My Worst 10 Films of The Decade - Part #1

I'll start this list with a disclaimer: I haven't seen a lot of the films released this decade. It's part of the reason why, although I enjoy reading them, I'm not going for a Top Ten of The Decade list, why I try and stay out of Oscar predictions or naming my favourites and why I can't join in discussions about how good Amelie is. I like movies sure, but I'll also be the first to admit that there are gaps in my knowledge.

Having said that, who doesn't enjoy a good old moan, right? The films below deserve attention drawing to them because, although they perhaps aren't the ultimate worst films of the decade they have conspired to take roughly twenty hours of my life, beat it black and blue, return it with a thank you note and charge me for the pleasure. I haven't seen Gigli, I have no idea why anyone would want to watch Glitter, the warnings about Battlefield Earth were so obvious that if you ignored them, you got your just desserts. Ignoring those sure-fire turkeys then, these are the worst ten films I have sat through this decade, numbers ten to six.


10 - The Golden Compass (2007)



Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 42% (Rotten)
IMDb Average: 6.3







Hollywood seems to have an indelible skill to take great novels and turn them into abysmal films. Phillip Pullman's book is full of tense moments, brilliantly realised characters, fantasy, reality and musings on religion. It's a tour de force in writing exciting and intelligent children's literature that can be enjoyed by all ages. The film is not. Characters are changed, emotion is completely absent and the entire atmosphere of the book is destroyed in a mere one-hundred and thirteen minutes. The most disappointed I've ever been coming out of a cinema.



9 - Blade: Trinity (2004)



Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 27% (Rotten)
IMDb Average: 5.7





I know some people enjoyed the second iteration of Blade but for me this is a prime example of a franchise going down hill fast, culminating in this woeful third offering. Some awful new characters, poor and predictable plotting decisions (Whistler's return) and so much product placement I felt like I was in a shop contributed to a thoroughly unsatisfying and unnecessary third trip to the Blade stable. It says something when the best thing about your film is Ryan Reynold's swearing.



8 - Ghost Rider (2007)



Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 26% (Rotten)
IMDb Average: 5.2




A comic book film without any of the thrills and spills normally associated with with the genre, Ghost Rider was a complete vanity project for fanboy Nick Cage. Produced during his worst period of acting to date (The Wicker Man, National Treasure 2), it is probably the most bored I have ever been in a cinema. An unnecessarily convoluted plot and CGI I could of created didn't help matters.



7 - P.S. I Love You (2007)



Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 22% (Rotten)
IMDb Average: 6.9








I could of picked any number of rom-coms to go here but this was by far the most annoying of the decade. Somebody on this film must have been a first-timer because they forgot the cardinal rule of rom-coms: you actually have to like at least one of the characters. Flanked by moron friends, a high-maintenance mother, a dead lover who she didn't seem to like much anyway and a pointless new love interest, Hilary Swank floundered and flapped her way through a trite script which pushed all the wrong buttons. If these characters collected in my house by some bizarre correlation of metaphysical fate, I would burn down my own home to rid the world of them.


6 - Twilight (2008)



Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 49% (Rotten)
IMDb Average: 5.8





Well it was obviously going to be in there; sooner rather than later hey? Combining an actor who I'm still to be convinced is actually an actor and an actress who seems like she doesn't want to be there does not a good film make. Poor imports from the books looked rubbish (and sparkly) on the screen whilst chemistry, emotion and decent dialogue all seemed to have been left at the door. It's not just that I'm not the target audience and it's not that I don't understand Twilight's appeal. This really was awful.


Up Next...

Lots of relevantly recent films then but never fear: the second part will be up tomorrow and covers a film from all the way back in 2000, a film with an IMDb average of 7.9 and the only film I have ever had to turn off.