Bad Movie Meme: The Painfully Bad, the Ridiculously Bad, and the Truly, Truly Awful

I have been tagged by Chris Bracey to take part in the bad movie meme that going around the law blogosphere.  I'm honored.  Like a lot of folks, I have a special place in my heart for bad movies.  If you share this affinity, may I recommend  I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie by Roger Ebert (available at Amazon and Google Books).  I've long been an Ebert fan, back to when I watched him on PBS with Gene Siskel.  He was one of the first critics to get all of his reviews up on the Internet; you can search his site here.  Hated, Hated, Hated is simply a collection of his bad reviews -- or, more accurately, his very entertaining reviews of bad movies.  (He has another collection which I have not read called Your Movie Sucks.)

Because I cannot bring myself to cut down on my list of three movies, I'll talk about each.  I also agree with Dan Solove that Matrix: Revolutions and the Star Wars I-III deserve particular enmity for their trashings of treasured franchises.  But these movies are worse.

By the way, I saw all of these movies in the theater.

Painfully Bad

The Ghost and the Darkness.  The set-up has potential: Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas as hunters chasing after a pair of man-eating lions.  But the execution is horrible.  This movie is bad in an uncomfortable, why-am-I-wasting-my-time sort of a way.  The only mildly entertaining element is Douglas's wild-eyed Quint impersonation.  It's horrible, but in a slightly amusing way.  Here's Ebert's take:  "It lacks even the usual charm of being so bad it's funny. It's just bad. Not funny. "

Ridiculously Bad

Jaws: The Revenge.  I love Jaws.  It's a great movie.  Jaws 2, however, is bad.  Jaws 3 is horrible; it takes place at a "Sea World" ripoff and has the most laughably-bad special effects I've ever seen, at the most critical point in the movie.  (Think shark -as-dirigible.)  But Jaws: The Revenge is so illogical, so contrary to reality and human understanding that it beggars belief.  I could spend hours on this movie, but just one detail: the movie cuts from a scene of a woman in a plane to a scene of the shark, swimming in the water, following the plane.  Ebert completely deconstructs the movie here.  Here's a taste: "I believe that the shark wants revenge against Mrs. Brody. I do. I really do believe it. After all, her husband was one of the men who hunted this shark and killed it, blowing it to bits. And what shark wouldn't want revenge against the survivors of the men who killed it?"

Truly, Truly Awful

King Kong Lives.  King Kong Lives is a sequel, not to the original King Kong, but to the 1976 remake starring Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange.  They are nowhere to be found, but poor Linda Hamilton is, fresh off the original "Terminator".  I guess she was already under contract.  The movie opens with King Kong crumpled in a heap at the base of the Twin Towers.  But he's not dead; in fact, he becomes the recipient of the world's largest (and only successful) artificial heart.  In order to make up for his blood loss, a female Kong is found for transfusions.  Chaos ensues.  The movie closes with a baby Kong; unlike other babies, this Kong is simply a much smaller gorilla with adult proportions.  In other words -- a guy in a gorilla suit.  Here's Ebert: "Every movie like this has at least one amazing line of dialogue. I especially liked it when the heroine cried to the Army troops: 'Don't shoot the female! She's gone into labor!' This moment was especially amazing since the two Kongs had mated for the first time only three days earlier."

Thanks again to Chris for this opportunity.  And now I'll "tag" two folks at the Glom -- Christine Hurt & David Zaring.  I'm looking forward to their picks.