There’s one I forgot to mention. I never read the comic or anything, but I thought that was a great movie. Peter Stormare’s scene as the devil was just amazing.
The problem is, the nuclear fridge is one of the BETTER scenes in that movie. It’s funny. It’s implausible, but it works in the context of a man who can ride a frigging U-Boat hundreds of miles while hanging onto its periscope.
On the other hand, Mutt swinging on the vines with the painfully bad CG monkeys, commies being carried off by painfully bad CG ants, and the opening shot with painfully bad CG prairie dogs were all twinge-inducing. Karen Allen’s very very rusty acting skills were painful to watch. The pointlessly circular plot involving Mac repeatedly double-crossing both sides was lame.
Worst movie ever? No, of course not. But even as a stand-alone film without having to bear comparison with the other IJ films, it’s pretty weak.
Remember folks, if your standard for the thread is “not the worst film”, then every single bad movie you’ve ever seen (except one) qualifies.
But maybe I’m atypical. I tend to hate more movies that get decent reviews than like movies that the get completely panned. Of course, that could be some kind of shock effect making one more notable to me than the other. “I can’t believe anyone could enjoy this crap” as opposed to “Well, it’s not as bad as I heard.”
None of the movies I nominated I would mind watching again a few years down the line if they came on TV, far from close to the worst.
Good one! I forgot about that. I unreservedly love that movie and think it’s a crime that it was dismissed when the aggressively unfunny “Scary Movie” movies went on and on.
I really enjoyed 1408. It’s probably one of the best Stephen King stories ever written, and I thought Cusack did a bang-up performance. I mean the whole film was basically a monologue. As for the latter part of your comment, Stephen King is an excellent writer with some very bad luck when it comes to translating his writing to film.
I wasn’t aware that was considered a terrible movie. I consider it one of King’s few successful adaptations.
I have a new one to add Quintet 1979 starring Paul Newman, just saw it and loved it! But I see its reputation is horrible, most people despise the film which is very hard to find a legit copy of.
While it is a post-apocalyptic film this might set up false expectations in the audience, it isn’t an action movie but a slow dreamlike meditation on mortality. The setting doesn’t make sense and you just have to let it go, the director is notorious for making movies based on dreams he had and I bet the setting of this one is similar. The early parts of the movie also set up false expectations, the real film only starts about a half hour in.
If you enjoy characters debating the meaning of life in a post-apoc dream-scape you might like it.
It’s not on a level with Stand By Me or Shawshank Redemption, certainly, but I would agree it’s much better than many of his adaptations.
The Fifth Element.
Demolition Man.
Judge Dredd.
Reviewers can pick the designation, but there are limits. For example, RT won’t like you mark a 1 out of 4 movie as “Fresh.”
Caveat: This was before RT changed owners, I don’t know what the official policy is now.
Well, that and also being one of the greatest masterpieces of any art form ever. I think those 2 things keep it from the designation of a “truly bad movie”.
As far as this thread goes, I’ve always been puzzled by the critical response to ** Dutch**. Although interestingly now I see on rotten tomatoes, though the tomato meter has it at 14%, the audience rates it at 60%. I’ve always remembered it being in the teens, so I’m surprised to see now that there are actually others who don’t hate it. Admittedly, it’s no Mulholland Drive, but Ed O’Neil is quite good in it and I think there was a lot of great chemistry between him and the boy. There was a lot of real heart in the movie. I think it’s far better than not-the-worst-movie-in-the-world.
I always dredge up The Postman for these threads. I enjoyed that movie. That and Ishtar.
Yeah, I’ll second this one. Perhaps it’s because I’ve never seen anything else Tom Green has ever done, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I randomly picked up this movie, but I thought it was a fun, absurd, anarchic romp–so unabashedly over-the-top in moments, just brilliant.
1941
I think that after Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, critics (both amateur and professional) were waiting for Steven Spielberg to do a pratfall. They pounced on this movie like a pack of wolves on Bambi with four broken legs. Granted, its humor is very broad, slapstick, un-PC and generally just so-so, but it does not deserved the horrific reputation it garnered.
Both 13th Warrior and Waterworld are films with a bad reputation with critics not so much because they were bad movies, but because even before they came out it was widely known that they had huge production problems and cost overruns, and so were going to be disastrous for the studios that produced them unless they were so good they drew Star Wars like crowds.
The “NOT THE BEES!” scene was worth the price of admission. 
Yeah, but running around in a bear suit and punching out little girls was – priceless! 
I’ve shown Stuart Saves His Family to several friends who, like Mr. S and me, grew up in dysfunctional families, and like us, they all loved it. Maybe you have to have lived that life in order to “get” this movie. Its funny moments are more on the order of black comedy.
I love this movie. I was just unaware that as many as two other people had seen it.
The Wiz was on TV yesterday; I haven’t seen it since I watched it on a tiny b-w set back when it first came on TV.
It has a lot of overdone/not good scenes, but to have been as universally panned as it was and such a gigantic flop it’s not only “not as bad as you’d expect” but has some really good moments and some brilliant set & costume design, cinematography, and musical moments. (It had a 19 year old Michael Jackson- the music and dancing [his anyway] is going to be out of this world.)
There are some scenes that drag and a couple of numbers that don’t need to be there at all, but I think with some editing (scalpel, not scissors) it would have fared much better.