Bullet Points: The Nine Worst Movies of 2007

9. Revolver

Guy Ritchie’s return to the crime genre has been available in Europe and through torrent for the past few years, but its official US release didn’t come about until last week, so I’m counting it in 2007’s shitpile of shit.

It’s one thing to make an artsy, ambiguous, multilayered film which might not be accessible to everyone at first glance, or even fully clear upon a single watching. It’s quite another to make a needlessly complex, hilariously over-symbolic, spastic, pretentious, confusing mess of a film like Revolver. And it’s not that I didn’t “get it”: I understand that the film starts off like a typical Ritchie crime caper before switching gears and becoming a philosophical meditation on the nature of greed. Fine, great. Whatever. Do that, but don’t throw random symbol after random symbol at the audience, expecting us to deeply consider the meaning of each and every little clue when, let’s face it, some of it doesn’t mean a goddamned thing.

Why does the film go into 3D animation for two minutes? Why does a Yakuza member lecture the audience about the danger of beauty during an assassination scene? Guy Ritchie wants us to think there are reasons behind all of these questions; deep, probing, obscure answers to this film’s mysteries, and, therefore, to life’s.

Guy Ritchie is wrong.

8. Hostel II

I’m not of the school of thought which states that torture porn cannot be enjoyable under any circumstances. The Saw series, for all its bombastic camera angles and mercilessly shitty acting, has been consistently grueling, horrifying, and (in the case of Saw 3) actually kind of thoughtful. Granted, I haven’t seen part four yet, so don’t hold me to that.

Point being, while some films can make torture porn a disturbingly enjoyable experience, Hostel II manages to show us all those things wrong, boring, and cheap about the genre. When one watches poor Heather Matarazzo get cut up by a naked lesbian blood fetishist, crying for her mommy, it’s hard not to feel a little uneasy, but big fucking deal – who wouldn’t feel a little saddened to see that?

Eli Roth goes for easy bits of gore and, as shown in a scene where the bad guy shoots a kid offscreen for no particular reason, is really just out to show how “shocking” he can be, rather than telling an actual story as he did in the first flick. Hostel II has some cute ironic moments as the two male leads experience complete role reversals, but there’s nothing to sink your teeth into: the characters are boring, the gore is meh, and what few disturbing moments there are feel either forced, cheap, or incredibly lazy.

7. The Number 23

The only thing worse than a comedian taking himself too seriously is a comedian taking himself too seriously in a really, really shitty movie. Jim Carrey can do serious, don’t get me wrong – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a modern classic, and The Truman Show is decently enjoyable – but he can’t respectably portray a paranoid, schizophrenic animal control agent, nor his hilariously over-the-top noir alter ego. Not in a movie that takes itself this seriously, anyway.

Ignoring the film’s horrendous dialogue, irritating story and numerous plot contrivances, Carrey just looks too desperate to be loved as a serious actor. Not unlike Lindsay Lohan in I Know Who Killed Me (more on that shitfest in a moment), poor Jim was so eager to appear a versatile, intelligent, serious actor that he forgot to make sure the films he chose weren’t complete crap.

6. Who’s Your Caddy?

The IMDb summary for this film states the following:

“When a rap mogul from Atlanta tries to join a conservative country club in the Carolinas he runs into fierce opposition from the board President- but it's nothing that he and his entourage can't handle.”

Or, simplified:

“BLACK PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT FROM WHITE PEOPLE! LAFFS ENSUE!”

Featuring Andy Milonakis, Jeffrey Jones (oh, how the mighty have been arrested for possession of child pornography and have subsequently fallen), and Faizon Love as a character named “Big Large,” Who’s Your Caddy? While not quite representing the absolute nadir of modern, low-budget black comedies (that award belongs to either Soul Plane or Phat Girlz), it’s definitely the worst in its genre as far as 2007 is concerned.

5. Delta Farce

Determined to prove that black people couldn’t corner the market on awful, race-related, lowest-common-denominator comedy, one half of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour teamed up for Delta Farce, which is evidently supposed to be some sort of funny, socially relevant film about the Iraq war and immigration.

Would you be even remotely surprised to hear that it’s really just about fart jokes and Larry the Cable Guy saying really stupid shit? Judging by the reactions on IMDb, it appears that even fans of Larry the Cable Guy – those numerous, tragic folk who have no idea he used to look and sound like this – found the film to be a boring, unfunny piece of cinematic manure.

4. I Know Who Killed Me

Lindsay Lohan can, technically, act. Watching I Know Who Killed Me, however, you’d never know it. If anyone actually ended up watching it in theatres, it probably had something to do with the stripteasing scenes – scenes which, while titillating, would have been a hell of a lot more interesting had they happened a few years ago, pre-cocaine. If you take out the boobage in IKWKM, what do you get? Mainly, a cliched, silly plot reminiscent of Donald Kaufman’s fictional screenplay “The 3,” exploitative (but dull) scenes of violence, and two characterizations by Lohan that, even if the entire film weren’t overshadowed by her hilariously public private life, would still be laughably bad.

The flick tries to be several things at once: a probing character study, a suspenseful thriller, a titillating strip show, and a horrifying torture porn. It fails in literally all of these areas. It does, unintentionally, become a downright incredible comedy by the third act…but, you know, not on purpose.

3. Because I Said So

Touchy-feely chick flicks can be pretty bad for men, even when they’re just okay. When they’re downright awful, as Because I Said So is, they can be the cinematic equivalent of castration by butterknife.

Imagine, if you will, a film in which a character played by Diane Keaton has never had an orgasm. Now, imagine placing three or four alternately “comedic” and “dramatic” scenes around this one fact, all of which end up being creepy, awkward, and unbelievable. I’m not necessarily the biggest Diane Keaton fan in the world, but I still found it pretty goddamned embarrassing to watch her spend a hundred minutes trying to set up Mandy Moore with a guy, as if this would be an even remotely difficult thing to do in real life.

Because I Said So basically takes everything which could possibly be wrong, irritating, touchy-feely, and sexist in a chick flick and crams it into one unwatchable, insulting mess.

2. Norbit

Remember back when Eddie Murphy used to be funny? He certainly doesn’t. In a way, I can almost understand why he made Norbit: his Nutty Professor remakes, while not exactly works of comedic genius, represent (along with Bowfinger) the funniest films of his recent career. If playing half the cast of The Klumps was kind of funny, then playing a skinny, awkward teenager, a disgustingly fat, loudmouthed bitch, and the most racist Asian caricature since Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s should have made for some at least mildly compelling moments, right?

Let’s look at some of the review excerpts from RottenTomatoes:

“It probably isn’t possible for a single movie to reverse all social progress made since the civil-rights era, but Norbit…does its best to turn back the clock.”

“Surely some humanitarian organization will recognize the selflessness with which Murphy has taken three of the movie's major roles, thus saving two other actors from a nasty black mark on their résumés.”

“A strange, toneless collection of fat jokes, fart jokes and sex gags.”

“Norbit is so bad, it has redefined my concept of hell.”

Yeah. It’s that bad. I’d elaborate, but really – if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ll probably have some idea as to how unabashedly awful this flick is.

1. Epic Movie

Norbit wasn’t funny, but it was still an oddly transfixing disaster -- a horror so complete in its loud un-funniness that one can’t help but continue watching, confused and terrified. Epic Movie is like a less watchable version of Norbit.

With jokes that wouldn’t even have been funny when they were still relevant, painfully stupid visual gags, and more shitty references than any other film ever made, Epic Movie is like a ninety minute version of God’s punishment to his creation. Literally every single joke falls flat: from David Carradine breakdance-spelling the name “DA VINCI” to (the admittedly adorable) Jayma Mays kicking a gopher in the face, the entire flick is an exercise in comedic failure. It’s as if the writer-director team of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer thought that simply mentioning the name of other, better, more popular films was somehow hilarious in and of itself – that putting, I don’t know, an actual fucking joke somewhere would have been a wasted effort. Note to the writers: if you’re making a film where you find yourself parodying a parody (the film, for seemingly no reason, includes Borat character who acts like an even more over-the-top version of Sacha Baron Cohen’s original creation), it’s time to either rethink your film, or kill yourself. Preferably both.

Epic Movie is a stupid, unfunny, pointless film, and my life is worse having watched it. It’s the worst film of the year.