Better Than the Oscars: The Worst of 2004

At the end of each calendar year, I take it upon myself to inform the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that they are, in fact, complete morons. How do I do this? I put out my annual rankings of the best and worst movies of the season! I rank the top five worst and best films, absent of cinematic or performance categories or country of origin. (Keep in mind I only rank movies that I actually saw.) So let's get started with the list of the five worst movies.

5. VAN HELSING
I don't think I would have hated this movie as much if one of my comrades hadn't insisted that it was a social dialogue on contemporary abortion practices. But he did. Additionally, the acting was terrible, the storyline was full of gaping holes, and someone needs to explain to me why the heroine needs to show her cleavage the entire time,despite the fact that it is ten degrees outside. I shouldn't be surprised, but this overly-typical Hollywood crap-action film has to make the list.

4. TROY
This was nothing less than a complete butchering of one of the finest literary works of all time - Homer's Iliad. As the movie went on it deviated more and more from Homer's original story, and finally after three hours of horribly painful anguish that only an Iliad-lover could experience, I found myself viewing a film that bore far more resemblance to the final scenes of Little Nicky than the Iliad. It is almost like the filmmakers read the Iliad, but gradually stopped paying attention and gave up reading 3/4 of the way through the book. If you are gonna make a movie about it, READ IT!!

3. ALEXANDER
I am a huge Alexander the Great fan, and this film's historical accuracies are the only thing that saved it from being number one. The story devoted huge sequences to rather unimportant parts of Alexander's life, and the important parts that were included had no context or background to them. Also, I am usually not a music aficionado, but Alexander's music had to be the most consitently inappropriate in the history of film. I would say watch the movie so you can see/hear what I mean, but I don't want to be held accountable for driving you to suicide.

2. SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW

Movie rundown:

• The World of Tomorrow? 1930.
• Big giant robots attack Earth.
• Helpless, stereotypical female reports on story.
• "Save me, Sky Captain!"
• Sky Captain's mercenary air force comes to the rescue. They are located ten miles from New York City - why the US government would allow them there is beyond me.
• Why are robots here? I don't know, but let's go to Tibet to find out!
• Angelina Jolie can fly a plane, despite the fact that she has one eye and hence no depth perception. For her next trick, she will also fly an airplane underwater.
• And while we're out, let's go to fifty thousand other pointless destinations. Ohh and I know, let's discover dinosaurs!
• Save me, Sky Captain!
• Oh no! A big giant rocket filled with cows is going to be shot into space! Let's go inside the rocket, magically learn to read German, and push the abort button! (I shouldn't have to point out that such a button is pointless since cows cannot work buttons. Maybe the villains knew they needed an abort button so Sky Captain could ruin their plans.)
• You saved me, Sky Captain!
  
• GAG!
  

1. THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST

This film did a horrible disservice to one of the world's great religions. Its two hours of endless brutal violence did nothing more than to force the viewer to feel sorry for the main figure, Jesus Christ. The movie provides absolutely no background of who Jesus was, what he taught, or the religion that came out of his teachings. You could have put any figure - even someone as unsympathetic as Stalin or Hitler - in Jesus' position and still felt sorry for them. The violence was completely over the top in no way representative of what Jesus wouold have actually gone through. The entire movie was a shock factor, trying to force the viewer to understand what this nameless figure went through for "all of humanity" - a humanity that is only 20% Christian. It attempts to guilt-trip you into accepting Christianity out of sympathy for Christ's pain, rather than presenting you with Jesus' teachings and asking you to accept them for legitimate reasons. Shame on you, Mel Gibson.