Roeper's worst '09 films: Old dogs, very old tricks :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
A caveat about this list: although I saw well over 100 films in 2009, scheduling conflicts prevented me from catching as many movies as I normally see -- which means I avoided some films that wound up getting panned by nearly everyone. Having missed a good number of movies that are appearing on other "worst" lists, I can't in good conscience say these are the 10 crummiest films of 2009. That said, all these movies suck, and they are indeed the 10 worst movies I experienced this year.
This entire movie should be put on medication. It's a creepy, smarmy, utterly charmless and laugh-free comedy, with Sandra Bullock in an astonishingly embarrassing performance as an apparently insane woman stalking Bradley Cooper. With each wrong turn, your jaw drops. If all films were as bad as "All About Steve," movies would be outlawed.
A grotesque sitcom featuring a shrill performance by Katherine Heigl as an uptight producer of a local morning TV show, and a floundering Gerard Butler as a macho pig who becomes an unlikely -- VERY unlikely -- television star due to his Neanderthal rants about how men are from Mars and he's just not that into you and -- well, you've heard it all before. Of all the bad movies that seem to know nothing about how television really works, this is one of the worst. I hated the premise, I hated the execution, I hated the stupid ending -- and I was stunned by the tastelessness of the scene in which a little boy plays with a remote control device in a restaurant, unwittingly bringing Heigl to an orgasm because she's wearing vibrating panties. Good God.
When Robin Williams and John Travolta were handed the script for this depressingly lazy and shockingly inept wannabe comedy, they should have called each other and said, "Let's just go on vacation." Guys. You've got all the money in the world and plenty of talent. Why burn up audience goodwill on insulting garbage like this?
The first one was big, loud and stupid, but entertaining. The sequel is bigger, louder, stupider and dull beyond belief -- and it goes on for two and a half hours, which feel like two and a half days. They're going to keep making "Transformers" sequels forever, aren't they? Nooooooooooo please nooooooo!
I heard from more than a few moviegoers who thought my reaction to this film was too harsh, given that Roland Emmerich wasn't trying to do anything more than destroy the world in creative fashion. But I can't deny how much I loathed every dopey, obnoxiously cliched moment in this disaster of a disaster film. This is a slick, cynical, occasionally sadistic movie in which cities and human beings are wiped out for our enjoyment, while a bunch of talented actors ham their way to a paycheck. Throughout the viewing experience, I almost sprained my wrist due to checking my watch so many times, praying it was nearly over.
Yeah, and there's another four-letter word that happens too. Jennifer Aniston is listless as she repeats a role she's done a half-dozen times before, Aaron Eckhart is miscast as a sensitive widower-turned-motivational speaker, the script is formulaic, and the big weeper scene takes place on the wrong stage at the wrong time and is executed in excruciatingly heavy-handed fashion. In one of the worst roles in his terrific career, Martin Sheen plays an ex-Marine who has glow-in-the-dark teeth and a perma-tan, despite living in Seattle. Perhaps upon retirement, his character opened a tanning salon/teeth whitening parlor.
Here's the problem with staging a prolonged battle between the heroine and the killer in a whiteout -- IT'S A WHITEOUT, SO YOU CAN'T SEE ANYTHING. After a cliche-filled setup that plays like a slasher movie at the South Pole, Kate Beckinsale comes parka-to-parka with the mysterious killer who's been offing folks left and right, but we can't really tell what's happening because of all that snow. Nice touch, folks. This movie also contains what might be the most bizarre scene of the year, when Beckinsale shares a tender, teary exchange with father-figure Tom Skerritt -- as he prepares to amputate her frostbitten fingers. Sniff, sniff, snip, snip. Yow.
A bland, sanitized, unnecessary and almost instantly forgettable remake. A bland, sanitized, unnecessary and almost instantly forgettable remake. A bland, sanitized, unnecessary and almost instantly forgettable remake. Oh, am I repeating myself? Well, they would have been better off copying the original "Fame" scene by scene and note for note than going forward with this bland, sanitized, unnecessary and almost instantly forgettable remake.
I'm not with Team Edward or Team Wolfboy. I'm with Team Give Me a Break. Granted, I'm not the target audience for this melodramatic teen-soap vampy silliness, but still, I was cringing at the stilted performance by Robert Pattinson, the one-note sullenness of Kristen Stewart's Bella and the shirtless howling antics of the pecs-flexing Taylor Lautner and his fellow werewolves. A plodding saga with long stretches of dullness followed by unimpressive action sequences? Count me out.
What a disappointment. Let's start with a backstory that doesn't really explain the genesis of the Human Can Opener. How can you have an "origins" movie that doesn't outline the origins? After about a hundred years of fighting in every conflict from the Civil War to Vietnam, Wolverine (who for some reason stops aging just when he starts looking like Hugh Jackman) tries to live a normal life with the woman of his dreams, but his brother wants to kill him, and the government wants to turn him into a weapon, and blah blah blah here comes another bland, CGI, PG-13 fight sequence followed by a plot twist we can see coming a mile down the road. This guy's a lot more interesting as part of the X-Men band than as a solo act.
