The 3rd Annual Reel Stinkers Awards

It's time to draw the curtain on 2008. As I reflect back on the year concerning movies, I think I will always remember it as being one of the best years for summer movie viewing in recent memory. There was quite a bit of good stuff outside the summer as well. Naturally, there was more than enough bad films that tried to steal money from the innocent movie-going public. That's where this comes in. The time has come to take one last shot at the worst films of 2008, before I try my best to forget most of them ever existed. You'll find a wide variety of them here - Over hyped potential blockbusters that didn't work out, misguided dramas, bad comedies, and some films so terrible I couldn't wait for them to end. So, let's take one last look back at the Reel Stinkers of 2008, laugh, and hope the people involved with them get a chance to make a good movie in 2009.


THE WORST FILMS OF 2008

5. THE HAPPENING - The latest "vision" from previously respected filmmaker, M. Night Shyamalan, was heavily hyped by the studio as THE thriller that everyone had to rush out and see. Unfortunately, many could smell the stench coming a mile away. The fact that the ad campaign was mainly built around the fact that the movie was the director's first R-rated film kind of tipped a lot of people off. If your ad campaign can't think of anything to say about a movie other than its rating, you're in trouble before the disappointing box office figures start rolling in. The movie itself is a ludicrous ecological thriller where plants declare war against humanity by forcing people to kill themselves with a deadly toxin released into the air. Mark Wahlberg leads an embarrassed cast, and gives one of the worst performances of the year. Then again, no one could do the scene where Wahlberg delivers an impassioned speech to a houseplant, asking it to spare them (only to discover it's a rubber plant), and keep their dignity in-tact.

4. SEVEN POUNDS - This is a rare late-year addition to the list. The Number 4 spot was previously inhabited by a different movie, but the more I thought about this misguided "feel good" drama about suicide, it earned a special place amongst the stinkers of 2008. The usually charismatic and likable Will Smith is thrown into a mopey role where he plays a man with a secret. A secret so big, the movie tries its hardest to throw us off and keep us in suspense by showing scenes out of sequence, throwing in random flashbacks, and dialogue that is intentionally vague. Of course, anyone half-awake watching the movie can figure it out before the big reveal. Ah, but the movie has another trick up its sleeve - It's also mind-numbingly boring and long, so it's hard to stay awake! This is an endless and depressing slog through a thin story, with characters who don't really matter to us. I didn't care about Smith's character, his secret, or the people he was trying to help. I just wanted it to end long before it did.

3. 10,000 B.C. - The first big spectacle film of 2008 was also the worst. A movie so thin and underdeveloped, it virtually has almost no plot at all, and is made up entirely out of footage of people walking or filler material. The movie is set in the days of early man, and if this film's history is right, early man comprised of a lot of tribes made up of people with bodies like supermodels who had no personality whatsoever. One of those tribes goes to rescue some of their own who are kidnapped when invaders from another land attack their village. They walk, and walk, and walk, and...Well, you get the idea. The movie throws a CG saber tooth tiger in as well to fool us into thinking something's going to happen, but it turns out to be millions in special effects budget used on a creature who literally does nothing and brings nothing to the story itself. It's just there. Audiences laughed this movie right off the screen, and rightfully so. It's a movie that looks like it cost millions to make, combined with a script that reads like it came from the Dollar Store.

2. COLLEGE - Many people don't know this, but I have a personal rating system where I judge films on a 1-4 rating. I don't use it in my reviews, however. In 2008, only two films scored a "0" on my personal rating system. College is one of them. In this dreadful teen sex comedy, three high school seniors visit a college for the weekend, hoping to find some girls and rowdy drunken fun. What they find instead is an obnoxious Fraternity House where the members enjoy torturing, physically, and mentally abusing people. So, we get to see the three guys get embarrassed in such delightful "comic" ways, such as having to drink beer out of a guy's hairy ass crack. That's literally the set up and the pay off right there. The movie contains not a single ounce of originality (the movie seems to desperately want to be Superbad), humor, or thought. It's a joyless comedy built around cruelty, gross-out gags, and Verne Troyer, whose career should have ended when the Austin Powers films did. As for the other film to receive a 0 on my scale...

1. WITLESS PROTECTION - I have seen every Larry the Cable Guy film. It's something I'm not proud of, and something I'll probably have to discuss with a therapist in the future. While his past films weren't exactly good, they were never bad enough to break the Top 5. That's probably why Witless Protection caught me so completely off guard. I was expecting a dopey redneck comedy, and instead got the worst kind of comedy imaginable. The movie is not only stupid as one would expect, it is also racist, vulgar, holds some of the worst performances to disgrace any movie in 2008 (poor Pete Stormare and Joe Montegna), and is just plain virtually unwatchable. It's never a good sign when you start to check your watch about 5 minutes into the movie. Witless Protection was so amateurish and incompetently made, I actually had to check when I got home to see if the director had done any other work before it. Surprisingly, he had. An absolute misfire in a way few bad films achieve, and a rightful title holder for the worst movie of 2008.


Well, we've cracked the Top 5, but there's a lot more where that came from. Here's the rest of the stinkers from the past year who weren't quite terrible enough to earn the top spot, but they certainly gave it their all...



DISHONORABLE MENTIONS:

One Missed Call, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A Vegitales Movie, 27 Dresses, Untraceable, Meet the Spartans, Over Her Dead Body, Strange Wilderness, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, Step Up 2 the Streets, Penelope, College Road Trip, Doomsday, Drillbit Taylor, Superhero Movie, The Ruins, Nim's Island, Prom Night, 88 Minutes, Made of Honor, What Happens in Vegas, The Love Guru, Meet Dave, Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Mirrors, Babylon A.D., Disaster Movie, Bottle Shock, Righteous Kill, The Family That Preys, My Best Friend's Girl, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Eagle Eye, Blindness, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, An American Carol, Max Payne, Fireproof, Saw V, The Haunting of Molly Hartley, Twilight, Transporter 3, Punisher: War Zone, Delgo, The Spirit


THE INDIVIDUAL REEL STINKER AWARDS:

WORST SEQUEL:
Punisher: War Zone

MOST UNNECESSARY SEQUEL:
Saw V

WORST PERFORMANCE BY A GOOD ACTOR/ACTRESS:
Tie between Mark Wahlberg in The Happening and Al Pacino in 88 Minutes

WORST PERFORMANCE BY A BAD ACTOR/ACTRESS:
Donny Osmond in College Road Trip

WORST ANIMATED FILM:
Delgo

WORST POTENTIAL FRANCHISE:
Twilight

WORST REMAKE:
Prom Night

WORST IDEA FOR A MOVIE THAT NEVER COULD HAVE WORKED:
Tie between The Love Guru and An American Carol

REPEAT OFFENDERS (THE ACTORS WHO APPEARED IN THE MOST STINKERS IN ONE YEAR):
Al Pacino in 88 Minutes and Righteous Kill
Martin Lawrence in Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins and College Road Trip
Mark Wahlberg in The Happening and Max Payne

WORST ON-SCREEN TEAMING:
Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz in What Happens in Vegas

WORST "COMEBACK":
Mike Myers in The Love Guru

MOVIE BLOCKBUSTER THAT DIDN'T DESERVE TO BE:
Twilight

Well, there you have it. It's time for me to kick these movies to the curb, forget they ever existed, and hope they don't spawn any imitators. Despite my grumblings here, 2008 wasn't all bad for movies. My "Best of..." list is coming eventually once I see some of the films that are currently stuck in limited release. Until then, I wish all of you a happy 2009. Happy viewing to one and all.

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