Movies I Hate (that Everybody Else Loves)

By Johnny Apocalypse
Bschin2188@aol.com
June 1st, 2006

For the most part, I enjoy the big-bucks, popular movies that the uneducated masses go for.  My favorites tend to be cult films and lesser know movies, but I like the popular stuff too.

However, there are a good number of movies that the majority likes that I don't.  And until I can discover a way to scientifically prove that certain opinions are right (namely mine), I am left with simple persuasion, and putting my neck on the line by upsetting all the crazed fans these movies have garnered.

2001: A Space Odyssey - This movie starts out pretty promisingly: a bunch of monkeys beating each other up with bones.  Then we movie into outer space, which has equal possibilities for entertainment, but after about twenty minutes I realize that that something is seriously wrong.  There's no alien menace, no intense laser battles and no throwing pedophiles into the sun.  Instead, what we're left with is slow dialogue and two astronauts trying to shut down a renegade computer.  The renegade computer idea has plenty of life in it, but it doesn't make up for the slowest action scenes ever filmed.

"Quick, we have to get to the bay doors before HAL locks them!"

Two hours of floating in space later.

"Phew!  We made it just in time!"

Fans of this movie can be broken down into two groups: science fiction junkies and Stanley Kubrick addicts.  The sci-fi nuts glom onto anything once someone calls it a "classic".  The Kubrick fans believe ol' Stan could do no wrong.  However, this movie (and Eyes Wide Shut) is proof that no great director is infallible.

Many people think I hate this movie because I don't "get it".  Yeah, I understood everything just fine, but Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote the book of 2001, told the story of the next step in the evolution of man much better in Childhood's End.

Blade Runner - Here's another sci-fi classic that I can't stand.  The novel this was based on, by Phillip K. Dick, is one of my favorite science fiction novels.  However, the most thoughtful pieces of the book were chopped out and replaced with the mystery of whether or not Harrison Ford was one of the robots.  The end result is a movie that's visually appealing but boring as hell when no one is getting killed.

Somewhere during the production of this movie, it was decided to mix science fiction with a film-noir style narrative.  Is this a good idea?  Damn straight it is.  Does it work here?  Not in the least.  Ford's voice isn't nearly hard-boiled enough to pull it off.  We simply get an overload of character development that takes away from a fine premise.

The American Pie Series - I just don't think this is funny.  The whole "teenagers trying to get laid" idea has literally been done to death.  The jokes are recycled and predictable, and the characters are such morons that they are clearly the last people who should ever have sex for fear they may actually procreate.  Where's natural selection when you need it most?  At least when this idea was done in the Porky's movies, I got an average of three laughs per film.  Here, I laughed once during the first movie, once during the second and tried to gouge my own eyes out during the third.

There is little doubt that several people who are reading this are wondering what I do find funny, so I'll answer that.  Snappy word play and an utter lack of manners.  At least, that pretty well sums up where the laughs come from in my favorite comedy, As Good as it Gets.  This nonsense from American Pie is for the birds.

Gladiator -  The dialogue lacks punch, the action scenes make the shaky-cam from The Bourne Supremacy look like it was filmed by a rock, and the ending is an utter rip-off of Hamlet.  This is another case of snooze-fest mania when no one's getting killed, but even when people die I couldn't tell what was happening.  I thought that Russell Crowe died six times, only to find that he survived for no purpose but to suck more time out of my life.

The Lord of the Rings: Parts One and Two   While I thought that Return of the King was a damn fine movie, the first two installments of LOTR bored the living hell out of me.  I have to admit that I'm really pretty picky about science fiction and fantasy, and if I'm not immediately sucked into the fictitious world and removed reality, I get bored easily.  This is precisely what happened with parts One and Two.

I will be the first to admit that Peter Jackson did a magnificent job directing the movies.  They are visually appealing, the CGI looks real and the battle scenes are truly amazing.  But when they take time out from the fighting to advance the story line, my interest wanes and I find myself trying to fight sleep off so my $7.50 admission won't be totally wasted.  The movies just didn't grab my attention.

Thelma and Louise    Okay, so maybe this isn't exactly a movie that everyone loves, but I have yet to meet a woman who doesn't worship this movie.  It's uplifting, it's empowering, and I like that.  I like the ideas of equality between everyone, but this movie takes things a step too far and plunges into blatant sexism.

But Johnny, you're asking, how can a movie about casting off the shackles of oppression become sexist itself?  Well, it's simple, really.  If you changed the gender of every character in the movie, say, change "Thelma and Louise" to "Bob and Ritchie", you would instantly have the most sexist movie ever made.  Every bad thing that happens to the lead characters is because of a man, but should every misfortune have been caused by a lady in Bob and Ritchie, you would have picketers within minutes of the movie's release.  If I ever manage to raise the money to produce a film, I'm making Bob and Ritchie just to prove my point.  I will die at the hands of angry protesters, but not before proclaiming that I completely ripped off the story line.

Die Another Day   I think that I've said enough about how much I hated this movie in my James Bond article.  I'm sure that someday I will write a large rant on the subject (the total length of which will surpass War and Peace and Doctor Zhivago combined), but until then, you may rest assured that I would be content if EON productions disowned the movie and destroyed every remaining copy.  But hey, at least it didn't bore me.

Well, that's enough negativity for now.  I've given my meager words to the fans of the world and endangered my well-being in the process.  But what good is the Freedom of Speech if you don't use it to express disagreement?  While I may have to exponentially increase my armory due to the angry fan bases that will be pounding down my door, I stand by my opinions, and rest securely at the moment in the hopes of becoming a movie martyr.

But I somehow doubt that's going to happen.