Soapbox: What Makes a Movie Bad?

Earlier this week, I was looking at my current top ten worst list of movies (yes, I do have one; no, I won't publish it yet--I haven't seen The Smurfs 2), and I began analyzing why I put them there. On my list, I have the Rotten Tomatoes percentage next to the films; while most of the films on the list are considered "Rotten," a few are borderline "Fresh" or very high on the "Tomatometer." Why did I not like the film while others did? Why do I find one film completely awful while another thinks it is above decent? So today, instead of a review, list, or memoir, I want to do an essay of sorts. "What Makes a Movie Bad?"
Note: This essay will include spoilers on several films, including Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Do proceed with caution.

I'm not feelin' very lucky... but I gots to know!

I hate it when a movie uses a deus ex machina to resurrect, or even save, a character's life through an unbelievable turn of events. A notable example is in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. In the extremely extended first action sequence, Indiana Jones is caught in the middle of a 1950's-style nuclear test zone. A countdown begins and Indy should be toast when the lady says "zero," yet after the blast, he survives while everything around him melts like Hiroshima. How? Lead-lined refrigerator. And thus the term "nuke the fridge" was born. Now, when I saw the film back in 2008/2009, the sequence confused me, and it still does. Now let it be said: the film isn't on my worst list because of the nuke the fridge sequence (there's lack of appropriate tone, out-of-place/needless CGI sequences, and lack of fun), but it certainly doesn't help matters at all. Indy should have been fried in the first thirty minutes of his movie--the test zone scientists who were almost out of the blast zone were!--yet Indy is the cockroach from WALL-E. It took me out of the film for a while, and nothing made up for it by the end. Another example is The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. I like the series--they're nice, fun adventure films--but this one proved much differently. Why do I dislike it? Besides being unmemorable and bland, they kill Brendan Fraser's character halfway through the movie... only to bring him back again simply to introduce a mystical character. It's not like in Last Crusade, where Indy seemingly gets ran over by a tank, or how Jack Sparrow still survived being eaten by the Kraken in Dead Man's Chest so he could return for the finale At World's End... because there was never a fourth installment--those kinds of things work in the film's universe or for their characters. Dragon Emperor only used it because it could, and that's just lazy writing right there. I'm sure the conversation went like this:

"Man, that was awesome how we had that fight scene with the yetis, man. Oh, ya-no-wha, dude; let's kill the main character... the audience will be like, 'What the $#%^ just happened, man?' Oh wait, we need the main character.... Let's just introduce another one to make him come back to life again so we don't have to rewrite all that. RIGHTEOUS!!" 

Yep. I get why some movies do it and it works for Doctor Who, but other films just use it as a lazy plot device with imaginations that are as dull as the above monologue. Such a thing does not kill a movie, but these kinds of deus ex machinas surely don't help its cause.

Another thing that hurts a movie pretty bad is the lack of passion. People give George Lucas crap for the Star Wars prequels-- and I'll admit: they are crap-- but at least Lucas went through years of development and he put his heart and soul into each of the six films. The worst kinds of movies are the ones where the filmmakers don't care. In cinema, there's the passionate crap and the I-don't-give-a-crap crap. Now don't get me wrong--sometimes the passionate crap doesn't come out quite right-- but if the filmmakers don't care, why should we? Notable examples are the fourth installments in a franchise. To list some of these, they are: Shrek Forever After, a bland attempt to recapture the original's humor... by flipping around everything from the original, for what other reason than kids' money; Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, a boring installment that captures none of the fun or originality of the preceding films that only feels like another Depp vehicle; Paranormal Activity 4... need I go on? It's soulless.

Abduction and Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief aren't exempt. We all know why Abduction was made--to steal the money of little tween girls wanting to see Taylor Lautner. That's a whole new kind of nasty, similar to On Stranger Tides and any PG-13 Johnny Depp movie. And Lightning Thief was just trying to bring a new Harry Potter franchise to the table while paying no respect to the books. Jurassic Park may have gotten away with significant changes, but because Spielberg still captured the beauty and monstrosity of the dinosaurs that Crichton portrayed in the novels, it still had the right heart; only die-hard purists would be ticked. The thing of it is, Spielberg didn't make a cash-grab with Jurassic Park. Even with the highly disappointing sequel The Lost World, he tried to portray thought-provoking themes of hunter vs. naturalist that showed he wasn't trying to simply take money from innocent movie-goers. Then you have films like Sharknado or Movie 43 which don't have any care or passion or any technique involved. Like an orangutan, they throw poop at the screen and expects you to watch it decompose or do something with it. They make their money back and all's fine for them, but instead of watching films for entertainment, we become consumers willing to rigidly drink carbolic oil laced with cyanide. They don't care. It's infuriating and those movies rightfully deserve to be listed on worst lists only to never be heard of again. I just got done working on a short film and, while it still has a lot of work before it can be considered true quality entertainment, the crew and I worked our butts off amongst all the struggles, and we still do as production continues. But these guys are professionals who get paid to do what they do. As popular film fan/critic Chris Stuckmann said in his review/rant of Movie 43,

"There are so many people out there who would love to be making movies--in Hollywood or whatever--who have true ideas about what it's like to make a movie: people who are in film school, people who are learning about the art of filmmaking; and then you see this s***, just like, there! Why?!"

It's not so much the crappy product that they send out; it's the crappy attitude, disposition, and comprehension that's behind the camera that makes the film twice as bad.

No truer words have been spoken.

Now that I'm done ranting about that mess, one of the most tragic things that kills a movie is all the potential behind it. Recently, I reviewed Bye Bye Birdie from 1995, and honestly, I thought it would be great; it had everything going for it and it failed. Perhaps it's the expectations that I have with these movies, but I don't think that's the entire reason. Take Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. When I saw it last, I had no expectations, because I hardly remembered the last time I had seen it, and I still was bored and unentertained by it; and I consider that one of the worst movies I've seen. It's a shame, because Lucas put so much work, heart, and soul into developing these movies and his interviews talking about them are terrific, but, unfortunately, his tower of cards was unstable, and too many wrong moves made the whole operation come tumbling down. It is a real shame. I want to give the movie enough pity so that it doesn't end up on the worst list, but in the end, I have to look back on everything and its content, and these films with failed potential really are that bad. An odder example is Sharkboy and Lavagirl. Robert Rodriguez is a work of art. Friends with Quentin Tarantino-- who some consider one of the most influential directors of our time-- Rodriguez is not quite as good. He makes the bizarre films filled with violence and sex like Desperado and the surreal children's films like Spy Kids. Sometimes they combine and make Machete. Sharkboy and Lavagirl is one of his kids films and it is made for kids, strictly for kids, and Rodriguez has fun with it. The thing is, being a one-man show-- being the... everything in the crew--it isn't the best of films. I guess this is the part where I say that, there is passionate crap and the concept is good, but in the end, it's still crap. It is sad for me to say this, because you realize that these guys are trying to make the best film possible, but it just doesn't work out for them in the end. Most of these guys, like Lucas and Rodriguez, can be great visionaries trying to tell great stories, like with Star Wars from 1977 or Sin City, respectively, but the audience is left wanting something better. Unfortunately for them, the potential was missed, and people like myself were left disappointed.

So in a world where we get greats like The Tree of Life or The Shawshank Redemption, we still get our Gigli's and Plan 9's From Outer Space. While some actually try to tell great stories, others just don't care or are too lazy to convey something above average. No one is invincible--even Spielberg and Tarantino had their flops--and bad films are going to happen. But that won't stop us from paying money to see what the greats can do. As for my article, I could have gone more into bad acting and shoddy camerawork (i.e. Daredevil), but those are obvious. I simply talked about some of the unique things that make me consider a movie bad. Certainly, there are others, but I don't want to take the spotlight all by myself. What makes a poor movie-going experience for you? What's some of the worst films you've seen? And, on a side note, should I do more articles like these? Comment below, and tell me about it!