BTMG's WORST 15 of 2011

It’s a pretty self explanatory title. These movies were either just plain awful or promises of something way better – whose gargantuan stumbles were too large to ignore. Please feel free to chime in if you think I’m way off base… I’m not, ‘cause it’s my opinion, but I always enjoy a little chiming.


#15 IN TIME
This Justin Timberlake movie felt out of sync. It’s a mostly dull and forgettable futuristic one-trick pony with an unexplained hook, shoddy production values and overall drabness that left me a little ticked.

#14 THE HANGOVER: PART II
A predictable, flat and uninspired movie that almost completely squanders the good will earned by its exceptionally funny and creative predecessor. It’s a cruder, colder and crueler sequel that made me wish I was actually hungover at home on my couch (instead of in the theater watching it).

#13 TRANSFORMERS: THE DARK OF THE MOON
A spectacular pile-up of uncreativity that lacks in depth, dialogue and character and for 2 ½ hours numbs the mind, aches the head and brutally assaults all five senses (yes, somehow, even touch, taste and smell). Instead of seeing it you should simply drive a car thru a paint store, with a metal trashcan full of lit fireworks in the passenger seat – you’ll experience the same thing. TRANSFORMERS 3 was less than meets the eye.

#12 THE GREEN HORNET
An overblown and obnoxious action/comedy. There may have been a lot of buzz for THE GREEN HORNET but if you’re paying actual money to see it…then you’re gonna get stung.

#11 J.EDGAR
Not unlike the surname of the titular figure in this snail-paced biopic – J. EDGAR (Hoover) kind of sucks. It’s a heavy-handed, disjointed, clunky, passionless and boring story of an immensely controversial man. At 137 minutes long – this movie was a drag.

#10 JUST GO WITH IT
I love when a film’s title asks you to tolerate the movie before you’ve even seen it. Another Sandler misfire that’s lazy, limp and sophomoric.

#9 TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT
This John Hughes-like romp through the 80’s is a giant swing and miss. The title alone suggested we skip it in theaters (which most everyone did) and watch at home. I wouldn’t even suggest doing that…

#8 YOUR HIGHNESS
This medieval stoner comedy is a somewhat noble idea that’s ultimately bogged down by too much unfunny vulgarity and not enough creative thought. YOUR LOW-NESS is an unfunny, often flat, rarely involving, mostly shocking and always raunchy crusade.

#7 I DON’T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT
Because Sarah Jessica Parker is playing the same character she always does (except this time a married, workaholic mother of two…but still, really, the same person) this feels more like NO SEX AND THE KIDDIES. The few existing laughs are in place to make you forget the lot of clichés and the about-as-subtle-as-a-sledge-hammer message – which, ultimately rings false. A girl can have everything she wants…as long as she’s hired the right nanny.

#6 GREEN LANTERN
A cookie-cutter, incohesive, silly and dull superhero movie. It’s a nonsensical mish-mash of spastic colors, shiny objects, loud noises, lazy acting, cheesy dialogue and slap-it-together editing.

#5 THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN: PART I
A bland, overly-melodramtic, woodenly-acted and poorly-scripted movie. It doesn't break dawn...it breaks wind (like all the others). This vampire series still sucks but I applaud the loyalty of its glass-is-half-full audience.

#4 CONAN THE BARBARIAN
Lower your expectations. No, I mean really lower ‘em… This unoriginal and unremarkable remake is a horribly scripted, unpurposely campy, woefully nonsensical, cartoonishly action-packed, lamentably dull, overly blood-soaked, hackfully misdirected and painfully emotionless, cinematic bore. It’s not even so bad it’s good.

#3 NEW YEAR’S EVE
More like NEW YEAR’S HEAVE. Fight your misplaced urge to see this and buy a copy of US Magazine instead – you’ll still see the many, many stars that inhabit this film…you just won’t have to hear ‘em spit out awful dialogue. Stars! They’re just like us – except we don’t make awful movies. Painfully written, lazily acted, clumsily directed and edited by what I can only assume were six or seven chimpanzees locked in a Red Bull canning factory. Let’s spend this upcoming New Year’s Eve forgetting new acquaintances – like this movie – and never, NEVER bring them to mind.

#2 SUCKER PUNCH
A boring, non-sensical, amped-up, tone-deaf, hyper-active, unoriginal, over-caffeinated, self-indulgent, all-over-the-map, check-your-watch-multiple-times-because-it-feels-like-it-should-have-ended-long-ago waste of celluloid space.

#1 JACK AND JILL
This bumbling, clunky, lazy, embarrassing, ridiculous, preposterous and unfunny colossal waste of time is easily one of the worst movies made in decades. It’s a sort of sick, twisted and not-to-elaborate Hollywood hoax where one of comedy’s biggest kings throws cinematic excrement at the screen for 93 minutes and hopes we’ll laugh. Hopefully JACK AND JILL will fall down and break Sandler’s box office crown.



Brian the Movie Guy, the Northwest’s most listened to movie critic, can be heard every week on KOMO Newsradio AM 1000/97.7 FM, STAR 101.5 FM and Smart Talk 570 KVI!