2006 Calvin Awards: Worst Picture

February 21, 2006

Did you see which way Uwe Boll went?

Every year, we have to suffer through a lot of duds in order to find the hidden gems. 2005 seemed to bring more than its fair share of awful stuff, and this time around, it was Uwe Boll who led the charge. Dr. Boll seems determined to destroy everything that is good and special with regards to video games, and to that end, he continues to make vile, vapid movie adaptations that are nigh-on unwatchable. Alone in the Dark is surely no exception to this rule. Boasting terrible production values, a ludicrous (though forgettable) storyline, and some of the worst acting this side of Paul Walker, Alone in the Dark was painful to watch. Frankly, the only surprise is that enough people saw this abomination to propel it to the top of our Worst Picture list. As long as we have movies where Tara Reid pronounces names of geographical locations (New Found Land), we'll always have some top-notch candidates for hateable films.

Speaking of terrible acting, Fantastic Four shows up in our number two spot primarily thanks to some awful performances from Jessica Alba, Ioan Gruffudd and Julian McMahon. Not even the goodness of Chris Evans as Johnny Storm and Michael Chiklis as The Thing could save this mess, which was frequently silly, occasionally boring, and consistently dumb.

House of Wax gets "recognition" on this list due to being a very poor remake that relies on gore and guts to make its point. Instead of offering anything real by way of suspense or intrigue, we instead simply get a parade of young WB stars being maimed and killed in a variety of grisly methods. The presence of Paris Hilton doesn't help matters, either, even if she does meet a brutal end.

There are times when Will Ferrell can be very funny (see: Elf, Anchorman). These movies are unfortunately counterbalanced by the ones where he is truly awful. Kicking & Screaming is just such a film, and in fact the title is a rather apt description of Ferrell's performance. BOP has noted on numerous occasions that Ferrell seems to follow the "yell all your lines!" school of acting. He certainly hollers his way through this lackluster comedy, which was frankly so awful that I couldn't even stay awake for the whole thing.

With Fast and the Furious and xXx, director Rob Cohen came away with the idea that as long as he made his movies big, loud and flashy, they would always make money - no matter how stupid the concept or what actors he employed. He tried to carry this same notion over to Stealth, a special effects-driven extravaganza about a computer-operated Stealth fighter jet that eventually goes rogue. And evil. Movie-goers were too smart to be caught up in the noisy, flashy pictures shown in the trailer, though, and the film will go down as one of the biggest financial disappointments of 2005. Thanks to smart film audiences, studios may be more hesitant to greenlight movies that are all explosion and no substance in the future.

It's a rare, rare occasion when we at BOP aren't at least a little bit forgiving of animated films. Robots, however, was so dreadful and completely devoid of humor that we couldn't possibly omit it from a worst picture list. Considering that the film initially looked fairly cute in the trailers, the degradation from first impression to final results was astronomical. The fact that Blue Sky Studios, the animators behind the film, have promised that the sequel will actually have "a story" speaks volumes. It's time for CGI filmmakers to realize that it doesn't matter if you make your film shiny. There have to be compelling characters and a plot to make the film work.

Another Michael Bay film, another top ten Worst Picture finish. This time around, it's The Island that receives our wrath, and considering that many of our staff members have an undying love for Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson, it's kind of a big deal. We simply couldn't get behind the overblown story, special effects and allegations that the movie was a direct rip-off of the 1979 film The Clonus Horror. Audiences agreed with us, too, as they soundly rejected The Island at the box office. It's the first Michael Bay film in some time to not have a huge financial score.

Will Ferrell has his second entry in the top ten with the ill-advised remake of Bewitched. Instead of actually doing a movie version of the television story, filmmakers instead decided to do a plot within a plot as they had Ferrell playing the star of a television show called Bewitched. When the show's producers go to cast for the lead female in the film, they wind up with a real-live witch (Nicole Kidman) playing the role, unbeknownst to them. Television show remakes can be really touch and go, and Bewitched was no exception. And again, we're tired of taking aspirin every time Ferrell yells.

There was a time when we voted Naomi Watts Best Actress for her performance in The Ring and admired that remake as a spooky, eerie project. Now, despite the fact that the Japanese sequel to Ringu was quite scary, we just can't say the same for the mess that was The Ring 2. The reason for this loss in quality is inexplicable, particularly given the presence of Hideo Nakata, helmer of the Japanese Ringu, as director of the American sequel. We're baffled, disappointed and a little disgusted at the result.

2005 was the year where Tom Cruise officially reached over-saturation levels. After his ridiculous posturing and sofa-hopping on Oprah's show, he went on to criticize Brooke Shields for her usage of anti-depressants for post-partum symptoms. And despite strongly and urgently declaring his love for Katie Holmes before going on to impregnate her, they're now rumored to be a couple on the outs, making the summertime media circus look all that much more ridiculous. Many of our voters chose to take out their displeasure with Cruise with a vote for War of the Worlds, though it also earns an entry in the Worst Picture category because of its finale(s). We won't spoil the movie for those who haven't seen it, but to say that the ending is silly and anticlimactic is putting it lightly. Couple that with one of Tim Robbins' worst performances ever, and you've got a recipe for disaster.

A few of the films that just barely missed our Worst list were Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (let the cards and letters begin), The Producers, The Longest Yard and D.E.B.S. (Kim Hollis/BOP)



Top 10
Position Film Total Points
1 Alone in the Dark 52
2(tie) House of Wax 29
2(tie) Kicking and Screaming 29
4 Fantastic Four 28
5 Stealth 27
6(tie) Robots 20
6(tie) The Island 20
8(tie) Bewitched 18
8(tie) The Ring Two 18
8(tie) War of the Worlds 18




     


 
 

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