More notable this year though have been the disappointments. There have been plenty of films that aren't bad per se, but considering the talent and elements involved they should've been far stronger than they were. In many ways they are more deserving of the 'Worst Of' title than films like the "Garfield" or "Basic Instinct" sequels which look atrocious from the outset. Those films who had everything going for them and yet still dropped the ball are more deserving of damnation as such.
Let's get the real dogs out of the way first, the truly atrocious films that simply didn't deserve existence (but we were forced to endure) were:
An American Haunting, Annapolis, Arthur and the Invisibles, ATL, Barnyard, Basic Instinct 2, The Benchwarmers, Beowulf and Grendel, Big Momma's House 2, Black Christmas, Bloodrayne, The Covenant, Crossover, Date Movie, Deck the Halls, Doogal, Everyone's Hero, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Feast, Firewall, Flyboys, Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties, Goal! The Dream Begins, Glory Road, Grandma's Boy, The Grudge 2, The Guardian, Haven, Hoot, How to Eat Fried Worms, Imagine Me and You, Just My Luck, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, Last Holiday, Let's Go To Prison, Little Man, Lucky Number Slevin (aka. The Wrong Man), Madea's Family Reunion, Man of the Year, The Marine, Material Girls, A Night at the Museum, Open Season, Phat Girlz, The Protector, Pulse, The Return, R.V., The Santa Clause 3, Saw III, Scary Movie 4, See No Evil, The Shaggy Dog, Something New, Snakes on a Plane, Stay Alive, Stormbreaker, Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny, Tristian and Isolde, Trust the Man, Turistas, Ultraviolet, Underworld: Evolution, Waist Deep, When a Stranger Calls, The Wild, Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, You Me & Dupree, Zoom
Now onto the big list - the worst films of the year. In all fairness many of the films listed above are worse than the ones mentioned below, but these films stand out as they had far more opportunity to succeed. In being bad they also have consequences that will last for years to come and put a stain on the already good names of those involved or the franchise they're a part of:
1. The Pink Panther
The Steve Martin led remake of "The Pink Panther" is nothing less than a smut film. For all intents and purposes the filmmakers have simply dug up Peter Sellers grave and started sodomising his corpse right there on top of the dirt-covered coffin.
To be fair the original series was never exactly the pinnacle of comedy in the first place, but the combination of Blake Edwards slick direction and Peter Sellers finely-honed knack for physical comedy delivered a kind of wildly obtuse slapstick that propped up the various limp scripts with frequent bouts of comedic genius.
This 'Panther' has no such moments. Throughout its runtime it follows formulaic timing to the letter with its gags so limp and predictable that you actually get a little bored waiting for the inevitable punchline. Bad comedies are one thing, they're forgettable.
Bad comedies which tarnish the name of a beloved actor and fascinating character are much worse, they're not just life-sucking but soul-sucking as well. This bastardisation is quite frankly a travesty.
2. Lady in the Water
The one indelible fact 'Lady' left me with is that former Disney executive Nina Jacobson, the woman who famously criticised M. Night Shyamalan's script for this film (and was subsequently fired despite her success), is a genius.
This film continues the "Sixth Sense" helmer's increasingly self-absorbed and often embarrassing slide into a near parody of the style which made him a household name overnight. What makes it worse is that Shyamalan certainly knows how to shoot, cast and edit his stories well.
In 'Lady' though that is all buried under a convoluted plot that is completely lacking in any credibility, ludicrous character constructs, and an overwhelming sense of moral outrage and self-importance. It is the most textbook example I've ever seen of defensive filmmaking and at times screams of a director not just with a barely contained ego, but all the manners of a petulant child.
You want to get even with your increasing number of detractors Mr. Shyamalan? Take this cliched but very true life lesson to heart - success is the best revenge.
3. Freedomland
A great film adaptation of a book is one that is well aware of the fact that whilst it can't thoroughly replicate a novel's narrative, so long as it gets the message and tone right it can likely yield an effective work in its own right.
"Freedomland" forgets all that - lacking any kind of consistent tone and throwing out messages left right and center with little thought of actually developing a cohesive and effective story for the audience to follow. Overblown and overdone, the gritty look, quality actors and a potent and interesting story about race relations in America is lost in a sea of poor editing and hopeless direction.
You can tell it obviously means well and is trying to say something significant - but all that comes out is a hysterical blather - not helped by some of the longest and most tedious monologues I've ever heard in a film.
4. The Wicker Man
Neil LaBute's attempt to remake the 1973 British cult classic aims high, but falls dismally short of the mark. Like many remakes, there's a couple of interesting new twists on the material - but ultimately it's all window dressing to cover up what is essentially a poor man's clone of a solid original.
There's no real sense of suspense or menace here, and no driving reason to remake a film which worked far more effectively as a sinister low-budget vintage cult piece. This remake's few strong notes of atmosphere and presentation are heavily outweighed by its clumsiness.
The script is entirely cliche, the performances a mixed bag, many scenes are thrown in purely for padding or made to give us a sense of 'artistic shock'. Then there's stuff that is purely unexpected comedy from Cage's adventures in a giant bear suit to Ellen Burstyn's Braveheart make-up.
LaBute's approach makes the material seem very dated, a shame considering that extreme religious practices are a much more contemporary issue than when the original debuted.
5. Eragon
With any trend in cinema, a huge success leads to the inevitable and far weaker clones. With "The Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" films raking in the cash for Ted Turner, it comes as no surprise that others wanted in on the action.
"Eragon" marks the first pale imitator off the rack, a tired fantasy drama and the obvious 'first chapter' in a trilogy that's not going to happen. Lacking anywhere near the depth, emotional power and quality of the 'Rings' films, the best that can be said is that it's not "Dungeons & Dragons" bad - though the only difference is that "Eragon" at least takes itself seriously and Jeremy Irons isn't too campy this time around as a Liam Neeson-esque mentor figure.
John Malkovich overacts as the bad guy, Ed Speelers as our young hero tries to act and Robert Carlyle should just hand in his guild card right now. The scripting is atrocious, the pace drops to a crawl quite often, and the effects are passable at times and clunky at others.
In fact its only redeeming value lies in its campiness and strange subliminal sexuality from the flirtatious comments between the Rachel Weisz-voiced beast & our hero, a surprisingly highlighted shirtless scene, and a homoerotic and somewhat incestuous 'wrestling' scene early on between cousins. Makes one wonder if "Brokeback Mountain" will ever be remade as a sword and sorcery epic.
6. The Omen
The first time I heard they were remaking "The Omen" I had to ask...'why?'. Having seen the remake, I'm still left with the same question. The whole point of a remake is to either improve upon a flawed film, or to bring a new and/or different perspective to a classic tale.
'Omen' does neither, rather it's more like Gus Van Sant's "Psycho" - essentially a shot for shot remake of the original 1976 Richard Donner effort, but with weaker performances and more deliberate 'jump scares' to get the teen girls screaming.
There is absolutely nothing new here, nothing to justify why it was made and nothing of redeeming value short of a few (and admittedly effective) jumps that work more because of loud music blaring rather than actual scares.
Some of the shots are grander, some of the deaths more elaborate, but it comes at the cost of any real sense of atmosphere, emotion or suspense. The only evil going on here is the two hours you'll waste watching it.
7. Click
Advertised entirely on its simple premise, "Click" was much like several comedies this Summer (most notably "The Devil Wears Prada") whose trailers and publicity material didn't reflect the film you were seeing. "Click" more notably diverted wildly from its one-note premise of a remote control that can affect reality.
Starting out as the usual light-hearted Adam Sandler comedy, the film was dumb but mildly diverting and had one or two clever gags to its belt such as a James Earl Jones commentary track for Sandler's daily life.
Then bang, at the halfway point the film wildly shifts gears into a depressing, morose science-fiction spin on "It's a Wonderful Life" with jokes completely thrown out the window in favour of Sandler in a fat suit wailing or a grey-tinged hair version of him screaming about how his life has sucked.
Sandler can be a good dramatic actor given the right material (as he was with "Punch-Drunk Love"). However with "Click", the only thing he should be winning is the spite of Frank Capra fans.
8. Nacho Libre
Jared Hess's self consciously campy comedy takes a one-note joke and beats that dead horse until it's a fine paste splayed all over the ground.
Where Jon Heder succeeded with Hess' 2004 effort "Napoleon Dynamite", Jack Black has bombed - never turning his Nacho character into anything more than what looks to be, ie. Black doing an atrociously bad Mexican impersonation.
Making matters worse is that he's the only real character in the film - everyone else from his sweaty meek assistant to his fat orphan supporter are simply blank receptacles for him to bounce lines off.
The humour relies solely on the silly visual element and never actually tries to push the gags further because that would require cleverness, wit and a consistency of vision - both are lacking here, as is any sense of pacing. There's no thought or creativity to it - it just sits there inert, and even those who find some joy in it will quickly forget it later on
9. Poseidon
The idea of seeing a modern day cruise chip capsize is a great one and the one truly exciting sequence of "Poseidon" that deftly improves on the original.
After that though there's still another hour and a half of this dull remake to go and what we get is a great demonstration of why disaster movies should stay in the 1970's and 1990's where they belong - rote characters, cheesy action sequences and dull sentimentalism aren't helped by a cast of mostly TV side characters or out of work veterans.
Wolfgang Petersen knows how to shoot and admirably avoids the disaster movie cliche of characters breaking out into long monologues of sentimental back story, but the realism comes at a cost of none of the characters being remotely anything but blank faces lining up for the slaughter.
10. All the King's Men
The year's best example of a what happened moment. The film consisted of one of the best ensemble casts of recent times with names like Sean Penn, Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins, Kate Winslet populating the cast.
Scribe Steve Zaillian ("Schindler's List", "Awakenings", "The Interpreter") was on board to write and direct a more direct and loyal adaptation of the 1946 Pulitzer Prize winning novel than had been attempted before. Sony poured a lot of money into the budget and was lining it up as their potential awards contender in 2005.
Then it got delayed nine months for undisclosed reasons which raised suspicion. It premiered at Toronto this year and the rest was history - terrible reviews lead to disastrous box-office. Zaillian aimed high to try and encompass one of the great American novels of the 20th century and fails miserably - far too slavishly loyal to the prose of the book rather than the themes, its characters are one note and the timelessness is lost.
More notably its direction is surprisingly shoddy. Characters are all over the place, editing is strangely haphazard, Penn overdoes with bombast fat too much whilst Law feels stuck on the sidelines with much of his role's meat left on the cutting room floor.
A voiceover tries to pull it altogether but feels like a last-minute bandage at best. Kudos to Zaillian for trying but even a master director would have a hard time with this material let alone a budding one.
11. Running with Scissors
"Nip/Tuck" creator Ryan Murphy completely misses the point with his feature film debut adaptation of the stellar Augusten Burroughs memoir. From turning Annette Benning's character into an over the top scene-stealing ham to making the Finch family home into something as eccentric as the Addams family, it undercuts the book's tragic, raw and very human centre which grounded everything.
That's why it worked so well as book because Burroughs came through what can only be described as a horrendous childhood with his sanity, good humour and intelligence intact. The film chooses to portray the variety of psychologically fascinating monsters that brought him up as silly caricatures squawking around trying to steal scenes from each other, all the while making serious emotional milestones into trite throwaway scenes.
Joseph Cross, who despite his boyish face is obviously too old for the role, struggles with a flat role whilst other elements such as the soundtrack just seem off.
12. The Da Vinci Code
A let down for Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, Audrey Tatou and all involved. "The Da Vinci Code" fails as an adaptation for its blandness, bloat, lack of conveying the book's tricky long-winded exposition and a far too long runtime.
Far more damaging though is that it really brings out the flaws in the source- Brown's slick page turner had moments of compelling reading but his framing and narrative leave MUCH to be desired and felt cliche even on paper.
On the screen the flaws ranging from the utter non-twist of the Teacher's identity to the grinding halt of the pace for long monologues become far more apparent. Only Ian McKellen as the somewhat bemused Lord Teabing emerges from this mess unscathed.
13. A Good Year
Ridley Scott & Russell Crowe decided to take some well deserved time off and vacation in the South of France. I guess they had to shoot a movie as an excuse to write the trip off on tax which would explain this well-meaning but failed effort.
It's not that 'Year' is bad per se, it's more that the film simply fails as a romantic comedy with these two involved, it's more a sort of wish fulfillment for men undergoing a middle-age crisis.
Crowe with his signature rascal charm can do romantic comedy well but here he struggles with an overdone accent and predictable character who isn't particularly likable at any point and follows a route so predictable one wonders if the screenplay would've gotten picked up at all if it wasn't for the pair's involvement.
The trouble with stories like these, making an arrogant prick come to self-realisation, is that the character must get his comeuppance in order to earn our sympathy. Here that doesn't happen, and Scott surprisingly struggles to pull off the film's awkward comic moments, even though he makes the film's assorted vistas as pretty as a brochure.
14. American Dreamz
An attempt to satirise both the Iraq war and "American Idol", 'Dreamz' encompasses way too many targets and aims far too broadly to try and please all - in the process losing the edge and bite it so desperately wants to achieve.
Nicely cynical but ultimately lazy and nowhere near as funny or clever as it should be, the film can only be seen as a step down for director Paul Weitz who til now has had a solid track record with the likes of "In Good Company", the first "American Pie" and the brilliant "About a Boy".
Hugh Grant does alright as the Simon Cowell-esque role of the Dreamz host, but much of the comedy misfires or more often than note thinks it is far cleverer than it actually is.
15. The Black Dahlia
Brian DePalma's failed attempt to explore one of Hollywood's most famous and sinister unsolved mysteries turns into an over cooked ham of a film, overstuffed with vampish performances and a narrative far too convoluted for its own good.
Despite getting the look of 1940's Los Angeles quite convincingly correct, the film is so overblown on the noir cliches you'd expect a saxophone to accompany each of Josh Hartnett's dreary monologues. Hilary Swank turns in what can only be described as the camp performance of the year as a producer's slutty bisexual daughter who seems far more like a drag queen than a femme fatale.
It's a real shame considering the film contains a honey of a crane shot, hints at the fascinating darker history of early 20th century Los Angeles, and delivers a stellar turn by Mia Kirshner in the tragic title role who only appears in flashback.
16. Miami Vice
Gone are the sun-drenched panoramas and pastel suits of the classic 1980's series, replaced by ruthlessly straight forward dramatics and dark vistas of trailer parks, packed nightclubs and slums turned war zones. When focused on the drug empire element, the film can and does meander, but at least it feels relatively believable.
Yet when switching to character, Director Michael Mann tries to build a romantic interest for each of our leads and ultimately only succeeds at making a long film feel even longer. Farrell seems bored, Gong Li is woefully miscast, and the constant swapping between film and digital video with no consistent pattern is distracting and tedious. Don't get me started on the up and down pacing.
One can appreciate the fact that Mann was trying to do something new here, to essentially do what "Casino Royale" and "Batman Begins" did so successfully - reinvent a cheesy franchise into something grittier, darker and much more human. In some ways he succeeded, but in others it was a complete failure. It may be dull, but it is a hard film to dismiss.
17. Mission: Impossible III
"Lost" producer J.J. Abrams takes the helm and for a feature debut director he does astonishingly well. A lot of it is helped by the fact that MI3 is essentially a much bigger budgeted version of his own show "Alias", right down to the assorted story beats (ala the flash-forward beginning) and the globe-hopping over a simple device macguffin.
Unfortunately as it's a two-hour movie rather than a series it also misses the elements that made "Alias" great - distinct and strong characters, rich and growing mythology, and action that relied on cleverness rather than Bruckheimer-esque explosions.
A good sequence set around the Vatican and a strong villainous turn by Philip Seymour Hoffman can't hide the flaws of the script, a weak array of supporting characters and a devolvement into mindless bombast in the last act.
18. X-Men: The Last Stand
Given the horrific circumstances he was thrust into, Brett Ratner did a decent job with the final installment in the "X-Men" franchise. As a director he brought to it the two things missing from the previous films - a sense of pace and a good eye for action with consequences (ie. people dying).
However the studio execs and various writers missed all the things that made the first two films so much better - strong characterisation, a building sense of suspense, and a growing mythology. An enjoyable diversion with a few quite effective moments such as the Golden Gate bridge sequence, but ultimately a bad way to end one of the better recent studio franchises.
19. Superman Returns
One of the hardest inclusions on this list because it's not a bad film, but rather a misfire of grand proportions. Armed with the biggest budget in history, a character known the world over, a strong and reliable director and a pair of writers whose previous effort together ("X2: X-Men United") was one of the best comic book movie adaptations ever, everything was going for this film and even now months after its delivery you'll find many supporters who adore it.
Still, a strong performance by newcomer Brandon Routh, good effects and occasionally effective moments of emotion can't hide a poorly conceived story, terrible turns by Kate Bosworth and Kevin Spacey, a lethargic pace, an interminably long runtime, stilted humour, lack of exciting action, and a far too slavishly respectful tone.
It's stronger than a lot of other comic book films, but with the standard set so high thanks to the likes of "Batman Begins", "Spider-Man 2" and Singer's own "X2" it certainly feels inferior. What we want to see is Bryan Singer's "Superman", not Bryan Singer's attempt to imitate/remake Richard Donner's "Superman".
20. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
There's an hour of great fun in here, shame about the other hour and a half. When it works, like it does during the cannibal island sequence and the last half hour or so, 'Chest' is great escapist Summer fun like its predecessor.
However it is also an apt demonstration of why comic side characters shouldn't be moved to the front and center - turning Jack Sparrow's quirky offbeat pirate into more of a cartoonish buffoon than anything else. The cannibal island sequence in particular showed the problem in stark contrast - it may have had some fun and exciting moments, but ultimately it had no bearing on the story whatsoever.
As for that story, did we really care about Orlando reuniting with his dear old barnacled dad? Here's hoping the third one will be better but as of right now, and despite the second film's box-office, the franchise needs to win some of our love back.
Stay tuned for a look at the best films of 2006 later this week. A list that incorporates royalty, singers, Spanish orphans, crooked cops, secret agents, decaying infertile societies and more.
