Short Memories!

Here we go again! Is it some misguided need to get a good movie that has people foaming at the mouth for flicks that are most likely going to be as crappy as they sound? Maybe it’s sadomasochism and people just enjoy punishing themselves when they go to a sequel of an over rated piece of shit movie, only to be let down again. But wait! It gets better!

These same people come out of the theatre telling you how great the movie was? Yes that’s a question! I can’t believe it happens and I want to know why! Let me give you some examples; Phantom Menace sucked terribly right? But everyone lined up for Attack of the Clones and then when that sucked, they lined up for Revenge of the Sith.

Spiderman is easily one of the most over rated piece of crap movies that has little more to offer than some web slinging in quickly lost-luster CG and Mary Jane in a wet down. I was disappointed, but when I told people I thought it was crap, they scorned me. Sure enough, a couple years later those same people are telling me that the new Spidey will be way better than the first one, which apparently now is only, “okay”. The same thing happened with the third!

This leads me to point out a couple of movies that I want to put down for posterity. These aren’t revelations, more a wakeup call. I don’t intend to have the memory of a Harry Knowles or the legions that follow him blindly. Time doesn’t make Phantom Menace suck, Geoge Lucas did and that was in 98 when it was released. (God, with a 4^th Indy, will old George forever be the punching bag?) And the nominees for “movies you should realize suck immediately” are;

Transformers. Where to begin? Inconsistencies in whether or not the robots are clumsy, cute, fountain crushing klutzes or back flipping, missile dodging, mechanical ninjas is only one aspect to how bad this movie was. And people want to hate on Shia? Fine, his performance in this flick was weak, but look at the material for god’s sake!

Hellboy 2. I don’t want to hear about how cute it was that Hellboy and Abe got drunk and crooned together! That sucked! Come on people, Pan’s Labyrinth good, Hellboy 2 bad! From a weak ass plot to missing the tone of HB completely, this movie missed the mark on all targets with the exception of production design.

Incredible Hulk. So many people thought this movie was better than the Ang Lee’s movie and while that’s certainly up for argument in my opinion, we shouldn’t be afraid to call it for what it was. I agree it wasn’t a complete waste of time, but when you have a main villain with absolutely no motivation, you have to own up to it! Tim Roth is a fantastic actor, but he nothing to work with here! I don’t care what was left on the cutting room floor, if it’s not edited back in then it’s not part of the movie. Add Liv-she’s-hot-but-useless-in-this-movie-Tyler and you have some pretty questionable film making here. The movie was great until she was introduced. From that point on, every cliché was painful, from the drop out of the helicopter in slow-mo to the meeting on the bridge in the rain I wanted to gag myself and end it!

300. I don’t get the appeal of this flick at all. I guess it’s the fact that it’s a Gladiator wannabe film with Sin City-like visuals. Big fat deal! If I wanted watch Gladiator, I’d do just that and forget about the flat and boring one dimensional movie that was 300. At the very least Gladiator had depth in its emotional core, while 300 was a movie that tried to convince you that Spartans were badass by parading them up and down in loin cloths for two hours and yet as soon as one of them dies, his father is all crying like a little bitch! Talk about inconsistency! I hope movies like this are few and far between. While Sin City was a novel way of bringing that comic to life it mirrors the Matrix bullet time effect; just because it was cool in one movie, doesn’t make it cool to put it in a hundred other flicks! Anyway, I think my opinion has already been proven on this one, since I haven’t heard anyone even talk about this piece in the last six months. Flash in the pan.

Punisher. They're already rebooting this franchise, so I don't want to hear about how this movie was cool! It wasn't! Only in Hollywood could some shmuck think that amping up a character's origin by killing every single family member instead of just his wife and kid is a more intense story! If your wife and kid are killed, that's hardcore, if I tack on your uncle Billy and second cousin Jeanie, who gives a shit? And let's not get started on the whole, "I'm the Punisher so I'm going to psychologically punish you by planting parking tickets in your wife's car" bit. Two words; weak sauce! The Punisher takes off your knee caps with a sawed-off, not manipulate you into turning on your best friend!

Well I guess that’s it off the top of my head. I’m tired and I’m sure tomorrow will bring an entirely new crop of half assed movies for me to gripe about. I’m also sure that there are more out there I should have remembered, but that’s all for now.