Pomp

Was that the movie with Jeanine Garafolo as some sort of summer camp counselor? I watched part of that once, and it was awful, but I can't bering myself to turn off anything with Garafolo in it...

Pomp

Perchance,

While I thought love was being devalued, I didn't think that was the movie's point of view. I thought it was saying that "Love is love, even if it does come from a robot child imprinted on you by saying seven words," and while this devalued the love that most people think of by that name, it didn't seem at work within the movie.

If that was the creators' intent then, I agree, they did a completely horrible job conveying it convincingly.

This is why the ending seems a cop-out. David never suffers the loss of love. The clone mother is brought back to life in one of the most deus ex machina moves I've ever seen, and after spending a "perfect" day with her without his brother, David apparently just dies. If the devaluation of love was really the movie's message, the ending would still have destroyed it, since David gets what he wants.

Sure, he gets what he wants, but I think that we're supposed to be disgusted that what he wants is, ultimately, so shallow. I think it's meant as a criticism of the common Hollywood "love conquers all" sentiment that David is satisfied by a glassy eyed cartoonish pseudomommy. The movie is full of characters (David, mommy, the guy who builds david) who can't seem to function without creating shallow simulacra who only exist to love them. Joe (and, to a lesser extent, Teddy) comes off as the only admirable character because he's the only one who accepts what he is and doesn't hide behind illusions and false love.

Actually, after thinking about it, there's another thing that puts me into black rage:

The ending cheated.

I like speculative fiction, but it has to have rules. Why make the mechas/aliens able to bring her back for only a single day, at the end of which she dies? Cheating. Deus ex machina.. I would feel the same way if I were reading a fantasy novel and had the hero, who had previously been granted only three wishes, suddenly have a fourth wish in order to get himself out of danger. Bent rules, or rules set up for no other reason than to throw something like this into the plot, infuriate me.

Making the clone able to live for only one day served that purpose and that purpose alone, in my eyes. Blatantly manipulative. The ending might make you cry, but it couldn't follow its own rules.

I don't think the ending cheated. Although it's not made clear, I think the entire movie after David is pulled from the ice is supposed to be an illusion created by the future mecha. Mommy can only come back for a day because that's what they decided would happen in their artificial world. While I personally think the ending would have been much better if they had simply let him live forever with fake mommy in this shallow meaningless heaven, I don't think the ending presented was dishonest.

LordSnooty

It's a tricky one. The worst ones I can think of off hand:

Planet of the Apes Remake
Some good bits. But... er... what happened at the end? And in what possible universe might that make sense?

The Avengers
Mrs. Peel, we're not needed.

Godzilla, King of the Monsters
The original 1956 Toho film. If you thought the Sony remake was bad, you should watch this garbage. This film is so painful that it makes a colonoscopic endoscopy seem like foreplay. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Toho Godzilla. But what this film lacks in thrills, it more than makes up for in tedious boredom and trouser-wettingly turgid city destruction.

The Doctor Who TV Movie (1996)
So it's a TV movie. It's still a movie. Sort of. It's also incredibly bad. It's an amazing combination of completely ludicrous fanwank references which form integral parts of the plot (and would have been understood by about three viewers in the entire world), and complete contradiction of established continuity. Amazingly (and unforgivably), the Doctor also cops off with a woman. The Doctor is a Timelord, from the planet Gallifrey, in the consellation of Kasterborous. He is not - I repeat, not - an intergalactic totty magnet.

If we're talking about disappointing films, rather than simply worst, I'd say Cowboy Bebop. But that wasn't truly terrible, just mind-bendingly dull and strangely out of step with the beautiful TV series.

I'll probably think of more soon. I'm good at hating things. Until then - toodle-pip.

Paul

ju'iblex

correct! not even Jeanine and that guy from Frasier could save it.

i actually watched the entire movie, hoping, just hoping for one funny line.

kwigibo

I kinda liked it, i guess i just have bad taste.

anyway, to add another to the list that's inarguable, Runaway

Tom Selleck as anti-robot Police officer, sometime in the laughable 'future'. Gene Simmons of KISS fame as the killer-robot creating villain. The worst part is the robots themselves, as it looks as though the special effects people just raided the MIT student robotics lab, culminating in an absolutely sidesplitting scene where Selleck gets attacked by one of those little 9-inch long 'insect' robots in a toilet cubicle.

ksagnostic

Got to agree with that one. I am surprised, however, at the variety of movies being mentioned for this category. A lot of the movies people are ranking among the worst are in my eyes pretty decent.

ksagnostic

My list...incomplete I'm sure...

Moulin Rouge

Krull

Willow

You've Got Mail

Pay it Forward

Mentioning MST3K movies just seems redundant.

Strawberry

Thank you, elwoodblues, for reminding me of "North." I will now be among the list of IIers heading for counseling as a direct result of this thread. I'll also second the anti-"Dogma" sentiments. As irreverent as it is, it still assumes that god exists in the xtian form.

But seriously, the worst movie ever is a TV remake that came out about five years ago called "The New Swiss Family Robinson" or something like that. It was so bad that my sister, probably about age 3 at the time, made fun of it. One of its highlights is when the oldest son, who only speaks English, finds the marooned girl who only speaks French, and they fall in love with each other by having his mother translate what they're saying to each other. Gaaak.

And then there are any number of "Veggie Tales" videos. They're cute. They're Christian. They're catchy. They brainwash your kids. If they were real, I'd eat them. This is the one and only reason I'll ever say I'm proud to be vegetarian and mean it in a really, truly malicious, I-want-to-kill-those-little-vegetables sort of way. Any tomato that sings a song called "Oh Where Is My Hairbrush" deserves to be stuffed with spinach dip, impaled on carrot sticks, and shish-kebabed over a flaming grill. Not to mention the actual guy who does the whiny voice for Bob the Tomato and tries to maintain that sound while singing in an operatic falsetto. (My sisters are working on collecting the whole "Veggie Tales" set, so I'm especially angry about this particular atrocity.)

Jeremy Pallant

Every single movie mentioned to date is better by far than...Alien Cop. I have no idea who's in it, but it makes anything made by Ed Wood look like an act of genius. It's the kind of movie where you marvel that someone thought it was worth releasing on video.

Cthulhu

Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time

Marc Singer in a loincloth....