The Worst Films of 2004

Well, the title says it all. Feel free to add as many films as you want, whenever you want--but if possible, please add a word or two about your selection.

I'll just add one for now but this is definitely the Worst Film I saw this year.

Taking Lives - D.J. Caruso - U.S.A

I guess the director's name should've been a warning. Nonetheless, this exchange pretty much sums up the film.

Angelina Jolie: "Fuck You!"

Ethan Hawke: "Yes, I did fuck you!"

Actually, the people who were really screwed were sitting in the audience. The friend who took me to see this will never be forgiven.

Yeah, it was pretty predictable. Poor Ethan Hawke. At least he had Before Sunset this year.

Another to add to the list: Envy. A total mess. Horrible camera shots and an unfunny script made me cringe at this film.

Envy doesn't ring a bell at all (I guess that's a good thing). I initially thought that you were talking about the Billy Bob / Morgan Freeman film but that's Levity, so fill me in.

Envy stars Ben Stiller and Jack Black as best friends. Black makes a lot of cash on some stupid product, and Ben Stiller is "envious" of him. The structure is so poor, and Christopher Walken has an utterly pointless role in the film. Stiller needs to get his act together and make some better flicks.

Thanks. I also went over to imdb and found out that the "stupid product" you mentioned is actually something that makes animal feces disappear. Are you kiddin' me? Chris Walken's quota of pointless roles has certainly increased in recent years and what the hell is Rachel Weisz doing in this film!? More importantly, what is Barry Levinson thinking!?

My "bad film" radar is pretty good, so I don't usually see too many bad ones or walk out feeling cheated.

I feel bad for Ebert- he sees EVERYTHING, and he said only 20% of the films he sees every year are any good.
Not a very good percentage...

Even without seeing some films you can tell right away if they suck:

Garfield
White Chicks
Agent Cody Banks: Destination London
50 First Dates (which won Best Comedy Team at the MTV Movie Awards. (!?)

you get the idea...

As always, there have been plenty of bad movies this year...the worst three for me so far are:

3) Fat Albert
2) Van Helsing
1) Dark Waters

Nominated for Worst Film of 2004:

CATWOMAN
ALEXANDER
BABY GENIUSES 2
SURVIVING CHRISTMAS
WHITE CHICKS

Whew...looks like I successfully avoided all of those. If I was in the mood for a bad movie, I could see myself watching Catwoman sometime. But little chance I will ever see the others.

This is a good thread, but surely it's just beginning. As somebody said, even the king of thumbs up Ebert says 80% of what he sees is bad.

It's hard to top some of these examples, but I saw a lot of movies last year, and not all of them were good.

Agent Cody Banks: Destination London Thanks for reminding me that I had seen that one on a bus! It had slipped my mind. I wonder why? I'll put it on my movies seen list. And sure, it was bad.

It's All About Love -- 'A love story set in the "near future," it tracks two lovers (Phoenix and Danes) on the run from the authorities. Around the two of them, others start dying (due to lack of love), Africans start flying (in the air), while both the ice age and global warming are threatening the state of affairs.'

--Sounds absurd enough to be fun -- which is true o The Butterfly Effect (Ashton acts! as in Garbo laughs!). I didn't realize how wonderful Butterfly Effect was till I started telling people the plot.

Alexander was a disappointment to me because I had wanted it bo be really stupid. It was ridiculous to see Colin Farrell running around with bleached hair and skirts -- he looks sort of like a gay construction worker going to a Halloween party -- but the movie is actually successful in many parts, too many for it to be a real turkey. Nonetheless it is a bad movie.

What about Passion of the Christ? To me that was the most pernicious movie of the year. It's bad as in evil, which is what Armond White with good reason said Closer was.

LIke Johann I try usually pretty successfullly to avoid pictures that are really bad, but I did see Taking Lives because I like noir and I have to agree it has little merit. Poor Ethan indeed, I think he was coming off his breakup with Uma and would do anything to lose himself in work.

Some other bad movies of 2004 that I did see despite trying to be selective .I might want to claim some of them are bad in an interesting way, though. The ultimate example of a 2004 movie that's bad in an interesting way is Tarnation--because it's kind of a classic, I admit, though I hated it.

The Day After Tomorrow

The Clearing (With Redford , Mirren and Dafoe!)--Fizzles out.

Spartan Absolutely pointless and largely incomprehensible Mamet.

Dirty Dancing Alas, I was hoping Diego Luna would have a good leading role, his pal Garcia Bernal has done so well. Not good, though.

The Perfect Score Not good, but I thought one actor, Leonardo Nam, playing against type for an Asian as a lazy stoner, was hilarious.

TwistA dreary Canadian update of Dickens with Nick Stahl. Nobody saw it anyway, but it was pretty bad.

La Vie Promise was pretty bad for a film with Isabelle Huppert. Nobody seems to have seen it, just as well for Isabelle.

United States of Leland has Don Cheadle in one of his many sensitive roles and the talented Ryan Gosling, but it makes no sense.

The Ladykillers Pretty terrible, and what was the point of remaking one of the great Alec Guinness Ealing comedies anyway? Here we're in an area of real damage.

I'm glad that I avoided most of the films you mentioned. My radar works pretty well also. However, It is certainly easier to avoid American trash than foreign.

I liked Alexander quite a bit actually and I was surprised but glad to see that so many on this site defended it. It's not perfect, but still one of the best American films of the year. There are atleast a couple of threads on the film. I didn't concern myself too much with the accents and the looks.

It is hard for me to hate The Passion of the Christ. I certainly had a lot of problems with it like most did but I can't knock the filmmaking. The technical Oscar nods it got are deserving. I could almost smell the film watching it.

You're probably right on both counts. As I said I wanted to hate Alexander but couldn't. I still think Passion of the Christ is pernicious but you're justified in saying that in technical terms it's effective --though that doesn't mean naturalistic: the blood looked faker and faker as it accumulated on Jesus, and looked like an add-on coating. I was reaching, because my list isn't very deep in bad films since I avoid them carefully -- perhaps wrongly, since they make the good ones look better. Indeed bad foreign films are harder to avoid for several reasons.