Worst 5 Movies of 2009
Post date: Jan 23, 2010 8:21:02 AM
NOTE: Once again, the posting date is incorrect. This was actually written and posted on February 2. Incidentally, happy birthday to my wonderful sister Cynthia! And if you're looking for your fill of Groundhog Day awesomeness, check out this special Masters of None podcast inspired by the radio morning show that woke up Bill Murray each day in the 1993 movie.
Before we move too much into the year 2010, I better get my bottom 5 movies of 2009 out of the way. Here are my picks for the worst movies (that I saw) of last year.
1. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun LiAwful, awful, awful movie. Why does this even exist? The last time I can recall the Street Fighter franchise being relevant was in 1994, when Super Street Fighter II Turbo came out for Sega Genesis. If you're looking for a movie that defies the rule of thumb that video game movies suck, look elsewhere. 2. Hannah Montana: The MovieFirst things first: I saw this as a favor to my girlfriend. Despite all the cheese, I liked the way the story was headed after she decided it was too much work to keep her alter egos separate. Then there was the performance of the only halfway decent Miley Cyrus song I've heard, "The Climb," before the movie went back to being meaningless tripe. 3. X-Men Origins: WolverineWhen I first saw this movie, I gave it two stars. Not sure what I was thinking there; that was quite a generous rating. Wolverine isn't even a good-bad movie that you can enjoy for how dumb it is, like Hannah Montana. It's just boring . . . And god, do those claws look fake. You'd think Wolvie's adamantium would look more realistic in a movie focused on him than in the X-Men trilogy. Not so, apparently.
I can't describe my thoughts on the latest installment of Stephanie Meyer's ongoing Twilight series -- evidently more addictive to teenage girls and young women than McDonald's and crack combined -- better than how I summed it up with my review from a couple months ago. So here's an excerpt:"Yes, it's kind of a turd, as you would expect if you saw Twilight or encountered rabid Stephanie Meyers fans in the streets, but I will make an admission: New Moon is more polished a turd than Twilight."It isn't as bad as it could have been. It even showed some promise, toward the middle section with the budding friendship between our lovesick protagonist and Jacob, the werewolf. Overall though, meh. The middle section doesn't make up for the bookends. If only this series had indeed shifted to focus on the werewolves instead of the vampires . . . They're such a drag. If you must watch it, watch it as part of drinking game. Take one drink every time Bella sees the spectre of Edward. Take another for every season that passes while she mopes in bed. Another for every time you see some really poor CGI. Finally, chug a whole beer when you begin to wonder why you started watching the movie in the first place. 5. The Men Who Stare at GoatsThis comes in a fifth-worst because it was not exactly an terrible film, but it was a huge disappointment. George Clooney and Jeff Bridges in a quirky comedy about an allegedly real army branch that proposed using ESP to fight battles, and somehow goats are involved . . . sounds OK. While it looked fun on paper, in practice, Men Who Stare was a jumbled mess of unfunny jokes accompanied by a truly offensive lampoon on Abu Ghraib torture techniques.
NEXT UP
The Oscar nominations came out today! Not too shabby, in my opinion. My picks for the winners are coming to an INK FIST blog post near you.
