The 10 Worst Movies Of Summer 2012

Yesterday, we fawned over The 25 Best Movies Of Summer 2012, praising the last few months for giving us a bevy of grade-A quality cinema in both multiplexes and smaller art-house theaters. But, of course, we’re talking about Hollywood here, so with every one or two good films comes five or six awful ones.

As you’ll see in the following, mostly depressing countdown of The 10 Worst Movies Of Summer 2012, the majority of the lamest flicks that debuted during the season starred once-great actors clumsily navigating through the darkest hours of their respective careers. Which is why we’ve been abusing our DVD copies of Edward Scissorhands, Billy Madison, and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy lately—it hasn’t always been this upsetting to sit through new Johnny Depp, Adam Sandler, and Will Ferrell movies. These days, though, it can be excruciating. Take a look and see if you disagree.

Written by Matt Barone (@MBarone)

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Director: Tim Burton
Stars: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, Bella Heathcote, Gulliver McGrath

In certain moments, Tim Burton's super-campy Dark Shadows looks and feels like the Burton/Johnny Depp collaborations of old. Adapting the eponymous, cult-loved, Gothic horror soap opera from the 1970s, Burton and Depp visibly have a grand old time, with the former bathing the film's visuals in a candy-coated, Universal Monsters sheen and the latter hamming it up as a scorned, centuries-old vampire who's out of his element in the '70s. And with a solid supporting cast, namely a sexy, fiendish Eva Green as the story's villainous witch, Dark Shadows showcases talented folks who understand the material's goofiness and gleefully bask in it.

Thus, it's a crying shame that Burton moronically used screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith's clusterfuck of a script. With peripheral characters coming in and out of prominence throughout, and a tone that schizophrenically bounces back and forth from wannabe scary to overboard and silly, Grahame-Smith's plotting is phenomenally uneven. The fact that Mr. Burton either didn't realize the script's numerous flaws or chose to ignore them confirms that he's simply on cruise control these days, more concerned with style over substance. The eccentric filmmaker's upcoming animated flick Frankenweenie looks excellent, but it's a shame that we can't anticipate it without extreme caution.

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

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 creative 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: Sean Anders
Stars: Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Leighton Meester, Milo Ventimiglia, Will Forte, Rachel Dratch, Nick Swardson, Vanilla Ice, James Caan, Ciara

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: Doug Aarniokoski
Stars: Ashley Bell, Dominic Monaghan, Shawn Ashmore, Shannyn Sossamon, Cory Hardrict, Michael Eklund

Just when you thought the haunted house was the most overused setting in genre movies, flicks like The Day come along and remind us that the tired, beaten-down "post-apocalyptic thriller" conceit is currently being abused with far worse abandon. The polar opposite of last year's excellent Stake Land, which treaded similar territory, except with vampires, director Doug Aarnikioski's perfunctory effort pilfers a little something from every urban wasteland picture in recent memory, from The Road to The Book of Eli.

Perhaps aware that his under-developed characters and unimaginative plot had little to offer in the way of freshness, Aarniokioski litters The Day with an excessive amount of cheap-looking cgi bloodshed and clunky violence, leaving gifted but stranded actors like Ashley Bell and Dominic Monaghan to imitate action stars when they should be emoting. It's no wonder WWE's film division distributed The Day. They might as well have just recast the picture with the likes of John Cena and Kelly Kelly and called it a day—pun intended.

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

Truthfully, 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 US with a fake identity, is more concerned with poop jokes, gags rooted in vaginas and severed heads, 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: Todd Lincoln
Stars: Ashley Greene, Sebastian Stan, Tom Felton, Julianna Guill, Luke Pasqualino, Suzanne Ford

Chances are, this is the first you're hearing about The Apparition, the incredibly bland PG-13 horror flick that opened this past weekend and barely cracked $2 million domestically. 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: Adam Shankman
Stars: Tom Cruise, Julianne Hough, Diego Boneta, Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, Paul Giamatti, Malin Akerman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Mary J. Blige

Two hours' worth of big-name movie stars wearing laughable '80s rocker garb while singing karoake? On paper, that pitch sounds utterly 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: Len Wiseman
Stars: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, Bill Nighy, Bokeem Woodbine, 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 a 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: 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 knuckled-headed 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, Brooklyn Decker, Rihanna, Liam Neeson, Jesse Plemons, Alexander Skarsgard, Hamish Linklater

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, Rihanna).