2012 Calvin Awards: Worst Picture
By Reagen Sulewski
February 15, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Sucker Punch earns the top spot in large part because it could have actually been something. A sci-fi amalgam of The Matrix, 300 and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and filled with a bevy of young actresses, this should have been right up our alley. Instead we got a nonsensical plot that seemed patched together from spare parts of better movies, retina-deadening special effects and a set of costume choices for its young actresses that had us looking over our shoulder for Chris Hansen. What worked great in a two minute trailer quickly became tedious and exasperating in a full length feature. Director Zack Snyder is quickly burning through the good will he earned from us for his first feature, Dawn of the Dead, and the very least needs to be forceably restrained from using that slo-mo speed up effect. It's one thing to have a trademark, but it's another thing for that trademark to be suck.
Falling under the category of “yeah, we should have known better”, we have Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son in second place. We can only presume that Martin Lawrence saw the success of the Madea movies and thought that men in fat women suits was back in vogue, and you know what else wouldn't be creepy? Having a father and son cross-dressing team! Wait, no, the other thing. Do you ever get the feeling that in the universe where this movie exists, Lawrence's character's superiors are just messing with him? Like, they have perfectly qualified female agents and are just seeing how far they can make him go just for the hell of it? These things keep me up at night.
The Hangover Part II earns its third place finish for sheer laziness, in making us pay for almost exactly the same film we saw the first time, told with all the fervor of the drunk at the bar who's sure you're not laughing at his joke for the right reasons. No, you see, it's funny because it's a monkey giving a blow job! Hold on, let me tell it to you again! Moving the action from Vegas to Thailand doesn't really change your movie, but I'm definitely looking forward to The Hangover III, where they all end up in space somehow.
Once upon a time, the Farrelly Brothers were kings of the comedy world. Of course, Clinton was still president at that point. Since There's Something About Mary, they've thrown bomb after bomb at us until we get to Hall Pass, our fourth place choice for worst film of the year. Aside from having a fairly reprehensible plot about infidelity, it's like someone took a CBS sitcom and stretched it out to feature length, with the most obvious, hackneyed jokes possible. Pot brownies? Really? It's 2012 and this still passes for daring comedy?
The run of terrible comedies continues with Your Highness, the medieval comedy from David Gordon Green. Once upon a time, Green was an indie darling who created films like All The Real Girls and George Washington. Then he stretched out with Pineapple Express, and we thought, okay, he's doing this to fund his indie projects, and it kind of works in spite of itself. But no, apparently this is the real David Gordon Green, and he wants to make lazy stoner films. It's like if Martin Scorsese followed up Raging Bull with a sequel to Porky's. I mean, what the hell?
Sixth spot represents some progress for Michael Bay, with Transformers: Dark of the Moon. All three of the Transformers films have found their way to our worst of the year list, though 2009's Revenge of the Fallen won outright, and 2007's original (I'm using that term loosely) was ninth. Toning down the ADHD editing just a smidge and ejecting the racist stereotypes, Bay's at least proving he can learn from mistakes. I mean, to a point. These films are still more of an ordeal to sit through than anything representing actual entertainment.
Seventh spot features another former BOP favorite in Kevin Smith with his horror comedy Red State, a film so poorly made that it makes you feel bad for religious fundamentalists, its ostensible target. They deserve a better movie where they can be villains. Smith is in the “taking shots at his critics” phase of his career, which could take him a while. While his amateurish direction was charming at one point and an interesting part of his Cinderella story, his refusal to even marginally improve that over the last 15 years has finally exhausted our patience.
The “not a remake of Single White Female, we swear” Roommate was eighth, managing to waste both Minka Kelly and Leighton Meester in a hackneyed thriller, without even the promise of an R-rating to keep things interesting.
A three way tie for ninth place brought us back to comedy again with The Change-Up, a body switch comedy that thought more awful sex jokes were what the genre needed. I mean, it starts with a fountain that switches Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman when they both pee in it and just heads downwards from there.
Then we had some awful sci-fi in I Am Number Four, which represented the latest attempt to rip off the X-Men concept, as well as Hollywood's strange obsession with making Alex Pettyfer a star. Well, it worked with Channing Tatum, apparently, so you can't blame them for trying.
Also tied there was another of Ryan Reynolds' films, The Green Lantern, which strangled a franchise in its cradle. While it was handicapped in the first place by being about a hero who can be defeated by color, its execution of the premise even out-nerded the nerds, and some seriously creepy looking CGI did not help matters.
The ring of dishonor also has some space for the Beauty and the Beast reimagining Beastly (Pettyfer, again), the shameless Shakespeare hit piece Anonymous and the ridiculous hagiography of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never.
The Calvins: An Introduction
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Album
Best Cast
Best Character
Best Director
Best Overlooked Film
Best Picture
Best Scene
Best Screenplay
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best TV Show
Best Use of Music
Best Videogame
Breakthrough Performance
Worst Performance
Worst Picture