Matt's Blog

This week in Australia, a film is being released called Movie 43.  It runs for 90 minutes and features 14 short stories – each from a different director.  You could not find a bigger cast all year.  They don’t have a lot of screen time each but the list of names includes Dennis Quaid, Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Naomi Watts, Emma Stone, Richard Gere, Justin Long, Uma Thurman, Gerard Butler and Halle Berry.

The film wasn’t previewed for Brisbane critics, which started to arouse my suspicions, and then the reviews started coming in thick and fast.  Here’s a sample from Rotten Tomatoes…

"Movie 43" is the Citizen Kane of awful." - Richard Roeper (Chicago Sun-Times)

"Just no." - Kim Newman (Empire Magazine)

"As a film critic, I've seen nearly 4,000 movies over the last fifteen years. Right now, I can't think of one worse than Movie 43." - Elizabeth Weitzman (New York Daily News)

"It rather boggles the mind how so many micromanaging handlers allowed their A-list talent to participate in a production that looks funded from a frat-house's loose-couch-change collection." - Kimberley Jones (Austin Chronicle)

"Don't subject yourself to this crap." - Brett Michel (Boston Phoenix)

"Deadly dull, unfunny, offensive, and stultifyingly clumsy." - Richard Brody (The New Yorker)

"This is the biggest waste of talent in cinema history." - Peter Howell (Toronto Star)

"If you mashed-up the worst parts of the infamous Howard the Duck, Gigli, Ishtar and every other awful movie I've seen since I started reviewing professionally in 1981, it wouldn't begin to approach the sheer soul-sucking badness of Movie 43." - Lou Lumenick (New York Post)

On the Internet Movie Database, the film currently has an average score from the public of just 4.9 out of 10.  There are plenty of films with worse ratings but not a lot with this kind of star power.  The low grade, coupled with the poor opening weekend box-office (just $7.7m over its first 10 days), shows that the broader public aren’t big fans either.

All of this negativity… only makes me want to see it even more!  If it was just an average film, I’d probably find some time over the weekend to check it out.  But since it’s been described as the worst film ever made, I have to see it on opening night!  It could be so bad… that it’s actually kind of fun to watch.  You’ll be able to check out my mini review of the film on my website on Thursday night.