion.)

I’ve mentioned Raiders of the Lost Ark before, and wondered that no film since has managed to even approach capturing its peculiar magic. At World’s End comes as close as any film I’ve seen. I really felt as though it put me in a magical world (as cheesy as that sounds) and I was with it for the whole ride (no pun intended). I liked every single character–even Keira Knightley and Legolas, both of whom bored the hell out of me in the previous installments. They killed Keira’s father, ending my misery with his hamfisted, dinner theater-style acting before the movie was even a quarter of the way into its running time. (This development, in fact, almost caused me to break out into spontaneous applause.) And the sappy, crappy, “we’re all so happy” ending of the first film was almost redeemed by this installment’s less-than-tidy (but far more romantic) denoument.

And let’s not forget all of the wonderful surreality scattered throughout the film. The opening scene where a young boy sings a heartwrenching song with a hangman’s noose tightened around his neck is haunting. (Whoa! Easy on the alliteration there, Hand!) The sequence where Jack commands his limbo crew of goofy doubles across an arid sea is as funny as it is artistic.

Best… pirate movie… ever.

1. THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS (2004)

RT Rating: 37%

The normally eloquent Peter Travers said, “The Matrix Revolutions sucks.” That was my reaction the first time I walked out of the theater. After Neo’s demise, I got this creeping feeling that this thing was going to end... inside the friggin’ Matrix! What the hell? There should be no Matrix at the conclusion of the trilogy! It should be blown up, Death Star style, reduced to nothing more than circuits and goo hurtling through space.

But then, as I thought about it, I realized I was wrong.

The machines could be beaten back from Zion. The Matrix could be dismantled. But it could all be rebuilt, leading to yet another cycle of war and misery. What would seem to be a mindless enemy, bent on enslaving humans and dominating the Earth, is actually a collective consciousness with a real grievance against humanity. In this way, they can be seen as analogous to modern day terrorists, with historical political grievances against America which, for some reason, we have chosen to ignore, or make ourselves deliberately ignorant to.

Neo understands the history of the conflict between the humans and machines. So he brokers a deal for peace. It’s a comment on our national mindset that such a solution goes against the grain.

“What?! Make peace?! Kill ‘em all or die trying! What’s wrong with you, Neo?!”

I didn’t like the Matrix the first time I saw it at the movie theater. I considered it sci-fi lite at best. I had seen better sci-fi and I had seen better in the way of kung fu movies. The film grew on me later, and I enjoyed Matrix Reloaded very much. Revolutions came out and I left the theatre spitting. As I said, I hated it because of the way it ended. Besides my initial disappointment that the evil Matrix actually survived, there just seemed to be too many questions left unanswered.

So I was surprised when, later in the evening, I found myself dwelling on it–trying to understand the seemingly nonsensical plot elements and impossible story threads. And then I realized that, as a whole, the Matrix trilogy had accomplished something that only great sci-fi can: it leaves questions worth pondering. Along with the big philosphical questions we had the fun little continuity questions. (I actually came up with an airtight explanation for how Neo, who we totally believed could accomplish amazing things within the Matrix, was suddenly endowed with the seemingly magical ability to accomplish those feats in the real world. It is not explained overtly in the films, but the clues are there.)

I think future generations will be more kind to the final film in the Matrix trilogy than audiences of its day. (At least, they will surely be kinder than Maddox, author of The Best Page in the Universe, who said, “They should have called this movie The Matrix: Stupid Boring Dog Shit Part III.”)

Sure, the film has its problems, and it’s not without the occassional bit of cheese, but I have watched it numerous times and have come to appreciate it very much.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Andromedia (2004) No RT score available.

I have previously made my affinity for Takashi Miike known on this website. This is definitely one of his worst films. It’s a goofy, ridiculous film that evokes the worst elements of all those bad 1980’s John Hughes wannabe teenage comedies. Still, I have watched it two or three times now, laughing all the way through, only to find myself oddly touched by its sweetness.

Yes, I am heterosexual… Why do you ask?

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