Top 10 Worst/Laziest Movie Posters of All Time...So Far

No I have not titled my review of "Hot Tub Time Machine" wrong and yes I have decided not to review yet therefore this is filler to distract you from that. Basically this topic has been on my mind for quite some time and I thought it might be fun to look back at some of the worst film posters that have graced cinema walls. For this though I will be excluding films that would not have had the cash to launch credible marketing, so no B-movies or the like will be included on this list. Just pure Hollywood trash that was either very badly designed or just a lazy photoshop job. So get ready and prepare your eyes for the worst movie posters I have ever seen.

#1o - Superman 3

If you care to look at any other "worst posters" lists you will generally find this monstrosity at number 1 but I've dropped it down to 10 simply because the art it's self really isn't that bad. By that I mean the quality of the art not the content. Speaking of the content, that is what puts this on the list. Just think about this for a second...Superman is carrying a terrified Richard Pryor through a canyon. What? While yes Superman III has a ridiculous premise, yes the studio thought that Richard Pryor would boost ticket sales and yes this does happen in the movie near the end...why on Earth would Someone decide that this sequence would be what brought the audience into the movie. Superman fights himself and a super computer in this movie and the most exciting part is supposed to be him kidnapping an African American comedian? I can't imagine how many dreams of a good follow up to Superman II would have been shattered when this poster was released.

What it should have been: Superman fighting Evil Superman with the menacing giant super-computer in the background.

#9 - Wanted

As a film, I love "Wanted". I really do but this poster is damn disgraceful. Why? Well for one, what exactly is the focus of this poster? Is it the fact that Angelina Jolie is a Co-star in it or the fact that there is nothing really exciting happening in this movie? Really this film has some awesome action moments and basically all they want to show you is the very expensive actor they got to be in it (no, not Morgan Freeman) and that there will be guns. Wow guns and an A-List actress! What is even more insulting is how they push James McAvoy into the corner like he's so unimportant to the film. Hey, no he's only the main protagonist he's not important. This is just one of those trends where the studio thinks that the star factor is so important that it is all people will need to go and shell out money to see the movie. Bad Hollywood, Bad.

What it Should Have Been: James McAvoy in the same pose with some exciting things around him.


#8 - Bangkok Dangerous

Y'know that time old tradition when advertising an action film of putting your star looking cool and holding a gun? Well the person who created this mess didn't and decided it would be much more exciting if the star didn't hold a gun and just pretended like they were. perhaps they were some hippie pacifist but whoever they are I hope they got fired for this mess...or at least made to pay up the 4 million dollars this film needed to break even. However I must confess that I haven't seen this 2008 turkey so maybe there is a scene where Nick Cage goes around being shot at while pretending to hold a gun. This the best example of photoshopping run amok, the poster is just messy and unexplained and that is somehow supposed to excite the viewer. I guess it's a current trend to do posters like this but Cage holding thin air is just so silly it looks like a mistake.

What it should have been: The same thing with a gun.


#7 - Jerry Maguire

From this poster alone could someone tell me the story of this film. Sure Tom Cruise must be happy in it (probably from all the money he made) but what is it about? As far as I know there is nothing to this head shot of Tom to tell me why this is a good film or why I should spend my money on it. That's it, I got nothing more on this one.

What it Should Have Been: Anything else, heck even a shot of Cruise yelling into a phone would tell me something about what his character does other than just sit around looking happy.

Oh and what did I say about using the star as the main draw to the film...damn you!



#6 - Old Dogs

Oddly enough I couldn't find an English version of this particular poster, it's so damn lazy that it went to the effort to hide it's self in another language. Why do I hate this so much? three good reasons. First, It doesn't tell the audience a damn thing about the movie other than the fact that somewhere a gorilla comes into the picture. Sure it tells you who it stars but shouldn't a poster tell you that anyway along with something about the plot. Oh yeah hey lets go see that movie where Seth Green gets molested by a gorilla! what the hell were they thinking, at least put a dog or something on the poster. Second is the stance John Travolta is in, it's like he knows in he's in a piece of crap movie and just shrugging it off. Like he doesn't know what he's doing in the poster either, ugh. Finally and really this more a general trend that I'm pissed off with and that's the lazy thing of just putting a white background with the stars. Like that's all we need to know to want to see this film. Case in point "The Break Up Plan", "She's out of my League" and even "Hot Tub Time Machine". That's why this poster and all like it suck.


#5 - The Bourne Ultimatum

What the hell!? Couldn't they decide on which poster they were going to use? Don't get me wrong separately these poster look okay but when have you ever seen a poster that is just clearly two separate posters merged into one? It baffles me that someone somewhere though that this was smart. It's not smart or cool, it's damn lazy and it tells me that you (the studio) don't really give a damn about the promotional material. Heck if you look into it all the posters for this movie range from good to awesome yet the one I most commonly saw was this monstrosity that made about as much sense as putting Richard Pryor on a Superman poster. Even so, one poster is supposed to be in colour and the other is in black and white...why would you combine these two! Why would you combine two separate posters at all!?

What it Should Have Been: Non-existent...which will apply to all of the follow posters.


#4 - Killers


Other than the fact that Kutcher clearly doesn't know what he's doing in this movie I have the same problems with it as with Old Dogs. Well minus the gorilla issue. It's worse than Old Dogs though because it has Ashton Kutcher on it. That's a scientific fact too.


Also Doesn't that purple font just screams "Killers".



#3 - World's Greatest Dad

From what I hear this movie is supposed to be pretty good. huh. I never thought a movie about Robin Williams being crushed by giant letters would be good but...shows what I know. The oddest thing about this poster though is the words "Sundance" and "Robin Williams" being on the same image. Not much to say about this, it just looks silly and I think anyone can see that...




#2 - Ghost Town

Where to start on this one. from the photoshopped looking head of Gervais to the fact that it looks like a dentist is about to give someone a prostate check. So what exactly does the "This is how we do it, baby" have to do with dentists?...or Ghosts? It makes the prostate checking dentist even creepier. Oh look there's another tagline..."Get into the Spirit". Wha?

Not only is this creepy but it is confusing and tells you not a damn thing about the fact that the film has Ghosts in it! Sure it has Ghost in the title but did you see any Ghosts in "Ghost World"? ugh

Oh and once again we have the star and a white background. very creative guys.


#1 - Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

And there you have it people, the vastly under looked teaser poster for the worst Star Trek movie ever made. Seems the suckage from the film was so powerful that it pulled in even the promotional material. Hell, this a Star Trek film and the poster is about...what exactly? the film will be going so fast that you might fall out of your chair? No that's stupid...Wait It's probably more likely that they wanted to force you to watch the whole film so you can't ask for a refund. Oh yes no one will be walking out on Star Trek V this summer. Well that's what they would have been thinking back in 1989. Also why is the chair floating in space? shouldn't it be in a theatre? The text should read "Why is Captain Kirk attaching seatbelts to chairs and ejecting them into space this Summer?". On a side note I would actually want to know the answer to that question. And...theatres didn't actually put in seatbelts in so...damn this poster is stupid. A stupid poster for a stupid film...no wonder they never let Shatner direct again. Then again what do you expect from the film that gave us this....

"The Book of Eli" or "Denzel Washington is Cooler in Slow Motion"

So as promised I did go and see "The Book of Eli" this week, which I had been looking forward because really there has been a fair lack of post-apocalyptic films recently. Then again I believe in times of economic down turns the general public tend to move towards more optimistic cinema rather than depressing hell holes. Anyhow come along with me now as we enter into a world quite like our own except everything is blown up, rapists roam the roads and a single man will bring hope. Sounds like "Mad Max 2" ey?

SPOILER TIME

The film starts with a dark forest and a very hairless cat feasting on a dead body while a man in a gas mask lays on the ground aiming a bow at the clearly staving animal. The bow fires and from the first minute we see the thing that annoyed me the most about this movie, unneeded slow motion. The arrow slowly moves with bad CGI before impaling the cat and fading to a different scene of Denzel's Eli walking down a long long road very very slowly. Yes apparently Denzel Washington looks so cool walking that we need to see it over and over. Some might argue that it's to show his incredibly long journey and how far he has traveled. Fair enough but that doesn't explain why the hell it's in slow motion, only cool things like arrows flying trough air are supposed to be in slow motion, its a law of cinema! Anyway Eli slowly makes it to a shake where in he finds a dead body and makes camp for the night also choosing to barbecue the cat he had killed earlier. Morning comes and Eli walks yet again through this over exposed wasteland leading him to a girl with a broken shopping cart who wants help with repairing the cart. Anyway it (obviously) is a trap and Eli quickly hacks and slashes through the men before leaving the shopping trolley bait girl to die I guess. The road takes Eli to another situation where by another gang is attacking a couple and instead of dropping down to save them he just mutters about "keeping to the path" while they preceded to rape the girl.

The gang then rides their motorbikes to a town where they report to our clear bad guy Gary Oldman, who is always evil unless it's a "Batman" movie. Apparently our villain, Carnegie is sending these scavengers out to collect books in hopes that he might find one very powerful paperback. Eli walks into town to recharge his ipod and get something to drink but runs into the rapist book collecting gang while in the bar, who don't take kindly to...well anyone it seems. Eli again kills them all with ease and gets Carnegie's attention who tries to hire him but to no avail. Carnegie suggests the Eli stay the night and sample some local hospitality *wink wink* and gets a girl named Solara (Mila Kunis or the chick from "That 70's show") to seduce Eli. Solara fails because Eli would rather just eat and teach her how to pray which she later teaches to her mother. Carnegie hears them communing with God and realises that Eli must have the all powerful book that he is looking for, Eli however escapes before Carnegie can question him. But Eli has one very important thing to do before he leave, collect his still charging ipod. Carnegie and his men intercept Eli before he can leave but again Eli kicks the crap out of everyone and leaves town.

Solara follows him and the two share some buddy time before Eli dumps her because its too dangerous or something. She tries to catch up to Eli but runs into...the same girl with the broken shopping cart. The new group of scavengers capture Solara and try to rape her, lucky for her though Eli appears and kills the rapists with arrows to the crotch. Carnegie and his men give chase as well by this time and Solara and Eli continue walking. The unlikely pair reach a house owned by two old survivalist cannibals who serve them tea and play records. Carnegie though doesn't like tea parties and decides to crash it, leading to a stand off with the group. The old cannibals are killed and both Eli and Solara are captured. Carnegie shoots Eli and takes his Bible and companion. Solara however kills some of Carnegie's men and hijacks one of the cars, speeding back to aid the now dying Eli who she finds is still walking out west. Carnegie decides not pursue them and go back with his all powerful prize while Eli and Solara make it all the way to San Francisco. Eventually the two make it Alcatraz where a group is trying to retain culture and would be able to keep the Bible safe if Eli had it.

Fortunately for Eli he has memorized the whole Bible because in a dramatic twist it turns out he's been blind this whole time. you know what that means, the Bible is in braille and Carnegie can't use it. Eli recites the Bible so it can be rewritten and dies while Carnegie's empire crashes because too many of his men had died pursuing the now useless book. Solara takes Eli's weapons and heads back out into the world to...do something. The End.

Ok. Firstly I did enjoy this film greatly, it had enough action and great performances to keep my attention and want more. However that said this film does have numerous faults in it's story line that should not have really been there and the major one is the suggestion that Eli has been blind for the whole movie. Now I can buy a blind guy kicking the crap out of people that's all cool, what I don't buy is the fact that throughout the whole film we can see the Eli can clearly see. We see him look at the sky in the morning, look at things around him and look at the people he's talking to. It doesn't detract much from the story but it certainly takes you out of the film and go "hang on a minute what about when...". This and the stupid use of slow motion in almost every walking scene got on my nerves.

Other than that though I quite enjoyed this and it had many homages to previous post-apocalyptic auctioneers and even had a cool little reference to the film that basically spawned the genre "A Boy and his Dog" which most people have never heard of. The action is smooth and well handled along with some very in depth characters, even Ray Stevenson's henchman seems clearly uncertain about following his employer's every wish.

I'm gonna give it
4 out of 5 stars...


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"Kick Ass" or "Nicolas Cage Imitates Adam West"

Well I finally made it out to cinema to see the adaption of Mark Miller's "Kick Ass" and got what the title promised. This film has been the first to break the spell of fairly forgettable and mediocre films that I've seen this year. Even "Shutter Island" didn't do it for me. However "Kick Ass" did and I'm still reeling from the awesome.

BEGIN SPOILERS
Basically the film revolves around loser kid Dave who reads comics and spends alot of time wishing he could get the girl of his dreams etc etc and decides to become a superhero. . Eventually it becomes a fad and we get a supporting cast of heroes coming into the picture. Alot of the film follows Dave's struggles with...well being a competent hero which becomes the central comedy of the piece. Oh this isn't an out right parody as some have been lead to believe, it contains alot black humor. I don't really want to go in depth about the plot because it is fairly straight forward. What makes this an above average comic book movie is the performances, especially Nicolas Cage who plays "Big Daddy". Cage has gone on record saying he tried to imitate the same dramatic pauses Adam West used when he played Batman way back in the 60's and it makes for some hilarious moments...but it's only really funny if you know that. Really if the movie was only about "Big Daddy" it would have been the most awesome thing ever, kinda like if there was ever a "Star Wars" movie just about "Boba Fett". Cage does a fine job even when his character sadly meets his end he manages to pull a somewhat funny but painful moment. It's good to see Cage finally get to play in a good comic book movie rather then his previous films in the same genre. With him being a huge comic book fan he deserved it.

Chloe Moretz who plays "Hit Girl" also does a stand up job but that might be due to the shock of seeing an 11 year old cuss and shoot people. But hey that's the dark humor for you. Moretz also manages to pull off a maturity that many of the other characters don't have, which is impressive for an actor of her age.

One of the oddest things about this movie for me at least is that the film score steals pieces from John Murphy's film scores. Music pieces from both "28 Days Later" and "Sunshine" appear in the film with some great effect but it left me feeling alittle annoyed. I don't know if it's because I love both those scores so much or what but it did put me off a little. Also a part of Ennio Morricone's score for "A Few Dollars More " pops up too but I feel didn't work as well as the others. On a side note it also annoys me that John Murphy and Clint Mansell's scores are constantly used in trailers for movies that they dont appear in.

Really that's my only criticism and other than that the film was practically perfect in what it tries to be. It is a funny but dark action packed comic book movie with some great performances. It captures the spirit of the comic and translates it the screen with ease and director Matthew Vaughn does as good a job here as he did with "Layer Cake" (one of my favourite films actually). It seems that the better a film is the less I have to say about it. Oh if you like jetpacks and bazookas you will definitely love the climax of this movie.

So if like with "Watchmen" if you like comic books, violence or little girls beating the crap out of people, "Kick Ass" will satisfy all your needs.

5 out 5 Stars

Tune in soon for my review of "The Book of Eli"

Also coming soon "Hot Tub Time Machine" and more retro-vision.

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Retro-Vision: "The Lost World" (1960)

I was planning on getting out to see "Kick-Ass" last week so I could review it but things have prevented me from doing so. Anyway instead I'm giving the gift of retro-vision, an occasional (ie. when I haven't got something new to review) series on the films of old. So sit back and continue reading as we begin our journey into ye olde movies with the 1960's Irwin Allen production of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World".

Oh and of course...SPOILERS

Basically the film starts with our possibly mad Professor Challenger (Claude Rains) arriving in London and hitting our lead on the head with an umbrella. Seriously. Ed Malone (David Hedison) is a reporter bothering Challenger and he consequentially hits him and then announces a meeting with the London Zoological Society. Ed then meets our female lead Jennifer Holmes (Jill St. John) and together they attended the meeting where Challenger claims that he has found an isolated plateau in South America where dinosaurs still roam. Challenger then dares rival Professor Summerlee (Richard Haydn) to send an expedition to confirm Challenger's claims, because that's how all scientific expeditions start off. Anyhow, after some convenient plot developments the expedition team ends up consiting of Ed, Challenger, Summerlee, Lord Roxton (Michael Rennie) and later Jennifer and her brother David (Ray Stricklyn) squeeze in there too.

The team heads to South America and is again joined by yet another member Manuel Gomez (Fernando Lemas). Who basically has the soul purpose of creating unnecessary drama later on. Oh and he's a pilot...or a guide or something that is apparently usefull. That said he is one of the more interesting characters.

The team takes a nice helicopter ride to the plateau and soon they discover that Challenger is not insane and that the dinosaurs are not only real but also hate helicopters. The team's one way off the plateau is destroyed and they are trapped. They discover that along with the prehistoric life there is also giant spiders and a primitive tribe of people who somehow know how to use guns. Along with this shocking development is the discovery of Burton White's diary, another explorer who went with Lord Roxton on an earlier expedition to find diamonds. Oh and it turns out Manuel's brother was also on the expedition with Roxton and that Jennifer now has a love interest in Ed. The rest of the movie unfolds on these lines with one dinosaur battle thrown in and the group being captured by the primitive tribe who also turn out to be cannibals. After being captured the team are lead by one of the befriended tribe women to the now blind Burton White who informs the team of a way out that just happens to be incredibly dangerous. Manuel also learns his brother is dead and intends to take revenge on Roxton. Thus begins a harrowing journey through the pathway out which involves lava and eventually diamonds. Manuel eventually decides not to kill Roxton and sacrifices himself to save the others and the plateau explodes for one reason or another. Jennifer and Ed hook up and Challenger somehow snuck a dinosaur egg out of the lost world to prove to the rest of the world that he was right. The End.

Really there's alot more to this but its the basics that you need to know. This is in no way a great film, everything just bearly works. The acting is average, the "special" effects are poor even for the 1960's and over all the film fails to really give the audience anything to be amazed at.
The film takes way too long to get to the plateau and then to see one of the creatures, there is way too much filler put in to set up the internal tension the expedition has later on. I would not have a problem with this if the story needed internal character tension but in a film where people are surround by giant spiders and dinosaurs it is not really necessary. This fact made me incredibly frustrated when watching simply because I wanted to see some dinosaurs killing people rather than David trying to get it on with primitive woman. Another problem is that none of the team are killed until the very end of the film (where Manuel's assistant is eaten by dinosaur) and this makes it very hard to feel that the characters are ever in any real mortal danger.

As I said the special effects are fairly silly, mainly being lizards with horns glued on and then projected behind the actors. I know it was the 60's but I feel stop motion animation would have worked much better here, it's hard to take the lizards as dinosaurs and therefore harder to believe in the world that the film is trying to create. Heck even if it looked remotely like a T-Rex I could buy it and just write it off due to the film's age.

The size of the cast can also be annoying but I guess this also ties into the whole "no one being killed" problem. Usually in a film like this with an cast of this size you would expect maybe 2 or 3 to make it out but here everyone (except Manuel and his assistant) make it out to a happy ending. I just don't buy that. It's about as believable as someone telling you a small lizard is a baby T-Rex.

Overall "The Lost World" has it's camp value and charm being from Irwin Allen's golden age but there are just too many problems to make it truly enjoyable. Maybe I'm nitpicking and I'm sure people who saw this as kids loved it but ultimately it falls flat on it's face.

2 out 5 Stars

Well that's all for Retro-vision, tune in later for (hopefully) my review of "Kick-Ass"

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"Clashing Titans" or "How I returned to being bored enough to blog about stuff"

Well I really have let this blog go havn't I? Well good news everyone, this is the first installment of what I'm hoping will be a weekly onslaught of my reviewing of what popular culture I have recently partaken of. Cinema, Musics and Comic books. So welcome aboard and get ready to spin the wheel of culture and listen to me ramble on about the last films I've seen.

If you havnt been living in a cave or a small African villiage you might know that the 1981 film "Clash of the Titans" has been remade to star Sam Worthington and that guy who bruised James Bond's balls. Thats Mads Mikkelsen by the way. Oh also this will be a fairly in depth review so I'm gonna have to write spoilers in big capital letters and some alerting colour. SPOILERS.

So the film follows a baby in a crate (Perseus) who gets found by an old fisherman who takes him in as his own son as another Bond star (Gemma Arterton) narrates the special specialness of the baby in the crate. Flash forward past some random bonding scenes and murmers of unrest between man and the gods untill Perseus and his family arrive at the statue of Zeus...which just happens to be in the process of being destroyed by some soldier guys. Hades (Ralph Fiennes) shows up in the form of some flying demon monkeys and slaughters the soldiers before reforming into his human-ish form and killing Perseus family with his powers. See where this is going yet? Hades goes to Mount Olympus and gets permission from Zeus to do damage to man in order to get them to love the gods once again...riiiggghhhtt.

Perseus is found by the surviving soldiers and taken to some Argos city or something where the revolution against the gods has begun. Hades shows up again and kills a bunch of soldiers and reveals that Perseus is a demi-god. Some stuff goes on about a sacrifice of a princess to the Kraken. So Perseus (now seeking revenge against Hades), Mads and some other two bit actors go out on a quest to ask some witches about how to kill the Kraken in order to spare the princess' life. While out on this quest, Hades approaches Acrisius who wants vengance on Zeus for banging his wife. After Zeus had basically raped Acrisius' wife she gave birth to Perseus. Anyway Hades blows black smoke into Acrisius and gives him magical powers to go and hunt down Perseus. So Acrisius attacks Perseus and his troop of men before truning to a chase in a desert where by Acrisius' blood turns the sand in to giant scorpions. So obviously the smoke gave him the "turn sand into giant scorpions power" instead of say...cancer. A fight ensues and some people die and basically Acrisius gets away and a bunch of wood skinned sand people come to save the day. The wood people have some magic powers aswell and tame the surviving giant scorpions so that they can ride them to their destination.

Finally they get to these 3 witches who try and eat some people but eventually get forced into telling Perseus how to beat the Kraken which is basically using the gaze of Medusa. So 1 + 1 = 2, Perseus and the gang travel to Medusa's lair where they are all killed bar Perseus who wins Medusa's head. Perseus then fights Acrisius and finally bests him. With time running out he rushes back to Argos and after a long drawn out chase scene involving a pegasus and Hades flying demon monkey form Perseus turns the Kraken to stone and leaves Argos forever.

Thats basically the plot in a nutshell...Oh theres some underplayed and badly handled love story between Perseus and IO our former narrarator...And some subplot involving Hadews betraying Zeus and wanting to rule over man himself (like you couldnt see that one coming).

Two major issues I have with this movie.

1. Killing off everyone in one fight that IS NOT the end battle. Seriously, everyone dies in the Medusa battle. Each character is dispatched fairly easily and oddly IE our wood skinned character exploding for some reason while Medusa is crushing him. Mads' Character dies to give Perseus the edge which would be fine if every other supporting character did not die as well. It's like seeing the entire cast of "Friday the 13th" film being killed off 5 minutes into the movie. Someone should have survived.

2. The Climax. The fight after this against the Kraken is rediculously easy. So easy that Hades has to show up and steal the Medusa head before Perseus can use it, allowing for a boring chase scene. It's so predictable and annoying that the whole climax falls apart (much like the Kraken). WHY? We didnt even have some soldiers trying to fight the Kraken in vain, just people running and being squashed. The drama of an action scene is about the possibility of the supporting cast being killed but when they are already dead who gives a damn! Hell, if they had left...say Mads' character alive he could have been doing some fighting with the Kraken while Perseus is playing chasey with Hades. This is a terrible way to end an epic film and really just annoyed me to no end.

This movie falls from being a solid popcorn film to just being passable as a film.
3 stars out of 5

Anyway thats it from me for now, guess ill take another movie and rip the hell out of it next week. untill then...


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