/\// tOrtUrE-jEssEl-A-thOn \\/\
And so the torture begins. I thought it'd be interesting to see the scores of each of these films, and compare them all with my own grades, just to see how everything fares. And why not start with what some consider the worst film of all time ...
Rotten Tomatoes - Critics 6% ; Audience 13%
Flickchart - 28311 of 28311 i.e. the worst ranked film
IMDB - 2.3 rating
Metacritic - 18
Amazon.com - 2.4 stars
Here's the plot: Batman is a leg-breaker for the mob is sent to kidnap a guy's mentally handicapped brother to help with prosecution. His boss doesn't trust him, so he sends a Jennifer Lopez sized lesbian to help for some reason. And then ... they talk to each other forever. There's the plot. Oh, and the sideplot is finding Baywatch, the real place and going there. Some kind of symbolism, though I cannot put my finger on it. It is mindboggling. It all gets tied into his love of an Australian accent too. I just do not get it.
Affleck is surprisingly pretty great in this. He is interesting, engaging, funny, endearing, and sympathetic. On the other hand, J-Lo is a terrible actress with these huge long monologues. Just absolutely terrible. She sounds like she is saying the words for the first time at all, like she has never heard the words before. Not only that, she is un-relatable, too perfect, and just generally not only irritating, but boring. She absolutely ruins the first hour of screen time she has. The movie is fun and kind of interesting for the first 13 minutes and twenty seconds ... then she gets on screen ... and this gets terrible. Absolutely absolutely terrible.
Music is atrocious and on the nose, or non-existant, or really REALLY out of place. And a lot of the editing is absolutely terrible. The lighting is useless and TV at best, and the cinematography is nothing. Just shots of their faces as they talk. And all they do is talk. Talk talk talk talk. Nothing HAPPENS for SOOOOO long. It is a slog to sit through. The script is not good, with a lot of really terrible bits, including three or four huge long monologues for Lopez, who did I mention before does terribly?
The above is the exact OPPOSITE of what I was feeling at any moment. Also, I wanted to include a gif of a funnier bad movie.
Also, what's the purpose? Why does this movie exist? You gotta ask yourself that, because a lot of films exist for many different reasons. And this one, written and directed by the same man, he obviously had some purpose. But I could not tell you as I watch this what it possibly could be. Is it just to make a drama? Was it to chase down an Oscar? I'm absolutely baffled about the message this film is trying to get across and its purpose as I'm watching it.
Around the halfway point, though, it started to touch on some interesting things. It started to touch on masculinity and femininity, not gender, but how one acts. The very masculine female Ricky and the just now realizing more feminine male Gigli have a pretty profound and interesting conversation, and the film's purpose finally starts to peek its head around. I was really digging it, and their sex scene was really hot. It's like it was from a different movie. The plot starts kicking in, with a really great performance from Al Pacino.
But eventually, we start slogging back into the talky-talky boring garbage and contrived romance tying everything up in tight bow, with no consequences for anyone that we are supposed to "like." *sigh* But for a short while it was really turning into something worth watching! It is so unfortunately how much it isn't worth watching it became again. That's the best way to put it, this film is just not WORTH watching. It isn't anywhere near bad enough to be hilariously bad and enjoyable. It is nowhere near good enough to be engaging and enjoyable. There are bits that are pretty good, and one entire scene driven by the Pacino that is excellent, but ultimately, it wasn't worth seeing. The first hour was torturous boredom, and while it got better, the glaring technical missteps are just not enough to elevate this movie. It sits right in the middle for me: mostly boring, and mostly boringly made.
Grade: C
June 3rd – Gigli (from Rachel Runion)Grade: C- June 4th – Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (from Joel Gould)
- June 5th – Lenny the Wonder Dog (from Jason Schmidt)
- June 6th – The Cat in the Hat (from Josh Hendricks)
- June 7th – The Cat from Outer Space (from Nicole Clockel)
- June 8th – Popeye (from Drew Turner)
- June 9th – SURPRISE JESSEL'S ALMOST-MOST HATED MOVIE!!
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