MHW’s TOP TEN Worst Movies of All Time

Mike's light hearted rant about films he was not particularly taken by...

What makes a film pants? Apart from Gary Oldman, John Woo or the Cohen Brothers being involved? Or Carl Weathers? What do I hate most?

A) Pretentious, impossible to understand mumbo jumbo clap trap with hidden meanings no one can understand or care anyway (e.g. Terry Gilliam movies, The Matrix 2 & 3, Star Trek: Next Generation, Woody Allen, the Director of Godzilla (modern version));

B) Poor quality camerawork (e.g. The Professionals, The Sweeney, Minder...) You know what I mean;

C) Terrible acting (e.g. John Voigt in Anaconda, the bald cop from Gone in 60 Seconds, Carl Weathers in Rocky I, II, III and Predator I and II; and any character played by over-actor Gary Oldman;

D) Not funny (e.g. Jerry Seinfeld, Tom Green, John Lovitz, most Adam Sandler movies and Steve Martin of late);

E) Predictable predictable predictable predictable predictable (e.g. How to Lose a Guy, A Guy Thing, Where's My Guy, What a Guy, When Someone Hates Someone And Then Decides They Love Them After All: The Trillionology, I Hate You I Hate You I Hate You I Hate You I Love You Part IIIII, etc etc etc.)

DISCLAIMER: Some relationship movies are actually very good, but it depends on the quality of the script (e.g. TV show Coupling) and the acting. But it is rare...;

F) Being stupid and completely out of touch (e.g. me with my film reviews, Bill & Ted, George Clooney, Gary Oldman, John Woo and Cohen Brothers movies... I think I mentioned some of these already...;

G) Hating the movie because you end up wanting to punch the ‘star’ in the face (e.g. Leonardo DiCaprio, Jean Claude Van Damme, Renee Zellewegger, Madonna, John Woo. And Gary Oldman of course (not a big fan).

Don’t get me wrong there are probably loads of really really shite turkeys out there (e.g. Spice World, Shanghai Surprise) but I will only comment on those movies which I have actually seen.

I usually steer clear of obvious sounding tripe (like Santa goes to Mars, Critters IV, Police Academy Go to Moscow, Morons from the Outer Hebrides) but sometimes I’m just unlucky.

Would you believe that unlike my favourite movies - where I could have chalked up 100 or more - I really struggled to find 50 bad ones. Therefore I have cheated a bit and generalised on occasion. Either I generally choose good movies or I see quality somewhere even in the most lost causes.

Maybe I do like more than I don’t. But then 80% are probably in the ‘pretty average’ category.

Anyway, pop pickers here is my list from 60 to 10 (I can hear the – ‘oh yes’ comments already!):

60
Caddyshack I & II
59
Any Jean Claude Van Damme
58
Universal Soldier (Any Dolph Lundgren in fact)
57
Rollerball
56
Smokey & the Bandit
55
Wolf
54
Teen Wolf
53
A Passage to India
52
The English Patient
51
Dead Poets Society
50
Jungle Book 2
49
Digby: The Biggest Dog in the World
48
Any John Woo
47
Any Cheech & Chong
46
Porky's (All)
45
Sleepy Hollow
44
Weird Science
43
Seventh Day
42
Cocktail
41
Rambo III
40
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
39
Freddy Kruger movies
38
Men In Black II
37
Rocky IV
36
Bram Stoker's Dracula
35
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
34
Eraserhead
33
Rocky V
32
Friday 13th movies
31
The Waterboy
30
The Last Starfighter
29
Duets
28
Alien Resurrection
27
The Good Girl
25
Birthday Girl
25
Mannequin
24
Fifth Element
23
Jaws: The Revenge
22
Starman
21
Desperately Seeking Susan
20
Who's That Girl
19
High Heels and Low Lifes
18
Police Academy (All)
17
Karate Kid (All)
16
Stop! Or my Mom will Shoot
15
Dracula 2000
14
Pirhana
13
The Running Man
12
Anaconda
11
Dune


THE TOP TEN:


10. Sirens

Soft porn featuring Hugh Grant as a vicar. At least most porn movies have a plot. And music. And a point. This doesn’t have either.


9. Mission Impossible II

Directed by John Woo. People fighting in mid air in slow motion. On motorbikes. Enough said.


7. & 8. Brazil…Time Bandits…Baron Munchausen…

Any movie directed by Terry Gilliam in fact. All his movies are long boring ugly useless pretentious rubbish... in my opinion.


6.Grease 2

Michelle Pfeiffer singing. Gay biker with silver skid lid shows off. She loves him. The End.

So what’s it like? It’s like eating tripe and raw sheep guts that have been placed in a warm moist black bag for 6 weeks along with mouldy blue cheese and brown bananas which have been covered with 8 month old lumpy green whole milk and placed in a 3 week old box of mushroom covered Chinese sweet and sour pork along with a pint of raw eggs and tomato sauce mixed with cooker grease and honey nut corn flakes in malt (not non-brewed) vinegar marinated in goats urine and cheap warm Aldi beer with a snail in it. Yes. That bad. That’s how I felt watching it anyway. You?


5. Shark! (featuring Runt)

Simon knows what I mean. Sorry Nan. Not the documentary we all thought but a shocking Burt Reynolds movie with a shark in it. Somewhere. Made by men without any talent. Bad because it’s... well... bad.


4. King Cobra

Corny. 50p snake from Trecco Bay. You can guess the rest.


3. Intolerable Cruelty

The title says it all.

How can you ruin a love story involving George pretty boy Clooney and Catherine pretty girl Zeta Jones? The Cohen Brothers did. Oh how they did. Absolutely dreadful.
If things were happening for metaphorical or artistic reasons then I demand an explanation. I didn’t get it. I don’t think they know what subtlety is so I doubt art has anything to do with it. It just seemed like the lost interest half way through, had a few beers and made things up as they went along. Yes this is worse than Shark! (featuring Runt). And King Cobra. This is Rubbish with a capital RUBB.


2. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure

Beethoven, Mozart and Death playing air guitar and everyone – including the US President – spouting ‘dude’ every other word. Appalling, inane, mindless pap. How did Keanu Reeves get a career after this?



YOU MAY BE A LITTLE DISAPPOINTED BECAUSE THIS IS IT.




THE WORST MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE.




IT IS…







COME ON, SCROLL DOWN A BIT…






BIT MORE….






ALMOST THERE…






HERE IT IS…





THE WORST MOVIE OF ALL TIME…





DECLARED BY ME…





IS….





OFFICIALLY…






CANT WAIT CAN YOU?…






PATIENCE…






ALMOST THERE…





OK HERE WE GO….





IT IS….






OFFICIALLY…






OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL…





THE WORST MOVIE EVER RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC IS....


1.SPACE RIDERS

Sorry. I know you’re disappointed. Probably never heard of it. What a surprise.

Starring the late great Barry Sheene this is a totally pants story about nothing but has some motorbikes in it. And a martial arts expert rider. Who brandishes a machete and dances around the way he rides a bike, i.e. like a totally uncoordinated pleb.

What was Sheene thinking? (£££££££). I know you probably have never heard of it but the fact that you may not like bikes has nothing to do with it. This is ridiculous beyond belief.

This is as bad as you can possibly get. Seriously, our home movies are better. Toilet paper on string and my car crash stunt scene at the end of (the original) Terminator 3 has more advanced special effects than this tripe. It is bad bad bad bad. Very bad. Very very very ochyn very very tres tres very very very bad bad bad indeed cubed.

Where shall I begin? The acting is bad. Barry Sheene was the most charasmatic man on the planet. Not any more.

The Japanese martial arts maniac can’t act, can’t ride bike (I don’t mean in a high performance way he just can’t ride a bike), can’t do martial arts and can’t speak English. This is not intentional. Jackie Chan sounds like the Queen in comparison. Or Stephen Fry.

The whole idea is bad yet remarkably it takes itself quite seriously. It's not supposed to be silly or funny. That in itself makes it crass beyond belief.

This Jap nutter (who is aged 45 and wears a karate suit and bandana by the way) spends every day and night having stupid far fetched dreams of assassinating Sheene with a machete in order to win the World Motorcycle Championship. Mmmm, yes. Good one. Never thought of that. Well done. People will love that. Best Screenplay ever.

You want me to go on? No? Ok.

The camerawork is bad. Carey Grant moving a steering wheel back and forth in front of a black and white movie screen is more convincing than the race simluations in this. The worst special effects in a movie ever. No kidding.

Plastic toys used for the stunts. Rubber men that are attached to cardboard bikes with string. And you can see the string. And the rubber. And the brown unpainted corrugated cardboard side of the bike.

And you can see the man throwing showers of broken glass at them as they slide.

And the microphone appears in almost every scene. Etc etc. Class.

Fireworks (i.e. 10p shower of sparks from Lo Cost) are used to simulate a bike blowing up. And breaking down. Coming to mention it, and starting up, slowing down and when they hit the fence.

I’m sure I saw a Catherine Wheel and a Roman Candle in there somewhere... Probably not. Would have pushed the budget beyond reach.

The editing is bad. Sheene shakes about pretending he’s about to crash and wow, next thing he’s simply sitting in the sandpit with his unmarked bike lying right next to him. What happened? I think the Director wanted us to use our imagination. Genius.

He sits there pondering what happened and takes of his helmet shaking his head in disgust whilst a Georgio Moroder soundtrack plays in the background.

Next thing the shot cuts to his wife Steph who pretends she’s watching bikes whizzing past in a very artificial manner and then suddenly drops her book, puts her hands over her mouth and then and runs in slo-motion for ten minutes down the pit lane as if her husband has just been decapitated by a machete. Hey... just thought of a great idea for a motorbike movie...

Sheene trudges back and remarkably the camera cuts back to Steph who drops her book again and starts running from the same position as before.

This is slo-mo that even John Woo would scoff at in disgust. It is the longest pit lane and the longest scene in history and given Sheene’s previous fame for bumps and crashes this was hardly one to cause any alarm. What was the Director thinking? It’s an insult to the audience's intelligence.

There are many more examples of such clangers but I’m running out of hard drive space.

Get the point?

This is the WORST MOVIE IN CINEMATIC HISTORY. EVER. Although I’m not sure it actually made the Cinema. Maybe in Japan. I can’t believe they even released it for public display. So bad I taped over it. Gutted now, because this was shocking with a capital SHOCK. Pants with a capital S.H.I.T. Crap with a capital B.O.L.L.O.X.

Go see it.





# COMING SOON: MHW’s All Time Favourite Movies #