The Worst Movies of 2013 (So Far)

Image via Complex Original

Director: Baz Luhrmann
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton, Jason Clarke, Isla Fisher, Adelaide Clemens, Elizabeth Debicki, Jack Thompson, Amitabh Bachchan

Between the ecstatic, cartoonish trailers and the guarantee of wall-to-wall pop hits handpicked by Shawn Carter, The Great Gatsby was delivered to us with a promise: It would be fun. A mess? Probably, but at least a fun mess. What director Baz Luhrmann, who struck the right balance of excess and fidelity adapting Romeo and Juliet in a similarly caffeinated fashion, wasn’t supposed to do was bore us. And yet Luhrmann's adaption of Fitzgerald’s high-school staple is dull. It’s the worst offense this summer blockbuster could have committed.

The geniuniely fun and strange first hour keeps The Great Gatsby from being one of 2013's most egregious mistakes. Do you realize that you need to watch lubricated white people pop bottles and get dumb in a Jazz Age Manhattan hotel room while Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Who Gon Stop Me” blares from the movie theater speakers? Probably you have no idea, but trust us—you need this. The first hour is full of weird moments like this, and they successfully push the poor decisions into the background, like the frame story where Nick is writing the text of Fitzgerald’s novel in a sanitarium (he’s become a depressed alcoholic—just one of many odd instances where the film tsk-tsks drinking).

But eventually Luhrmann decides his Gatsby needs to be a grand love story, and so he turns to Gatsby (Leonardo Dicaprio) and Daisy (Carey Mulligan). Thing is, The Great Gatsby isn't a grand love story. These characters aren't people you care for; that's not what Fitzgerald is getting at. They illuminate particular American problems about invention and excess and failure. What they don't do is fuel a gripping romance. Somebody should have told Luhrmann. —RS

Director: Seth Gordon
Stars: Jason Bateman, Melissa McCarthy, Genesis Rodriguez, T.I., Jon Favreau, Morris Chestnut, John Cho, Robert Patrick, Eric Stonestreet, Jonathan Banks

If all Identity Thief has to do is make you giggle a bit, then it gets the job done, thanks entirely to Melissa McCarthy. The problem is, those giggles are the sloppy byproduct of a lousy plot that never justifies itself. McCarthy's character is supposed to be a compulsive identity thief on the run from some gangsters she owes something to—whatever it is, it doesn't end up mattering. One of her victims: Jason Bateman's bland as hell, Sandy. Together, they travel across the country to get all this shit straightened out and so on and so forth—all while dodging a hit man that looks like Victoria's Secret model and, uh, T.I. There are no stakes. There's no urgency. Blach.

The plot is basically an excuse to plug some jokes, because that whole hired killer angle is ultimately trashed and it ends exactly how you think it does. —TA

Director: Tommy Wirkola
Stars: Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton, Famke Janssen, Peter Stormare, Thomas Mann, Derek Mears

To a certain kind of viewer, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters delivers on its surface-level promises. The majority of its barely 90-minute duration is comprised of action, gore, Jeremy Renner, and Gemma Arterton mowing down ghouls with crazy automatic weapons, and then more of that. Watch, wince, and repeat.

Shut your brain off and it's meaningless fun. But it's also middling fun, a horror-comedy that's neither overly horrific or all that funny. Director Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow) never elevates the schlocky proceedings to a Peter Jackson in Dead Alive level of gruesome anarchy, which a film called Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters should be, no questions asked. —MB

Director: Austin Chick
Stars: Danielle Panabaker, Nicole LaLiberte, Liam Aiken, Michael Stahl-David, Andrew Howard

Suspending disbelief, we got it, but this film asks for too much. A wholesome college student gets physically abused by a man at a club one day, and the next morning, she and a friend she made the night before go on an unflinching murderous rampage against every man who has ever done them wrong or even looked at them with any kind of lust. Oh, and did we mention her friend also has a fatal obsession with Wholesome Girl? And this all happens within the span of, like, a weekend or something. Wholesome Girl doesn't even have time to think while all this violence happens, and neither does the audience. Until the credits roll and you ask yourself, "Da fuq?" —TA

Director: Shawn Levy
Stars: Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Rose Byrne, Max Minghella, Joanna Garcia, Jessica Szohr, Dylan O'Brien, Josh Brener, Tobit raphael, Bruno Amato, Josh Gad, Aasif Mandvi, Rob Riggle, John Goodman

It'd be wrong to call The Internship a trainwreck or a complete disaster. At its worst, the latest Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson collaboration is frustratingly mediocre, a limp comedy that never pushes its stars beyond anything they've done before, and in better, funnier movies.

The plot, about two unemployed men who compete in intern games at Google alongside a band of younger misfits, is straight Old School; the vibe, all Vaughn cool-guy posturing and Wilson nice-guy charm, is Wedding Crashers redone. The jokes all fall flat, in what mounts to a two-hour advertisement for the world's biggest Internet search engine company posing as an underdog romp. —MB

Director: Todd Phillips
Stars: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, John Goodman, Ken Jeong, Justin Bartha, Melissa McCarthy

The third and—thank god—final installment of The Hangover isn't really a comedy. The concluding chapter, which brings the characters together under the guise of an intervention for spoiled manchild Alan (Zach Galifianakis), has far more action movie set pieces, like a prison riot and a daring balcony bit, than jokes. And the jokes the douchebags of the Wolf Pack crack aren't funny in the first place. Unless you can't get enough clowning of broad Asian stereotypes and non-masculine behavior. Maybe the era of the dude bro comedy is finally coming to an end. —RS

Director: Geoffrey S. Fletcher
Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Alexis Blidel, James Gandolfini, Danny Trejo, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Cody Horn, Tatiana Maslany

Violet & Daisy, written and directed by Oscar-winner Geoffrey Fletcher (for writing Precious), is the kind of transparent movie where the filmmaker's various influences are on full, unsubtle display, and not in the enjoyable Tarantino way. Even worse, Tarantino is obviously one of Fletcher's key influences in this annoyingly esoteric mishmash of crime movie tropes, Clueless characters, and pseudo-existential musings.

Saoirse Ronan and Alexis Blidel salvage small amounts of face as two teenage hit-girls act like immature pop princesses and kill with ruthless force. On this particular assignment, they're assigned to terminate a terminally ill man (the late James Gandolfini), but instead of immediately offing him, the girls engage in several over-written chats about life, death, and self-evaluation. The occasional violent asides, meanwhile, like a a bit where the girls dance on top of people they've just shot (a.k.a. the "internal bleeding dance"), feel gratuitous, not effective. —MB

Director: Gore Verbinski
Stars: Armie Hammer, Johnny Depp, William Fichtner, Ruth Wilson, Tom Wilkinson, Barry Pepper, Mason Cook, Helena Bonham Carter, James Badge Dale

Somewhere, Taylor Kitsch feels a lot better about himself right now.

Reporting on The Lone Ranger's massive tanking at the box office last weekend, many bloggers commented that it's on par with last year's John Carter, another Disney production that cost a bundle and made a relative pittance. It's that rare instance of moviegoers nationwide showing an admirable lack of interest in what's just another example of an expensive wannabe blockbuster programmed for no reason other than to make serious coin.

Director Gore Verbinski's overlong adaptation of the old western TV series has plenty of problems, but three huge issues are its biggest deal-breakers. One, Johnny Depp gives his lamest performance yet as the monotone Tonto, shamefully trying to make unfunny punch lines and visual gags work, without success; two, Armie Hammer shows the aforementioned Mr. Kitsch how to truly bungle your first big shot at leading a movie franchise; and, three, Verbinski can't settle on a coherent tone, volleying between strong violence and moments of levity involving a weirdly talented horse and its chunky manure. We'll spare you any fecal metaphors here. —MB

Director: Justin Zackham
Stars: Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Ben Barnes, Amanda Seyfried, Topher Grace, Susan Sarandon, Robin Williams, Christine Ebersole, David Rasche, Patricia Rae, Kyle Bornheimer, Ana Ayora

Whenever The Big Wedding hits DVD next month, pray that no one in your family proposes the idea of renting it for quality bonding time. Assuming you're a good child who can't bare to disappoint his or her parents, you'll end up slogging through this 90-minute assortment of banal comedy, wishing it was that other 2013 Amanda Seyfried movie, Lovelace. View that racy biopic's trailer to see why.

In The Big Wedding, Seyfried is merely one of several fine actors who apparently threw in the towel before filming began, succumbing to writer-director Justin Zackham's inert script about a dysfunctional family trying to work through its dysfunctions with results both generic and criminal. Robin Williams' brief cameo as a priest, for instance, is a carbon copy of Rowan Atkinson's performance in Four Weddings and a Funeral, just insufferable. —MB

Director: Ramaa Mosley
Stars: Juno Temple, Michael Angarano, Alexis Blidel, Alia Shawkat, Bobby Moynihan

A down-on-their-luck couple finds an ancient brass teapot that spurts with money anytime the couple inflicts harm on anyone, including each other. Brace yourself for literally getting beaten over the head with messages about the dangers of fortune and fame by characters who are miserable to watch. Angarano and Temple are perfectly talented actors stuck in a film that manages to make them the most unlikeable people you have ever watched. Sitting through the film in its totality makes you feel like you should be rewarded with some kind of monetary compensation for your time and suffering. Where's your brass teapot, you know? —TA

Directors: Mans Marlind, Bjorn Stein
Stars: Julianne Moore, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Jeffrey DeMunn, Frances Conroy, Nathan Corddry

Let's not hold 6 Souls against the otherwise great Julianne Moore. After all, everyone's allowed to make one grave mistake or two, though, to her discredit, 6 Souls is a rather grievous blunder. In what should've been a straight-to-DVD effort, Moore plays a forensic psychologist trying to help a younger mental patient (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) deal with multiple personality disorder.

The wrinkle: His personalities are all taken from real-life murder victims. Which allows Irishman Meyers to try on a variety of unbelievable, often funny American accents and play his wackjob character in several broad manners, each one less convincing than the last. His bad acting is eventually usurped by overall goofiness the film's third act, an overreaching pile of backwoods hokum complete with Satanic hillbillies that scares less than a Blair Witch-themed episode of Duck Dynasty. —MB

Director: Barry Battles
Stars: Eva Longoria, Andre Braugher, Billy Bob Thornton, Daniel Cudmore, Travis Fimmel, Paul Wesley

Next up in the pantheon of crappy Quentin Tarantino knockoffs: The Baytown Outlaws, a violent dark comedy about a beautiful woman (Eva Longoria) who seeks bullet-ridden vengeance against the ex-lover (Billy Bob Thornton) who left her dead with three gunshot wounds.

To bring hell down upon her former guy, Longoria's character hires a trio of forcibly "hip and badass" hitmen, and that's when The Baytown Outlaws writer-director Barry Battles tries his damnedest pay homage to movies like Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill with a little bit of Russ Meyer sleaziness mixed in for the fuck of it. Unfortunately, Battles isn't Tarantino, Guy Ritchie, or a single Coen brother on any of his filmmaking idols' worst days. —MB

Director: Antoine Fuqua
Stars: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Rick Yune, Dylan McDermott, Melissa Leo, Radha Mitchell, Robert Forster, Cole Hauser, Ashley Judd

Squint and Olympus Has Fallen is almost a hilarious parody of conservative action flicks. It's far nicer to believe that, say, the scene where rogue secret service agent Mike Banning (played by Gerard Butler—who isn't even American!) beats a North Korean terrorist to death with a bust of Abraham Lincoln is a joke than anything else.

The alternative is that the film, which imagines an attack on the nation's capital, is just a tainted wellspring of jingoism. That it pries the viewer for easy suspense and anger by recycling the images of 9/11. That it creates a space for guilt-free xenophobia.

These are all the reasons why the film is morally reprehensible. If you're not interested in that take, trust that it's a poor movie because it's a boring one, too. It recycles Die Hard the way it does the 9/11 attacks, but with little charm and even less fun. If you really want to have a good time, politics be damned, try the liberal alternative, White House Down—Channing Tatum derps in all the right ways, and Jamie Foxx keeps his Jordan 4s clean. What more could you ask for? —RS 

Director: Makinov
Stars: Vinessa Shaw, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Daniel Gimenez Cacho

The one good thing about Come Out and Play: It made people talk about the underrated 1976 Spanish chiller Who Can Kill a Child?, a sinister little number about a couple stranded on an island inhabited by underage homicidal maniacs. The conversations, though, echoed the sentiment of, "Wow, Come Out and Play sucks—why the hell did they even bother remaking Who Can Kill a Child?"

Especially when it's basically a shot-for-shot redux with weaker performances and none of the original's visceral impact. For anyone who's seen Who Can Kill a Child?, Come Out and Play is entirely telegraphed; for first-timers to the material, it plays like an uninspired Children of the Corn ripoff.

And then there's director Makinov, an unaware self-parody who reportedly didn't interact with his cast or crew without wearing a red hood and wasted all of his morbid curiosity in an unintentionally hilarious video introduction used before the film's festival screenings. Unlike Come Out and Play, Makinov's "manifesto" is definitely worth a look, for comedy's sake. —MB

Director: Taylor Hackford
Stars: Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez, Michael Chiklis, Wendell Pierce, Clifton Collins Jr., Bobby Cannavale, Patti LuPone, Nick Nolte

At this point, Jason Statham can shoot movies like Parker in his sleep. He plays a, get this, one-man-army badass who kicks tons of ass and hooks up with a sexy woman (here played by Jennifer Lopez)—all the while dressed in slick suits. They should've just titled it Jason Statham Movie Whatever.

Not that it would've mattered, anyway. Parker, directed with pedestrian distinction by Taylor Hackford (Ray), is by-the-numbers and grim, devoid of the kind of wink-wink charm that made Statham's better films, like those in the Crank and The Transporter franchises, work as mindless escapism. Parker is taken too seriously in all aspects except for Lopez's character, disposable love interest present merely to model lingerie. —MB

Director: Ed Gass-Donnelly
Stars: Ashley Bell, Julia Garner, Spencer Treat Clark, Muse Watson, Louis Herthum

Only the most passionate and informed of horror movie fans even knows that The Last Exorcism Part II—the unnecessary sequel to the successful and fairly creepy 2010 found-footage movie—opened in theaters in early March. And surely not one of them is happy about that knowledge.

Abandoning the first-person POV aesthetic, The Last Exorcism Part II instantly establishes itself as an all-around familiar affair, offering nothing creative to the demonic possession sub-genre. Returning star, and impressive contortionist, Ashley Bell does her best to inject some dignity into this bland and silly misfire, but her efforts are for naught. She's powerless against a moronic script that surrounds her with a love interest who might as well be a robot, hallucinations of her dead father (who has facial hair here, even though he was clean shaven while dying in the first movie), and awful CGI blazes during the film's Firestarter-esque finale. —MB

Director: Andrew Niccol
Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons, Jake Abel, Frances Fisher, Chandler Canterbury, Diane Kruger, William Hurt

Perhaps the world is wising up to YA novelist Stephanie Meyer's shtick, because her latest attempt at global domination, The Host series, bombed at the box office. With good reason, we should add. Her follow-up to the Twilight phenomenon, the series imagines a heroine who attempts to save what's left of humanity, all the while resisting the alien parasite that's taken hold of her body. It sounds kinda cool, but it ends up functioning like a '90s Nickelodeon teen show that takes itself way too seriously. The film doesn't understand melodrama or camp. Consider it Alex Mack-meets-Allen Strange-meets everything that is wrong about Twilight, with a little schizophrenia peppered in. Oh, and everything is silver.

Maybe we'll laugh at this in the distant future, but for now we'd all just like the Stephanie Meyer ride to stop.—TA

Director: John Moore
Stars: Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Sebastian Koch, Yuliya Snigir, Cole Hauser, Amaury Nolasco, Mary Elizabeth Winstead

When a film's star doesn't seem to give a damn, why should anyone who's watching his or her shitty movie care? That's the sentiment conjured up by A Good Day to Die Hard, the worst Die Hard film ever and a depressing 97 minutes for Bruce Willis' most excitable fans.

Playing the unkillable John McClane with all the verve of a George A. Romero zombie, Willis sleepwalks through a loud, story-free barrage of whatever action sequences featuring stock characters busting guns, jumping through glass windows, and taking down CGI helicopters. The biggest casualty of all, though, may be poor Jai Courtney, the young Aussie actor who landed the coveted role of John McClane's son. There's no torch passed here, only a sympathetic, metaphorical hug for not being able to top Live Free or Die Hard's puny Justin Long when it comes all-time best McClane sidekicks. —MB

Director: Michael Tiddes
Stars: Marlon Wayans, Essence Atkins, Cedric the Entertainer, Nick Swardson, David Koechner, Dave Sheridan, Marlene Forte, Andrew Daly, Alanna Ubach, Affion Crockett

Good on Marlon Wayans for taking the initiative to break away from his family's inner circle and oversee his very non-Scary Movie spoof film. Bad on him, however, for bringing nothing new to the comedic genre other than blatant homophobia and one or two semi-clever riffs on horror's found-footage conceit, namely a kind of humorous bit that re-purposes Paranormal Activity 3's oscillating fan trick.

A Haunted House starts off promising enough, hinting that it's actually more of a domestic comedy of errors (about a guy who's living with his girlfriend for the first time) than a sloppy compilation of references and sight gags. But then Adam Sandler's dark prince of non-comedy Nick Swardson shows up as a gay psychic, and it's all downhill from there for Wayans and company. The fact that A Haunted House is slightly better than Scary Movie 5 isn't exactly a compliment. —MB

Director: Roman Coppola
Stars: Charlie Sheen, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Patricia Arquette, Katheryn Winnick, Aubrey Plaza, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Dermot Mulroney, Bar Paly

Some inside jokes should never be exposed to the world. A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III is a prime example. A long-in-the-making collaboration between old friends Charlie Sheen and writer-director Roman Coppola, it's an artificially quirky exercise in pretentious unfunniness, in which Sheen gets the opportunity to lampoon himself a bit as a successful playboy whose world crumbles when his sexy girlfriend, Ivana (Katheryn Winnick), leaves him.

Charles Swan has zero subtlety. At one point, Sheen's character suffers what appears to be a heart attack and starts having bizarre hallucinations, none of which make any narrative sense or inspire any laughter. In one, he's tormented by a group dubbed Ivana's Society of Ball Busters. It's pathetic.

That Coppola and Sheen thought any of this would translate to wider audiences outside of their most forgiving friends and family members is shameful. That they dragged folks like Bill Murray, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Aubrey Plaza down along with them is just sad. —MB

Director: Ruben Fleischer
Stars: Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Sean Penn, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi, Mireille Enos, Nick Nolte, Michael Pena, Robert Patrick, Holt McCallany

There's no reason why Gangster Squad shouldn't be this generation's L.A. Confidential. A hard-boiled clash between Los Angeles machine-gun-slingers and tough street cops, the year's most disappointing Hollywood production boasts a starry cast of usually reliable talent (Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Sean Penn, Josh Brolin) and a fascinating real-life subject (how a bunch of heroes broke laws to take down Brooklyn mobster Mickey Cohen's late-1940s reign over the City of Angels). It should've been something special.

Instead, Gangster Squad is a soulless video game, marred down by cliched characters, cartoonish violence, and a superficial pulpiness that's comparable to Frank Miller's film travesty The Spirit. Which leads us to the film's producer's biggest misstep: giving the directing assignment to Ruben Fleischer, the talented though inexperienced and out-of-his-element filmmaker whose best work was the horror-comedy Zombieland.

In Gangster Squad, Fleischer employs Zack Snyder's brand of same slow-motion action and overall glossiness, giving it a sheen that best suits hollow eye candy projects like Sucker Punch. Gangster Squad shouldn't have been that. —MB

Director: Malcolm D. Lee
Stars: Ashley Tisdale, Simon Rex, Erica Ash, Darrell Hammond, Jerry O'Connell, J.P. Manoux, Molly Shannon, Sarah Hyland, Katrina Bowden, Tyler Posey, Bow Wow, Heather Locklear, Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Jasmine Guy, Lil Duval, Katt Williams, Terry Crews

Because the world needed another unimaginative collection of obvious pop culture references, Scary Movie 5 came and went in theaters in early April, pleasing no one except High School Musical graduate Ashley Tisdale's agent—at least she got a leading role out of the deal.

As for everyone else involved with the spoof franchise's nadir, the only who shouldn't be ashamed of themselves are Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan, for obvious reasons. The rest of the sequel's acting victims—including Darrell Hammond, Heather Locklear, Molly Shannon, and, believe it or not, Jasmine Guy—degrade themselves in the name of easy paychecks and dated humor. Amongst the films spoofed in Scary Movie 5: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (released in August 2011), Black Swan (a December 2010 release), and Inception (July 2010). Somehow, Gone with the Wind was spared. —MB

Director: Vince Offer
Stars: Lindsay Lohan, Michelle Rodriguez, Adrien Brody, Rob Schneider, Vince Offer

Have you ever wondered what a movie directed by the ShamWow guy would look like? Well, you've now got your answer in inAPPropriate Comedy, and it's much worse than any informercial-hating cynic could've imagined.

As for that obnoxious title, inAPPropriate Comedy is a sketch collection in which all of the segments are introduced as phone applications. Why? Fuck if we know, but nothing in this laugh-free comedy is worthy of even tickling Candy Crush's megabits. Somehow, director Vince "ShamWow" Offer convinced stars like Adrien Brody and Michelle Rodriguez to join the reputable duo of Rob Schneider and Lindsay Lohan in a series of skits whose wittiness never exceeds Brody playing "Flirty Harry," a silly character with the catchphrase, "Go ahead, make me gay." Sham-womp womp. —MB

Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Stars: Jaden Smith, Will Smith, Zoë Kravitz, Sophie Okonedo

After Earth, in spite of itself, has one of the most unintentionally brilliant action sequences in years. It's the film's final showdown between Jaden Smith's underdog warrior and a giant monster, and it's dampened by non-starter fight choreography that feels like it was undercut by Quaaludes. But with every lifeless leap and swing of Jaden's spear, the scene cuts back and forth to Will Smith's injured, dying character slowly fading away, though it looks like he's falling asleep the entire time.

It's the perfect representation of an After Earth audience member's surely catatonic state while enduring this sleepy vanity project for Jaden Smith to become an action movie star. Spoiler: He's no Will Smith, nor is he even on par with those 3 Ninjas kids. As directed by Hollywood punch line M. Night Shyamalan, After Earth has no sense of urgency, zero thrills, and is by far the worst movie Will Smith has ever made. And we've seen Seven Pounds. —MB

Directors: Peter Farrelly, Elizabeth Banks, Steven Brill, Steve Carr, Rusty Cundieff, James Duffy, Griffin Dunne, Patrik Forsberg, James Gunn, Brett Ratner, Will Graham, Jonathan van Tulleken
Stars: Halle Berry, Naomi Watts, Liev Schreiber, Kate Winslet, Dennis Quaid, Greg Kinnear, Emma Stone, Gerard Butler, Seann William Scott, Johnny Knoxville, Elizabeth Banks, Kieran Culkin, Chloe Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Justin Long, Bobby Cannavale, Jason Sudeikis, Katrina Bowden, Leslie Bibb, Common, Seth MacFarlane

For anyone who's brave (or stupid?) enough to sit through Movie 43, there really is no debate about what's this year's worst movie thus far. It's a cinematic disaster of gargantuan proportions, an epic miscalculation somehow featuring names like Kate Winslet and Naomi Watts, and a humongous waste of endless A-list talent.

Worst of all, it's just not funny. At all. Trying to be a new-age Kentucky Fried Movie, Movie 43 haphazardly weaves together a series of raunchy, idiotic vignettes designed to give mostly serious actors the chance to let loose. But the best any of the film's writers could come up with are, in no particular order of heinousness, the sight of Halle Berry making guacamole with her breasts, a cartoon cat pissing on Elizabeth Banks, and Hugh Jackman playing a guy on a blind date who unfortunately has testicles dangling from his neck.

Laughing yet? As terrible as those ideas all sound on paper, they're even worse in execution. The only star who leaves Movie 43 relatively unscathed is Terrence Howard, whose bit as the coach of an all-black basketball team is, at worst, a lame Chappelle's Show sketch. At least he doesn't have a pair of nuts beneath his chin. —MB