The 10 Worst Films of 2011
Every year the world of cinema spews forth many cinematic abortions. Luckily I have developed the good sense to detect those films before setting foot in the cinema, and avoid them at all cost. This list will not cover the obvious crap-fests of the year. It would be too easy to to list films like Jack and Jill, Bucky Larson or the Zookeeper. Films like that have no merit, so what is the point wasting time discussing them. This list will name the top 10 worst of the year that had some potential in one way or another. Perhaps they had a competent or talented director, an interesting subject matter, or should have been something, yet somehow they failed miserably. Those films that were a true disappointment are the ones that make the top ten worst of the year list.
I skipped the following 2011 poisonous releases for obvious reasons: Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, Big Mama’s House 3, Breaking Dawn, Bucky Larson, The Change Up, Footloose, Glee, Jack and Jill, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, New Year’s Eve, The Zookeeper, or whatever crap Tyler Perry inflicted upon the world.
Updated (1/25): I am obligated to see every Best Picture Oscar nominee. I have seen all of them all the way back through the mid-60′s (except for The Emigrants – which is not on DVD & I cannot find a VHS copy), with the hopes of knocking them all out one day. Even the films from the 20′s. So when the Academy nominated Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, I had to go see it. I avoided it because it looked like a mind numbing, sappy, want-to-be tear-jerker of a film. Well, I underestimated it. It was far worse than I could have imagined. I owe it an apology for leaving it off the Top 10 Worst List, so I will not let it take its rightful place atop this list.
The Ward
10. The Ward Directed by John Carpenter
The eternally sad decline of the once great John Carpenter is reaffirmed. Has it really been 25 years since he has made a good movie? Carpenter was once a true visionary of film. A unique master that just ran out of gas. The man that, before 1987, gave the world great films like Halloween, The Thing, Escape from New York, Starman and Big Trouble in Little China, afterwards gave the world clunkers such as In the Mouth of Madness, Ghosts of Mars and Escape from L.A. The Ward is not god-awful, its just nothing. Its basically a non-event as a movie. Generally that is common in movies and nothing worth pointing out. However, in this case it just points out another chapter in decline of a once great film maker. 
Red State
9. Red State Directed by Kevin Smith
Kevin Smith is another once great director that has entered into a state of terrible film making. Red State is much better than last year’s worst picture, Cop Out (also directed by Kevin Smith), but that is not saying much. Red State is ambitious, and for that I will give Kevin Smith credit. It really tries to be something, sadly it just comes up flat. Its an interesting idea that is never really developed. It just drags along without nothing much happening. Not even a prolonged gun fight could pep this one up into something interesting. The only saving grace of this film would have been an excellent stopping point that was bypassed for a boring, rambling and pointless ending. Those that saw the movie will all know where it should have ended. I hate to say it, but I would much rather hear about Walt Flanagan’s dog than to watch Kevin Smith go down this boring path.
Young Adult
8. Young Adult Directed by Jason Reitman
Wow! Three bad films in a row on this list by three good directors. What is the world coming to? This is a deplorable story of an even more unlikable person. Many critics have praised the movie for being so full of venom, but it just renders it pointless. There is no character growth, no lessons learned, nothing really happens except for the main character’s realization that her awfulness is acceptable. This would be excusable if the film was interesting or entertaining. It is nether. It just wallows in the filth of its own nastiness. At least Patton Oswalt was cool as the only person of interest in the entire film. My original review is here.
Meloncholia
7. Meloncholia Directed by Lars von Trier
Another critical darling that has appeared on many top ten best lists. Too bad they put it on the wrong top ten list. Meloncholia is an often visually beautiful film on the surface. However, if you look deep inside it is completely unpleasantly hollow story about a depressed woman. Her character, or illness, is not examined in any way. Instead the film concentrates on her random, infantile behavior on her wedding day for about an hour. Then for the second hour it focuses on her shittiness, and oh by-the-way a planet is about to smash into the Earth, but that is not important. Lars von Trier has a lot of technical skill, too bad he fucking hastes cinema and movie goers all around the world. Here is my original review that says everything that needs to be said.
Green Lantern
6. Green Lantern Directed by Martin Campbell
Yikes! Another talented director, Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, Goldeneye) makes an appearance of the year’s worst films. Green Lantern is a big budget failure of the highest order. Nothing about this film works. Bad casting (Reynolds and Sarsgaard are laughable), bed effects (where the hell did the $200 million dollars go?), bad writing (no intentional laughs and tons of poor attempts to be poignant), etc. It has it all, or lacks it all. Here is my original review. I hope that DC can break its poor streak of non-Batman features.
Conan the Barbarian
5. Conan the Barbarian Directed by Marcus Nispel
Full disclosure, I am huge fan of the original Conan the Barbarian. That said, I did not expect much from this remake. At best I hoped it would be a fun action pick, at worst I thought it would be boring. Well I was wrong. It was was not boring, it was extremely boring. Not a good attribute for an action film. Its hard to fathom that someone could make a movie about Conan that is so utterly lifeless. Here is my original review.
Hobo with a Shotgun
4. Hobo with a Shotgun Directed by Jason Eisener
Hobo with a Shotgun is a completely childish and tasteless endeavor that tries to disguise itself as a campy romp that continually winks at its own crapiness in some odd attempt to justify itself as a real movie. The problem is that its crapiness is not entertaining. Its a gross-out fest that is just mindless and unpleasant. Many people saw this film as a fun, ultra-violent joke. Trust me, there is nothing fun about this movie. Its often pathetic. Seeing the once talented Rutger Hauer whore himself in this movie made me want to cry. I wonder why these films are so popular among so many people?
Your Highness
3. Your Highness Directed by David Gordon Green
Dim-witted assery on the lowest level. If you like to hear someone say fuck a lot, and watch people stumble through the long abandoned sets from Krull, congratulations here is the film for you. If that does not sound appealing, avoid this unfunny, uninspired waste of two hours. Note to Danny McBride: your humor is fine in small doses, but you cannot carry a film.
In the Name of the King II: Two Worlds
2. In the Name of the King: Two Worlds Directed by Uwe Boll
Why in the hell did I watch another Uwe Boll film? The first In the Name of the King was often funny (in a MST3K way), and this one has Dolph Lundgren and a dragon in it! Son of a bitch, I got screwed by Uwe Boll again. Never again! Not that I was expecting anything beyond a few chuckles, this film was the dullest film I have ever seen. It makes zero sense and moves at a snail’s pace. Boll seems to miss the fact that this is a crappy action film made for people with no sense of what a good movie is. He sparsely sprinkles in stupid fight scenes amid a sea of mindless and drawn out dialogue. Its hard to imagine why people continue giving Uwe Boll money to rape the world of cinema. Sadly I think I figured it out. When I was at my local Family Video store yesterday, I noticed that they had 15 copies of this movies to rent. 13 of them were rented out on a Tuesday!
Sucker Punch
1A. Sucker Punch Directed by Zack Snyder
Sucker Punch has been harshly panned by most critics and fan boys alike. Almost nobody seems to like it (it has a few defenders, but they almost exclusively discuss its visual merit), so I was not too keen to watch it. The only reasons I decided to watch it was that its trailer made it look like an interesting and pretty train wreck, and to be honest, Zack Snyder has made some cool movies in the past (300, Watchmen). I had no idea what kind of eye rape I was in for when I sat down to watch Sucker Punch. Two hours of the most asinine, ridiculous, and pointless film making left me paralyzed and dazed because of what I saw. It is not an understatement to say that Sucker Punch is one of the absolute worst misfires (and films in general) in the history of cinema. It is hard to believe that during the filming of this movie that nobody approached Zack Snyder to let him know how much a dim bulb his film was going to be. Not one producer, grip, actor, caterer, script supervisor or effects specialist spoke up to Snyder?
The whole film seems like an experiment of what would happen if you gave a twelve year old boy $80 million dollars and a fancy camera. Everything about the experiment turned out wrong. Each performance in the movie is like that of a crying corpse (everyone has a blank face full of tears). The main villain, played by Drive’s Oscar Isaac, is one of the worst in cinematic history. He has mastered the skill of annoyance and over acting at (least he is not a corpse). The “plot” of the film is so mind-numbingly bad it starts out laughable, but quickly become pathetic. It comes off as a joke version of Inception with hot chicks, swords, robots, goblins and dragons. The entire film plays like a bad video game. I often reached for my PS3 controller while watching it. I admit there are some pretty CGI moments in the film, but they are so ridiculously idiotic they negate any technical merit that may have had. I know they are fantasy sequences, but they still make absolutely no sense even within the context of the story. The worst part of the film is its awful soundtrack (besides its use of Bjork’s Army of Me). It is full of awful covers of classic songs. The worst song has a guy rapping over classic Queen songs. I almost deafened myself during that scene. All in all, this film is a lobotomy of a movie.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
1B. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close Directed by Stephen Daldry
God damn you Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science for nominating this film for Best Picture. Its common for them to occasionally nominate a few mediocre films for Best Picture, but its rare that they nominate something as truly awful as Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. This film conjures up images of The Reader, Ship of Fools, Gentleman’s Agreement and Ghost in my head. Those are thoughts that nobody should have to endure more than once, and if you are not an extreme cinephile you should never endure them.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is the most ham-fisted, hokey, asinine film to come along since the Oscar thieving, Crash (it might even be worse). It has no subtly what-so-ever. It smashes its you in the face for 2+ hours with its often laughable attempts at sentimentality. The story is an utterly moronic tale of an annoying kid looking for a lock that will fit a key he finds in his dead dad’s closet. Oh, by the way, his dad died in the Twin Towers on 9/11. His quest is filled with pointless encounters (well the point of each encounter is for you to whip out the Kleenex and feel sad and/or uplifted). The film never lets up with scene after scene of in-your-face emotionality. It fails so badly that its painful to watch, and not due to the connection with 9/11 subject matter (Paul Greengrass’ United 93 dealt with the 9/11 subject matter without blinking, and it worked perfectly). The worst aspect of the film is the performance of its young star, Thomas Horn. He is unbearable and annoying. His voice is reminiscent of a banshee mixed with an injured harpy. I honestly felt sorry for him while I watched the movie. The only positive was Max Von Sydow’s performance as the boy’s mute grandfather (that is a spoiler, but it could not be more obvious). If only the rest of the cast were mute. . .
It saddens me that so many people are failing for this blubbering joke of a film. Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film was a “handsomely polished, thoughtfully wrapped Hollywood production about the national tragedy of 9/11 that seems to have forever redefined words like unthinkable, unforgivable, catastrophic”. She must have watched a different print that I did. I think that Peter Howell of the Toronto Star got it right when he stated that “[the] film feels all wrong on every level, mistaking precociousness for perceptiveness and catastrophe for a cuddling session. It’s calculated as Oscar bait, but the bait is poisoned by opportunism and feigned sensitivity”. Amen, brother!
