What is the worst film that you have finished watching?

[MHS]

Mission to Mars. It wasn't even bad in the traditional ways. It was just bad because everything about it was bleh and sub-par and it had so much potential. Good cast, terrible acting. Decent potential plot, totally boring. The music was bad, the effects were bad, the lighting was bad. When your movie is so bad that I have the attention span to notice that your lighting is bad, you've got problems. Bleh.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Most boring movie tie: No Country for Old Men

This is probably in my top 5 movies of all time. I was riveted the whole time and remember leaving the theater dumbfounded at how good it was.

[gameoverman]

Most boring movie tie: No Country for Old Men

This is probably in my top 5 movies of all time. I was riveted the whole time and remember leaving the theater dumbfounded at how good it was.

I thought it was watchable, and not actually bad per se, but I also think it's an inferior retread of Fargo. The same types of characters, the same themes, with things just slightly shuffled around. You have your law enforcement character, your psycho killer, the hapless character who gets in over their head, and the law enforcement person says something about it all at the end. Except I think Fargo is a masterpiece, and No Country is nowhere near as good. So I was kind of bored at times watching it.

[wonderpug]

Spice World (35% on Rotten Tomatoes)

Somewhere around 1999-2000, a friend of mine was given the Spice World DVD as a gag birthday gift. One day he comes over and jokes about watching some of it for a laugh, so we start it up. Haha, it's so bad... except my friend isn't saying it's time to stop. Does he actually want to watch it? (I'm sure he's wondering the same thing about me at this point.) Are we going to keep watching this? I don't want to hurt his feelings if he actually wants to see it.

This internal debate goes on for an hour and a half, and whattaya know we've now seen the whole damn thing.

[hitbyambulance]

Startship Troopers is supposed to be bad. It's not in any way a good movie.

this. i ranted about this before, but it's part of why it is what it is - it's not a translation or an adaptation of the book, it's a snide/snarky reaction to it. Verhoeven is trolling the source material, but there is definitely a point he's making and it's a darkly comic tragedy. if someone really liked the original book, it's pretty much guaranteed that they're going to hate the film since this is just the cinematic equivalent of an extended middle finger to Heinlein's ideas. i feel like people are starting to 'get' it now - only took a few decades.

this modern review goes into some other points:
https://www.alternateending.com/2019/07 ... -1997.html

[McNutt]

No Country for Old Men???

It's like I just moved to crazy town. I watched this movie again this year and it was just as good the second time. That movie was damn near perfect.

[Smoove_B]

This whole thread was created to divide us. Let's just all agree the that worst film ever made was Battlefield Earth (still haven't finished it) and collectively we can heal.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

No Country for Old Men???

It's like I just moved to crazy town. I watched this movie again this year and it was just as good the second time. That movie was damn near perfect.

Preach it!

[Holman]

Startship Troopers is supposed to be bad. It's not in any way a good movie.

this. i ranted about this before, but it's part of why it is what it is - it's not a translation or an adaptation of the book, it's a snide/snarky reaction to it. Verhoeven is trolling the source material, but there is definitely a point he's making and it's a darkly comic tragedy. if someone really liked the original book, it's pretty much guaranteed that they're going to hate the film since this is just the cinematic equivalent of an extended middle finger to Heinlein's ideas. i feel like people are starting to 'get' it now - only took a few decades.

I got it about one minute into the movie on the opening weekend.

The book is an amazing piece of SF history, and the movie is maybe the best possible response to the book's really sinister implications (though see also Norman Spinrad's The Iron Dream).

[Jeff V]

This whole thread was created to divide us. Let's just all agree the that worst film ever made was Battlefield Earth (still haven't finished it) and collectively we can heal.

My main problem with it is the same with Lynch's Dune. I really, really liked the book, and the movie was light years from it. I can't say "worst movie ever" because I'm making an unfair comparison. It's possible it could seem slightly less sucky if one never read the book.

[JSHAW]

I definitely feel DUNE is a way better movie than Battlefield Earth.

DUNE had better actors, better sets, better costumes, and at least it wasn't written by creepy L. Ron Hubbard.

[Jeff V]

They both had the same problem of a long book being cut into a short movie. The Dune mini-series was much better; perhaps some day someone will do the same with Battlefield Earth and do better justice to the source material.

[Brian]

Prometheus - The trailer might have been the best I've ever seen. Plus Ridley Scott was back behind the camera and that man has amazing potential. What we got was a complete mess.

Star Trek Into Darkness - This was the movie where I officially gave up on Star Trek. After this I was done. Just done. F#$% them for even making that movie and turning Star Trek into mindless Michael Bay action nonsense.

See my many rants about Damon Lindelof.

For my choice...

Going really obscure here but Night Patrol. It came out in 1984, the same year as Policy Academy and was an obvious rush to cash in on it's popularity. PA came out in March and NP was released the following November which tells you just how quickly they rushed this pile of garbage into production.

It starred, to use that word generously, Linda Blair, Pat Morita, Billy Barty, Jaye P Morgan, and, technically, The Unknown Comic. I say technically because The Unknown Comic appearances were canned clips from his various spots on The Gong Show and standup routines.

They were the only, marginally funny bits in the entire movie.

[Archinerd]

No Country for Old Men???

It's like I just moved to crazy town. I watched this movie again this year and it was just as good the second time. That movie was damn near perfect.

Preach it!

Amen.
Easily in my Top 10.

[McNutt]

Prometheus - The trailer might have been the best I've ever seen. Plus Ridley Scott was back behind the camera and that man has amazing potential. What we got was a complete mess.

Star Trek Into Darkness - This was the movie where I officially gave up on Star Trek. After this I was done. Just done. F#$% them for even making that movie and turning Star Trek into mindless Michael Bay action nonsense.

See my many rants about Damon Lindelof.

That's right! I forgot he was responsible for both of those.

[AWS260]

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation - I will defend the original Mortal Kombat as a dumb but entertaining movie but even as a kid I knew the sequel was completely garbage. I've only seen a few scenes from it as an adult but it is laughably bad.

I just watched this, a day after watching the original. It is so, so bad. Unbelievably bad.

[Sudy]

Huh, I thought I responded to this thread initially. Maybe I just thought about it? Or we actually had a thread for the ones we didn't finish. It's that one, isn't it... I came back and added this thought after writing the below post. I've just duplicated what exists in another thread, I'm sure of it.

- - - - -

I have trouble answering the topic question, as I'm generally a completionist. I usually research the films I watch carefully, but once I begin, I finish, even if I hate it. So my answers are to the perhaps less interesting, "What did I dislike so much I didn't finish."

First, I have to reply to the second post in the thread... Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I first watched this in my late teens... I don't know if it was before or after I'd discovered an interest in Terry Gilliam's films. That might have been the reason I'd picked it up, or maybe it was being into Depp and Del Toro at the time. It was a disjointed, messy, disturbing film (partially intentionally). And I knew almost nothing about that era, Thompson, or drug culture at the time. But I loved it. It inspired me creatively, and some of its more sedate moments coupled with its soundtrack affected me emotionally. Is it a good movie? Probably not in the traditional sense. But it's a hell of a ride, best watched in the early hours of the morning.


Stuff I remember turning off:

- Resident Evil (2002) - I didn't have a specific love for the game franchise, but I'd played a couple of them. I found this to be such boring, predicatble, Hollywood survival-horror schlock however, and I just couldn't motivate myself to sit through the second half. Mind you, it was a DVD I borrowed from a friend, so I had no financial incentive to finish.

- Sin City - I know it's stylized, and I've probably watched quite a few movies that are more distubingly violent. I loved its visual style. But it was just so repulsively nihilistic. The Marv-Kevin face-off did me in. I fast-forwarded a bit, but didn't find anything worth sticking around for.

- 8½ - In the early 2000s I was pretty much watching anything critically acclaimed I could get my hands on. I enjoyed a lot of classic films, even when they were slower paced. I saw this was coming on TV and was regarded as one of the best films of all time and got excited. But I was just bored out my skull. And this was before the era of smartphones and instant gratification.

- The Leopard (1963) - See the above, pretty much word-for-word. Only this was 3.5 hours long and had dancing.

- Curse of the Zodiac (2007) - Presumably trying to capitalize on Fincher's amazing thriller released the same year, this was a looooow budget horror film Mrs. Nym and I rented on a whim the first Hallowe'en we spent together, without looking it up online. What a mistake. There's a 10-minute shouting match between a prostitute and pimp near the beginning of the "film" with barely audible dialogue that just lasts forever. At the beginning of each section, there's a voiceover of the killer taunting the victim. We still recite one line as a joke to this day: [whispering menacingly] "Hey... fat fuck!"

- Rampage (2018) - I'm actually not talking about the 2009 Uwe Boll picture (though I haven't seen that either, and wouldn't except on a cruel dare), but rather the 2018 one with Dwayne Johnson based on the video game. Yeah, of course I knew it wouldn't be great, but it got average reviwews, had Harry Jeffrey Dean Stanton Morgan in it, and I was bored. I also have to admit that while I don't really like Dwayne Johnson, he does have charisma and can be fun to watch. This was one I actually paid to watch in the theatre. But midway-on, I was literally falling asleep. Nearing the final battle I had to urinate so bad I actually left (I'm such a completionist I almost always hold it), and seriously had to search my feelings to decide whether I wanted to go back in. I popped my head back in the door, but after a couple minutes gave up and left.

[hepcat]

Prometheus - The trailer might have been the best I've ever seen. Plus Ridley Scott was back behind the camera and that man has amazing potential. What we got was a complete mess.

Star Trek Into Darkness - This was the movie where I officially gave up on Star Trek. After this I was done. Just done. F#$% them for even making that movie and turning Star Trek into mindless Michael Bay action nonsense.

See my many rants about Damon Lindelof.

For my choice...

Going really obscure here but Night Patrol. It came out in 1984, the same year as Policy Academy and was an obvious rush to cash in on it's popularity. PA came out in March and NP was released the following November which tells you just how quickly they rushed this pile of garbage into production.

It starred, to use that word generously, Linda Blair, Pat Morita, Billy Barty, Jaye P Morgan, and, technically, The Unknown Comic. I say technically because The Unknown Comic appearances were canned clips from his various spots on The Gong Show and standup routines.

They were the only, marginally funny bits in the entire movie.

To this day we taunt one of our childhood friends for liking this as a kid. “Two words, John...Night Patrol” is the common response when he disagrees with someone about anything.

[Scraper]

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. God damn i couldn't stand that movie. I know some people really like it, but i think those people must be depressed or something becuase there is nothing redeeming about that movie. The movie is depressing from beginning to end and if you're not used to thinking like that then its really hard to watch. I just wanted to slap both characters and tell them to snap out of it.

[Zarathud]

I find it odd that people are reference something called Highlander II when no such movie was ever made.

We named that weekend “Lee’s Folly” after our friend who loved Highlander and tortured us with the possibilities of a sequel. But there can be ONLY ONE...movie.

[Sudy]

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. God damn i couldn't stand that movie. I know some people really like it, but i think those people must be depressed or something....

I'm not sure if I'd enjoy it as much now, but... yes.

[Isgrimnur]

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. God damn i couldn't stand that movie. I know some people really like it, but i think those people must be depressed or something becuase there is nothing redeeming about that movie. The movie is depressing from beginning to end and if you're not used to thinking like that then its really hard to watch. I just wanted to slap both characters and tell them to snap out of it.

Calm down, there, Patton.

[hepcat]

Is this where I put my annual "I hate High Fidelity" post?

[Isgrimnur]

Watch it, can opener.

[hepcat]

If that's a Harvey Birdman reference I'm going to give you such a hug!

[Isgrimnur]

My 2010 list still holds:

These aren't the worst movies of all time, but they're the ones that I most regretted paying money to see.

As Good As It Gets
Twister
True Lies

[hepcat]

Come here, you!

[malchior]

This one is a no-brainer for me. The Room. In its raw unriffed form. Some jackass sprung this 'cult' movie on us on a vacation to OBX. We couldn't enjoy making fun of it. It was deeply divisive. A lot of drinking failed to erase it from our memories.

'The Room' - rifftrax version is tolerable and even has some memorable riffing lines. If someone mentions 'The Room' and it has been a while now, I tell them to skip it and watch the Rifftrax version if they must see it. It's almost a civic duty.

[Jaymann]

Alien: Covenant was actually worse than Prometheus.

[Scraper]

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. God damn i couldn't stand that movie. I know some people really like it, but i think those people must be depressed or something becuase there is nothing redeeming about that movie. The movie is depressing from beginning to end and if you're not used to thinking like that then its really hard to watch. I just wanted to slap both characters and tell them to snap out of it.

Calm down, there, Patton.

Clarification, I wouldn't actually slap someone who is depressed unless their forum name is Hepcat.

[hepcat]

The only thing that would make me depressed would be having to be in a room with you, so I guess that slap is inevitable.

[hitbyambulance]

most recently, Pacific Rim: Uprising. the original is a fun homage to that late 70s/early 80s style of cartoon. the second one is the equivalent of the 2000's era straight-to-video reboot of said cartoon with the C-level writing team and low-budget outsourced animation studio and no one really seems to understand what they're doing other than 'make an attempt to appeal to the international market'

[malchior]

most recently, Pacific Rim: Uprising. the original is a fun homage to that late 70s/early 80s style of cartoon. the second one is the equivalent of the 2000's era straight-to-video reboot of said cartoon with the C-level writing team and low-budget outsourced animation studio and no one really seems to understand what they're doing.

Agree. It felt like the studio set dial to 'stamp out sequels' and walked away.

[Pyperkub]

The absolute worst movie I paid money to see in the theaters was Winds of Change (also titled Metamorphoses, in it's first awful release, apparently) an animated telling of Roman Mythology set to disco music and narrated by Peter Ustinov. Everything about this was just god-awful - the animation, the voice over narration, the music... EVERYTHING. Over 40 years later, this still stands out as the worst experience ever.



The David Lynch Dune movie was probably my most disappointing theater experience, but there was enough coolness in it to tide me over. Phantom Menace in hindsight could have applied, but it was freaking Star Wars again after over 10 years, and the pod racing was fun.

One other memorable disappointment was Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock - not only was it a totally dull movie after the amazing greatness that was Wrath of Khan, but we saw it as one of our go see two movies in a day double-feature with Ghostbusters, and after the high of Ghostbusters, it was just so drab and dull.

[hitbyambulance]

The absolute worst movie I paid money to see in the theaters was Winds of Change (also titled Metamorphoses, in it's first awful release, apparently) an animated telling of Roman Mythology set to disco music and narrated by Peter Ustinov.

i need to find this now

[Isgrimnur]

[Isgrimnur]

Wrong thread.

[Sudy]

Is this some kind of time travel joke, or did you get an advance screening?

[Isgrimnur]

Wrong thread.