#5. Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland
First the plus side: Out of all 14 films Tim Burton has been apart of it was hands down the most visually appealing. That's saying a lot for a guy who approaches every movie as an art piece. Now the down side: Out of all 14 films Tim Burton has been apart of it was one of the most boring to sit through. Now, maybe I had high expectations going into the film but the truth is when you are attempting to recreate a legendary epic by Lewis Carol their should be high expectations. Especially if the studio which is distributing the film has already made a fortune on the story once before. The problem with this flick isn't that the story is outdated by any means. It's the fact that Tim Burton took a timeless epic and attempted to make it his own. In the end the only thing Burton made it into was generic Burton. First Burton chose his typical starting lineup of Bohnam and Depp. Then he twisted the two stories, Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, into a single film. And finally he turned it more into a film about the Mad Hatter then about Alice. Sad thing was, the Mad Hatter was the worst part. The Scottish brogue and the changing of the color of his eyes and face when he goes into his dark place. His vacant expressions when he is in his happy place. That stupid, overly computerized dance at the end. Sometimes Burton, it's better to just stick with simple. And simple in this case was just to keep the Mad Hatter mad. In the end the only thing I enjoyed besides the design was hearing Alan Rickman as the Caterpillar and hearing Christopher Lee as the Jabberwocky.
#4. Jonah Hex
You'd think a film starring Josh Brolin as a scarred up, take no prisoners cowboy, John Malkovich as a diabolical former Confederate who fully intends on leading an invasion of Washington, and a barely dressed Megan Fox would have made for a good flick. But somehow Jimmy Hayward and Warner Bros. figured out a way to really suck it up. The first problem with the film is that I don't think anyone on the production team even read the comic book of Jonah Hex. Jonah Hex the comic book is a cut throat, take no prisoners, balls to the wall story. Jonah Hex the film was a tepid, tiptoe, snoozefest that would have actually been not too horrible if the production company would have just pushed the envelope by going for the R rating. Blood, guts, gore, and nudity is what would have made Jonah Hex great and is what Jonah Hex deserved.
#3. Inception
What a pretentious piss pot this film was. Here is how Nolan came up with Inception. First he took something which has been done before like the invasion of someone's dreams. Then to make it his own he made it needlessly complicated and confusing. He then jam packed it with a mixture of independent actors, one major motion picture actor, and some foreign actors. He topped it off with that M. Night twist (Was he really there? Was he in a dream?). And then he let the ego's of his fan base take it from there. "What, you didn't like Inception? It's probably just because you don't get it." Oh, we got it my friend and it was a flaming bag of shit on my door step. Only thing good about Inception was it was good to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt coming up in his own. Oh, and there were a lot of really nice suits.
#2. Avatar
This film was so close to being my number one fail of the year that if it scraped up to my number one any closer I could have started a fire. The best word to describe Avatar is cliche. Everything in this film was a cliche. The, just following orders, soldier who realizes that he is on the wrong side and fights to make things right again. The over testosteroned military Commander who wants nothing more then war and destruction. The ever consuming corporation that begins to grow a heart at the end but stops themselves from being the good guys because they have their investors to worry about. The helpless native people who are being raped throughout the entire film until suddenly they realize that the sticks and stones and animals which have been all around them the entire time can be used to defeat their far more technologically superior enemies. This preachy waste of 3 hours wasn't a major motion milestone, it was Pocahontas with giant smurf cats. And the fact that then, following this film, James Cameron is named as some type of environmental and native people crusader is a testament to the celebrity whores that many liberal organizations tend to be. Especially considering that James Cameron is a supporter of the Canadian tar sands which is located on native land and has been deemed the worlds largest ecological waste site. James Cameron, fuck you.
#1. The Last Airbender
I'm not going to go on a rant about The Last Airbender because I already did a review of the film before on this blog. Just read my review of Avatar and know that I actually hate this movie more then that.
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