Top Box Office Movies - Frank Ochieng's Top 10 Worst Films of 2006

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And now, Frank Ochieng’s Top Ten Worst Films of 2005 are:
* click on BLUE title for a review.

BIG MOMMA’S HOUSE 2 (20th Century Fox)
Frank’s original rating:

Frank’s unfavorable impression: “As absurd and blatantly offensive as Momma purports to be in its bloated skin, there’s not one genuinely funny tidbit to behold in this chunky comedy.”

BOTTOM LINE: I guess laughing at sassy, extremely obese black woman in stereotypical fashion may indeed satisfy the chuckles for folks that find this mindless mockery an infectious riot. For others that garner an ounce of common sense, Big Momma’s House 2 is just another desperate excuse for Lawrence to make his lopsided and sluggish presence a cheap display of easy laughs with obvious and cruel-minded sight gags. Also, the irritating and constant mugging of a comedian not knowing when to take a hint and not overstay his welcome is quite apparent. Cheesy, inconsequential and dimwitted, Big Momma’s House 2 is about as comical as an anorexic at a Weight Watcher’s convention.

BLOODRAYNE (Romar Entertainment)
Frank’s original rating:

Frank’s unfavorable impression: “...[an] undercooked formulaic fright fable...why would anyone let him (Boll) get three feet within the range of an operating movie camera?”

BOTTOM LINE: Filmmaker (and I use that term very loosely) Uwe Boll is consistent in his bid to outshine the late Ed Wood as the ultimate bad moviemaker ever to yell “cut...that’s a wrap” on a movie soundstage. Sadly, BloodRayne is the typical norm of a Boll banal blockbuster that fails to give any sensationalistic rush into the video game-turned-into-a big screen adaptation genre. Much like Boll’s other insipid “cinematic inspirations”, BloodRayne is painfully uninspired, unredeemable, impishly negligent and relentlessly tiresome in its gutless gory vibes. As a horror movie hack of the poorest order, Boll continues to grate on the nerves with his flimsy frightfests and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better I’m afraid. BloodRayne is a vapid vampire tale that’s so appropriate for Boll’s sensibilities as a flaccid film director because he seems to suck the life out of the clueless moviegoers looking to invest some escapist entertainment value in his soured selection of throwaway thrillers.

CLICK (Columbia Pictures)
Frank’s original rating:

Frank’s unfavorable impression: “ [A] painfully generic and gimmicky comedy. Relentlessly interminable, predictable and drowsy in concept...Sandler’s man-child has already run its course ad nauseam.”

BOTTOM LINE: Another redundant and pointless Adam Sandler comedy. Oscar-winner Christopher Walken doing another inexplicable role as he desperately needs money to buy a pack of smokes. Overall an unredeemable and clunky special effects farce that’s grating on the nerves. Enough said.

THE COVENANT (Screen Gems)
Frank’s original rating:

Frank’s unfavorable impression: “This sophomoric supernatural stinker couldn’t put a spell on a disabled frog. The Covenant has all the intriguing mysticism of a bent magic wand.”

BOTTOM LINE: Renny Harlin’s flaccid male-oriented version of TV’s Charmed. The premise: pretty boy protagonists situated at a New England-based boarding school. So what’s the twist? Well, they are blessed with special magical spells that are bewitching in its banality. Harlin has no clear vision as to how to helm this twitching turkey. Other than hormonal schoolgirls and Harry Potter castoffs, The Covenant will not appeal to anybody with any sense of entertaining backbone. Harlin’s witchery wasteland is so juvenile and unimaginative that this makes the filmmaker’s previous flops look like fodder for the American Film Institute. With The Covenant, all you wished for as far as a magic trick was concerned was whether or not this hackneyed hocus-pocus stupidity would immediately disappear.

GARFIELD: A TAIL OF TWO KITTIES (20th Century Fox)
Frank’s original rating:

Frank’s unfavorable impression: “It’s too bad that curiosity didn’t kill this particular cat. However, the rest of us will find more stimulating time mindlessly playing with a ball of yarn.”

BOTTOM LINE: The kiddie catbox comedy known as Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties had one major element going for it: its playful title. It’s a shame that a movie title with a clever pun is the only creative vibe in this tedious hairball (and hair-brained) laugher. The filmmakers surprisingly got Academy Award nominee Bill Murray to reprise his voiced role as one of America’s favorite droll pot-bellied felines. Murray seems bored with the task and you can’t blame him—there’s not much to smile about concerning Garfield’s trip over the pond to merry old England where he meets up with his British twin and switches places. Even though the glib Garfield’s exploits are aimed primarily at children they may still feel the stillborn effects of a predictable furball whose meow isn’t as interesting as his scratch for this bundle of baseless family fare.

THE GRUDGE 2 (Sony Pictures Entertainment)
Frank’s original rating:

Frank’s unfavorable impression: “Consequently, The Grudge 2 is ruthlessly uneventful and as generically scary as stale pumpkin pie two weeks removed from a sedate Halloween party.”

BOTTOM LINE: Takashi Shimizu serves up his scattershot scarefest The Grudge 2 with the promise of capitalizing on the film’s 2004 hit-making predecessor. The first edition wasn’t exactly anything to write home about but Shimizu doesn’t sweeten the pot with this convoluted and incomprehensible entry. This shoddy spooky spectacle is more of the same inane and idiotic bump-and-grind twitches involving a Californian cutie Aubrey (Amber Tamblyn) searching for her unbalanced sister Karen (Sarah Michelle Gellar, the heroine from the original The Grudge) in the Far East (Tokyo). There have been stellar Japanese horror flicks that made this kind of genre ripe for the picking. Unfortunately, The Grudge 2 doesn’t live up to the expectations of this aforementioned genre. Laughable and inconsequential, it’s not worth holding a “Grudge” for Shimizu’s breezy boofest.

JUST MY LUCK (20th Century Fox)
Frank’s original rating:

Frank’s unfavorable impression: “Slight, pointless and convincingly witless. Lohan’s cinematic Luck runs out instantaneously...[this] convoluted comical piece is as lucky as a mutilated 2-leaf clover.”

BOTTOM LINE: A relentlessly cheesy romantic slapstick sitcom that tries to propel the tabloid appeal of its star Lindsay Lohan. Just My Luck wants to wallow in its wackiness but screenwriters I. Marlene King and Amy Harris concoct a shallow farce that rambles on in utter disarray. Director Donald Petrie lets the chips fall where they may about a New York-based gal named Ashley Albright (Lohan) that appears to be the luckiest young lady around in the Big Apple. But when Ashley meets a hapless partygoer and plants a kiss on him her fortunes are drained and she is rendered vulnerable. But guess what folks...we’re rendered vulnerable as well. This tripe wants to entice Lohan devotees (read: teenyboppers) and hand her over as a carefree cutie pie in a whimsical romp that’s meant to empower the youthful masses. Merely superficial and goofy-minded, Just My Luck just reinforced what a distraction Lohan has been both on and off screen.

LITTLE MAN (Sony Pictures Entertainment)
Frank’s original rating:

Frank’s unfavorable impression: “[The Wayanses] collaborate on another forgettable farce drenched in vapid vulgarity...[a] pea-brained prank. Anyone game for White Chicks II?”

BOTTOM LINE: There’s no denying the fact that the Wayans clan is the funniest family working in all aspects of comedy today. When they are creatively on the move, pop culture is guaranteed an automatic addition to its cluttered shelves. But when the sassy siblings decide to mail in the forced funnybones in the name of gimmicky junk, their credibility is to be questioned. Hence Little Man is simple-minded and uninspired in its premise about a diminutive deviant jewel thief (Marlon Wayans) posing as an abandoned infant while infiltrating a suburban couple’s (Sean Wayans and Kerry Washington) home as he tries to obtain a handsome gem that lies in their midst. Crude, cartoonish and crass, Little Man is a big disappointment for the tandem siblings and their big brother Keenan that directed this meager mockery.

THE WICKER MAN (Warner Bros.)
Frank’s original rating:

Frank’s unfavorable impression: “LaBute’s meandering and goofy-minded horror/suspense thriller Wicker will garner more spontaneous chuckles than an overactive feather tickling a sensitive underarm.”

BOTTOM LINE: Who would believe that this silly-minded spookfest The Wicker Man would have such talent attached to this spellbinding sludge of a movie? Where could one go wrong with a filmmaker of Neil LaBute’s (“In the Company of Men”) caliber? And how about securing Oscar-winners such as Nicholas Cage and Ellen Burnstyn for this pitiful project? Whatever the deal, The Wicker Man is an unintentional comedy that is so outlandish and insignificant that one wouldn’t associate this updated toothless thriller with the bouncy early 70’s British cult flick that featured legendary character actor Christopher Lee. Californian motorcycle police officer Edward Malus (Cage) finds him investigating the disappearance of his former lover’s daughter. This takes Malus into the world of feminine pagan worshippers where earth goddess overseer Sister Summersisle (Burnstyn) rules with an iron thumb. This whole meditative mumbo-jumbo is hogwash and the folks associated with this deluded ditty should be embarrassed. Alas, The Wicker Man is one prolonged curse.

ZOOM (Sony Pictures Entertainment)
Frank’s original rating:

Frank’s unfavorable impression: “Infantile, unfocused and dreadfully inept, Zoom is badly conceived...a totally faceless fable that strains for enlightenment but merely ends up as a disastrous diversion.”

BOTTOM LINE: Fluffy and flaky family fare that is as only as its star power. In this case, the likes of Chevy Chase and Tim Allen fill the bill. Oh well, so much for having two strikes against you! Zoom is so amateurish and generic in concept that this junior Sky King rip-off is a buffoonish mishap. This 83-minute sci-fi kooky contraption not only features the insufferable Allen in yet another sketchy family flick but manages to turn the once walking punchline Chase back into...well, you guessed it...a walking punchline. Simple-minded, sluggish and immediately forgettable, director Peter (“Garfield”) Hewitt’s Zoom is a verifiable zit in the genre of patchy, candy-coated kiddie space-aged comedies.

HONORABLE MENTION

ACCEPTED (Universal Pictures)
Frank’s original rating:

Frank’s unfavorable impression: “Unfortunately for Accepted, the movie’s make-the-grade spunkiness as a collegiate cut-up has been emphatically Denied.”

BOTTOM LINE: There have been many Animal House copycats over the years. With 2006’s Accepted, this was another painful reminder that clueless collegiate comedies can never make the grade with the master of “drunk and stupid” campus cut-ups known as the one and only Animal House.

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Frank Ochieng
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