The 25 Worst Movies of 2012

Wasting both time and money watching one crappy movie is bad enough, but 25 of them? That's roughly 40-plus hours of our lives squandered in 2012 thanks to inept directors, middling actors, and inferior screenwriters. So, yes, get ready to feel the wrath of scorned moviegoers everywhere through Complex's evisceration of The 25 Worst Movies of 2012.

Their crimes can't go unpunished, especially when there were so many talented filmmakers producing superior films this year. With the good always comes the bad, of course, yet these creative bombs take that assumption to the extreme, going well beyond "bad" into the "these people seriously need time-outs" territory. Peep them for yourselves and see if you agree. If you do, get ready for the self-loathing associated with realizing cash and minutes were forever lost to their dreadfulness.

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Written by Matt Barone (@MBarone)

Director: James McTeigue
Stars: John Cusack, Alice Eve, Luke Evans, Brendan Gleeson, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Kevin McNally

There has to be a filmmaker out there capable of turning the life of the enigmatic and haunted author Edgar Allan Poe into a solid movie. Anyone other than James McTeigue, the middling director who somewhat impressed with V for Vendetta (2006) and then totally screwed the pooch with the insipid action pic Ninja Assassin (2009); with The Raven, he and his cohorts ruined all Poe lovers' hopes and dreams.

Turning Poe into an 1800s spin on Alex Cross isn't a terrible idea, especially when you mix in the whole "killer uses Poe's stories as inspiration" angle. But the problem is that, instead of going for a David Fincher/Seven kind of creepy sheen, McTeigue opted for Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes aesthetic, but with more blood, added pendulums, and none of the fun. Not even a reasonably entertaining and swag-increasing performance from John Cusack, as Poe, can shake the dullness.

Director: Sean Anders
Stars: Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Leighton Meester, Susan Sarandon, Milo Ventimiglia, Will Forte, Rachel Dratch, Vanilla Ice, Ciara, Eva Amurri Martino, James Caan, Dan Patrick

Ladies and gentleman, Adam Sandler has officially squandered all of our trust. For years, longtime Sandman fans have clung to the hope that the guy who once kicked proverbial ass in lowbrow comedy gems like Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore would make another genuinely funny movie. But as That's My Boy painfully proved, Sandler has completely lost it.

It's not for lack of effort, though. Full of hardcore profanity, That's My Boy is the dirtiest Sandler movie in years, if not of all time, pushing its edges far beyond those of tamer flicks like Jack and Jill and Just Go with It. And in a few raucous scenes, Sandler's latest flick does elicit a few belly laughs, but there are just simply not enough. Most of the time, That's My Boy goes for obvious bits of raunch, resulting in a predictable misfire featuring an overacting Sandler and an underutilized Andy Samberg. Hopefully the latter didn't leave Saturday Night Live to work on more film projects of this caliber.

Director: Lee Daniels
Stars: Zac Efron, Nicole Kidman, John Cusack, Matthew McConaughey, David Oyelowo, Macy Gray, Scott Glenn

With the Oscar-nominated Precious, director Lee Daniels duped us all into thinking he could very well become an elite filmmaker. The truth came out, though, with the mesmerizingly bad The Paperboy, a sleazy, sexually charged oddity that's best described as an entertaining Nicole Kidman performance surrounded by truly awful things.

Daniels clearly wanted to make some kind of perverted camp classic, which would've been fine if he didn't also strive to produce a topical race drama and a sex comedy all at the same time. In the end, none of his intentions manifest themselves into anything that's even remotely impressive.

Ultimately, The Paperboy—the story of two newspaper reporters (Matthew McConaughey and David Oyelowo) investigating a perhaps wrongfully jailed death row inmate's (John Cusack) case—embarrasses more than it titillates. Case in point: the now-infamous scene in which Kidman pisses on Zac Efron to alleviate a jellyfish sting. Where's Mo'Nique knocking down Gabourey Sidibe and an infant when we need it?

Director: Mark Tonderai
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Elisabeth Shue, Max Thierot, Gil Bellows

Jennifer Lawrence had an amazing 2012, with the humongous blockbuster The Hunger Games and her most likely Academy Award-nominated performance in Silver Linings Playbook. However, if a stranger were to meet her, find out she's an actress, and ask what movies she's been in recently, there's no chance in hell that Ms. Lawrence would ever say, in addition to those successes, "And I was also in this horror film called House at the End of the Street." She and her handlers would be wise to ignore this turkey's existence.

There's a decent little teenybopper thriller hidden somewhere inside this sloppily constructed quasi-riff on Psycho. It's just too bad that the film—about a girl who moves next door to a social outcast who may or may not be harboring some deep, dark family secrets—parlays its so-so first half into an idiotic, overly ambitious second half that's triggered by a ridiculous twist and some unconvincingly manic acting from co-star Mac Thierot.

Directors: Jamie Bradshaw and Aleksandr Dulerayn
Stars: Ed Stoppard, Jeffrey Tambor, Max von Sydow, Leelee Sobieski

As far as incoherent cinema goes, Branded is a major achievement in brain-numbing, see-it-to-believe-it confusion. Not that anyone should ever bother themselves with trying to make any sense of directors Jamie Bradshaw and Aleksandr Dulerayn's laughably moronic satire about corporations dangerously marketing bad products for brainless consumers. OK, so that's just what we think it's about. It's hard to discern anything sensical when you've got a cow-shaped constellation firing lightning bolts into people.

Branded is one of those special kind of movies where a constant narrator only makes the overall story even more bewildering. One gets the sense that the filmmakers were interested in telling a sort of modern-day spin on John Carpenter's They Live, only minus the awesome one-liner-spewing Rowdy Roddy Piper and with an incredibly out-of-place Max von Sydow and a blank slate for a leading man (some drone named Ed Stoppard).

Director: Jay Roach
Stars: Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis, Jason Sudeikis, Dylan McDermott, Katherine LaNasa, John Lithgow, Dan Aykroyd, Brian Cox

When we put together the endlessly amusing Will Ferrell Soundboard, our sole intention was to provide lovers of idiotic comedy a one-stop shop for some of the Saturday Night Live alum's funniest and most memorable quotables. Little did we know, however, that the soundboard would end up being a sad reminder of what Mr. Ferrell used to be, before he started pumping out lazy, brutally unfunny snoozers like The Campaign, arguably his worst movie to date. And, yes, we have seen both Land of the Lost and Semi-Pro.

With its timely, election-year premise, that of two dimwits (Ferrell and a grating Zach Galifianakis) duking it out for a political office position in North Carolina, director Jay Roach's follow-up to HBO's nicely made Sarah Palin dramatization Game Change should have satirized our recent presidential races for all their scandalous, often ridiculous fodder.

So what do Roach, Ferrell, and their accomplices do instead? They give Ferrell a caricature to play (one that's basically a lamer version of his George W. Bush impersonation), go for obvious sexual punch lines, waste a perfectly sleazy and out-of-place Dylan McDermott performance, and disregard intelligent satire in favor of doofus humor. Our Ferrell Soundboard on mute is funnier.

Director: David Brooks
Stars: Alice Eve, Josh Peck, Brian Geraghty

Horror's slasher movie subgenre of is certainly ripe for a creative resurgence—ATM, unfortunately, is in no way the needed kick-starter. Centered around a homicidal maniac who apparently raided the Urban Legend killer's closet and stole his snorkel coat, ATM deserves to be no more than a 25-minute segment in a bigger anthology film; screenwriter Chris Sparling, however, thought his concept warranted a full 90 minutes. "Overzealous" is an understatement.

The ridiculous premise, destined for unintended laughs from the moment Sparling dreamt it up, is as follows: Three unlikeable 20-something folks leave their company's Christmas party, stop to take money out, and get trapped inside the cash dispensor's hub when a lame slasher shows up.

What follows is a series of tension-free scenes punctuated by the filmmakers' obviously strained attempts to stretch what could have been a Saturday Night Live Halloween show skit into a full-length feature—with, of course, disastrous results.

Director: Len Wiseman
Stars: Colin Farrell, Jessica Biel, Kate Beckinsale, Bryan Cranston, Bokeem Woodbine, Bill Nighy, John Cho

As much as we scoff at movie remakes, every now and then one comes along that actually seems like a decent idea. Total Recall, at first, was one such catalyst for optimism. The bonkers 1990 original, directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, holds up as an entertaining, no-holds-barred freakshow with three-breasted hookers, intergalactic mutants, and some hilarious, dark wit. Given the right amount of modern-day gadgetry and a big-budget makeover, a new take on sci-fi author Philip K. Dick's short story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale could slickly upgrade Verhoeven's very '80s production.

And maybe someday a filmmaker will come along who possesses the necessary amount of imagination and, yes, skill to do just that. Unfortunately, this time around, Total Recall fans were stuck with Underworld director Len Wiseman, a near-hack largely responsible for draining the story of its zaniness and endearing monstrosities, instead going with lame, I, Robot-esque antagonists, a lazy script, wasted actors (Colin Farrell and Jessica Biel turn in performances that are too good for the film), and a gratuitous, useless three-boob-flashing prostitute, just because. So much for defending the remake trend.

Director: Todd Lincoln
Stars: Ashley Greene, Sebastian Stan, Tom Felton, Julianna Guill

Chances are, this is the first you're hearing about The Apparition, the incredibly bland PG-13 horror flick that barely cracked $2 million domestically when it opened. Consider yourselves lucky, because those of us who suffered through first-time writer-director Todd Lincoln's barely-80-minute slog of a supernatural exercise will never have those minutes back, and not even a few shots of gorgeous co-star Ashley Greene (Twilight) scantily clad in lingerie could make us feel any better about ourselves.

The Apparition is the worst kind of Z-grade horror movie, one that feels like it's been hacked and slashed by producers and editors in post-production, despite the fact that what is on screen is little more than a collection of cheap jump scares and visual cues ripped off from older, much better movies (i.e., Poltergeist and The Grudge). Lincoln's film rushes through its plot so quickly, giving the impression that entire scenes were cut out and no efforts were made to subsequently fix the pacing, and yet it's still a boring gruel from start to finish. It's movies like The Apparition that define Hollywood's August dog days.

Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Stars: Sam Worthington, Rosamund Pike, Edgar Ramirez, Bill Nighy, Toby Kebbell, Danny Huston, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes

How bad is Wrath of the Titans, the sword-and-sorcery sequel to Clash of the Titans that nobody wanted, directed by the dude who bludgeoned us with last year's horrifically inept Battle: Los Angeles? Mere months after seeing it, we can't recall anything about its plot, and that's because there really isn't one in the first place.

Sam Worthington, once again staking his claim as Hollywood's most robotic action movie star (but an entertaining bar fighter), reprises the character of Perseus in name and theory only; in reality, he's little more than an anonymous physical presence running away from CGI monsters that Peter Jackson must have rejected from his Lord of the Rings films. As for Worthington's co-stars, a venerable array of genuine talent that includes Liam Neeson, the underrated Rosamund Pike, and Edgar Ramirez, all of whom are underserved here...well, at least they're not Sam Worthington.

Director: Larry Charles
Stars: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anna Faris, Ben Kingsley, Jason Mantzoukas, Bobby Lee, John C. Reilly, Fred Armisen

The fact that Sacha Baron Cohen lazily rehashed his Borat/Bruno shtick to make the more traditional Hollywood comedy The Dictator isn't the worst thing about the film. What truly weighs The Dictator down so much that it sinks faster than a fat man floating without Swimmies is its total disregard for intelligent social satire.

Cohen's earlier flicks, the aforementioned Borat and Bruno, had plenty of memorable one-liners and R-rated hilarity, but their biggest shared strength was the skewering of America's darkest, most alarming impulses. The Dictator, about a controversial foreign leader living in the U.S. with a fake identity, is more concerned with poop jokes, gags rooted in vaginas, and romantic comedy trappings.

It's as if Cohen and go-to director Larry Charles turned their brains off and unconsciously emulated everything that makes generic Hollywood comedies so infuriating. The chameleon-like actor should've just done another Ali G movie.

Director: Michael J. Bassett
Stars: Adelaide Clemens, Kit Harington, Deborah Kara Unger, Martin Donovan, Malcolm McDowell, Carrie-Anne Moss, Sean Bean

Silent Hill—the 2006 video game adaptation directed by the visually gifted Christophe Gans—holds up as a memorable mood piece, where atmospheric creepiness, strikingly freaky imagery, and a wild, batshit finale make up for a muddled storyline and general lack of narrative sense. If you're looking for something that's cinematically comparable to the illustrations in author Alvin Schwartz's old Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books, Gans' Silent Hill is your best bet.

Sadly, not one ounce of the first Silent Hill's dread-filled intrigue made its way into Michael J. Bassett's contemptible sequel, Silent Hill: Revelation. Released in sloppily executed 3D, it's a horror follow-up in the grand tradition of, "Let's accelerate everything from the first one." So, here, the incoherence is staggeringly high and the monsters get even more screen time.

And its arguably the year's most frustrating moviegoing experience, if not for the simple fact that Bassett couldn't do a single interesting thing with nightmarish antagonists like returning champ Pyramid Head.

Director: Rob Cohen
Stars: Tyler Perry, Matthew Fox, Edward Burns, Rachel Nichols, Cicely Tyson, Jean Reno, Carmen Ejogo, Giancarlo Esposito, John C. McGinley

In some alternate universe, there's a version of Alex Cross that stars (its originally targeted star) Idris Elba playing in a theater that serves ice-cold beers and replaces "coming attractions" with a live, in-person Kate Upton doing the "Cat Daddy" dance in that two-piece bikini. And, the Sports Illustrated model's gyrations aside, the movie is pretty damn good.

Unfortunately, reality is, you know, a thing, and we're stuck with memories of the woefully miscast and robotically acting Tyler Perry playing novelist James Patterson's beloved homicide detective. In director Rob Cohen's parade of poor acting and non-existent tension, there's also a wildly unhinged, hilariously overwrought performance from Lost alum Matthew Fox (In the alternate universe it's Mads Mikkelsen.).

We'd make a joke about how things could've been worse had Perry cross-dressed, but, frankly, it's not worth it. As you can tell by the fact that Madea's Witness Protection is nowhere to be found in this countdown, we're trying to move past Mabel Simmons' obnoxious ways.

Director: Gabriele Muccino
Stars: Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel, Uma Thurman, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones, James Tupper, Judy Greer

Widespread critical hatred and barely $10 million at the box office—let's hope that's all Gerard Butler needed to wake up and smell the romantic comedy feces. Yet again, the one-time 300 star drained away the good will earned by that Roman warrior epic while starring in a sappy, hokey project that not even Matthew McConaughey would've fucked with back in his The Wedding Planner days.

Butler plays a former soccer star trying to reconnect with his son and son's mother (Jessica Biel), and it's every bit as unbearably saccharine as that description makes it sound. Well, except for the film's proposed notion that middle-aged suburban soccer moms are all horny and ready to sleep with their kids' hunky coach—that's just hilariously misogynistic.

Directors: Heitor Dhalia
Stars: Amanda Seyfried, Daniel Sunjata, Wes Bentley, Jennifer Carpenter, Sebastian Stan, Joel David Moore

Amanda Seyfried must be loving the fact that she's currently out promoting Les Misérables, a legitimate Oscar contender and potential box office blockbuster. Usually, the naturally appealing and talented actress is wasting away in crap like Gone, a "suspense thriller" without any tension and thrills equivalent to those of jumping off the top of a one-story building.

Worst of all, Gone makes her seem like an awful actress. Or at least that's what the script forces her to do, since she plays a constantly panicked, frantic former kidnap victim who's desperately trying to find her abutted sister. She's all wide eyes, faux-terrified reactions, and please-kidnap-my-agent lostness in a movie that starts off melodramatic, veers into dullness, and ends with a faint whimper.

Director: John Gulager
Stars: Danielle Panabaker, Matt Bush, David Koechner, Chris Zylka, Katrina Bowden, Gary Busey, David Hasselhoff, Christopher Lloyd

A tongue-in-cheek horror-comedy with the sexy Danielle Panabaker, an appropriately crazy Gary Busey, a copious amount of fake boobies bouncing in three-dimensions, and hundreds of killer fish? You'd think that the unnecessary but, at one point, welcome sequel Piranha 3DD would've been a no-brainer for fans of dumb but fun genre exercises. But you'd be horribly wrong.

Without a single funny joke or an ounce of witty intelligence, this abject failure drowns in stupidity and overboard gratuitousness. It's as if the filmmakers knew their talents were on autopilot and lazily kept adding more breasts and blood, instead of any of the first Piranha 3D's excitement and perverse cleverness. Calling Piranha 3DD a wannabe SyFy network movie would be an insult to the almighty Megashark.

Director: Michael Gallagher
Stars: Toby Turner, Caitlin Gerard, Melanie Papalia, Shane Dawson, Andrew James Allen, Roger Bart, Keith David

Every year, a slew of wretched, no-budget horror flicks get released straight onto DVD, and, fortunately for mainstream audiences, only the most passionate of genre fans acknowledge their existence. In 2012, though, one such embarrassment to horror found its way into a limited number of movie theaters, while a worthwhile film like The Loved Ones barely received a single midnight showing. Awesome.

Save for its villain's legitimately badass mask (see above), Smiley desperately wants to be "contemporary horror" but never rises above ineptitude. It's about a serial killer who's summoned when people type "I did it for the lulz" (We're not kidding.) into an Internet chat room. Which is what you'd hope director Michael Gallagher tells friends and family when asked why he'd waste time with such bad acting, unimpressive gore, and lame-brained screenwriting.

Director: Olivier Megaton
Stars: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Rade Serbedzija

Last year, we ranked The Hangover Part II as 2011's worst movie. Though it's not as terrible as the Wolf Pack's infuriatingly lazy second go-round, Taken 2 exists in a similar terrain of smelly sequels, especially since, thanks to sheep-like audiences, it pulled in nearly $140 million domestically. And how much did Liam Neeson's exceptional early 2012 film The Grey make? A respectable but too low (when compared to Taken 2, mind you) $52 million. Once again, there's no justice in this world.

Moviegoers would much rather see Neeson phone it in, which perfectly describes Taken 2 as a whole. Whereas the first one reveled in its excessive action and rampant ass-kicking, the strangely toned down follow-up displays none of its predecessor's imaginative carnage. Neeson punches a few dudes, shoots a couple others, and gets into one decently choreographed brawl with a baddie before saving the day and eating ice cream with his boring family. Cha-ching!

Director: Bobcat Goldthwait
Stars: Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr

Who doesn't want to pimp-slap some talentless, annoying reality TV stars or conservative blowhards every now and then? It's a chore to watch any show on VH1 or Fox News while fighting the urge to punch the nearest wall. But going on a killing spree, during which you kill every right-wing pundit and William Hung/Teen Mom type? Yeah, that's a bit excessive. (And appears in terrible taste given a rash of mass shootings that have devastated this country.)

In a dark comedy like God Bless America, though, that level of pop-culture-fueled anger could provide a sharp, allegorical commentary, yet writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait drives his modern-day-society-sucks message home with the subtlety of a metal baseball bat to the cranium. It doesn't get much more on-the-nose than having your characters engage in shouting matches where they rattle off every kind of person they hate—in multiple scenes.

Director: Adam Shankman
Stars: Julianne Hough, Diego Boneta, Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin, Paul Giamatti, Russell Brand, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Malin Akerman, Mary J. Blige, Bryan Cranston, Will Forte

Two hours' worth of big-name movie stars wearing laughable '80s rock garb while singing karoake? On paper, that pitch sounds excruciating, and, we're not so happy to report, Rock of Ages is exactly that. Tenfold.

Based on the hit Broadway musical, director Adam Shankman's glitzy, ditzy musical feels like a shallow vanity project for every actor and actress involved. Even worse, it's devoid of any fervor for anyone other than the stars' agents, their financial advisers, and those obnoxious folks who frequent '80s bars and play air guitar whenever a Def Leppard song begins.

Director: Julie Anne Robinson
Stars: Katherine Heigl, Jason O'Mara, Sherri Shepherd, Debbie Reynolds, Daniel Sunjata, John Leguizamo, Patrick Fischler

At this point in her brutal film career, aside from Knocked Up, Katherine Heigl is, for all intents and purposes, the kiss of death, a rom-com actress who makes Jennifer Aniston look like '90s-era Meg Ryan. Ask your girl to show you 27 Dresses, The Ugly Truth, or Killers if you need proof.

In theory, One for the Money, Heigl's worst movie yet, should have marked a "daring" moment of riskiness for the "A-lister." For one, it's more of a goofy action romp than a lovey-dovey romantic affair, and it even required her to speak in a different accent; unfortunately, she went with a painfully bad New Jersey speech for the role of Stephanie Plum, a "gritty" Jersey girl character popularized by author Janet Evanovich (who also amateurishly directed the film).

If the movie's only offense was how it soils the Garden State's reputation worse than JWoww, it'd be reprehensible, but not worthy of severe public humiliation. But considering that One for the Money is also about as funny as a colonic, there's nothing left to do but rip it apart before banishing the flick from our memory banks.

Director: William Brent Bell
Stars: Fernanda Andrade, Simon Quarterman, Evan Helmuth, Suzan Crowley

Even without its huge, glaring, inexcusable flaw, The Devil Inside would still register as just plain awful. In the most egregious entry into the horror game's trendy, now overdone found-footage approach, director William Brent Bell and his co-writer, Matthew Peterman, deliver a paint-by-numbers bit, Exorcist-lite story about a hottie (Fernanda Andrade) who hires two demon-specialist priests to learn why her insane mother killed three people.

The typical exorcism movie beats are all hit upon, from levitation to blasphemic screaming and spiritual transference, and none of it is the least bit frightening. Which, honestly, would normally leave a film like The Devil Inside off a list like this; being simply generic and uninspired is bad, but not the "worst."

No, The Devil Inside, or, rather, Bell, Peterman, and the studio heads who guided them, are all guilty of a truly heinous offense that all but confirmed this one would top a "worst movies" list at some point or another. The crime: The Devil Inside is such a lazy, wallet-raping enterprise that it doesn't have an ending. Seriously, nothing. Just a Sopranos-finale-esque black screen that comes out of nowhere, during what seems like the climax, and provides space for a redirection to the movie's faux is-it-real-or-not website.

Yes, The Devil Inside is, essentially, an 80-minute advertisement for their crappy website, which we won't honor with potential pageviews by linking to here. May Bell, Peterman, and everyone else involved feel the wrath of Beelzebub.

Director: Brian Robbins
Stars: Eddie Murphy, Kerry Washington, Clark Duke, Cliff Curtis, Allison Janney

Is A Thousand Words Eddie Murphy's worst movie of all time? Well, it's difficult to label anything that in a world where The Adventures of Pluto Nash and Norbit still exist, but, yes, A Thousand Words is somehow worse than both of those notorious duds.

If there's any positive to come from this ridiculously high-concept and low-laugh romp, it's hopefully Murphy's realization that he needs to stay the hell away from director Brian Robbins, the hack who, before this misfire, worked with the once-great comedian on the aforementioned Norbit and Meet Dave.

This time, though, the collaborators commit an egregious act for any comedy movie: They remove Eddie Murphy's voice. That's because he plays a guy forced to limit his words or else a tree will lose all its leaves and he'll subsequently die. Yes, that's the plot, and, indeed, one of the funniest jokesters ever has to not talk. Why couldn't they have just cast the reasonably nice-to-look-at but verbally unfunny Whitney Cummings instead?

Director: Jay Chandrasekhar
Stars: Paul Schneider, Olivia Munn, Kevin Heffernan, Nat Faxon, Jay Chandrasekhar

For close to an hour, The Babymakers, the latest raunch-fest from director Jay Chandrasekhar (Super Troopers), is a harmless little adult comedy, hitting far too many clichéd beats (obnoxious best friend, dick jokes, racially charged punch lines) but also charming its way to a friendly pass.

The plot is, at first, nicely high-concept: Tommy (Paul Schneider) desperately wants to impregnate his wife, Audrey (Olivia Munn), but his low sperm count, caused by years of donating his ejaculate to the appropriate bank for cash, has left him unable to give her a seed. So, along with his knucklehead friends, Tommy decides to reclaim his sperm by robbing the aforementioned bank.

Funny, right? When the film is in Schneider’s able, underrated hands, The Babymakers provides the right amount of dirty chuckles to keep itself this side of dismissible. But then, in an insufferable turn of laziness, Chandrasekhar’s once-passable flick becomes a lame Horrible Bosses-like caper film that’s riddled with obvious gags and juvenile humor that falls totally flat. One maddening scene, for example, pleads for laughs by having a character roll around in puddles of jizz for a good minute straight—thankfully for him, it’s not Schneider.

Director: Peter Berg
Stars: Taylor Kitsch, Rihanna, Brooklyn Decker, Jesse Plemons, Alexander Skarsgard, Liam Neeson, Tadanobu Asano, Hamish Linklater, John Tui, Gregory Gadson, Adam Godley

Critics and cinema purists can hate on Michael Bay all they want, but one thing is certain: The man has a distinct style, and he does it better than anyone else can. Thus, it's both saddening and embarrassing to watch the otherwise competent director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom) knock around in Bay's sandbox for two long, hollow hours.

Presenting the classic strategy-first board game as a wannabe Transformers blowout, Battleship sacrifices character development, smart dialogue, and acting coaches' souls to make room for nothing but expensive (and, admittedly, strong-looking) CGI, loud noises, and pretty faces backed by amateur chops (Brooklyn Decker and Rihanna).