Review for

Gentle/Constant Readers, awards season is almost over: you will soon have a break from my repeated ramblings and whatnot. In the meantime, I will regale you with tales of my personal tastes as the members of the Online Film Critics Society focus their energy on nominations for the OFCS awards.

We were asked to seriously vote on the best films of the year, and I will share my thoughts with you in my year-end wrap up. In the meantime, these are the movies I thought were the worst of 2002. I hope your favorites are not among them, but please don't take offense if they are.

Least to worst, 1-10. The top 3 of my bottom 10 are Serving Sara, Scooby Doo, and Stealing Harvard. These films were pedestrian, only mildly insulting, but still had one or two decent laughs or other elements which made them not quite the bottom feeders. I didn't see every film that was released, and I have no doubt there were many many worse than these. However, they are on my list because they should have been good, should even have been really good, and were instead at best worth $1 or a clip reel of the few good parts.

Then the list takes a plunge past merely vaguely incompetent to insultingly godawful. You already know how I feel about Solaris, (if not, check the below websites) and it ranked #4. It was poorly constructed, indifferently executed, and insulting to the intelligence of the audience. I don't like movies that insult the audience, and I don't like movies that pander. Sometimes the pandering ones can be big fun, and as sins of creation go, I'd rather see a little pandering than purposeful insult. Solaris heads the pack at being insulting just by virtue of the fact that the movie had so little happening that it could only be so offensive.

fear dot com, #5. Insulting stupidity of the heroes coupled with overly gratuitous brutality (and you know how desensitized I am to such things) with no purpose. Natascha McElhone is in my #4 and #5; she has officially negated all my goodwill toward her after being in The Truman Show. Oh, and it's not even the crazy doctor who is causing all the problems. Sure, the web site looks cool, but artistically rendered fecal matter is still fecal matter.

#6 Star Trek Nemesis. It hurt to put this so far down on the list, but it hurt more to watch it. It was a middling to terrible sci fi film that just so happens to include the well-loved characters of your youth. It's like catching your mother working at a strip club. Disappointing on deep levels of insulting the fans, repelling any potential new fans, and even insulting the characters. These are RSC trained actors, here, not some Malcolm in the Middle fan troupe! Also it reminded me too often of Austin Powers 1-3, never a good thing. It was just plain terrible, which isn't a crime in and of itself, but it could not redeem itself even by being a loving/pandering tribute, for the fans' sake.

# 7 Men in Black II - a crappy sequel that should not have been made, one of the deepest cuts of all. This one beats Austin Powers merely by the fact that there are only two Men in Black as compared to 3 Powers. Insulting again, with their showpiece new character (Frank the talking pug) having no purpose. Not taking advantage of your resources is the sin of Star Trek Nemesis; not obtaining any resources to take advantage of is the sin of the bottom 4 on this list. Will Smith emerges from the slime unscathed as a human being, but I am watching him nervously for fear he will choose so badly again.

#8 - Episode II: Attack of the Clones. See above note on wasting your resources. It also proves that great technical effects don't mean a good movie. I pity all the kids of today who think this is what Star Wars is. McGregor, Christensen, Portman, Jackson, Oz, hell, all of ILM and a zillion dollars at his disposal, and still George Lucas can't cobble together a movie that makes you glad you watched it. Insulting beyond belief and it's made worse by knowing another one is coming.

#9 - Austin Powers Goldmember. This one is made worse of course by being a 3rd, but it's rendered even more awful by the shimmering pools of actual cleverness surrounded by great festering landscapes of truly horrible, insulting, boring, lame, unending poo. I really don't ask much of a film, I just want to enjoy it on some level without being insulted. I can take pee pee humor and slapstick humor (I even love it when it's good), gratuitous nudity, violence, and banality; if I am being entertained, i will endure almost any suspension of disbelief asked of me. But to ask me to accept a character with no purpose but peeling skin and then bore me beyond tears praying for just one smidgen of relief, that's just mean. After the first 5 minutes, APG has probably a sum total of 2 minutes of worthy material that is itself so good that the rest of the movie just hurts more.

#10 - The crappiest, most shoddy film of 2002: Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever. Bad title. Great cast. No point, no sense, no fun, no aim, no consistency, and even the fricking dueling title characters team up midway through, negating even the title. The film betrays the actors, the audience, and its own thesis. The director got excellent people to come in and dance like monkeys in an electric cage and for what? Nothing! It's like catching your spouse working at a strip club, only you are married to your sibling for some reason. Sure, it's based on a video game, but dozens of completely watchable, nay, even decent films were based on video games: Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Street Fighter, Tron, why did this have to be so bad? Sad sad sad. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ These reviews (c) 2002 Karina Montgomery. Please feel free to forward but just credit the reviewer in the text. Thanks. reviews@cinerina.com Check out previous reviews at: http://www.cinerina.com http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com - the Online Film Critics Society http://www.hsbr.net/reviews/karina/listing.hsbr - Hollywood Stock Exchange Brokerage Resource http://www.mediamotions.com for 1999 releases

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