5) Priest
Ugh. Forget the not-so-subtle religious messages, the boring fight scenes and the extremely heavy-handed sequel hook, this movie was most disappointing because it insisted on making its monsters vampires. I don't care how you repackage them, we're done with vampires for at least the next decade. This movie would've been at least seventeen times more enjoyable if the audience didn't have to sit and mentally reconcile this with Twilight. In addition, the movie was short as hell. Eighty-seven minutes? I wasn't done with my popcorn before it was over.
4) Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Okay, I suppose we should've been ready for this one. Michael Bay at the helm is already a recipe for disaster, let alone the fact that it's a sequel. But did we really need the thinly veiled references to Chernobyl, or the Challenger explosion, or even 9/11? There's a difference between edgy and flat-out disrespectful. Come to think of it, did we need another Transformers movie at all?
3) Thor
This movie would have been so awesome if it weren't for the fact that it had so much going on. Trying to fit a dozen characters into a movie less than two hours long and trying to make the audience care about what happens to them will not work. In fact, this movie would have been much better if it had stuck with either the "new guy tries to acclimate to Earth" plot or the "Thor's got some brother issues" plot rather than trying to cram them both into the same space. With so much going on, the entire movie wound up flat.
2) Atlas Shrugged
Whether or not you like her philosophy, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged was actually a pretty damn amazing book. While it's inevitable that the movie would have to be a multi-parter, it's disappointing that there was so little depth to the first installment. No one really wants to pay tickets to see a few hours of exposition for two future movies. I don't know if this was an avoidable problem or not, but it certainly made the movie pale in comparison to expectations.
1) Sucker Punch
How do you screw up a movie with huge fight scenes and half-naked women? I don't know, but somehow Zack Snyder managed to do it. This movie was about as interesting and/or appealing as a loaf of stale bread. The soundtrack and aesthetics were both good, but the movie itself was horribly written and directed. Seriously, if you're boring your audience while a chick in a school girl out fit is fighting dragons and steampunk Nazis, then you're doing something terribly, terribly wrong.
(Words: Matthew S)
