2007's Bottom Five Film's- Duncan

This list was even harder to fill out than the top 20, because perhaps to justify to myself spending so much money on movies, I rarely walk out of the theater thinking something was just downright bad.

So these are the five most disappointing movies I saw in 2007- that's not to say they didn't have redeeming qualities, or good intentions, but it the end they just couldn't pull it off. I can see why some critics would harsh on Bee Movie or Beowulf, for example, but I can't imagine expecting more than I got in either case. So all five of these are "Bad Movies That Had the Potential to Be Good," to varying degrees.

5. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (my review)

Some movies are twenty minutes too long, some half an hour, and usually it's forgivable in the face of good acting, beautiful cinematography, and a compelling story. But an entire excess hour really saddled down AJJCRF until it just became too much.

I'm eventually buying this and editing my own version on Windows Movie Maker or something- is that possible- and then I'll have a masterpiece.


4. The Golden Compass (my review)

Oh, book to film adaptations. Will you ever work? The previous entry had too much of the book that inspired it, but The Golden Compass had too little of its source material. Plus they got caught in that interminable family film limbo and watered down most of the parts of the book that were actually, you know, interesting.

3. Lust, Caution (my review)

Boring. Unnecessarily sensational. Overly mannered. Too much Mah-Jong. I'm already bored writing about this again.

2. Sunshine (me ranking it dead last on the summer countdown)

So close! Much like I Am Legend, it completely falls apart in a third act finale that's implausible, hackneyed, and gross. I wasn't sure if it made it worse or better (or higher or lower on this list) because the first two acts were so well executed.

The difference of course- I wasn't too surprised when I Am Legend fell apart, because Francis Lawrence is not Danny Boyle.


1. Before the Devil Know's You're Dead (me calling it the most overrated film of the year)

At least Rotten Tomatoes for Sunshine was a tentative 60% among the "top critics" (i. e. the more legimate than this blog could ever be critics), trying to warn me that it falls apart eventually. Those same critics were agog to the tune of 92% for Sidney Lumet's miseryfest of botched robberies and angrily slammed phones.

It just seems ultimately pointless- Really, movie? Robbing your parents jewelry store is a bad idea? I had no idea that betraying your family in a desperate attempt to skip the country before being investigated for tax fraud would go wrong. Thanks for the life lesson.

Also it completely wasted one of the coolest titles of the year, which is the real tragedy. I was stoked when the words "May you be in Heaven half an hour..." appeared on the screen, and then the title came in to complete it, but it was all downhill from there.

2007's Bottom Five Film's- Dave

Best Movie That Was Bad, But Had The Potential To Be Good:

The Kingdom – All-star cast? Check. Decent writer? More or less a check. Good story? Surprisingly, yes. Good director? Check.

So what the hell happened?

Honestly, I do not know. My best guess is that I think the director, Peter Berg, chooses to showcase the action pieces more than the heart that lies with Carnahan’s script. Even though the action pieces are quite good, it almost becomes too much in a film that could have had as much soul as the best action movie of the year, The Bourne Ultimatum.

5. Spider-Man 3 – Three is a crowd. The latest (‘Cause there is more to come) installment in the web-crawler’s trilogy falls short of the previous two. While it may not be a horrible movie, it is certainly a disappointment.


4. Next – “Las Vegas showroom magician Cris Johnson has a secret which torments him: he can see a few minutes into the future. Sick of the examinations he underwent as a child and the interest of the government and medical establishment in his power, he lies low under an assumed name in Vegas, performing cheap tricks and living off small-time gambling "winnings." But when a terrorist group threatens to detonate a nuclear device in Los Angeles, government agent Callie Ferris must use all her wiles to capture Cris and convince him to help her stop the cataclysm.”

That is the plot synopsis from IMDB.com. The scary part is that this is not the most ridiculous thing in the movie. Julianne Moore plays a tough FBI agent, but the cream of the crop is Nicolas Cage’s hairpiece.

3. Shrek the Third – I kind of knew what to expect going into this movie, but it was still bad. The joy that was in the previous two is just not there anymore and they plan on making two more films. Ugh.

2. Rush Hour 3 – I did not see this film, yet the awfulness is so palpable I had to put it number two.

Actually, I put it here because this movie raises more questions than answers.
Consider the following:

• Why was there a six year gap between Rush Hour 2 and Rush Hour 3? It is not like Chris Tucker wasn’t available.
• Did Rush Hour 2 leave that many questions unanswered?
• What does $50 million + $53.25 million + $7 million equal? You could say $110.25 million, and you would be correct. How about the paydays for Tucker, Chan, and Ratner? That would be correct too. How does this happen?
• Tucker’s character is from California, Chan’s is from China, yet the movie is set in France. What?
• You can clearly see the ridiculousness of this all

1. Lions for Lambs – I figured this would actually be a good movie, if not a great one. I looked and saw that Robert Redford was directing and producing the film, which has yielded such results as Ordinary People and A River Runs Through It. I saw Matthew Michael Carnahan, who is an up and coming writer and brother to Joe Carnahan of Narc fame. I saw Tom Cruise, who I admire and has previously worked with Joe Carnahan on Narc for great results. I saw Academy Award winner Meryl Streep, and rising stars Derek Luke and Michael Pena. I figured this was the first movie coming out of the United Artist stable under Tom Cruise’s guidance and he would not allow it to fail.

I was horribly wrong. This film fails on so many levels it almost mystifies me. Similar to this year’s All the King’s Men, I found myself wondering how all this talent just went to waste.

The only positive to this movie is that is clocks in at 88 minutes.