The 7th Annual Reel Stinkers Awards

We've hit the last day of 2012, so it's time for a little tradition I have here at Reel Opinions.  That's right, it's time to take one last look back at the films that stole the time of myself, and anyone else unfortunate enough to see them.  To be fair, 2012 was a pretty good year for movies.  The good far outweighed the bad.  But, that doesn't mean that some big stinkers didn't slip on through.  And that's what this list is for.  It's time to "honor" the year's biggest bombs, and hope that those involved with them will get to work on a good movie in 2013.

As always, my "Best of 2012" list is still on the way.  There are still some movies stuck in limited release that will be expanding nationwide soon, so I'm going to hold off on that until I see them.  I usually post my choices for the best films on the day of the Oscars, so that's probably when you can expect it this year, as well.

With that said, it's time to carve some cinematic turkeys.


THE 10 WORST FILMS OF 2012:

 

10. THE COLD LIGHT OF DAY - Let's kick things off with what is probably one of the most forgettable action thrillers of this or any other year.  The Cold Light of Day desperately wanted to be a white-knuckle film along the lines of the Jason Bourne films, but it lacked confidence in itself, and only gave a minimal effort.  Too bad even that minimal effort was pretty terrible.  Future Superman star, Henry Cavill, shows a total lack of personality as he races around a stupid plot where his family has gone missing, and everyone from the police to the CIA seems to be in on some massive conspiracy.  Bruce Willis literally cashes a paycheck as the father of the main character, a CIA operative who shows up in the movie just long enough to explain what's going on.  The whole time he's on camera, he looks like he can't wait for the director to yell "Cut", so he can get the hell out of this bomb.  Finally, we have Sigourney Weaver as the film's villain.  She tries to act cold and intimidating, as she pretty much marches through all of her scenes, firing off bullets non-stop.  Too bad like everyone else, the movie gives her absolutely nothing interesting to say or do.  This is one of those movies that almost seems to know it's bad, and everyone was just kind of sleepwalking through it.  The few people who saw this one during its brief theatrical run probably had a hard time staying awake, too.

 

 09. THIS MEANS WAR - This misguided attempt to blend spy action and romantic comedy was one of the more bizarre movie experiences of the year.  Nothing in This Means War works.  This is a total misfire that not even the talents of Tom Hardy, Chris Pine, and Reese Witherspoon can salvage.  Hardy and Pine play CIA operatives and best friends who both happen to fall in love with Witherspoon's character at the same time.  When they discover this fact, both men turn into childish bozos, and start using spy tech to spy on each other, or to sabotage their chances with the woman.  This is an incredibly witless and dense movie about two guys acting like idiots, and Witherspoon's character being completely oblivious to everything that's going on around her.  So, why are we supposed to like these people?  The movie offers us no answers.  All it gives us is a lot of groan-inducing comic moments, and an action finale that is not only completely over the top, but absolutely pointless.  This was the first big stinker of the year, but far from the last.

 

08 CHERNOBYL DIARIES - This "found-footage" horror film gives us a great setting - the city of Pripyat, which was once home to the people who worked at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, and were forced to flee during the disaster.  Just looking at photos of this abandoned city is enough to give anyone goosebumps.  So, what does Chernobyl Diaries do with this setting?  It plops in some of the dumbest and most unlikable lead characters to ever be stalked in a horror movie, and gives us a third rate The Hills Have Eyes knock off plot, with cannibal mutants waiting in the shadows for our heroes to do something really stupid.  The entire film is made up of nothing but the most rote of thriller cliches.  The characters are identified not by their personalities, but by who's playing them.  And there's not a single genuine thrill or scare in its entire running time.  All it has going for it is its setting.  The filmmakers picked a perfect spot for a horror movie, and then forgot to give us a movie to go along with it.  Real shame about that.

 

07. ALEX CROSS - This misguided attempt to reboot a film franchise based on the series of detective novels by James Patterson got off on the wrong foot from the word go by casting Tyler Perry as the title character.  Yes, the guy best known for dressing in drag and a fat suit in the Madea movies, was stepping in for Morgan Freeman, who played the character in two earlier films.  This alone was enough to raise a few red flags, but then people actually saw the finished film, and they had a whole lot more than a miscast lead to complain about.  Director Rob Cohen gave us a simple thriller where Alex can pretty much walk into the room of a crime scene, and deduce everything that happened in a matter of seconds.  Is he brilliant, or is the script just in a rush to move things along?  Given that he never gives any indication of how or where he is getting this information from, I'm going with the second choice.  The trail of clues leads to a mass murderer (played by an over the top Matthew Fox), who likes to leave clues that resemble those old fold-in covers you would find in Mad Magazine.  It all builds to the single worst action climax of the year, with both Perry and Fox fumbling their fight choreography, and the camera shaking and moving around so much, we can barely tell what the heck is even happening.  Instead of the thrills it promised, Alex Cross ended up delivering unintentional laughs.

 

06. SILENT HILL: REVELATION - An unnecessary sequel to a semi-successful video game adaptation movie from 2006, Silent Hill: Revelation was a total embarrassment for either fans of the first movie, or the popular video game franchise that's been running for 13 years now.   It attempts to blend the plot and characters of the first film, with elements of the Silent Hill 3 game, and the end result is not the least bit scary, and more often ridiculous and incoherent.  All the psychological tension and horror that the games are known for was replaced with generic funhouse thrills of monsters popping out of dark shadows and screaming at the camera.  The dialogue was atrocious, with characters pretty much standing around, spewing plot exposition non-stop.  To top off this disaster, it was also probably the worst-acted movie to get a mainstream release in 2012.  A major acting "highlight" here would be Malcolm McDowell, showing up in an inexplicable scene as a mental patient, where he plays the role almost as if he thinks he's playing Hannibal Lecter in a bad community theater production of The Silence of the Lambs.  I know a lot of fans of the games were disappointed with the first Silent Hill movie.  I would have loved to have seen their reaction to this mess.

 

05. THE WATCH - Despite the presence of big comic names like Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and Jonah Hill, this wannabe summer comedy blockbuster came and left from theaters fairly quickly, and for good reason.  The movie was absolutely horrible.  The film features the three guys, along with cult comic icon, Richard Ayoade, teaming up to start a Neighborhood Watch program after a series of bizarre murders start happening in their quiet little neighborhood.  It ultimately turns out to be the work of an alien race that is plotting a full-scale Earth invasion.  This is a workable premise, but the movie completely squanders it at every opportunity.  Instead of giving us laughs, the screenplay gives us the lead actors using a string of profanity and four letter words non-stop.  The four stars desperately try to improvise off of each other, but they don't earn a single chuckle, because nothing they say or do is funny.  This is just such a desperate movie, filled with people who have been funny in the past, acting like they are having a great time, when we can all see the sour look of doom on their faces.  They knew The Watch wasn't working while they were filming it, and they were right.

 

04. THE APPARITION - Quite possibly the worst haunted house movie to come out since 1999's ill-fated and bloated remake of The Haunting, The Apparition sat on the studio shelf for a good two years or so before getting a halfhearted release in theaters around Labor Day Weekend.  During those two years, the movie was hacked and edited into a total mess that only ran 70 minutes, and didn't make the slightest bit of sense.  The basic idea is that a young couple (played by Sebastian Stan and Ashley Greene) move into a home that is haunted by a spirit connected to their past.  Simple, right?  Well, from that point on, the movie pretty much starts making up its own rules, and not even explaining them.  A neighbor's dog manages to run inside the house, and suddenly drops dead seconds after entering.  Why, you ask?  Why, indeed.  Why is there giant patches of mold growing in the corner of the ceiling?  And why does the ghost seem to have a big interest in Ashley Greene whenever she's walking around in her underwear? (Which is quite often in this movie.) Don't even try to follow the plot on this one.  You'll be fighting a losing battle.  The Apparition was edited so much before it got released, it barely resembles a movie anymore.

 

03. THAT'S MY BOY - Adam Sandler has sadly become a regular on my Reel Stinkers countdown in recent years.  I cannot help but think that this once huge comic star is now on a single-minded quest to find the worst possible comedy script to appear in.  He came pretty close with last year's stinker, Jack and Jill.  But with That's My Boy, he manages to top even that "accomplishment".  Sandler takes his obnoxious man child act to extremes here, playing a guy who had sex with his teacher back when he was 13, and was forced to raise their son on his own when the teacher went to jail.  The son has now grown up to be Andy Samberg, who wants to forget his father and his past, and marry into a wealthy family.  That proves impossible when Sandler shows up, crashing the wedding party weekend.  The movie revolves around Sandler and Samberg generally acting like giant asses, and everyone loving them for it.  The movie is crude, crass, and holds the distinct honor of featuring former rapper Vanilla Ice in a supporting role, and somehow managing to be even worse than his early 90s starring effort, Cool as Ice.  Both Sandler and Samberg have been funny on Saturday Night Live in the past, but you wouldn't know it by watching this bomb.

 

02. PROJECT X - For most of the year, Project X held the title of the worst film I'd seen in 2012, but it recently lost the title to a late-year release that literally came out of nowhere.  Regardless, this is still one of the most unpleasant experiences I had at the movies all year.  How could a major studio like Warner Bros release a movie this pointless?  It's cheap, it's exploitive, and it has all the production values of one of those sex tapes you can find on the Internet.  This comedy (in theory, not execution) is supposed to be about a group of unpopular teens who throw a huge bash in order to become popular and get girls.  Sounds pretty basic and uninspired, but not terrible, right?  What makes Project X reach the bottom of the barrel is how it barely resembles a finished movie.  I'd say a good 75% of the movie is made up of random footage of extras dancing, having sex, drinking, and doing drugs.  The story of the three friends trying to have their sexual awakening is eventually pushed in the background, and we just get non-stop hip hop music and obnoxious Jackass-style stunts by faceless extras.  It doesn't take long until the movie becomes a monotonous bore of random images of people partying.  The movie doesn't want to tell a story, deliver laughs, or have a point.  It's about as much fun as being the only sober person at a party, and sitting alone, while everyone around you looks like they're having the time of their lives.

 

01. THE COLLECTION - The only movie bad enough to knock something as pointless as Project X out of the top spot would have to be The Collection - a sequel to a slasher film from a few years ago that not many saw, or even remembers.  What the filmmakers have essentially given us is an 80 minute series of grisly images that flash upon the screen, and then stops.  This movie is too cynical to include things like characters, motivation, plot, or suspense.  All the set up we're given is that a teenage girl who is partially deaf is stood up by her boyfriend, so she goes with her friends to a dance club.  Too bad for her (and us), the dance club turns out to be an elaborate death trap set up by a masked murderer known as the Collector, who somehow has rigged the entire club to have massive blades drop from the ceiling, and kill everyone right there on the dance floor.  He then proceeds to kidnap the girl and take her to his hideout - an abandoned hotel that's filled with even more deadly and increasingly implausible traps.  The rest of the movie is simply nothing but random people with no names falling into these traps, being sliced, vivisected, and mangled beyond recognition.  We also get to watch the Collector perform deranged surgical experiments on his victims, and dress them up as if they were dolls  This movie is just nothing but unpleasant and gory ideas and images with nothing holding any of them together.  The footage could be shown in any order, and it wouldn't make any difference.  It goes without saying that The Collection is the worst time I've had at the movies all year.

Well, that cover the Top 10, but I'm far from finished.  It's time to cover the Dishonorable Mentions, the films that were bad, but not quite bad enough to crack the bottom of the barrel.  Despite this fact, they should still be treated with caution.  Do not view any of these films, unless you enjoy wasting your time.


DISHONORABLE MENTIONS:

Joyful Noise, Underworld: Awakening, One for the Money, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Gone, Wrath of the Titans, Lockout, Battleship, Step Up: Revolution, Nitro Circus: The Movie, Sparkle, The Possession, Paranormal Activity 4, Fun Size, The Man with the Iron Fists, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2, Red Dawn, Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away, Parental Guidance


THE INDIVIDUAL REEL STINKERS AWARDS:

WORST SEQUEL:
The Collection

MOST UNNECESSARY SEQUEL:
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

WORST PERFORMANCE BY A RESPECTED ACTOR/ACTRESS:
Russell Crowe in The Man with the Iron Fists

WORST OVERALL PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR/ACTRESS:
The entire cast of Silent Hill: Revelation

WORST USE OF 3D:
Nitro Circus: The Movie

WORST REMAKE:
Red Dawn

WORST IDEA FOR A MOVIE THAT NEVER COULD HAVE WORKED:
Doing a remake of Red Dawn

REPEAT OFFENDERS (ACTORS WHO WERE INVOLVED IN MORE THAN ONE STINKER IN 2012):
Liam Neeson in Wrath of the Titans and Battleship
Chelsea Handler in This Means War and Fun Size
Ashley Greene in The Apparition and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2

WORST ON-SCREEN TEAM:
Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg in That's My Boy

MOVIE EVERYONE SEEMED TO LOVE, BUT I COULDN'T GET INTO:
The Hunger Games

WORST CELEBRITY STUNT CASTING:
Tyler Perry in Alex Cross
Rihanna in Battleship

STUDIO THAT RELEASED THE MOST STINKERS IN 2012:
Warner Bros, for giving us Chernobyl Diaries, The Apparition, Project X, Joyful Noise, and Wrath of the Titans

Summit for giving us The Cold Light of Day, Alex Cross, Gone, Step Up: Revolution, and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2

Well, that's the worst of 2012 in a nutshell.  Time to look ahead to 2013, and hope for the best.  Have a wonderful and safe new year, everybody!

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