The Worst Films of 2010

Eric Balfour, presumably watching Skyline.

As I am merely a civilian, most films I have chosen to see have been held in relatively high regard. Only rarely have I chosen to see a film because I’ve heard it was awful. In fact, if I choose to watch a movie it’s because it intrigues me, and I truly think I will be able to get some enjoyment out of it. Sadly, this was not always the case. Below, I give you the five films of 2010 which I found to be the least enjoyable.

5) Red

A lot of critics and audiences quite liked Red, but I found it one of the most relentlessly boring movies of the year. This is not because of the cast, which is likeable all around (Helen Mirren is having a blast), but they’re all stuck in a spy thriller which I could have cared less about, with terrible direction from Robert Schwentke. Shockingly, it was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy), thus signaling that there were many who were smiling during Red. I was falling asleep.

4) Clash of the Titans

The other day I caught the final half hour or so of Avatar on HBO, and you know what? Sam Worthington isn’t half bad there, though I still have many problems with the movie around him. However, his performance in the straight-up awful Clash of the Titans is as generic as it gets, just like the movie as a whole. However long and painful the movie was, the audience could still look forward to the fact that there were some krakens about to get released, but sadly this climactic sequence lasts as long as an Oxyclean commercial. Throw in paycheck-seeking performances from great actors such as Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes and an alternate title for Clash of the Titans could be Phone-In: The Movie.

3) Skyline

When I go to see an alien invasion movie, I want to see some aliens doing some invading. As trashy as the work of Roland Emmerich is, at least the explosions he produces are pretty enough to force me into a state of enjoyment. Skyline does no such thing. Like Cloverfield, only horrible, it tells the story of an alien invasion from the point of view of a group of good looking young people. The dialogue is recycled, everything has a manmade polish, and situation after situation just doesn’t make sense. It must have been made after digging around in the alien movie dumpster. That said, the ending is one of the most unspeakably hilarious in recent memory, and if there is a sequel I will be first in line, for it will no doubt be something to see.

2) Twelve

None of you saw Twelve. I did, but luckily it did not cost me a cent. What I found was a self-important mess of gargantuan proportions, a “drama” that intends to alert us that there is a group of rich white kids who are, in fact, not entirely sober all the time. Narrated by Kiefer Sutherland so that it sounds like Jack Bauer telling the bedtime story from hell, Twelve gives us a group of kids who are very, very sad. We know this because Sutherland tells us. It’s all capped off by a positively horrifying conclusion, and not even the notable work of Emma Roberts and Chace Crawford (seriously) can save Twelve from a place right here on this list. It’s a story that should have been told in a straightforward manner, but director Joel Schumacher insists on every excess possible, and the movie suffers for it.

1) The Last Airbender

Nothing’s even close. M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender cannot be described as anything less than a train wreck, a film which attempts to condense the entire first season of an animated series into a 100-minute package. The result is an ineptly acted, written and directed film that makes no sense to those unfamiliar with the character’s mythology (like me). The special effects are atrocious, and the film just seems to make things up as it goes along. If nothing else, The Last Airbender proves that big-budget special effects filmmaking is not as easy as some of us might think, and it drives another nail into the Shyamalan coffin. Perhaps the twist on his career is that he just wasn’t very good the whole time.

Three Dishonorable Mentions:

Takers, or, “Heat” Knockoff No. 3471

The Switch, or, How to Waste Jason Bateman in a Generic Romantic Comedy

The Tourist, or, It May Not Make Much Sense, But Look! Everything’s So Pretty!

That’s all for now, folks. More “Year in Review” posts to come!