IMDb: X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
Though I’ve bagged on Brian Singer before, he did create a very watchable and grown-up version of a super hero movie with X-Men—and a great sequel too. Maybe they were a tad bit soap opera-ish, but the relationship between Wolverine and Rogue in the first film was an interesting one. The same with Professor X and Magneto. There was great character development for what could have been a set of brainless action films.
Sadly this third installment, helmed by none other than Brett Ratner, shits all over the great characters, introduces seemingly hundreds more and, just for good measure, spins a multitude of plotlines—all at the same time. It truly is astounding how accomplished this film is at being shitty. I think it takes a lot of hard work and the consensus of many people to make something suck so bad.
As much as I’d like to blame it all on Brett, I have to say that this chunk of crap was doomed from day one due to a senseless script. I watched the damn thing and honestly I can’t tell you what the hell it was about. What I do remember is they killed off two of the main characters in the absolute lamest of superhero deaths. They teased us with sentinels, which was probably the most exciting part of the movie, until I found out they were fake. And when I heard the line, “I’m the Juggernaut bitch!!!” it made me want to punch myself in the face.
And to think I was excited about Brian Singer leaving X-Men to make Superman Returns. All we got out of that was two turds.
IMDb: Ghostbusters II (1989)
What the hell happened? Ghostbusters was one of the biggest movies ever, and they followed it up 5 years later with this crap?
This movie reeks of cheesy sequel pitfalls such as: shameless and unnecessary reference to the original, rehashing, and destruction of character integrity. Now, I have to admit, the first one is a hard act to follow. There was magic there. Ghostbusters II suffers from sibling rivalry and is constantly trying to leap out of the looming shadow of it’s older brother and into the spotlight through imitation. This is less of a sequel and more of a warped parody of the original. Instead of a giant Stay-Puft marshmallow man, we bring the Statue of Liberty to life. Instead of streams of angry ghosts spilling out of the containment system to reek havoc on New York City, we get a subterranean river of hate-slime. (Doesn’t that already really exist in New York?) The Ghostbusters get committed and its up to the mayor to turn them loose. The relationship between Bill Murray and Sigourney Weaver isn’t the same—in fact Bill Murray just isn’t the same. Everything seems to happen in a wooden, rehearsed way and a lot of the real New York we got in the original film seems to have been replaced with obvious sets.
Or maybe I was just disappointed that the main bad guy was a creepy painting. Can’t we do better? There are a lot scarier things than paintings. And when the kooky lawyer from Ally McBeal steals the baby and flies through the air pushing the carriage, doesn’t that cancel out any credibility that might have been earned by the movie up to that point?
I walked out of the theatre as a kid feeling let down by this movie, and that feeling never went away.
IMDb: Inland Empire (2006)
Don’t even ask. Just trust me on this one. What’s sad is that I actually thought this Lynch picture might work for me, since it advertised itself as another creepy Hollywood story (Mulholland Drive, anyone?), but with an even eerier aura about it. Perhaps I was still riding high on my amazement that I actually liked Blue Velvet. Silly me! Granted, the first few scenes I saw containing Jeremy Irons were decent, but when isn’t he the best actor on the screen?? Forget -no – ignore Inland Empire. I promise you’ll still be a cool film geek if you skip this one. Seriously. Instead, I nominate the following Lynch rentals in its place: Blue Velvet and Lost Highway. Conclusion: I am so over David Lynch and his “on purpose” weirdness. No wonder Isabella Rosselini wouldn’t marry him.