5. The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure (2012)
Kenn Viselman Presents/Freestyle Releasing
An anthropomorphic pillow is in a coma. Its minders are a talking lady-window and her best gay vacuum cleaner friend. In order to wake up this stupid pillow, the giant-headed Oogieloves, three felt-suited weirdos with no life skills beyond “frolicking,” have to capture five singing balloons (who, honestly, for a bunch of balloons, are pretty demanding when it comes to public displays of affection, chanting, “MORE KISSES!” when they feel less than loved).
An interactive film for toddlers, parents will be thrilled to learn that it instructs their little ones to do things like talk to strangers, drink gallons of liquid ice cream, and put themselves in physical peril in order to reach toys in high places.
Worst Moment: Jamie Pressley and Christopher Lloyd pretending to be Latino inside a giant flying sombrero, with Pressley shouting “Board the hat!” ~ Dave White
4. Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (2013)
Lionsgate
Tyler Perry loves to make his sinners suffer. He’s the Sun and the magnifying glass, his creations the helpless ants. In this, his greatest non-Madea feat of dramatic insanity, a young woman (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) becomes involved with shirtless, rage-fueled billionaire Harley (Robbie Jones). She’s a good-girl-gone-bad thanks to him, and her down-escalator to oblivion is framed inside Perry’s simultaneous lascivious and scolding gaze. Worse, she stops saying grace before meals, so you know shit is about to get awful. And awful it gets, with what may be the most irresponsible approach to HIV prevention seen in contemporary cinema. Kim Kardashian tries acting for the first time here, and she is not the movie’s biggest problem.
Worst Moment: Brandy Norwood, as Harley’s ex, explains how it’s her own fault that he gave her AIDS. Oops, spoiler. Not sorry. ~ Dave White
3. Sucker Punch (2011)
Warner Bros.
Is it possible to be obnoxiously pretentious and obnoxiously superficial, all at the same time? Zack Snyder sure as hell tries in Sucker Punch. The film features a group of one-dimensional women trapped in an insane asylum, who escape into a dream world where they are all completely chaste prostitutes, and then escape again into absurdly elaborate sci-fi fantasies based on entirely on cultural concepts that did not yet exist in the 1960s, when the story is actually set. It’s a metaphor within a metaphor within a gross exploitation of female victimization for blockbuster financial gain, which pretends to be about empowerment but actually subverts its own message at every possible opportunity.
Defenders of Sucker Punch often argue that the detractors don’t “get” it, but there’s just not much to get. Snyder empowers his female characters through overt fetishization that’s no less degrading than the degradation they are supposedly trying to escape, leaving his film feeling hollow and insulting, and not just to his characters but to his audience. He either hypocritically wants to chastise you for wanting to watch his movie, or to hypocritically give you all the prurient junk you wanted under the guise of high art. Either way, Sucker Punch bites the hand that feeds it, and completely annihilates its own aggressively simplistic messages.
Worst Moment: Pick an unnecessarily protracted fantasy action sequence based on imagery that makes no sense in historical context and has absolutely no relation to the narrative event it is supposed to symbolize… any unnecessarily protracted fantasy action sequence based on imagery that makes no sense in historical context and has absolutely no relation to the narrative event it is supposed to symbolize. ~ William Bibbiani
2. Grown Ups 2 (2013)
Columbia Pictures
Adam Sandler must be incredibly pleasant to work with, as he repeatedly manages to attract large casts of famous people to enact his immature, bullying, negging, unfunny, unhealthy fantasies. Sandler’s worldview is in full view in Grown-Ups 2: People inside of Sandler’s inner circle are all of a venerable, down-to-Earth, aw-shucks, boys-will-be-boys fraternity (not matter how horrible or irresponsible they are) while those outside (i.e. women, old people, minorities, etc.) are all to be mocked and derided. Oddly, the preachy message of the film is one of anti-bullying and getting along. Sorry, Mr. Sandler, but that doesn’t work when you spend so much time openly humiliating people. We’re not surprised that worst movies of the decade feature Adam. Your main characters are also bullies.
Worst Moment: When Jon Lovitz sexually harasses women at a yoga class, and faces no legal consequences. ~ Witney Seibold
