Shield your eyes! These were the most jaw-droppingly bad films of recent years
FILM reviewer Leigh Paatsch has seen more great movies than he can count, with stirring performances, brilliant directing and truly clever scripts. These aren’t among them.
Leigh Paatsch
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FILM reviewer Leigh Paatsch has seen more great movies than he can count.
These stinkers aren’t among them.
He’s nominated some of his least favourite cinematic offerings of the past few years — see what he had to say about them:
Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Movie (2014)
‘Like a bottle of Bailey’s past its use-by date and left in the sun.’
“A consummately dreadful movie adaptation of the intermittently awful TV comedy series from Ireland.
“Those who can’t get enough of Brendan O’Connell’s crass-quipping cross-dresser from Dublin will get their fill, and then some.
“Everyone else should say their prayers now that they will never be trapped in a godforsaken place where this is the only viewing option available.
“At least on the small screen, the pain is confined to a relatively merciful half-hour. At feature-film length, everything goes white and time itself stands still. No.”
Full review: Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Movie
Movie 43 (2013)
‘Mountainously moronic slab of dud comedy sketches’
“I’m not going to go as far as those who have presumptuously declared Movie 43 to be the worst film of all-time.
“For it does have at least one redeeming feature for which it must be commended.
“More Hollywood movies should follow the brave lead of Movie 43, and include their collective IQ in the title.”
Full review: Movie 43
The Wedding Ringer (2015)
‘Hold your nose and say “I don’t.”
“Approximately 95% of the lazy new American comedy The Wedding Ringer is as funny as a fart in a lift.
“And that lift is located in a baked beans factory.
“And the cafeteria in that factory serves nothing but cabbage.
“That’s how much this movie can really stink when it really lets rip.”
Full review: The Wedding Ringer
Wolf Creek 2 (2014)
‘A throwback that should be thrown back.’
“Why anyone would bother sticking around for Wolf Creek 2, a sad and soberingly sorry sequel to the 2005 Australian horror hit, is a question well worth asking.
“It certainly isn’t fun. Unless you’re the kind of film goer who gets their jollies from witnessing the attempted rape or successful murder of foxy foreign backpackers.
“Wolf Creek 2 deserves none of the notoriety it is sure to provoke in the weeks ahead. If it wasn’t so aggressive in its single-minded intent to appall, you could almost feel a sense of pity for this movie.
“Those responsible for this mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging exercise in torture porn appear to be trying to jump-start a subgenre that conked out many years ago.”
That’s My Boy (2012)
‘It is even more awful than you can possibly imagine.’
“If it were possible to contact Irritable Bowel Syndrome from a movie, this bummer of a comedy calamity from Adam Sandler would be the culprit.
“Contains literally hundreds of jokes that go straight through the bottom of the barrel into an endless void of unfunniness.
“There will not be a more terrible film in 2012 than That’s My Boy. Or perhaps this decade.”
Full review: That’s My Boy
Mental (2012)
‘Complete garbage’
“Having paid $18 to see Mental last week, all I can say is this: I want my $100 back.
“Sadly, no amount of added compensation will come close to ever killing the bitter after-tang of this true cinematic lemon.”
Full review: Mental
Grace of Monaco (2014)
‘Dreary in the extreme’
“Viewing Grace of Monaco is like learning a flock of geese are secretly living inside your local library. It just keeps honking at the wrong times, all the time.
“If you haven’t seen a photograph of the late, great Grace Kelly for a few decades and are currently having problems with your eyesight, you just might identify a faint resemblance on the immobilised dial of Nicole Kidman.
“The likeness is soon snuffed out once Kidders must start mouthing away at a script with all the atmosphere, insight and storytelling craft of a flyer for discount carpet cleaning.”
Full review: Grace of Monaco
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)
‘It bites, it sucks, and it just wont die.’
“This constitutes what could well be the most pointless presidential “what if?” that will ever be asked by a Hollywood movie.
“(Unless someone gets a green light for John F. Kennedy: Disco Dancer, or Barrack Obama: Stamp Collector.)”
Full review: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
The Inbetweeners 2 (2014)
‘This movie is the work of outright simpletons.’
“This is a movie that considers the height of comedy to be a grown man involuntarily soiling himself at an amusement park, and then swiftly distributing the associated waste from the top of a busy water slide.
“This sad, smutty, unfunny sequel is all the more tragic because it was filmed right here in Australia.”
Full review: The Inbetweeners 2
Little Death (2014)
‘Laughter-free dead ends’
“It is clear there are millions of movie misanthropes in our midst who’d rather stay home and wash their hair than go out and watch an Australian production.
“However, The Little Death isn’t going to be the one that stops many of them reaching for the nearest shampoo bottle.”
Full review: The Little Death
Diana (2013)
‘As dozy and dimwitted as a mis-told life story on screen can get’
“Any time the watery-willed Diana floats anywhere near this doctorly dreamboat, the diagnosis is a terminal case of true love forever, with some side-symptoms of Mills & Boon syndrome.
“Did Doctor Haz ever look longingly into the eyes of Lady Di and say “sometimes, you don’t perform the operation ... the operation performs you.”?
“If so, there still may be grounds to have Mr Khan (who has understandably derided the film as “completely wrong”) struck off the medical register.”
Full review: Diana
Save Your Legs! (2013)
‘Incapable of laying the bat of a joke upon the ball of a punchline.’
“The umpire raises his finger very early in the screen innings of the dud Australian cricket comedy Save Your Legs!.
“Too dumb or too proud to walk when it should, the film blunders on as if nothing as happened. In spite of the fact no-one really wants to play this game anymore.
“Had the original decision been referred to the third umpire, replays would have shown many a swing and a miss.
“If you’re really after some flannelled fooling-about on the subcontinent, check out the Australian Test team’s current tour of India. That’s no laughing matter either.”
Full review: Save Your Legs!
Originally published as Shield your eyes! These were the most jaw-droppingly bad films of recent years
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