Each year I have a special issue devoted to Mr. Cranky. I was introduced to his wit about 5 years ago and he never stops entertaining.
He’s an on-line critic in America who gives every film a bad review! They are all rated on a scale from 1 bomb to 5 bombs. A special nuclear explosion is reserved for truly god-awful films.
Whilst I don’t need to read his reviews for the good films, reading his reviews for films I thought were dismal almost always provides a laugh. He’s crude but it’s great.
So here’s a look at some of the carve ups we’ve seen from Mr. Cranky in the past year. If you’d like to read more, make sure you check out his website at www.mrcranky.com. Enjoy.
The Man
“The evil guys, like all gun runners, drive around in a black BMW, but are so laughably non-threatening I had a sneaking suspicion that some of the secondary bad guys were the director's old frat buddies or possibly won the role in some sort of radio station promotion. Note to Hollywood: Throwing a leather jacket on a stocky white guy does not make him look like a menacing gun-trafficker. It makes him look like a stocky white guy who happened to be the fifth caller.”
The Transporter 2
“Frank and bad guy Gianni have a fight in a plane that's flying out of control. If this weren't stupid enough, the plane crashes into the ocean going full speed and Frank manages to swim out the back of the plane as the water comes rushing in the front of the plane. This is so inconceivably stupid that I don't think I'm doing it justice. Apparently, the filmmakers don't understand that a plane hitting the water going 200 miles an hour is about the same as a human being hitting the ground at 200 miles an hour. It's like that joke about the last thing that goes through a fly's mind when it hits your windshield.”
The Cave
“"The Cave" feels like a straight-to-video rehash of every alien-on-the-loose movie ever made. Call it "Pitch Black 2" or "Alien v. Predator 2" or whatever other movie that has a bunch of people in a dark space being chased around by freaky-looking monsters. Predictably, the monster is kept in shadows, moves too fast to be seen, and is out of focus whenever it appears. As for the action scenes themselves, I've had epileptic seizures that were more coherent. And is it just me or does every alien or monster or genetic mutant creature look exactly the same now? It's like these movies are having sex with each other.”
The Dukes Of Hazzard
“The only thing resembling acting in "The Dukes of Hazzard" is the occasional eyebrow raise. Whenever a character has to convey a strong emotional reaction, inevitably an eyebrow goes up. Given that this film's cast is a veritable support group for the untalented, it's not five minutes into the movie before eyebrows start to fly. The worst offender is Reynolds, who looks like he's celebrating the fact that the Botox wore off from his last remake, "The Longest Yard."”
Bewitched
“A movie based on a TV show would be incestuous and uninteresting enough, but "Bewitched” dares to be a movie about the making of a remake of a TV show. It's set on a studio set. Its actors play actors. The whole thing is the creative equivalent of fantasizing about masturbating because you're too lazy to bother actually doing it.”
Dark Water
“Basically what I'm saying is that the film is nothing more than a cheap trick. There is nothing in the movie that is persuasively real. The end result is like watching two reels of one movie only to be surprised when the third reel turns out to be another movie. It just all feels like a complete waste of time.”
Fantastic Four
“Unfortunately, even pre-teens might not have their mental abilities taxed during this particular comic book adaptation. The movie is about as deep as a silverware tray and the cast was culled during the coffee break over at the FX network. "Fantastic Four" is the decaffeinated coffee, skim milk, and diet Cola of its genre. Everything that could give the movie any flavor at all has been skillfully and purposefully excised.”
The Honeymooners
“The studio has already telegraphed that this movie is a piece of crap by giving it next to no advertising support. I didn't even know this was a film or who was in it before looking in the newspaper. I never saw one trailer. That's not exactly confidence.”
Lords Of Dogtown
“"Lords of Dogtown" feels like half a movie that's been stretched to look like a whole one. In other words, there's simply not enough story here to warrant a whole film. To make matters worse, the characters aren't interesting enough to carry what little story there is.”
Alexander
Watching "Alexander" is like going on a first date, noticing in the first five minutes that your date hums to herself and suffers from bouts of involuntary drooling, then realizing that perhaps those tickets to the unabridged reading of War and Peace weren't such a hot idea.
Christmas With The Kranks
“To say that this movie is a metaphor for the sorry state of our country right now is a mild understatement. When the Kranks try to express a sentiment that could be construed as even mildly anti-Christmas, they are painted as the most selfish, evil people on the face of the planet. They are completely ostracized and made to feel like shit. The neighbors are essentially saying, "Either think like us and worship like us or we will make your lives a living hell." This isn't a comedy, it's a bonafide horror film, and one of the most frightening I've ever seen given the context. Watching "Christmas with the Kranks" is like watching a dead body being devoured by maggots. It's not like the corpse can just get up two-thirds of the way through and decide that it wants to live. The sad thing is, I'm not sure this movie ever even decides that. It's just a rotten mess from start to finish.”
Elektra
“The first hour of the movie contains virtually no action and about five different shots of Jennifer Garner putting her shirt on. All that exposition and I still couldn't figure out what was supposed to be interesting about any of it. Here's an idea for a plot: Elektra decapitates somebody. That's all I really wanted to see in this film: a chick in hot, red lingerie decapitating somebody. What the hell is so hard about that?”
Hide And Seek
“I already suffered through this film once, when it was called "Secret Window." "Hide and Seek" has the exact same "twist" ending, which is much less a twist than it is a joke. When the movie finally revealed the killer, my eyes just rolled back into my head like the dials on a slot machine. The only way I could have been more indignant was if the killer had been the family cat.”
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
“Somebody needed to realize that Arthur Dent is a bad protagonist. In the book, he's mostly an observer and passive characters make bad protagonists. Maybe Adams's novel works as a TV series or a radio series, but it clearly doesn't work as a film. If somebody gives a thumbs up during this film, it's probably just an attempt to hitch a ride out of theater.”
Monster-In-Law
“If nothing else, the film sure did seem to get the "over-85" crowd laughing (or coughing), and that's never a demographic to be ignored. Theaters that want to make some extra money on this film would be well-advised to switch out the popcorn and Coke for Milk of Magnesia and Ex-Lax.”
The Pacifier
“Some movies are so badly written that they make me want to cry. Other movies, like "The Pacifier," are written in such a way that I'd like to gouge out my tear ducts with a fork.”
The Phantom Of The Opera
“As I've been playing a lot of "Halo 2" lately, I actually had this daydream while Christine (Emmy Rossum) and Raoul (Patrick Wilson) were holding each other that I shot them both in the head with my rocket launcher. Double kill! Is it just me or do the characters in this thing sing the same damn song like 50 times in a row? The only thing I remember from the whole thing was the Phantom's theme music. Other than that, it was like being stuck in an elevator listening to the MUZAK versions of Michael Jackson’s greatest hits. The music just sucks.”
Son Of The Mask
“"Actor" Jamie Kennedy looks so lost in this film you'd swear that you're actually watching the guy after a lobotomy trying to find his personality. It's like he rationalized smiling like an idiot as a substitute for acting. Trying to replace Jim Carrey with Jaime Kennedy is like trying to replace Lassie with an animal cracker.”