Film Gate Reviews: Best of the Worst

The best of the worst might not be worth watching, but surely they're more entertaining to read.

A limitless source of stupidity.

Ever thought about what you could do if a magical pill could turn your life into its most promising form? Hollywood execs have and "Limitless" just shows that they wish they could be smart. And it is just a magical pill because any scientific explanation is lacking, at best.		2011 Directed by: Neil Burger Screenplay by: Leslie Dixon Starring: Bradley Cooper
See full review of Limitless

Straw characters living in a dull world which then turns violent.

“Straw Dogs” is a faithful adaptation of the original 1971 version. But only if your definition of “faithful” means scene-by-scene, word-for-word duplication, not if your definition means including the same thoughtful ideas that can stay with you after the movie ends. It’s also a thriller. But, again, only if “thriller” means nothing happens until we get a lot of gruesome violence at the end. Which apparently it does for most people.		2011 Directed by: Rod Lurie Screenplay by: Rod Lurie Starring: James Marsden, Kate Bosworth, Alexander Skarsgård
See full review of Straw Dogs

Insulting romantic comedies, its fans, and everything else.

The thing about ‘Friends with Benefits” is that you have, in fact, seen it before. Not in the generic way the film implies that all romantic comedies are the same. But this exact movie was released earlier this year with the title “No Strings Attached”. And what’s worse is that vapid, uninspired, Hollywood-love-fest original is actually better.		2011 Directed by: Will Gluck Screenplay by: Keith Merryman, David A. Newman, Will Gluck and Harley Peyton Starring: Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake
See full review of Friends with Benefits

Action heroes versus cowboys and aliens where thinking is not allowed.

"Cowboys & Aliens" is actually just Daniel Craig versus cowboys and aliens. It's very handy that he has an alien countdown timer bracelet on his wrist that doubles as a special alien killing machine. It works better than guns and knives which is all that real cowboys have. But Jake Lonergan (Craig) doesn't know how he got that bracelet, or what his name is, or who he is. He does know English.		2011 Directed by: Jon Favreau Screenplay by: Too many to name Starring: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde
See full review of Cowboys & Aliens

No honest emotion, thought or intelligence found anywhere near "Buried".

Ryan Reynolds may be buried alive in a coffin in the Iraq desert, but any intelligence or interesting concepts to the film are buried far deeper than he is. The film's hook is that it takes place entirely within the coffin and he can only use a lighter and cell phone to try and find a way out. Instead he used the lighter and screamed to use up all his oxygen. Then it plays out like every other thriller where he has to get money to the bad guys before time runs out.		2010 Directed by: Rodrigo Cortés Screenplay by: Chris Sparling Starring: Ryan Reynolds
See full review of Buried

The very picture of an irreversibly dysfunctional family.

“Fireflies in the Garden” is one of those rare movies where a stellar cast and script based on a Robert Frost poem (!) could not get itself a release. Four years later, it got a straight-to-DVD release. And for good reason, it’s really bad. It’s a dysfunctional family drama where the characters are messed up from beginning to middle to end. There is no relief, comedy or otherwise, from the dysfunction.		2008 (2012 DVD Release) Directed by: Dennis Lee Screenplay by: Dennis Lee Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson, Julia Roberts
See full review of Fireflies in the Garden

College know-it-all hippies talking about life, on Earth, man.

Imagine if there was another Earth, man, then there would be, like, another you, man. So you just have to live, man, because, like, nothing else matters. According to South Park (and they are right) there are three types of hippies: the giggling stoners (usually harmless hippies found in the attic); the drum-circle hippies (the annoying ones found in the backyard); and then the worst kind of all, the college know-it-all hippies.		2011 Directed by: Mike Cahill Screenplay by: Brit Marling and Mike Cahill Starring: Brit Marling and William Mapother
See full review of Another Earth

College students that are over-sylized and over-sexed.

Described as trippy, entertaining, and very funny, "Kaboom" is actually just a very stylized version of the college-aged sexual exploration. It gets interesting when it mixes sex with a thriller plot, but colour-coating over-sexed college students doesn't make them anymore profound.		2010 Directed by: Gregg Araki Screenplay by: Gregg Araki Starring: Thomas Dekker
See full review of Kaboom

Disgusting and superficial pandering to all women.

It's two years later, I've become much more cynical about "Sex and the City", and the 4 girls are having problems in their shallow, designed life. The quality of the writing is decreasing rapidly. These are barely even characters – just stick-figures to hang dresses on and caricatures of their audience. The filmmakers are just pandering to women between the ages of 20 and 60 and finding superficial things in the characters for them to relate to.		2010 Directed by: Michael Patrick King Screenplay by: Michael Patrick King Starring: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Catrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon
See full review of Sex and the City 2

A romantic comedy that goes to idiotic extremes.

At the beginning of “What’s Your Number”, Ally (Anna Faris) is fired, so she immediately starts fretting about the number of guys she has slept with. Apparently, those two actions go hand-in-hand. Never mind finding a new job, she needs to get married. In the first 10 minutes, she goes from losing her job, to thinking she’s a slut, to a celibacy vow to get her a husband.		2011 Directed by: Mark Mylod Screenplay by: Gabrielle Allan and Jennifer Crittenden Starring: Anna Faris, Chris Evans
See full review of What's Your Number

Deranged characters playing in a deranged plot in a horror movie.

Dr. Cara Harding (Julianne Moore) is a psychiatrist. She no longer believes in God, but she does believe in “science”. The science in “Shelter” is shaky to say the least. It involves deranged psychopaths physically morphing into dead people and souls that come out of people’s mouths (if not held in by dirt). It’s supposed to be a psychological thriller, but it’s more like a horror without any real psychology to it.		2010 Directed by: Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein Screenplay by: Michael Cooney Starring: Julianne Moore and Jonathan Rhys Meyers
See full review of Shelter

"Winter's Bone" isn't even a character study let alone a thriller.

Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) is one tough girl. Her father is a convicted drug dealer, her mother is a drugged out imbecile, her neighbours are all drug abusing ass-holes, she has to raise her younger brother and sister all by herself, and.... Oh, I'm sorry, were you expecting there to be an "and", like some kind of plot? Well no, there is no point. Just that life sucks for Ree. How about a character study? No, not much to these characters either. Just that life sucks for Ree.		2010 Directed by: Debra Granik Screenplay by: Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini Starring: Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes
See full review of Winter's Bone