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10 Summer Schlockbusters!
Transformers was pulverized by critics, but is cleaning up at the box office. The Daily Beast ranks the highest grossing god-awful movies of all time.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel
Director: Michael Bay
Release Date: June 2009
“A pile of glittering junk!”
—Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal
“An impossibly, incomprehensibly overlong and cacophonous bore!”
—Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
Box office:
Domestic (to date): $201.2 million
International (to date): $190.3 million
Terminator 4: Salvation
Starring: Christian Bale, Helena Bonham Carter
Director: McG
Release Date: May 2009
“It's brainless, it's soulless, and it gave me a headache!”
—Chris Tookey, The Daily Mail
“A shambolic, deafening, intelligence-insulting mess!”
—Tom Huddleston, Time Out London
“A mindless farrago of collisions and explosions!”
—Evan Williams, The Australian.
Box Office:
Domestic: $121.9 million
International: $220.0 million
Angels & Demons
Starring: Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor
Director: Ron Howard
Release Date: May 2009
“Catholic torture porn!”
—Bob Grimm, The Tucson Weekly.
“A plodding, exhausting adventure!”
—Jeffrey K. Lyles, The Maryland Gazette
Box Office:
Domestic: $130.2 million
International: $337.5 million
Fast & Furious 4
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez
Director: Justin Lin
Release Date: April 2009
“Jerkily edited car porn!”
—Alistair Harkness, The Scotsman
“Feels like at least four hours!”
—Lou Lumenick, The New York Post
Box Office:
Domestic: $155 million
International: $193.9 million
The Passion of the Christ
Starring: Jim Caviezel
Director: Mel Gibson
Release Date: February 2004
“A primitive and pornographic bloodbath!”
—Johnathan Rosenbaum, The Chicago Reader.
“A compendium of tortures that would horrify the regulars at an S&M club!”
—Jami Bernard, The New York Daily News
“A grimly unilluminating procession of treachery, beatings, blood, and agony!”
—David Denby, The New Yorker.
Box Office:
Domestic: $370.3 million
International: $240 million
Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest
Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Jack Davenport, Bill Nighy
Director: Gore Verbinski
Release Date: July 2006
“All the appeal of a seaweed sandwich!”
—Anthony Lane, The New Yorker
“The very definition of water torture!”
—Brandon Fibbs, BrandonFibbs.com
Box Office:
Domestic: $423.3 million
International: $642 million
Pearl Harbor
Starring: Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale, Cuba Gooding Jr., Jon Voight, Alec Baldwin
Director: Michael Bay
Release Date: May 2001
“Bore-a, Bore-a, Bore-a!”
—Desson Howe, Washington Post.
“Littered with low points!”
—Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal.
Box Office:
Domestic: $198.5 million
International: $251.5 million
Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace
Starring: Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman
Director: George Lucas
Release Date: May 19, 1999
“So incoherent, so completely bereft of a grand adventure's surging thrills!”
—Charles Taylor, Salon.
“The biggest letdown since the Clinton presidency!”
—Andrew Essex, CitySearch.
Box Office:
Domestic: $431.1 million
International: $492 million
Night at the Museum
Starring: Ben Stiller, Carla Gugino, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Ricky Gervais
Director: Shawn Levy
Release Date: December 22, 2006
“Fun for the whole family? Probably not!”
—Jeff Pevere, Toronto Star.
“All the warmth of an Ice Age fossil!”
—Thomas Delapa, Boulder Weekly
Box Office:
Domestic: $250.9 million
International: $322.8 million
Sex and the City: The Movie
Starring: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Chris Noth, Candice Bergen, Jennifer Hudson
Director: Michael Patrick King
Release Date: May 2008
“The crack of rock-bottom giving way to a whole deeper layer of magma!
—Rick Groen, The Globe and Mail
“Made me laugh out loud precisely once!”
—Anthony Lane, The New Yorker
Box Office:
Domestic: $152.6 million
International: $257.4 million
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Just goes to show how out of touch with reality ( "it's entertainment for Christ's sakes"- Mel Gibson) effete critics really are. Give anyone something that's sexy or blows up and makes 200% on your investment any day!
Reality is that these movies are terrible. They're obviously in touch with that. You can call them effete but they're right.
also, just because they make money doesn't mean normal people enjoyed them either. You pay before you see the movie. Box office gross is a more a measure of effective marketing than effective movie-making.
Agreed. I've seen all these movies and there was only one, maybe two, of them I thought had some merit.
PS~ Don't take your kids to Transformers unless you want them to have an abject lesson in sexual inuendo, adult language and subtle racism.
Agreed...Especially witha movie like Transformers which appeals mostly to kids. It speaks to how much power children have in our economy these days. There were a ton of movies I just loved as a kid and on a second glance as an aduld realized how terrible those movies really were. I'm a proud movie snob. I don't like wasting my time and money on crap.
Just goes to show how out of touch with the average American's lack of an attention span ( "it's entertainment for Christ's sakes"- Mel Gibson) effete critics really are. Give anyone something that's sexy or blows up and makes 200% on your investment any day!
fixed
I'm sure if food critics were to all critique McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King there would be a similar slaughter despite being the top selling foods in America. Does this mean they're out of touch or that the American buyer doesn't care about quality anymore?
Escaping to a sexy/blow em up movie, entertaining albeit not always the best quality, is just plain mind-numbing fun. If it's food related quality and a mind-expanding experience you want, go see Food Inc. More than entertainment, it's downright educational non-fiction and should be on everyones top ten list of required viewing. You may never want to eat fast food again, and you may also question why our national agriculture policies are some of the most egregious.
they're (art) critics, not financial advisors. their job is to assess the quality of the art, not its viability in the marketplace.
And no mention of "Night at the Museum II" or "X-MEN 3"?
These were just as bad as the ones in your list.
I haven't seen 'NatM2', but I did see 'X-Men 3' at the theatre, and while it wasn't the best movie, it was NOWHERE NEAR as bad as the movies listed here.
Night At the Museum (I) doesn't belong on this list. It was an entertaining and even funny movie. Not sure it warranted a sequel, but a good adventure/comedy flick.
The worst two of the list that I've had to suffer through were Pirates of the Caribbean and Sex and the City. These are the kinds of movies you feel small and ashamed after watching because they are such crap.
The first Transformers was surprisingly watchable and even funny (Shia Labeouf has acting and comedy chops, Indiana Jones & the Crystal Skull notwithstanding). The second one may be worth seeing at an Imax on a slow July 4th weekend; my only complaint is that the director should have take more time actually showing the transformers actually transform - that is half of what was originally cool about the toys and cartoon. Modern action movies rely way to much and too their detriment on blurred or rough cuts that simulate action without really producing it.
NaM1 was an entertaining kids movie... but I agree with you about the sequel (though I haven't seen it).
Labeouf... he was very funny as a kid actor, one of those guys who always acted older than he was... like that young know-it-all kid who's always cracking wise (we all know those kids). He just hasn't had the right script yet, although Disturbia wasn't terrible. He made it better than it should have been, and I've been told that Eagle Eye is watchable.
I think it may have been too expensive and/or time consuming to focus on the transforming. I haven't seen the second one yet, but that was a highlight of the first (which was a 50% RottenTomatoes-type rating, IMO).
It also seems like there's just a little too much venom for a movie like Passion of the Christ, and too much use of the term pornography by movie reviewers generally.
Mel's Jesus movie was a straight rup-off of the 'passion plays' put on by Christians in the past in order to focus ire on the Jews. And with Gibson's father being a SUPER-fundamentalist, holocaust denying Catholic, the venom, IMO, is warranted... especially towards those who claimed it 'changed their life'.
Like if I said I went to a KKK meeting and it changed my life (for the better).
You're right. Porn is way more tasteful than that filth.
Yeah, the venom for the Passion of Christ is the venom of the unbelieves. I don't know what else to call it. Gallup says that half of America still goes to church every Sunday or almost every Sunday, but future ahthropologists won't know that by looking at the movies. Look at the other two reactions to your post. Typical anonymous internet vitriol. Why is there such hatred in the world? Maybe 2/3's of all the Beast's posts are irrational and vicious, be they left, right or center, and this is one of the high class blogs. I'm amazed this democracy holds together with so little good reasoning being done, and even less good will.
I have some examples of poor reasoning for you.
Without any evidence, someone once claimed that "the venom for the Passion of Christ" comes from unbelievers. Reasonable wouldn't make a claim like that because "venom" is very subjective. Also, reasonable people wouldn't make that claim without some evidence. One could easily imagine believing Christians who want to prevent their religion from being viewed as a friendly home to the type of Christianity that Gibson espouses.
A reasonable person wouldn't think that future anthropologists, studying the period 2000-2010, would look primarily at movie content to determine church attendance. They would likely look at Gallup polls, among other things.
I find it interesting that when people are confronted with the reality of the execution of Jesus Christ, they condemn it as too violent. Though the flogging could be seen by some as excessive, that's the most realistic depiction of actual events that you'll see. The fact that Rotten Tomatoes has this film at 50% means that perhaps the Daily Beast is being a bit unfair anyways, but reading a few negative reviews only showed ignorance of the Biblical accounts or baseless accusations of anti-Semitism.
And I love a good action flick...if I were a movie critic, I'd be pumping up their reviews left and right :)
Lol...reality.
i,along with my brother and about twenty other people I didn't know, walked out of Transformers 2 about thirty minutes in.
It was that craptastic.
unfortunately i made it through the whole movie. I hardly ever complain about a movie while I'm watching it in the theater (in fact I can't think of another movie where i have) but there were several points where I discussed the crappiness of this movie with my girlfriend. I feel sorry for subjecting her to that movie.
hellboy 2. walked out on that one (in my defense read some of the comics). should have walked out on transformers 2, but like you, sat through it.
To the best of my recollection, I've seen none of these, even on tv. Might have seen part of Star Wars I on tv. I feel none the worse for it. I'm not sure I needed critics' reviews to keep me away from this sort of movies, but to the extent they did, thank you. Popularity with the broad movie public does not equal quality; indeed, particularly during the summer season, they are probably inversely related.
--The Wise (and undoubtedly effete) Bard
BTW, I also avoid McDonalds, Wendy's, and Burger Kings, unless I need a rest room on a road trip. They are usually acceptable for that purpose, and I am grateful for that.
--The Wise Bard
They each have their time and place. It's only that for too many people, that time and place is all too often.
My thought is that maybe critics are so far above the ticket-buying audience that what critics look for has no relationship to what audiences enjoy.
Blockbusters entertainment's main purpose is to capture an audience to sell popcorn and sodas. The movie therefore should not be captivating.
On the other hand critics and cinephiles look for originality and surprises, which are rarely found in blockbusters.
The former is an industry, the latter and art. Both have their distinct place.
Personally i did not think Mel Gibson's version of Monty Pythons Life of Brian was even funny???
Why does TDB insist on using so many clearly deceptive headlines on their home page? I clicked on some article that claims to be about the highest grossing God awful movies "OF ALL TIME" but instead get a story that is focused on this Summer alone. Totally, completely different for the most part. And they accomplish their premise by selective taking all the bad reviews of some movies that had mixed reviews. Granted, Transformers was absolutely hated by almost eveyr critic, but some of the others had a healthy mix of positive reviews too. Lame
Well said.
Quality and box office revenue are two very different things.
Are we sure these are bad reviews? Porn and bloodbath are code for guy flick. If those words are right in any context, many guys I know will love it.
I'm a 40-something action-movie-loving "adult" who LOVED the first Transformers movie. Revenge was the worst movie I've seen since I had to sit through "The Last Mimzy" with my kids. It had to be written by 14 year old boys. It's not clever or even remotely entertaining. I was angry that they ruined what could have been - should have been - a great, fun experience. Even the teens and 20-somethings with whom I saw the movie were all - to a person - very disappointed. Funny thing is that on the way to the movie, having heard about the bad review, we all thought that the reviewers were all snooty "film" lovers. Fact is, this movie had the worst writers to ever write anything....I wouldn't let them write a fast food menu. Unfortunately, the critics are right this time; and if you're an action movie fan, this movie will break your heart. It's truly heart breaking....I may have to go see Star Trek again to regain my faith in good action movies!
Seriously?
I mean, really?
That's the list you came up with for the worst movies of all time? Do you have some kind of perverse grudge against Ben Stiller? and Johnny Depp????
There are infinitely more movies that would be considered infinitely more awful than these. Sheesh...either you're sheltered or just clueless!!
Disgusting, torturous pornography at it's worse!
Thank you.
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