PCP on DVD - Bad movies 6-pack

PCP on DVD reviews:  Bad Movies 6 Pack

Time for your next hit of PCP:  Pop Culture Panorama.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have developed about a 60 movie backlog of films to review, of films I’ve watched over the past couple months.  I’ve had enough time to watch the movies and jot down some observations, but not enough time until now to actually write the reviews.  So, I will be doing shorter than normal reviews of these films until I am caught back up, in convenient multi-packs of movies by genre.  Today I’ll be tackling 6 lousy movies I made the mistake of watching recently.  These reviews are going to be super-short, because I don’t want to waste any more time than I have to on these films.

Legion – 2009; Rated R.  100 minutes.  Starring Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, Tyrese Gibson, & Adrianne Palicki.  My rating:  4 out of 10.

What this film lacks in subtlety it makes up for in stupidity.  A movie about a coming apocalypse and a war between man and heaven, and it takes places in a diner named “Paradise Falls.”  Wow, could you be any more obvious?  The film is poorly done and looks a lot better in the trailers than it does in full length.

The rest of the awful is after the jump...

Jonah Hex – 2010; Rated PG-13.  81 minutes.  Starring Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, & Megan Fox.  My rating:  2 out of 10.

The first time any comic book movie makes it to the big screen typically means you have an origin story.  This film condenses that origin story into a 5 minute animated, voiced over, opening narration by Brolin.  That was a pretty big red flag right there that this film was going to suck.  Why were actors as good as Brolin and Malkovich making such a terrible film?  At least at less than an hour and a half, I didn’t waste too much of my life on this dreck.

The Last Airbender – 2010; Rated PG.  103 minutes.  Starring a bunch of white actors that should be Asians if you’re true to the cartoon.  My rating:  3 out of 10.

M. Night Shyamalan, why don’t you make good films any more?  What happened to you?  Sixth Sense is a great film, and it has been all downhill for you from there.  This film is an insult to the viewer, an insult to anyone that is a fan of the TV series it is based on, and an insult to Asians, since almost every Asian character from the toon has been replaced with a Caucasian actor.  There is a reason this film was nominated for 9 Razzie awards and won 5 including worst picture.  I’ll admit, there are some cool visuals in this film, but the painfully bad acting and script hurt this film too much for that to overcome.

Land of the Lost – 2009; Rated PG-13.  102 minutes.  Starring Will Ferrell and Danny McBride.  My rating:  4 out of 10.

Will Ferrell can make some hilarious movies, especially when they are original characters like Ron Burgundy or Ricky Bobby.  When he takes on remakes of classic TV series, however, he tends to fall flat.  This has been his 2^nd stab at a remake (the awful Bewitched being the other), and once again the remake just bites.  I think I laughed once, at the ending with Matt Lauer, but that’s about it, and its not worth suffering through the whole movie just to get to that ending.

All About Steve – 2009; Rated PG-13.  99 minutes.  Starring Sandra Bullock, Thomas Haden Church, & Bradley Cooper.  My rating:  2 out of 10. 

This movie was just awful.  Not funny, not entertaining, and not likeable at all (which is surprising because it’s hard not to like Sandra Bullock).  Its funny that it came out in the same year as 2 great Bullock movies, The Blind Side and The Proposal, but this one was just garbage.  She won the Razzie for Worst Actress for a reason for this film, but at least she had the courage to show up to accept her award in person, so I’ll give her credit for that at least.  I didn’t laugh or chuckle once at this film, its just 100% not funny.

Killers – 2010; Rated PG-13.  100 minutes.  Starring Ashton Kutcher, Katherine Heigl, Tom Selleck, & Catherine O’Hara.  My rating 4 out of 10.

This movie wasn’t totally terrible, it was just lame.  It has a number of plot holes so large you can drive a semi through them, and an ending with almost no resolution.  Kutcher’s charm is about the only thing that saves this film from being a complete disaster, but it was still pretty bad.  Plus, so many of the characters are just awful stereotypes.  O’Hara as the complete lush of a mother, Selleck as the disapproving father, Heigl as yet another neurotic whiny woman (can’t she find a role that doesn’t portray her that way??) and more characters are just so bland and boring.  Knight and Day, which came out around the same time and has a similar plot is much better than this one was.

Alright, that’s all for today, so until next time!  Have a great and safe Memorial Day weekend!