It’s a regrettable process but nevertheless a shameless reality—the thought of enduring cinema stinkers throughout the imperfect movie season. But I suppose that one can make an argument for having celluloid duds as an omnipresent obstacle. After all, you cannot have good without evil, health without sickness, day without night, young without old, etc.
In any event, the 2002 movie season shouldn’t be any different in terms of serving up some crappy offerings that previous years have cooked up in foul fashion. Hey, maybe one person’s sour note is someone else’s sweet music. Trust me, there’s nothing to sing about regarding the selection of inferior flicks that infested the big screen this past year. Consequently, it’s inexcusable for filmmakers not to put their best foot forward creatively. It’s even more incomprehensible for film fans to willingly swallow a pitiful pill that is the lackluster presentation of woeful moviemaking.
Hence, in alphabetical order, I present what I consider the top ten worst films of 2002. Proceed—at your own caution of course!
1.) The Adventures of Pluto Nash: An overproduced cheesy and abominable futuristic space-aged waste that featured Eddie Murphy as an ex con-turned-nightclub owner who gets chased of out his moon-based business by no nonsense intergalactic mafia members looking to bust in on his piece of the action. Before hastily ushering this ridiculous rocket-sized ruse out to unsuspecting moviegoers, Warner Brothers had kept this crappy crater flick on their shelves for two years. Why they felt like releasing this obvious sci-fi stinker is clearly beyond anybody’s comprehension. Maybe they figured they could capitalize on Murphy’s big screen resurgence? Showtime? I Spy? Those two specific flicks doesn’t necessarily inspire any confidence to ride Murphy’s cinematic coattails therefore giving just cause to squeeze some box office pennies out of the painfully unfunny Pluto Nash. Bad timing, bad concept, bad experience. This clumsy cosmic comedy was about as appetizing as licking the soot from the surface of planet Mars.
2.) Ballistic: Severs vs. Ecks: The film’s title was awkward and banal enough. But nevertheless, the predictable did occur: so-called filmmaker sensation Wych “Kaos” Kaosayananda helmed a sensationalistic brainless actioner that aptly reflected his nickname—“chaos”. He went ballistic alright by conjuring up an inanely boisterous action thriller that featured a miscast Antonio Banderas as former sulking Canadian FBI Agent Jeremiah Ecks edged into returning to duty in order to stop the ruthless force of curvy deadly damsel Severs (Banderas’ Play it to the Bone co-star Lucy Liu). This wrecking crew session of crashes and explosions coupled with slow-motion fight and gunplay sequences is random nonsense despite Kaos’s attempt to concoct a high-voltage thriller. Ballistic is feverishly glossy in its cartoonish violence but easily forgettable and disposable. More like Severe vs. In-“ecks”-cusable…if you ask me!
3.) Feardotcom: William Malone’s directionless and clichéd-driven scarefest tried unsuccessfully to blend the elements of the Internet craze with that of conventional horror-themed tactics of gore and guts. Feardotcom could have made for a demented yet delicious spookfest satire. Instead, the morbid movie fell victim to its insipid and tiresome ghoulish gimmick. The film tells the tedious tale of an Internet-based site and its deadly influence when one logs into its venue. The penalty: the online visitor dies within 48 hours of strangely viewing its haunting, hypnotic images. There’s no solid suspense here, just overwrought hysterics matches by uninspired and transparent performances by droopy-eyed leading man Stephen Dorff and a supporting cast of players stuck in this creepy quagmire of utter nonsense.
4.) Femme Fatale: The question remains: is Brian De Palma losing his cinematic touch? One would think so when viewing the stylized but overtly generic and staid suspense thriller Femme Fatale. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos plays a bisexual beauty that happens to be a crafty jewel thief. As Laura Ash, she ditches her accomplices at the last minute and runs off with the goods by conveniently switching identities with a desperate look-a-like in a Parisian hotel suite. Are you still with me so far? Anyway, she manages to elude her equally deceptive associates. It isn’t until years later that an opportunistic photographer (Antonio Banderas) flashes her picture as the wife of a newly prominent American ambassador to France. This of course circulates around Europe hence awakening the interest of her former partners-in-crime who have a score to settle with Ms. Ash. Sounds convoluted, boring, predictable and exasperating? Hmmm…I thought so. Femme Fatale marks the creative bankruptcy of a once intriguing and engaging filmmaker in the person of Brian De Palma.
5.) The Hot Chick: Fratboy film star Rob Schneider is a lot like luggage—he’ll be there sitting around all over the place until someone decides to pack him away in the dark closet where he belongs. No such luck since Schneider is back in full force with another needlessly dopey vehicle in the form of the juvenile “switching bodies” gender comedy The Hot Chick. Schneider gets a rude awakening when his scrappy frame is possessed by a self-absorbed gorgeous high school while she gains redemption based on her experiences trapped inside a doofus. Well, movie audiences got a rude awakening, too. It’s the awful thought of wondering what other callous conveyor belt comedy that will be on the horizon involving Schneider’s pending high jinks. Anyone for The Animal II?
6.) Master of Disguise: Shouldn’t Congress pass a law that states no former or current Saturday Night Live personalities should gravitate toward the big screen? Hey, wishful thinking. Anyway, poor Dana Carvey is the latest casualty to continue the SNL curse by starring in a punishing, disjointed and idiotic comedy Master of Disguise. The movie does incorporate Carvey’s penchant for mimicking various people and introducing cut up characterizations. But the charmless script doesn’t support Carvey’s ability to present worthwhile frivolous characters within the framework of this flaccid flick. Hence, his talent for mocking exaggerated caricatures is lost in the spectacularly awful material. This whole spectacle is slight and unforgivable: familiar and exhausting Italian stereotypes, goofy situational plots, lazy direction, etc. As participants in Master of Disguise, Carvey and company should consider hiding behind masks after assaulting us with this trivial tripe.
7.) Pinocchio: Oscar-winning Life is Beautiful star Roberto Benigni co-wrote, directed and acted in his version of the Carlo Collodi classic children’s tale Pinocchio. Where should one start regarding this overwrought atrocity? Let’s start with the creepy notion of a 50-year old guy with a receding hairline playing the title role of the wooden youngster in the ill-advised attempt to be joyful as a man-child puppet. And of course, we can work from there! Everything about Benigni’s transparent narrative is stultifying—from the tacky animated set designs to the exploding loud costumes that look like they were purchased at a Fellini used clothing store in downtown Naples. In addition to Benigni serving up this woeful display of pandering juvenile sentimentality, he never bothers to instill any genuine majestic vision pertaining to his wooden wonder boy in an effort to make this character his own (other than the fact that Benigni plays the lead role of a mature puppet who can easily be a grandfather to a bunch of toy blocks). Instead, he elects to corrupt Collodi’s familiar and treasured story with his rancid cinematic touches. Pinocchio is a disastrously gaudy and grotesque showing by a zany artist who has all the jittery charm of a popcorn kernel.
8.) Rollerball: John McTiernan’s excitable extreme sports thriller takes a dive in its showy story of a hotshot athlete (Chris Klein) who’s invited to join the North American Professional Sport circuit based upon the hearsay of his buddy Marcus (LL Cool J). This movie is nothing more than a loud and erratic vehicle that basks in its raucous groove with an energizing soundtrack and futuristic verve that gives this extraneous flick its ribald drive. But with this aside, Rollerball is still an assaulting bomb that meanders on without any rhyme or reason. McTiernan’s showcase has the slick packaging but the contents still remain the same: a lackluster actioner caught up in its own insufferable fumes.
9.) Serving Sara: Reginald Hudlin’s mismatched screwball comedy assembles patchwork antics led by Friends star Matthew Perry as a befuddled process server trying to bestow divorce papers on a Texas millionaire’s shapely trophy wife (Elizabeth Hurley). However, the beauty promises Perry the moon and the stars to team up with her and serve the papers to her cheating hubby instead. Predictably, the tandem ends up falling for one another amidst the zany mayhem. The typical craziness abounds in a farcical dud such as this: slapstick stunts, cartoonish mobsters, trite romantic set ups, tired chase sequences, mawkish misunderstandings, etc. Serving Sara is sloppy, lame and conventionally pedestrian.
10.) Swept Away: Madonna stars as a married spoiled socialite taking a cozy Mediterranean cruise until the unspeakable happens—she becomes stranded on a desert island with the ship’s hunky seaman Pepe (Adriano Giannini) whom she treated shabbily on many previous occasions. In order to survive, Madonna must shed her nasty self-serving disposition and succumb to the demands of the newly empowered Pepe. Writer-director Guy Ritchie tries desperately to direct his celebrated wife in an exotic adventure meant to showcase his spouse’s dramatic impulses. But this is a monumental task because…well, it’s Madonna we’re talking about folks, not Meryl Streep! And thus The Material Girl contributes to her consistent string of cinematic stinkers with one of the most ludicrous, inert and lifeless films to register no ounce of feeling or purpose. Pulled from theaters just after three mere weeks in its theatrical run, Swept Away was a shipwrecked concept from the get-go. For beleaguered movie audiences and critics alike, we felt more marooned by this doomed romantic adventure than the actors themselves!
Honorable Mention:
In Praise of Love (Eloge De L’Amour): This is a scattering and inarticulate ball of confusion by legendary French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard. In Praise of Love is surprisingly dour and meandering, never gaining any momentum in its ode to life’s wonderment. As a moviemaker, Godard has always had the ability to be expressionistic and imaginative in his visionary stride. But in Priase, the 71 year-old completely lost it while hammering on about loose-minded existential topics ranging from the complex human condition to the disdain for American commercialism in filmmaking. Godard’s meditation is a rambling manifesto that feels so senseless and empty-minded in forethought. Godard’s exposition is somewhat inexplicably angry and unfocused in its presentation. Although being cantankerous is a colorful personality trait for the Nouvelle Vague elderly artist, it certainly doesn’t transfer well for his unbearable ponderous project.