The Big Picture: MovieBob's Worst of 2013

[alandavidson]

Just a heads up, Bob: It's pronounced Osayge County.

Also, I'm in the movie! (I have no idea if the film is good or not, as I haven't seen it.)

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

I have been made to sit through some real terrible movies this year, due to complicated circumstances. which makes me wonder how these selections were picked (apart from the host, obviously). Does bob only stick to AAA movies?
Just try 'ooga booga' for instance. There are others, many other...horrendous creations, but my mind has a temperemental delete function .

 

[walrusaurus]

Spoiler

Pick up the Star Trek movies where we left off? With Patrick Stewart? Are you forgetting that the TNG movies were probably THE worst things to have ever happened to Star Trek?

EDIT: already pointed out I see. But Nemesis was a masterpiece compared to fucking Insurrection. Dear GOD.

I'll be the one to go out on a limb. Of the pre-reboot movies, First Contact is the best one. It's not great. It gets mired down in the Earth-Cochran timeline. However, it's Patrick Stewart getting to take Captain Ahab and give it a go on screen in a Star Trek movie and that's worth the price. Also, Alice Krige getting to be Alice Krige. Evil.

Of the rest?

Star Trek: The Motion Picture: Bleh. No, really. Bleh.

Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan: I think part of the reason that people liked this movie, or convinced themselves that they did is 1) they missed Trek a lot, and the first movie was not a return, this one sorta was; 2) they liked the Khan idea that never really got fleshed out to a proper extent in the show; 3) err... ear slugs? Maybe? I saw Khan in the theater when it came out and could never really understand the draw. Ricardo Montalban wearing a plastic chest and hamming it up almost as bad as Shatner and spouting lines (again, we can reference Moby Dick) that he simply quotes from other, smarter people and, damning for me, not once did he display any act of working "genius." Yet, we are supposed to buy that he's a genius, super human. Most of the cast sorta milled around staying out of the way of Shat and Montalban and fell into the background. The only real stand out was Leonard Nimoy... which is no real surprise. Maybe my lack of blind love for TOS (I prefer TNG) doesn't make me look at this movie with rose colored glasses so, clearly, I'm missing what so many people like about this one. It's probably the best of the TOS movies, but that's not a stretch.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: Christopher Lloyd as a Klingon. Spock coming back from the dead on a genesis planet and growing at an accelerated rate. Can I stop now? This movie was boring, at best.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: Dumb. Typical time traveling (Oh look, the USS Enterprise, nudge nudge) shtick alongside the "save the whales" and other '80s cliches. Can't we have a Star Trek that takes place in space again? Please?

Star Trek V: The Travesty: Yeah. Do I need to discuss this one?

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: Well, it should have been called the undiscovered failure. Not because it was a failure or bad movie. It's that they didn't know that there was one major fault that dropped this movie down from being the best one to date: Shatner. That whole Rura Penthe (sp) section with Shatner again hamming it up like the joke of an actor that he is, culminating with a painful argument/fight with a shapeshifter disguised as himself completely hamstrings this movie. It was otherwise a good premise, story, and execution. If we could have just left the whole movie to Spock and Sulu it might have been fantastic.

Star Trek: Generations: GAH. Here's Malcolm McDowell, one of the best villains ever. Let's make him boring and his movie kinda awful. Let's also kill Kirk (yay!), in a really dull way (boo!).

Star Trek: First Contact: Discussed above.

Star Trek: Insurrection and Nemesis: I put these two together because I saw them both, thought "not good, not particularly horrid" and then promptly completely forgot everything about them. They were that compelling, apparently.

So, I really never get all the "untouchable" status of the TOS and it's movies (which were almost all bad) and the Trek fans' (Trekker/Trekkie/Spokker/whatever) negative reaction to the reboot. I found that the reboot consistently delivered something that most of the Trek movies and series' forgot: Fun. I know that that wasn't part of Roddenberry's purpose and that each show had to have a point/moral, but sometimes fun is a bit more important. Our movies have been mired down so much in dark/gritty/moralistic lately (see Nolan's Batman series) that that entire take on entertainment is starting to get exhausted and exhausting. I still haven't watched Elysium solely because I'm afraid (and probably wrong) that it will remind me of District 9 too much, which I enjoyed but never wanted to watch again. Is there a problem with the Pacific Rim take on movies? Fun is fun. Dumb is ok, if it's done well and fun. Not every movie needs to be Schindler's List and, most certainly, Trek doesn't. I enjoy some TOS, I enjoy most TNG and find a lot of good points in DS9, Voyager, and even Enterprise. The new Trek reboot really doesn't step all over those, it just gives a more fun-focused take on the universe and that, to me, is a good thing. Oh, and Benedict Cumberbatch actually pulled off Khan, for me, finally, giving the character some real believability and menace, unlike watching Trek II and waiting for Tattoo to show up at any moment.

Too much lens flare though. Agreed on that point.

This. A million times this. I actually loved the first Abrams star trek movie. The second one was just ok, but still better thana good deal of the steaming piles that have come before.

On the subject of superman i couldn't disagree more, if for no other reason than the russell crowe section of the movie which was awesome. Sure it gets too smash happy at the end, plus i really don't think that the guy playing Zod was good at all, but it was still as entertaining as a superman movie really can be. Theres not a lot that you can do to endanger a hero who is functionally invincible, and I appreciate that they tried to make him seem vulnerable without going the LOLKRYPTONITE route.

 

[MrBaskerville]

Hold the phone...
Who thinks Movie 43 sucks? No seriously who. Point me at 'em I'll show um what what for!

The vast majority of people who think it's an aggresively unfunny piece of garbage. 'Movie 43' belongs in the same boat as Adam Sandler comedies, and the 'parody' movies like 'Vampires Suck.'

That's an insult to Adam Sandler, Movie 43 and Inappropriate Comedy set a new bar on how bad movies can get.

Hugh Grant actually declined to appear in it unless they filmed it where he lived, because he thought the script was awful and embarresing. They just moved the entire production and he kinda had to appear anyway .

 

[Acton Hank]

Hold the phone...
Who thinks Movie 43 sucks? No seriously who. Point me at 'em I'll show um what what for!

The vast majority of people who think it's an aggresively unfunny piece of garbage. 'Movie 43' belongs in the same boat as Adam Sandler comedies, and the 'parody' movies like 'Vampires Suck.'

That's an insult to Adam Sandler, Movie 43 and Inappropriate Comedy set a new bar on how bad movies can get.

Hugh Grant actually declined to appear in it unless they filmed it where he lived, because he thought the script was awful and embarresing. They just moved the entire production and he kinda had to appear anyway .

I thought that was Richard Gere.
Either way, multimillion dollar actors like the cast of Movie 43 have no excuse for that shocking display of human indignity.

 

[MrBaskerville]

Hold the phone...
Who thinks Movie 43 sucks? No seriously who. Point me at 'em I'll show um what what for!

The vast majority of people who think it's an aggresively unfunny piece of garbage. 'Movie 43' belongs in the same boat as Adam Sandler comedies, and the 'parody' movies like 'Vampires Suck.'

That's an insult to Adam Sandler, Movie 43 and Inappropriate Comedy set a new bar on how bad movies can get.

Hugh Grant actually declined to appear in it unless they filmed it where he lived, because he thought the script was awful and embarresing. They just moved the entire production and he kinda had to appear anyway .

I thought that was Richard Gere.
Either way, multimillion dollar actors like the cast of Movie 43 have no excuse for that shocking display of human indignity.

Sorry, you're right, i always mix those two up for some reason^^.

 

[Towels]

"Can we please just pick up where The Next Generation left off?"

Don't say that Bob! Because the next thing you know we'll be seeing some terrible cross-over movie with TNG and the Reboot-verse in "Star Trek: Fuck You-You'll See It."

Suprisingly, I am in total agreement with Bob's assessment of Into Darkness.

The plot was a horrid mess of convoluted twists, and then it slaps you in the brian claiming it was Khan's master plan all along (muhuhahahaha). Lol yeah, because this crazy random cacophony of extreme star-trek actiongasm and impulsion-driven character motivation was all intricately planned. Take THAT, Joker!

Here's how the movie should have ended:
Admiral: "Kirk, I used Khan because I'm thinking outside the box to beat the Klingons, like you. Hand Khan over."
Kirk: "Huh. I totally have no regard for rules and now I have an iron-clad excuse and the greatest justification to break them. Ok Admiral, he's all yours!"
(Roll Credits and Opera Singing)

 

[Markunator]

I loved Man of Steel, I loved Star Trek: Into Darkness. Chances are I'd probably enjoy most of the movies on this list since it's becoming rapidly apparent that Bob's opinions are the polar opposite of my own. In other words, if he says something is good, it's usually trash and the things he hates are usually fun.

I've been watching a lot of Mark Kermode's reviews lately. Now there's a film critic.

I love Mark Kermode, too, but seriously; the movies Bob likes are usually bad in your opinion, and vice versa? Could you provide some examples of films Bob liked that you didn't like, and vice versa?

 

[Hutzpah Chicken]

With the exception of The Lone Ranger and Man of Steel, I don't remember any of these movies coming out.

 

[RolandOfGilead]

I don't think MovieBob can be happy with any Superman movie.
Expectations and the baggage he brings with him are just too great.

 

[longjones]

this list is missing "Pacific Rim" with its dialogs for 3 year olds. Man I didn't like that movie so much just because of dialogs.

Which blockbuster have you watched that actually had non offensively retarded dialogue? I'm pretty sure the last one I watched was Alien, and that's only because the dialogue consists of idle chit chat in the first half of the movie and screaming in the second half. I mean, ok, Terminator 2 had some pretty good moments but overall it was cheesy as fuck (still awesome, but not what anyone would call class A writing). After 3 decades, maybe we should stop expecting that out of that kind of a movie.

I say we vote with our feet and demand better

 

[TheSchaef]

"Hey, you know, Brandon Routh volunteered to reprise his role for Man of Steel, and the oddball story left him oddly underappreciated for how he portrayed the Clark Kent half of Superman, at the least."

"Nah, we wanna make a clean break from the older movies and go in a different direction (even though we're rebooting Zod)."

"Oh... well, you're at least going to retain the key elements of the John Williams soundtrack, right? I mean, that's so integral to the Superman film franchise that it's essentially a character unto itself."

"Did you not hear us say clean break?"

And for those two reasons alone, Bob's #1 pick is justified. It's also why this may have been a disappointment, but it probably shouldn't have been much of a surprise.