Films that shouldn’t of been made…..ever.

I’m a big movie buff, it’s something I don’t post about as much as I should. Over the course of the years I’ve seen quite a few flicks, and whilst a huge chunk of them have been truly memorable, there’s a select few that have been so vomit-inducing that I’ve been tempted to scribe a harshly written letter of denunciation to those responsible for allowing such garbage to be released. Some films can be so bad that they’re actually really good, but some like the few I’m going to mention are beyond the point of even that dubious honour.

I’ll start of this diatribe with the worst of the worst: RoboCop 3. You’ll find that ill-conceived sequels are a rich source of cinematic travesties, but I’m yet to witness anything as poorly made as this hapless pile of shite. With the up-coming TV series due for release, executives presumably felt that the third film had to incorporate less on-screen violence than its predecessors, so gone was the comic book carnage of the first films and in its place the viewer was left with action that would not be out of place in a bad Sunday afternoon movie from the 50’s.  Also gone was Peter Weller, the man who played RoboCop in the previous incarnations, replaced by a nobody with the acting chops of a wounded ferret. I love the original movie with a passion, it’s such a well made and perfectly executed flick that it enables the suspension of dis-belief for what is the silliest of concepts, a work of art in how to make something out of not a lot. The third movie shows exactly how bad the premise of a robotic policeman could be. The script was apparently penned by graphic novelist Frank Miller, a man responsible for the Sin City books. I can only guess he must of been weeping with horror the moment he realised his name would be associated with RoboCop 3 forever more. Bad acting, bad story, woeful action set-pieces, pathetically un-funny attempts at humour and to top it off; RoboCop uses a fucking jet-pack to fight of the advances off a gang of OCP-backed looters after defeating robotic Ninjas from a more advanced Japanese company. You’d be hard pressed to actually make up something as bad, and to think; there is somebody out there who not only thought it was a good idea, but they were willing to spend a fair bit of money on getting it made.

Next we come to Michael Bay’s attempted epic masterpiece; Pearl Harbour. Fuck me, where do I begin? 3 hours of my life I wasted watching what isn’t a historical reenactment of an important event, but the documentation of how the Japanese bombed a fucking love triangle. Imagine the most insipid love story imaginable placed into either Saving Private Ryan or Full Metal Jacket, and you’ll understand how out of place it is, and Pearl Harbour doesn’t even possess even the smallest amount of brilliance from either of the aforementioned when it comes to the war element. And those aren’t even the worst parts. The acting is terrible, almost to the point of the viewer leaning toward thinking the actors are performing purposefully as bad as possible so their participation in the film can’t be take seriously. I’m a big fan of Ben Affleck, his work in the likes of Changing Lanes and Chasing Amy shows that the guy has real talent, but even his most ardent supporter would find it difficult to mount a series defence of his work here. His character – the awfully named ‘Captain Rafe McCawley’ seemingly dies, is reborn so to speak and then cradles his friend (Josh Hartnett) in his arms – who actually does die. All this is performed with the kind of ham-fisted cheesiness that would shame even the campest of Pantomimes. The worst part, well that accolade belongs to the Director. Michael Bay just bugs the shit out of me, even the simplest of scenes has to involve the most bizarrely over-the-top camera moves and editing, and his choices in production are laughable. Pearl Harbour does boast a great ensemble cast, with the ever-reliable likes of Tom Sizemore and Jon Voight showing up, but not even such stalwarts of American cinema can save the biggest waste of time and money mankind is ever likely to witness.

Lastly we come to Beverly Hills Cop 3,another in the long line of terrible sequels to films that I really love from days gone by. The original is fantastic, it was a great veichle for the comedy talents of Eddie Murphy, and one of the better examples of how to do a ‘fish out of water’ comedy. Martin Brest directed it (and the wonderful Midnight Run)with great aplomb, and thanks to a perfect supporting cast and genuinely funny script – the whole thing worked perfectly. Much like RoboCop 3, Beverly Hills Cop 3 fails for the reason it doesn’t include a single thing that made the original great. Tony Scott’s first sequel upped the ante as far as the action and pace was concerned, and turned out to be hugely fun, but John Landis’ third installment takes away all the fun and replaces it with plain old ‘going through the motions for a pay cheque’. The story is about as funny as suffering a close-range gun shot wound to the penis, and the cast and villain are beyond awful. Even the inspired return af Bronson Pinchot as ‘Serge’ from the first film is poorly written and unfunny – a pitiful attempt to bring back some of the originals winning formula. The best way I could describe the experience of watching it would be; it’s like watching a group of older men desperately trying to recreate something that they could do in their youth, but are sadly out of touch with in later years. It’s a great shame that some folk decide that they have to attempt another money-making sequel to what was a great film, and if history shows them anything; it’s ideas like that are usually fucking bad to the point of being moronic.

There are of course lots of terrible movies out there, and I’d agree with anyone that said taste is very much subjective, but any of you good people out there in WordPress land can think of  a worse trio of films made in recent years then I’d truly love to hear about them and your reasons why. I await a few comments with baited breath.