Lackluster Blockbuster

[GregX]

Saw this, figured it'd make a great discussion piece.

Lackluster Blockbuster
Big Movies That Promised Us Greatness But Gave Us Misery

By Sean Nelson
Special to MSN Movies


Summer is here, and with it blockbuster season at the movies. Big events this year include the return of Indiana Jones and "X-Files" agents Mulder and Scully, Hulk and Batman sequels, a film version of the '60s TV series "Get Smart," plus vehicles for funnymen Mike Myers, Will Smith, Eddie Murphy and Will Ferrell, and a rash of other big budget extravaganzas.
Odds are good that many of these pictures will prove popular with moviegoers, who, as we all know, will see just about anything a good ad campaign tells them to. Odds are even better that many, if not most, of these films will suck, hard.


There are plenty of reasons movies conceived to be big moneymakers don't age well -- the cheap thrills, special effects and so-called "high concepts" associated with blockbusters tend to wear thin on repeated viewings, and once the marketing wears off all that's left is a dim memory of being pandered to for a couple of hours in a room full of strangers. You can't even really blame the filmmakers, except in some cases (see below). After all, the more people you have to please, the less you're able to say.
In fairness, not all blockbusters are bad; take a stroll down the top 20 moneymakers of all time and you're likely to find several titles that qualify as legitimate classics. But as studios feel the pressure to put up bigger and bigger numbers, the bigger hits start feeling like bigger disappointments as years (and DVDs) go by. Here's a list of some of the box office's worst successes, with a couple of lifetime achievement awards included to dishonor two repeat offenders.

"Star Wars" Episodes I, II, III (1999, 2002, 2005)



This tale has been told many times, but it bears repeating. When George Lucas reopened the Pandora's box of his "Star Wars" series to make three "prequels" for a new generation of consumers, he ruined everything. Even the original trilogy now feels like some kind of weird suppressed memory. Looking back, weren't they kind of chintzy and awful, too? They certainly are now with all the digital changes Lucas has added. But, by contrast with the new trio, Episodes IV, V and VI are "The Godfather" I and II and "Citizen Kane"! Forget Jar Jar Binks -- "The Phantom Menace," "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith" were all born dead, victims of lazy and cynical writing, filmmakers more interested in technological breakthroughs than in captivating viewers and, ultimately, a lack of vision. Lucas knew people would come see anything that said "Star Wars" on it, so he killed the goose to see where the gold came from. Even the force can't save him now.

"E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" (1982)



Not so fast, Spielberg. You may be respectable now with your "Schindler's List" and your "Saving Private Ryan," and you may have hit a few home runs with movies about dinosaurs and sharks and the like, but let us never forget that you once made the most preposterously sentimental and manipulative film ever, and you put a puppet with a glowing finger in the middle of it. When I was 9 years old, I cried at the sight of Elliott being forced to say goodbye to his one and only true friend, the little Reese's Pieces-loving (nice marketing, there, by the way) potato head, because I, too, was a child of divorce, and I knew how it felt to feel alone. Looking back now, I feel cheated out of those tears and incredulous that the whole world once lined up to see such a cheap looking toy tear a little boy's heart out.

"Home Alone," "Home Alone 2" (1990, 1992)



Speaking of little boys, here's a movie that no one could have seen coming. (Well, two movies, actually, but they're identical.) An adorable little towhead gets accidentally ditched by his family, then spends 100 minutes playing in an empty house and sadistically pummeling two hapless burglars using techniques devised by Bugs Bunny. If it sounds like it was created by a machine, it was.


His name is John Hughes, and he's been in hiding ever since, living in a prison made out of shame and million-dollar bills.

"Titanic" (1997)



What can I say but "worst movie ever"? I'll allow that the sinking boat was pretty cool looking. But did I really need to wait 12 hours to see it happen? If you are one of those unfortunate young people bamboozled by the stock characters, the corny melodrama and the desperate romantic window dressing of this disaster (of an) epic, don't worry: You're not alone. You just have terrible taste.

"The Passion of the Christ" (2004)



Even if you're a devout religious believer, you can at least acknowledge that Mel Gibson's magnum opus is basically torture: three hours (or was it nine?) of a gentle hippie getting the ever-loving stuffing beaten, whipped and, ultimately, nailed out of him by confused Romans and demonic Jews -- all because he claimed to be the son of a deity. Sure, some people believe the events depicted here literally happened, and a lot of those people bought tickets to watch it re-enacted (enough to make it one of the most profitable films of all time), but that doesn't make it cinema. It makes it fetish pornography.

"The Da Vinci Code" (2006)



More god-awful moviemaking swaddled in the sheep's clothing of quasi-religious nuttiness. You bought the best-selling novel in an airport, now see the movie (on TBS). Tom Hanks, sporting his worst haircut to date (which is saying something), stars in a movie that combines a ludicrous premise, even more ludicrous internal logic and no suspense whatsoever, and still manages to be almost three hours long. "National Treasure" was more plausible (and more entertaining). Seriously, I know people are stupid, but are they really this stupid?

"I Am Legend" (2007)



I have no problem with the goofy sci-fi premise. In fact, I love it. The last man on Earth waits for the evil zombies to come and have it out with him and his trusty dog. Will Smith makes a lousy, shallow hero, but I knew going in that he was the star, so no fair complaining about that. The design of abandoned New York is impressive, but familiar from other bad blockbusters -- Smith's fortress world is basically modeled on the fantasies of a 13-year-old boy. But, again, I'd seen the trailer, so I knew what I was getting myself into. Here's what I do have a problem with: digital zombies. You spend the whole movie dreading the arrival of these flesh eating monsters, and when they finally show up they look like blips from a video game. And a crappy old one like "Doom" or whatever. Not scary. Not threatening. Just lame. I Am Leaving.

"Spider-Man" "Spider-Man 2," "Spider-Man 3" (2002, 2004, 2007)
Onetime cult horror director Sam Raimi seemed like a left-field choice for this big-budget enterprise, but he managed to do exactly what the studio and the comics publisher must have wanted him to do: drain away all his signature style and attitude, and turn in a product that even penniless people in Guam would make an effort to buy. It's not the cast (Tobey Maguire was a good choice). It's not the stories (well, the stories could have used some work). It's not the way everything is aimed at little kids (instead of, say, big kids, too). No, it's the effects. Again. The age of digital has done the movies a lot of favors. But it has made special effects movies look cheap and two-dimensional. And Spidey deserved better than this.

Special Award for Roland Emmerich: "Independence Day" (1996); "Godzilla" (1998); "The Patriot" (2000); "The Day After Tomorrow" (2004); and "10,000 B.C." (2008)



Every Roland Emmerich movie has one breathtakingly memorable shot: Be it the White House being blown up by a hostile space ship, New York flooded by icy ocean waters, or a prehistoric hunter face-to-face with a roaring saber-toothed tiger. All are semi-indelible images from one of the premier blockbuster filmmakers of his time. Unfortunately, these films share one common flaw: all the other shots. Emmerich films are worse than just dumb (blockbusters are allowed to be dumb) -- they're half-cooked. It's as if every character, every line, every special effect understands that they're just filler designed to surround the big money shot that will form the climax not of the movie, but of the trailer. If he just made previews, he'd be a genius. But he makes feature length movies. More's the pity.

Special Award for Michael Bay: "Bad Boys" (1995); "The Rock" (1996); "Armageddon" (1998); "Pearl Harbor" (2001); "The Island" (2005); and "Transformers" (2007)



Who is the worst filmmaker of all time? If you're tempted to answer Michael Bay, you can certainly be forgiven, as his movies are uniformly atrocious crimes against cinema. But I think it's too soon, and maybe a little too kind, to award Bay such an accolade, because I like to imagine -- beyond reason -- that one day he will be forgotten, and that his collected works, which represent the shallowest tendencies of blockbuster filmmaking, will be forgotten along with him, like so many wasted afternoons.

http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie-g...T1=28117&mpc=2

Well, I'm sure Han will like this article anyway.

I agree with every word of it. Except one thing, Tobey Maguire was not a good choice for Spider-Man.

Have at it!

[Peter Paltridge]

THIS. IS. TERRIBLE.

How on Earth did this ever get on MSN's front page? This is one of the worst critic's pieces I've ever read.

The first Home Alone ruled, and still does!

[Don_East]

Great, another film critic who thinks films aren't suppose to be made to entertain people. Those are the worst kind of film critics.

[Classic Speedy]

Y'know, I -still- have not seen Passion. Though I highly doubt it'd be able to top the masterpiece that was The Last Temptation anyway.

I agree with MI; Home Alone is still a good movie. I rewatched it again on the new 2007 DVD and I still enjoyed it. Simplifying the plot down to "Kevin brings burglars into his house and pummels them" really shortchanges a lot of things about it.

[GregX]

Great, another film critic who thinks films aren't suppose to be made to entertain people. Those are the worst kind of film critics.

No, he thinks films should be entertaining and good. There are plenty of entertaining movies he did not rip apart. He didn't rip apart "Jaws". He didn't tear apart "The Lord of the Rings". "Batman Begins" wasn't mentioned.

A lot of great and "entertaining" movies weren't mentioned.

The movies he did tear into were, well, not good. At least I don't think they were.

[FightingDreamer]

Look, we already know that Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich are not great filmmakers; these points have been belabored time and again, so why bother bringing them back up. I will continue to believe that the Star Wars prequels are not as bad as everyone else thinks (though they certainly have their problems), and I take umbrage with the inclusion of "E.T." and the "Spider-Man" films. Yes, E.T. is manipulative, almost shamelessly so, but it still works because Spielberg doesn't cheat or mock the material, but plays it straight right to the end. There's a kind of mythic, profound emotional power at E.T. that does not lend itself well to "explanation". All I can tell you is that my eyes still well up when E.T. promises Elliot, "I'll... be... right... here."

As for the Spider-Man films, the effects are a legitimate point of contention, especially in the first and third installments. But Spider-Man 2 remains one of the best comic book films ever made, and the effects there are still nearly perfect. Look at how Doc Ock's mechanical arms are almost given personality in their movements, for example, and the big fight between Ock and Spidey that starts at the clock tower and leads to the train is one of the great superhero fight sequences.

[GregX]

I have such a love/hate relationship with the first two Spider-Man movies. There are aspects I love and aspects that just drive me insane. But, I'm a life long Spider-Man fan, so I guess that's to be expected.

Yes, Ock's tentacles were well done... though the idea of them controlling him still makes me say "Huh?"

[Movie06]

Great, another film critic who thinks films aren't suppose to be made to entertain people. Those are the worst kind of film critics.

I agree with you there. And what's worse is that if someone says something like "Well, I enjoyed Bad Boys", someone with the attitutde of that sort of critic would go nuts and call the person stupid for liking it. It's like people aren't allowed to have different tastes.

And for the record, I disagree with what the guy said about I Am Legend. I mean come on, that movie actually stayed faithful to the original story.

[Temple Fugate]

He admits to being entertained and deeply impassioned by E.T. when he was a kid, and now bashes it by placing it on a "worst blockbusters" list? Somebody needs to get back in touch with his childhood.

I agree with some of his comments, I disagree with others. This is yet another guy on a soapbox telling us what we shouldn't like just because it was churned out by the Hollywood Blockbuster Machine.

[Hanshotfirst113]

Well, I'm sure Han will like this article anyway.

I'm actually a big fan of E.T. (I'm a gooey sentimentalist, sue me) and the first two Spider-Man films. The effects work in the first and third certainly looks way too much like a video game at times (particularly a shot the looks like it was cut in from a Pixar movie when Spidey takes off to swing), but the second installment in just about as pitch-perfect a summer blockbuster as I've ever seen. I'm surprised, however, that Batman and Robin, the movie synonymous with "big-budget bomb," is not here. Heck, along with Bay, Bruckheimer (Where is his section?), Emmerich, and perhaps Tony Scott, Schumacher is one the critics' favorite whipping boys.

Titanic is a guilt pleasure of mine, but I'd be hard-pressed to call it a "great movie" in pretty much any sense. There are things about it that are spectacular. Cameron and Digital Domain at the top of their form, and visual effects are nothing short of breathtaking, Cameron's visual perfectionism is all over every frame, and his spatial dynamics are incredible. The problem with Titanic is when characters start talking to each other. Cameron is a brilliant visionary with his visual aesthetic, his ideas, and his storytelling sensibilities, but he's never had a great ear for dialogue. In movies about mutant aliens underwater and in space and cyborgs from the future and James Bond-like secret agents, it's less of an issue (and Hurd and Wisher helped to smooth things out a bit), but in something aiming for historical relevancy like Titanic, it's horribly grating. And the romance is hollow as can be. How someone who infused female characters with such strong characterizations in films like the Terminator movies, Aliens, and The Abyss could give way to the stereotypical femmes of True Lies and Titanic is a mystery to me. The truth about Titanic is probably someplace in between the two extremes. It's not as bad a film as some people say, but it's far from the great attempt at recapturing the glory days of Hollywood that it clearly wanted to be.

I have no desire to see The Da Vinci Code or The Passion of the Christ, and I've....never seen Home Alone. Yeah, I know.

I agree with you there. And what's worse is that if someone says something like "Well, I enjoyed Bad Boys", someone with the attitude of that sort of critic would go nuts and call the person stupid for liking it. It's like people aren't allowed to have different tastes.

You're talking about the IMDb, I think. Actual paid critics should be more classy.

And for the record, I disagree with what the guy said about I Am Legend. I mean come on, that movie actually stayed faithful to the original story.

WHAT? Don't get me wrong, I liked aspects of I Am Legend (and don't think that it belongs here, as it was excellent for the first hour or so, but that's for the talkback thread), but beyond the title and the vague premise, it had little to do with Mattheson's novel! The Last Man On Earth was a far more faithful adaptation. I'm not attempting to rip into I Am Legend (it has its flaws, but it's not as bad as they're making it out to be), but in terms of faithfulness to Mattheson's novel, it barely adheres to it at all. I will agree that the creatures were not real convincing, which is a shame, since the digital mockup of NYC was incredible.

Great, another film critic who thinks films aren't suppose to be made to entertain people. Those are the worst kind of film critics.

That's a very narrow designation, especially since most of the people who've long been critical of people like Bay don't find his films entertaining. Heck Roger Ebert, who has long been vocal in his distaste for Bay, gave good writeups to Transporter 2, Kiss of the Dragon, xXx, The Fast and the Furious, Flash Gordon, and has even championed horror films like Dawn of the Dead and The Devil's Rejects. Pauline Kael, the New York Times, critics can make an obscure foreign film into tomorrow's biggest sleeper hit. There's always this stereotype about critics only liking weird, artsy, ridiculous, "pretentious" movies, but that's unfair. I can tell you right now that if I taught a film class, I would show Evil Dead II for the editing and the stylized direction, to name but one of my many unorthodox choices. Life without "art" may be "unfulfilling," but life without entertainment would be exhausting. And I have my guilty pleasure too . I love The Seventh Seal and Casablanca. I also love Blade II.

A fellow who calls himself "tieman64" on the IMDb (I didn't ask), posted a review for Transformers that I was fond of, if not entirely in agreement with.

Two years ago, in a "War of The Worlds" review, I emphasized that pretty soon all action film-makers would start copying Spielberg's "eye of terror" (that reactive style of camera work used in his alien invasion picture).

Spielberg's thinking at the time was that CGI special effects are no longer special. You now have to hide and mask your CGI so as to give your film a sense of reality and menace.

This sort of evolution is normal in film-making. Since the 80's, James Cameron has been doing it with seemingly outdated forms of special effects (miniatures and front/rear screen projection) and even dabbled with subverting CGI in Titanic. He plays down the importance of these effects, yet uses them in a pretty big way. So subverting CGI while making it the "spectacle" of the show is a perfectly normal artistic evolution.

But "Transformers" milks this new trend to death. The camera is constantly ducking, hiding from the effects, catching glimpses of action but never seeing anything coherently. People complain that none of the robots are clearly designed. That none have distinct or memorable features. That they're all poorly and unimaginatively conceived. But this is because the camera never intended to watch them in the first place.

Combine this scattershot camera-work with Bays scattershot storytelling and you have one pretty stupid movie.

Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" was released in 2005, and now, here in 2007, we have an onslaught of similarly shot Spielbergian crap. The 2 year gap between "War of the Worlds (a Spielberg directed alien invasion movie) and stuff like "Transformers" (a Spielberg produced alien invasion movie) is what I call the Hollywood/Spielberg gap.

Currently this gap is 2 years. The previous record was the three year gap between "Black Hawk Down" and "Saving Private Ryan". I doubt the gap can get any smaller, as it takes roughly a year to get a big budget film out of pre-production.

In the business and market place, rival companies likewise have a similar gap between products. One company hits upon a top selling product and you naturally want to capitalize on this trend. You reverse engineer their product, rebuild it, rename it and flood the shelves with your own variant of this soullessly produced crap.

So the fact that we've reached this two year breaking point means something is gonna happen. Somewhere within the next ten years all this art-void nonsense is gonna stop and some major shake up is gonna occur. The shelves are gonna be wiped clear and 40 years of negative Spielberg influence is gonna be brushed aside.

But anyway, back to Michael Bay's "Transformers".

Michael Bay is a director people love to hate. But he's literally just Spielberg for alpha males. While Spielberg appeals to the quiet, introspective, curious, cautious, fantasy loving mommas boy, Bay appeals to the testosterone fueled jock (and his woman) who just wants a quick testosterone fix.

Bay's films make BILIONS of dollars and are seem by millions of people REPEATEDLY. It's no coincidence that Bay's most feminine film (THE ISLAND) raked in no money. His market is the Van Damme/Steven Segal loving alpha male stereotype. A demographic who has no care for art, film reviews or cinema. They just wanna see masculinized crap blow up good. Which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. There's a purity to that kind of taste, and if you attack it, it's only because you do not understand or do not belong to the "alpha male" pack. Your attack on "their" art then becomes a shallow and jealous attack on their masculinity. An attempt to level the playing feel by trumping their strength (sexual and physical) with your strength (knowledge and intelligence).

The point is that Bay is not artless. His films just represent a stupid, vulgar type of bad art that appeals to the opposite demographic that some of Spielberg's equally stupid and vulgar bad art does not appeal to.

So what's harmful, is the way critics hypocritically come down on Bay's type of violent-porn. It's stupid, they say. It's artless. But of course the critics (a pretty wimpy introspective group of feminized men) are not in Bay's demographic. Bay's audience has no voice in the art community. The result is that masculinized bad art (like Bay's) is trashed mercilessly, while feminized bad art (like Spielberg's) is not.

4/10.

Rent the original, animated "Transformers The Movie" instead. That's a brilliant cartoon with witty one liners and some great voice acting by Orson Welles and Leonard Nimoy. Not to mention Optimus Prime's death is a major tear jerker.

I Am Leaving.

LOL!

[Movie06]

You're talking about the IMDb, I think. Actual paid critics should be more classy.

But sometimes, audiences would disagree with actual paid critics.

WHAT? Don't get me wrong, I liked aspects of I Am Legend (and don't think that it belongs here, as it was excellent for the first hour or so, but that's for the talkback thread), but beyond the title and the vague premise, it had little to do with Mattheson's novel! The Last Man On Earth was a far more faithful adaptation. I'm not attempting to rip into I Am Legend (it has its flaws, but it's not as bad as they're making it out to be), but in terms of faithfulness to Mattheson's novel, it barely adheres to it at all. I will agree that the creatures were not real convincing, which is a shame, since the digital mockup of NYC was incredible.

But still you got to admit, I Am Legend is not as bad as that critic makes it out to be.

[Hanshotfirst113]

But sometimes, audiences would disagree with actual paid critics.

"Audiences?" Not every person who goes to the movies comes away with the same feelings! Some might agree with critics, and some might not. Sure they will. If you can find me a film that every critic and audience member agree about I'll...well, I don't know, because no such things exists, to my knowledge!

But still you got to admit, I Am Legend is not as bad as that critic makes it out to be.

Oh, I wasn't claiming that it was, simply that it wasn't faithful to Mattheson's novel.

[SirLemming]

I've never seen Titanic, but I still find this critic's simplistic assessment to be, well, not worthy of publishing. It's a proofread message board post.

As for The Passion, I still don't understand all the criticism of the movie's "pornographic" violence. It's brutal, it's intense, and there's a lot of it (though it's hardly the ENTIRE movie, as people claim), but it's still just blood and scarring. No decapitation, no guts, no gaping chest wounds. The first scene of Saving Private Ryan alone is much more gruesome than anything in The Passion. I'm not the most squeamish guy in the world, but the violence in war movies definitely makes me cringe, and I don't watch many R-rated horror movies. So I don't get the uproar about this one, nor do I appreciate the insinuation that I'm some sort of violence fetishist.

[The Overlord]

No, he thinks films should be entertaining and good. There are plenty of entertaining movies he did not rip apart. He didn't rip apart "Jaws". He didn't tear apart "The Lord of the Rings". "Batman Begins" wasn't mentioned.

A lot of great and "entertaining" movies weren't mentioned.

The movies he did tear into were, well, not good. At least I don't think they were.

Spider-man 2 was on his list. Epic Fail!

[Storm Eagle]

Okay, I think I watched E.T. just a couple of years ago. I saw it as a kid, but just not at the time it came out in theaters. The first two Home Alone movies are still watchable in my opinion. I'm just not compelled to have them in my movie collection though. Oh wait, I did buy them once.

I'm probably the only person who actually enjoys all three Spider-Man movies. I never got to see the third in theaters, so I bought it the day it first came out on video, and I'm not disappointed with my purchase. I guess I might have been able to relate to Peter in some way though, as far as the third movie was concerned.

As a long-time Transformers fan, I could appreciate Michael Bay's movie for what it was. I did enjoy watching the movie, but I just never really understood what the hype was all about though.

[Temple Fugate]

As a long-time Transformers fan, I could appreciate Michael Bay's movie for what it was. I did enjoy watching the movie, but I just never really understood what the hype was all about though.

The hype was pretty much "There's gonna be a live action Transformers movie!" It could have been directed by anyone and it would have received 90% of the existing hype regardless. Spielberg's name being attached to the project probably helped; Bay's name being attached to the project helped in some places, and hindered it in others. But it could have been directed by a no-name and the Transformers brand alone would have been hype enough. (As long as the same hype machine was hired to do the same promotions like the Convoy-Under-Wraps truck at NYCC and the Section 7 mobile educational vehicle.)

[Storm Eagle]

The hype was pretty much "There's gonna be a live action Transformers movie!" It could have been directed by anyone and it would have received 90% of the existing hype regardless. Spielberg's name being attached to the project probably helped; Bay's name being attached to the project helped in some places, and hindered it in others. But it could have been directed by a no-name and the Transformers brand alone would have been hype enough. (As long as the same hype machine was hired to do the same promotions like the Convoy-Under-Wraps truck at NYCC and the Section 7 mobile educational vehicle.)

Makes sense. The idea of a live-action Transformers movie even had my interest piqued. It's just that as much as I appreciated it, just don't think it's the be all-end all of movies.

[Nygma]

He didn't tear apart "The Lord of the Rings".

No, Randall did that for us in Clerks 2, so he wouldn't have to.

A lot of great and "entertaining" movies weren't mentioned.

Like Blade 3 or Superman Returns.

The movies he did tear into were, well, not good. At least I don't think they were.

Well obviously not everybody shares that viewpoint, I certainly don't.

I agree about Titanic and The Star Wars prequels, but there's crap out there that's far worse than the rest of what he mentioned above.

[Mikintosh]

I'm probably the only person who actually enjoys all three Spider-Man movies. I never got to see the third in theaters, so I bought it the day it first came out on video, and I'm not disappointed with my purchase. I guess I might have been able to relate to Peter in some way though, as far as the third movie was concerned.

Geez, people acting like the third movie was toxic waste or something. I loved all three Spidey films.

[SirLemming]

Geez, people acting like the third movie was toxic waste or something. I loved all three Spidey films.

Me too, but I guess we shouldn't get into that here...