Bad Movies

Really, really bad movies. Also, spoilers.

Recently, in an attempt to clear off some space on my bloated hard drive, I watched some movies that I had been "meaning to get around to" for a few months. These are, of course, the movies that I didn't really want to watch, but felt obligated to anyway for some reason. This is because I spent the time to locate and download these films, so I feel that I shouldn't just delete them without ever having seen them. These movies were Babylon A.D., Resident Evil: Extinction, Death Race, Ultraviolet and Hitman. Shall we?

Babylon A.D. was... not bad. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't bad at all (comparatively). Despite being a shameless Vin Diesel vehicle, the movie has shockingly high production values and decent acting. Vin can act just fine if he doesn't open his mouth too much (he doesn't). It also helps if the dialogue he does have isn't pun-based in nature. The plot, admittedly based on a French novel and not a Vin original, is pretty good. At the very least, it keeps you guessing until the end. Which is where the whole thing falls apart. The entire film moves at a fairly decent clip with just the right amount of explosions and just the right amount of exposition to keep you watching. Then it betrays the audience it worked so hard to earn with a confusing and unsatisfactory ending (not based on the original ending, it should be noted). All in all, I give it six stars. Also, it has black market tiger clones.

Then there was Resident Evil: Extinction. Don't take me as an elitist, I'm not above a good zombie flick. I'm also not entirely opposed to films based on video games (though I should be. Anyone else see Max Payne? Man, I could do a separate post entirely on that piece of junk). But if I'm going to invest time in a movie that I was lured into with the understanding that I'd see zombie birds, I don't want them to be killed by the psychic main character in, like, thirty seconds. So, tips for improvement: more zombie crows and less plot. Because the plot that was there was ridiculous. Also, I'm offended that you thought that the audience would be won over by zombie dogs that are obviously just Rottweilers with a bad paint job. Shameful. Four stars.

I have to cut Death Race some slack. Not much, but more than it deserves. It was based on Deathrace 2000, a film produced in 1975 by the inimitable Roger Corman. For the uninformed, Roger Corman was king of the B-movie during the latter half of the 50's and most of the 60's and 70's. Perhaps the best-known of his stories is that of The Little Shop Of Horrors (not the musical; it was the film that inspired the Broadway musical of the same name), a black comedy that he filmed in three days on a budget of $30,000. According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, his most prolific period was marked in 1957, when he produced nine films. In case you don't know, both films center around the premise that at some point in the future, a gladiatorial road race would become a source of national entertainment. In the 2008 remake, the plot takes a turn for the wacky when Jason Statham is framed for his wife's murder. This is eventually revealed to be an elaborate set-up by the warden of the prison where he ends up (who run the races as a way for inmates to win their freedom), who needs a replacement driver for her star racer, Frankenstein. Frank died in his most recent race, but any driver with Frank's old hockey mask could pass for him, drawing in the pay-per-view money. It's a tenuous excuse for a plot, but that's not why people went to go see it. They went to go see a live-action version of the N64 classic Carmageddon (remember that? Yeah, you do). These people, along with the film's investors, were severely disappointed. The racing element was given far too little attention for a movie entitled Death Race, meaning a disproportional amount of film stock was wasted on Jason Statham worrying about his dead wife and baby daughter or whatever. That being said, there is a part where the race organizers introduce the Dreadnought, an enormous 18-wheeler-cum-tank. Sweet. Three stars.

Kurt Wimmer is a confusing human being. He wrote The Thomas Crown Affair and The Recruit, two seemingly average, if not better-than-average, films. He also wrote and directed Equilibrium, a film that, while being absolutely ridiculous, could also be easily called better-than-average. Then he comes along and decides to destroy all his hard-earned cred by writing and directing Ultraviolet. I could talk about the choice to use the queen of the "New B" school of film (Milla Jovovich, also star of Resident Evil: Extinction), I could talk about his decision to awkwardly shoehorn in a vampire angle, I could even talk about how the film makes no sense whatsoever, but instead I'll talk about his gratuitous use of Photoshop's Blur tool.

Honestly, the entire film is like that. Watch the following clip from the movie to see an example of the "kinda-neat-idea; poor-follow-through" feel that permeates the film. Two stars.

And that leaves us with Hitman. I should just go ahead and tell you now: this movie gets one star. That's out of ten. It's also the only movie I would recommend. This is because you cannot possibly understand the level of its suckitude from the mere written word. It is... quite possibly the worst movie I've ever seen. This is not to say that it's bad in the same way as Army Of Darkness, but it's bad in the sense that I honestly didn't have fun watching it. I didn't enjoy a single moment. Also they make a gross spelling error that I notice every time. Yeah. Every time. Can anyone explain why I've seen this three times?

I'm done.