The Dark Tower

It's baffling why they even made this Dark Tower movie. It has nothing to do with the books. The characters and plot are completely different. That makes it pretty painful for someone who's read the series, and I'm not sure there's anything there for someone who hasn't.

I knew The Dark Tower wasn't going to be good, but I figured I might as well see it anyway. I read all the books, but it was a while ago, so I don't remember much about them anymore. When I saw the trailer, my reaction was, "what was that, there was nothing there." Reviews said it was just painful to watch because there was so much potential, and they didn't do anything with it. I definitely agree with that.

Fist Fight

Fist Fight is long, boring, and most significantly for a comedy, not funny.

The trailer for Fist Fight was funny, and I stubbornly insisted on watching it even though most of the reviews were terrible. Strangely, the reviewer on Ebert's website liked it, which everyone in the comments section was rightfully confused about.

Rise of the Legend

There are some cool ideas in Rise of the Legend, but they aren't carried out well. The action looks fake, there's a bizarre fascination with poorly done CG fire, and the plot is dull.

I keep watching these Well Go movies, and they're always terrible, but for some reason that doesn't stop me. I saw the trailer for Rise of the Legend, and I thought it might have some interesting action scenes. I guess it did. There was one in water that was kind of cool. And I liked the idea of the fire one more than anything that really happened during it. The dialogue was horrendous, but I think that was partially the fault of whoever did the subtitles. The story probably would have been better if it had been translated differently. All the "F" names were confusing, with Fei and Fiery and Fa, and the first time I saw them I wondered if the subtitles were just messed up (they did refer to Fei as the "forth adopted son" for the entire time). 

I didn't recognize Eddie Peng from Tai Chi Hero at all. He seemed a lot better-looking in this movie than that one. Maybe he was just surrounded by people who weren't as good-looking in this one, though. Overall the action was pretty flat. It all seemed super fake. Even the giant "thoom" sound effect every time somebody got kicked was a bit much. 

The Transporter

I could barely force myself to think about The Transporter for long enough to write anything about it. I don't know why I thought it might be good, but it profoundly was not. Definitely one of the worst, cheesiest movies I've ever seen. Everything about it was horrible, from the music to the action, dialogue, and plot.

I wasn't interested in The Transporter when it came out, but I later became a fan of Jason Statham (Death Race and Crank, anyone?), so I decided to check it out. Bad idea. Easily one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I don't even think Statham is that good here. The music was absolutely horrible. The action sequences were so obviously choreographed and slow. There were huge pauses for Statham to hit his marks, with all the bad guys patiently waiting for their turn to be attacked.

Syrup

 Syrup jumps around from event to event without any logical transitions or foundation. It's supposed to be slick and cool, but it's just transparent and hollow. There are a handful of funny moments, but they don't even come close to justifying watching the worst movie I've seen all year.

Syrup was copyrighted 2011, but it wasn't released until 2013. I wonder if it got hung up somewhere, or if that's just how long it takes for a movie to come out after it's been shot. I'm betting it was the former. This looked cool from the trailer, so I wanted to see it. IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes said it was a waste of time, but I was tired of not getting to see any movies because they all had bad reviews, so I watched it anyway. It turns out the reviewers were right: this is the worst movie I've seen all year!

It was so terrible, the entire time I was watching it I just kept thinking, "This is the worst movie ever made!" The flow was absolutely horrible. They would go from snippy and snarky to something that was supposed to be meaningful and emotional without setting it up at all. The music was terrible. It would be silent, and then a cue would come in out of nowhere trying to force you to feel something, and it was just obtrusive.

Everything was totally empty. The voiceovers with "marketing 101" and whatever didn't work at all. Anytime someone broke the fourth wall and talked directly to the camera it felt super awkward and out of place. 6 was awkward, too. Nothing she did ever made sense. It was bizarre how everyone picked a new name. 3, 6, Sneaky Pete, Scat. I don't think real marketing executives do that. And who the heck would pick "Scat" for a name, anyway? He said it was referencing jazz, and okay, that's great, but do you not know what else it means?!

The guys at the competing soda company were so dumb. It's like they were trying to have a realistic movie, and then they put those guys in, and it didn't make any sense. Amber Heard's face bugged me. There's something off about her left eye, and I didn't like all that dark lipstick. Her spiel about what men expect out of women didn't work. None of her dialogue worked; it was just bizarre. She did look gorgeous in a couple of scenes in her apartment, though.

Fairhaven

Fairhaven wasn't a boring movie, per se, but it winds up going absolutely nowhere.

When I saw Fairhaven, it was time to watch a movie by myself again, and Netflix didn't have any of the movies I wanted to see. I decided to check Hulu and see if they had Silent Running, because I might not've looked for it there last time I was trying to find something to watch. The first screen I went to showed they had Fairhaven. I've wanted to see it for a while, so I was pretty excited about that. I thought I had the green light on it from Roeper, but it occurred to me as I started watching it that I might not've actually seen a review on it, which meant I was watching a movie based solely on the trailer.

This turned out to be a Very Bad Idea. Luckily, I probably would've been in front of the TV for about half the movie, anyway, so I really only lost 45 minutes of my life to it. There were some pretty landscape shots, at least.

Borat

I felt sorry for half the people and dumbfounded and disgusted by the other half, and too many of the jokes were un-funnily distasteful. The best events were probably the ones that weren't in the movie, and I would've liked it better without the farce of a plot.

Teeth