John Scalzi - The Worst Science Fiction Movie of the Last Twelve Months
My overlords at AMC asked me if I plan to do a "best of" look at the science fiction movies of 2008, and I replied that of course I would, because if someone in my position doesn't do that sort of thing, they come to haul him away to the re-education camps, and that's just wrong (Santa doesn't deliver to re-education camps. Santa doesn't like re-education camps. Santa doesn't want to talk about it).
But before I go there, I want to go to the opposite end and talk about what I think was the worst science fiction movie of the last twelve months (you'll note I said "last twelve months" instead of "2008" because in fact the thing was released on Christmas Day 2007, and I'm sneaky like that). And which movie is that? If you guessed Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, give yourself a prize. Unless you actually watched it, in which case give yourself a hug.
Here's a brief synopsis (and accompanying spoiler alert): The movie starts off where the first Alien vs. Predator ended, with an Alien bursting out of a Predator on a ship out in space. This causes the ship to crash, unleashing a horde of aliens on the citizens of a peaceful Colorado town. But then a Predator shows up and starts fighting the aliens, though it's also not really above slaughtering a human or two when they get in the way. So the humans run like scared bunnies, to be picked off willy-nilly by aliens and/or predators. Eventually the whole town gets nuked by the government to contain the menace (it's the only way to be sure!), and mostly everybody dies. The End.
Let me note that I knew going in the film was going to be bad. The first AVP movie was terrible. It was written and helmed by Paul W.S. Anderson, a director of such general hackery that I've actually instructed my film agent to demand I get an extra $2 million if he's attached to direct a movie based on one of my books. And as bad as that film was, it's a rare sequel of a terrible movie that's actually better than the original. But there's bad, from which campy enjoyment can still be wrung (see: Speed Racer), and there's joyless, depressing bad, which this movie oozes.
First there's the technical badness. The Brothers Strause, who directed it, don't have much of a grip on pacing, editing or lighting. It's not a good thing when all the interesting stuff in your movie is impossible to see, and all the stuff you can see is impossible to find interesting. As much as I loathe Paul W.S. Anderson, at least he has a measure of technical know-how. The Strauses don't seem to have much of a clue.
To be fair, it doesn't help the Strauses that their script (from Shane Salerno, who also graced us with Armageddon) is chock full of cardboard characters hastily given minor identifying tics, presumably so we'll be able to set them apart once they get slaughtered. It doesn't work, and what you end up with is a Friday the 13th-like situation where you can simply check off the people who are going to get it: Teenage girl who wants sex? Doomed. Genial husband? Doomed. Jerks who beat up the second lead? Doomed, doomed, doomed. Even the film's Predator doesn't have a clue what he's doing -- the thing comes to Earth to clear out the aliens and remove all trace of their existence, but when some dude discovers him in the act, he leaves the skinned, deboned corpse for the local sheriff to find. To quote myself when this happened in the film: Bwuh?
Now, if this had just been some generic science fiction flick, all would have been fine -- well, not fine, but at least not offensive. But the fact of the matter is that AVP comes out of two decent franchises that began with decent directors (Ridley Scott, James Cameron, David Fincher for Alien; John McTiernan and Stephen Hopkins for Predator). Now we have Anderson and the Strauses, who have not only made bad movies in their own right, but have desecrated source material that's so vastly superior. What's next for this franchise, Uwe Boll? Both aliens and predators deserve better.
The good news is that while this franchise went swirling down the tubes, science fiction movies in general had a pretty decent year. I'll talk more about that soon.
Your thoughts on the worst of science film in the last year? Tell us in the comments.
Winner of the Hugo Award and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, John Scalzi is the author of The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies and the novels Old Man's War and Zoe's Tale. He's also the editor of METAtropolis, an audiobook anthology on Audible.com. His column appears every Thursday.
- Comments (28)
- (11)
- Link
- Add This!
-
I nominate Wanted and Eagle Eye. Although I'm not sure either deserves or rightfully should count as Sci Fi. They weren't absolutely terrible, but neither lived up to my expectations.
Er, Strause. Not Stroud.
That's bad copyediting on my part, Ian. I'll get that fixed.
All better guys -- sorry for the error
I'd certainly count Wanted as sf - and would in normal circumstances certainly put it on my list of worst sf movies. However, the only thing that saves it from being put on the very bottom (pardon the pun) of my list is smokin' hot, wet, naked Angelina Jolie with some awesome tats .In my book, any movie with wet, naked AJ is automatically disqualified as Worst Movie of the Year...
I would have to list "Jumper" as my least favorite SF movie of the year. I tried to like, I really did. I liked the overall concept (I'm a sucker for secret societies fighting each other while keeping it from the outside world - re:Highlander), but it just got too convoluted - and I really don't think that certain things were explained well enough so that knowledge of the book it was based on was not required.
One more copyedit - paragraph 3: The movie starts off where the first Alien vs. Predator ended not "began."
I'd watch AVP:Requiem again before I'd ever again watch 10,000 B.C. That was pure suckage.
And I don't know if it counts as sc-fi, but In the Name of the King was pretty bad, too.
I'm going to have to agree with critter42 on this one: Jumper was a stunning example of a very cool concept absolutely ruined by horrible execution.
Of course, I suppose you could make the same argument about AVP: Requiem. It's built on the backs of two excellent franchises (with the exception of Alien: Resurrection, which was a travesty) and pretty much trashes them both.
On the other hand, I've got both AVP movies on DVD, but the only way Jumper is getting into my house again is if Samuel L. Jackson hand delivers it and provides his own impromptu commentary while we watch it and imbibe heavily.
Actually, I'd watch any movie with a live commentary from Samuel L. Jackson in my living room. Heavy imbibing optional.
So glad I missed this one, but your commentary makes me wish for the John Scalzi version of MST3000---without the stupid robots. Perhaps you and Athena could provide the commentary.
HanCOCK
I will say no more
Uwe Boll! Hahahah!
Actually, I havent seen this AVP flick (as you say the first was bad enough). Now I know to stay away!
I don't have a pick for worst this year, I haven't seen many movies and the ones I did see were GOOD.
I notice that you credited the directors of the first three Alien movies as being good, but left out the director of "Alien: Resurrection". Now, though I haven't seen it, and I hear it's bad, the fact is that that movie had a good director too: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, director of "City Of Lost Children", "Amelie", and "Delicatessen." In fact, he did "Alien: Resurrection" inbetween "City Of Lost Children" and "Amelie", so it's not like it was early in his career before he had gotten good, either.
Just wanted to get that in there for the record.
Buzzhowl:
Actually, I noted Jeunet in the article I turned in, but it was nearly 50% over word budget, so he got edited out of the final.
Suffice to say that although I think he flailed a bit in his Alien outing, he's been pretty brilliant the rest of the time, and in particular City of Lost Children is one of my favorite movies.
Aw, Hancock wasn't that bad. It was fluff, but entertaining enough. (Besides, I don't know that it qualifies as SF).
Even though I didn't see them, I'm willing to bet Space Chimps and Clone Wars would have to be high on the list. Of the SF movies I did see this year, I can't remember any that I didn't enjoy (the three superhero blockbusters Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and The Dark Knight, WALL-E and Igor).
Question about "And as bad as that film [AVP] was, it's a rare sequel of a terrible movie that's actually better than the original": It's unclear whether you're referring to Alien Resurrection or to Predator 2. Must be the former, because Predator 2 (1990) wasn't bad, I thought - even witty at times.
Another minor query: Why is there a "word budget" for an online column? Not that AMC would want you to go on for 10,000 words, but this isn't a newspaper either.
me thinks he was referring to avp as the original and avp requiem as the sequel=) for myself i would second the nomination of "space chimps" for worst scifi film of the last 12 months but i'm not sure it qualifies... it was a kids movie after all and as i am not a kid anymore maybe i was supposed to think it was horrid. i try to be pretty immature though so maybe i do have a right to criticize
I was a collector of the Alien vs. Predator comics from Dark Horse back in the late 80's and early 90's.
When I heard they were importing the crossover to the big screen, I knew in my heart it would be a train wreck.
I've seen pieces of the first AvP, and only heard about the second. Seems I won't have to waste my time.
A shame. AvP as a concept had some real potential. Trust Hollywood to completely trash that potential.
For me, the ALIEN franchise ends at the second film. Ditto for PREDATOR. All else is apocryphy.
I took my kids to see Clone Wars and, yes, it's every bit as bad as the Prequel Trilogy. But it's a veritable masterpiece (Ingmar Bergman's Clone Wars) compared to the utter suckfest that was 10,000 B.C. No movie this year, or, frankly, in the past few years, has sucked with the amount of suckage that that movie sucked.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen the movie yet. I'm saving it for a special night.
I heard something about some pizza delivery guy in this movie too? Am I right?
Babylon AD should be the hands down winner of the worst movie!
Director Mathieu Kassovitz was very unhappy with the distributors, 20th Century Fox, producers and other partners. He described the film as "pure violence and stupidity" and stated that "parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24."
They edited it to be pure action and lost the story...
I wonder if The Day the Earth Stood Still remake qualifies. The ads look bad. And the original still works for me.
Indy IV.
And it's for the very reasons which made this installment qualify as sci-fi this time that makes it the worst science fiction movie of the last twelve months. It's as if someone made a bad action flick out of the book Chariots of the Gods
And, yes, I'm fully aware that a movie was already made based on this book. Guess we have Spielberg's and Lucas's version now.
@David J Batista: I had forgotten all about the fourth Indiana Jones movie. I think as a standalone movie it was okay, but was a letdown as an IJ movie.
But it was still better than Temple of Doom...
I wholeheartedly agree on Hancock, which starts out fine but gradually devolves into nonsense. It keeps breaking its own rules, and just makes stuff up as it goes along. I wrote about five original heroes who could kick Hancock's butt below...
http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2008/11/five-original-movie-superheroes.php
Also, Babylon A.D. looked pretty terrible. Disappointing, considering the director's original intentions sounded interesting.
I'd have to go with "Jumper" if for nothing else than the idiots that made this puke-fest ruined an absolutely awesome revenge SF piece by one of my favorite authors, Steven Gould.
To correct an earlier comment, No.... this putrid piece of pus did NOT follow the book and only gave passing mention to the characters. Please, by all means, read the origional book. Also, after Star Wars 2 & 3, why does ANYONE think that Hayden Christensen can do ANYTHING other than whine on camera. I didn't have a lot of expectations on some of the other movies mentioned, but this one really sucked raw for that reason.
Dave
First off, seconding the disgust with Jumper.
Now on to AvP:R (and, by extension, the AvP franchise).
Well, I suppose using the word "hate" right off the top might be a decent start.
My reasons?
1] Don't take an established mythology (for lack of a better term) and decide to redefine it. Call me a fan boy if you wish, but deciding to make the Aliens smart and the Predators apparently retarded is a bad thing.
2] You don't kill children. Very, very, very, very rarely I will accept a child being killed in a movie, but it must be a critical plot point and it must be handled in a non-titillating fashion. AvP:R fails on this scale on a truly epic scale. Not only does it allow children to die meaninglessly, but it continues on to slaughter even the unborn.
Now, I could go on with the more quotidian complaints, but those two points are my personal objections. "Wanted" was seriously weak given the source material, but at least it was well shot. I could say the same for "Jumper" but Christensen pretty much cancels that out, along with any other redeeming factor it might have. "Emo Jedi" is the death knell for any film. "Babylon A.D." just seemed to be the victim of studio politics.
Nice article, John...
I have to agree with David J Batista, Indy IV. Such a disappointment. It shouldn't have even BEEN sci-fi but because they included those elements in the story line it qualifies as one of the worst sci-fi films of the last twelve months.
Incidentally, Temple of Doom is my favorite Indy film!
I have been out of the movie loop for a while (tight budget, in Japan)
But I just want to throw in there... that Uwe Boll would not be straying from his "roots" as it were, doing an AvP movie, whereas there was a video game by that name. An arcade game, which I might add was my favorite side-scrolling brawler, and 2 FPShooters, the first of which had highly respectable gameplay for the humans and aliens in the single-player campaign bits. (Horror-survival & stealth-action respectively)
I didn't read the AvP comic books, and I haven't seen the 2nd AvP movie... but I did like me some AvP video games!
The Sci-Fi element in Indy IV threw me off as well. I pretty much like any movie with Harrison Ford in it, but the sci-fi alien stuff at the end was just wrong and didn't jive for me.
Still, I don't think it was even close to the worst sci-fi film of the year!!!