Anthony T's Top 10 Worst Films of 2009

Over the next week, yours truly will be unveiling my best horror films and best films of 2009. Today, I want to reflect about the ten films that made me so angry that I wanted to just throw a fit, as these are the ten worst films of 2009, which features an all star list of actors.

These first two films spend too much time feeling like a Lifetime film, instead of actually being a normal film.

10 The Alphabet Killer

I was expecting this to be a much better film considering that it starred Eliza Dushku, Cary Elwes, Timothy Hutton but it wasn’t. That’s the main reason, why its on the list. There is a good effort but this film comes off as an episode of one of the cop shows that you see on TV. I was like waiting for something to happen, but every came off as lifeless then a suspenseful film. I wish this film had better material, instead of what I saw.






9 Spinning into Butter

With a cast like Sarah Jessica Parker, Mykelti Williamson, Beau Bridges, Victor Rasuk, and Miranda Richardson, I was hoping for a well-acted film. Instead, the only thing that I saw in this film was an afternoon school special not a feature length film. I felt myself sitting there with no emotion, because I didn’t care about anything. The reason for that, the acting in the film was completely lifeless. It’s a surprise, as you have some very talented actor, but it’s the direction that makes the performances horrible. They were completely lifeless. It also doesn’t help that it has a screenplay that doesn’t develop the characters and situation any well to the point that you care about this film. Avoid this drama, at all cost.

8. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

It’s the first of many films on this list that came out this summer that sucked big time. This is a film that I really never wanted to see in the first place, but I decided to give this look since Stephen Sommers first two Mummy films were surprisingly entertaining. Man, the reviews were right with this film. It’s a film that’s nothing but utter trash. One of the reasons that this film was so painful, everything moves at a fast pace. Not even five minutes into the film, you have a huge action sequence that gives you nothing of an introduction or backstory to the characters. See the beginning of JJ Abrams Star Trek to see how a huge action sequence works while giving a backstory to the film. This film also doesn’t do a good job having a story, as its more of an effects film than an action film. Also, I thought the flashback scenes didn’t work for me as well. I truly think that were misplaced, as you were in a flashback scene for a minute then you cut into a G.I Joe training session without having an end to that scene. It’s probably the editing, but still it’s noticeable.

The screenplay was just your typical summer movie, a lot of explosions with a lot of action that never slows down. The film could have used some background information and some plot, as there is none. It’s just fast chases though the streets and blowing up anything that the writers could think of. Is it much to ask for a decent film based on cartoon, because the last couple of ones have been really bad.

7. Night Train

“Night Train was a film that had an identity crises. This film begged me to answer the question to the reasoning to why that film was released in the first place. This film had background effects that were leftover from “The Polar Express”. The direction just reminded me of Frank Miller’s direction in “The Spirit”. Just plainly lifeless. I didn’t know what was ever worse the direction or the screenplay. The directing was just horrible. You have talent like Steve Zahn, Danny Glover and Leeann Sobieski that are wasting their careers doing crap like this. All of them came off as lifeless and dull. Each of their performance that flatline feel to it, as they were boring with no sense of energy in their performance. That’s what made it boring. The other reason was that I couldn’t tell what this film was trying to be. Is this mystery, thriller, or horror film. It’s not clear cut because one you thing your watching a mystery film and the next it’s a horror film. Director, Brain King couldn’t make up his mind of what type of film that it wanted to be. That what makes this film so befuddling to watch, as there’s no clear explanation about anything that goes on, in this film.

6. Kiss of a Vampire

Well, it’s been since January, since I’ve visited this film. In that review, I told you that it would be on my worst list of 2009. Talk about a vampire film with no bite. This might be the worst vampire film that I’ve ever watched. This film was so boring and has a very lifeless performance from its lead actress. I knew this would be a god awful film from the first five minutes. This is part of what I said in this review: “I would like to acknowledge the title of the film “Kiss of the Vampire” first. The title makes no sense, just like the rest of the film, because there was no attempt of any romantic scenes or any hints of romance. The characters felt complete dull and there is no personality to any them, especially with the two leads. There is nothing romantic with this film, as there were no scenes of romance that I can think of.” When going to that type of vampire film, I expect to see an interesting love story. There was none here. This is what I also said in this review about the editing and direction of Joe Tornatore . “It felt like a rush job. I have a question for you? Were you in such a hurry to finish this film, because you knew that the film was awful to begin with. This is one of the worst editing jobs I’ve ever seen. There are scenes that spend a minute and then move on to the next one. It’s things like that my me pissed about this film.

The Next two films on this list, I was hoping that both of these films would decent, but sadly they were complete waste of time.

5. My Life in Ruins

I was really hoping that I would have a good time with this film, but sadly I was bored with it.

Nia Vardalos continues to struggle to find a good project after having big success with “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” “My life In Ruins” Is further proof. This film felt like a life in ruins, as this film was a movie in ruins. This was painful, because nothing was funny and the humor was dry. I just got sick of this film thirty minutes into it, because the characters were boring I could have swore that I heard crickets, as there is nothing makes this fun.

The screenplay also didn’t help the film. The reason that it didn’t help the film was that there were no funny jokes to laugh at. I had this depressed expression, the whole time. The reason for that, the characters didn’t stand out. It was that they had to have the same expression the whole time and the fact that dialogue wasn’t funny. That really hurts the film.

4. Terminator: Salvation

Talk about another direction that should go away. Yes, I’m talking about McG, as he apparently came from the Michael Bay School of Directing. He manages to do whatever Jonathan Mostow couldn’t do, turn me off from this franchise completely. “Terminator: Salvation” is another action film that moves at a rapid pace without explaining about the characters and the backstory. You know a film is going to be horrible, if one minute you jump out of the plane, than five second later your main character is on the submarine with no explanation how he got on it in first place. This happens at least one or two more times during the course of film, as you have scenes that don’t connect with the previous scene. It’s either bad editing or just bad basic screenwriting. McG also doesn’t do a good job directing the performances. I swear, without Sam Worthington’s performance, which was the only good thing about this film, this would be next to another franchise that’s also on this list. The acting was just so horrible. Most of actors were delivering the dialogue really horribly, as it felt they whispering in their performances. Also what is Christian Bale doing in this film, as it seemed he was too busy getting into fights with people on the set, then actually trying to talk loudly. Bale sounded like he was depressed, the whole time.

To me, the screenplay, this really didn’t focus on the mythology of the series like the previous films. I thought that John Connor was suppose to be the main character of the franchise, not Marcus Wright. The screenplay felt like one of those films that you would see on the Syfy. It has lots of action and little story or character development. What made the first two films in the series work was that both of those films had a story and a mythology developing. This film has nothing of that, as this film didn’t feel like a Terminator film. It felt like a very bad and painful action film that you sit there and watch, in disgust. That’s why it’s up there on this list.

3. The Final Destination

It’s no surprise that this would be on my list when I rant about it back, when it first came out. The Final Destination is movie with no attempt at a story or interesting plots points. It one of those cut and paste film filled with boring death scenes. This film was atrocious. Director David R Ellis didn’t go a good job making sense of a screenplay that went ninety miles per hour. The acting was just horrible, as the characters come off as a bunch of whiny people. There was no attempt to make any interesting, as it doesn’t go into the mythology of the series at all or you don’t care about the characters. Instead, this film is just a collection of death scenes. But what made me angry, the screenplay. I swear, the screenplay had to have been written in two days. In order for a screenplay and film to work, it must have a story. It’s so easy figure that there was no attempt at a story, because the screenwriter only cared about writing death scenes and putting people in the seats. This film also did what my number one film manages to do, insult my intelligence. Yes, I’m referring to that scene where two of the characters are going to watch a movie in you guess it 3DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD! From there, this film became laughable to the point that I wanted to stomp on my 3D glasses and walk out of the theater. But Thankfully before I had the chance to do that it was over.

This would be my number two, but this next film made me so annoyed and I had some expectations with this film.

2. I Love You, Beth Copper

“I Love You, Beth Copper” is number two on my list and quite frankly, if number one isn’t the definition of a piece of crap than this would have been easily number one. It’s one of those films, where the trailer actually made me thought that this might be a decent movie, but it isn’t. I felt like I was coned into watching this film.

“I Love You, Beth Copper” was just flat out awful, especially coming from a director Chris Columbus, who has directed such comedy classics, “Home Alone”, “Adventures in Babysitting” and Mrs. Doubtfire. His direction was just abysmal, as performances were down right horrible. They were not funny, as I was annoyed to the point that I wanted to jump in the movie beat up both of the geeks to make this entertaining. The action also was unfunny. There was nothing in that film that made me laugh. The action was just pain stupid, not funny. This is film, where Hayden Panettiere running around with a geek for the entire film. Enough said. The Screenplay, what screenplay. This film didn’t have a screenplay. None of the humor wasn’t funny, as the screenplay is filled with annoying characters and stupid situations. To sum this screenplay, it’s two geeks who hang around with three hot girls for ninety plus minutes. There is no attempt for any development or funny situations that would make you interested in anything in the film. And the last twenty minutes of the film is so lame that it almost put me to sleep.

If you want to see funny action rent “The Hangover” or “In the Loop”. Those films have more funny comedian action and development than this piece of crap.

Now on the worst film of 09, which was a no brainer for me because it wasn’t Awesome, in fact it’s up there with “Battlefield Earth as the worst film of the decade.

1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

After watching this film, I thought about not giving this film Worst Film of the year, because that would just rewarding Everyone’s favorite director and Mr. Awesome himself, Michael Bay, but I admit that he earned this honor, because he was so awesome in making everything painful for me to watch.

“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is not an awesome film, its an atrocious film. It’s more atrocious than his comedy; “Armageddon”. This film gives new meaning to effects film. The first film wasn’t a good film, but at least it tried telling a story through character development and I could respect it. But not this film, as in this one there is not any hint of a story or character development here. That’s not awesome.

This film has all the making of bad film of the year. Bad directing, Bad acting from its leads, and Bad screenplay. It’s like Michael Bay only directs films that has the following: hot women bending backwards, music from the hottest bands out there today, mindless humor in the middle of a crises, special effects in every scene, and of course Bay’s favorite thing that he likes to do so much, have tons of gigantic explosions to make everything awesome in his point of view. It’s like, he makes movies in order please the mainstream fans, who go and see a film for the mindless action, not the fanboys who love the old cartoons and want a coherent story. At least he could have paid a little homage to the old series, but instead that time is taken for the hot women during the film. The film also has horrible editing and a screenplay that is exactly like Bay’s direction of the film, which I’m not going to waste my time because I’ll be writing into next year and of course that would not be awesome.

It was like, everyone knew that it was going to four hundred million dollars, so why bother to try and make a decent film. Michael Bay, please go away and by declaring Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen the worst film of 09. Now that’s awesome.

If you wonder why I kept saying awesome in this review, check out this old Michael Bay Verizon Fios commercial.