Worst of the Worst

The Spirit F

Bestowing the title “The Worst Movie I’ve Ever Seen” on a film is not something I enter into lightly. So, understand it is with significant forethought that I announce my successor to No Where to Run, a film that’s held that honor since its release in 1993. (Cue the trumpets) without further ado, I give you The Spirit. It is awful. It is horrendous. To deem the dialogue nonsensical is to rob the plot of the only word worthy of describing it. I’d give you the rundown, but I’m still not sure I understand what was (supposedly) going on. So, I’ll just list what was wasted or destroyed in this monstrosity: The last shred of dignity clinging to Samuel L. Jackson’s career. Any question as to who actually directed Sin City (Robert Rodriguez or Frank Miller—both credited). Miller “directs” this mess, and while I don’t think the world of Rodriguez or Sin City, at least it hung together. A quadrilateral of babes: Eva Mendes. Scarlett Johansson. Paz Vega. Jamie King. Dan Lauria’s performance (actually pretty good). A decent allusion to Vertigo. The fledgling leading man career of Gabriel Macht. And, finally, roughly two hours of my time. It’s not that I’ve never seen films that had worse plots or worse acting or worse direction. But I’ve never seen a movie with this amount of talent that cost this amount of money that takes itself this seriously remain this awful.

The Mutant Chronicles C

In direct contrast to The Spirit, The Mutant Chronicles knows it’s awful. It revels in it. If you’re tempted to forget, it’ll create a particularly horrendous scene to drive the point home. There is talent to waste in this film as well—in particular John Malkovich and Ron Perlman—neither a stranger to slumming for a dime—but they’re having gleeful fun, daring you to take it seriously. The plot is apocalyptic zombie goo set several hundred years in the future, with odd religious and sci-fi overtones. Thousands of years ago an alien machine that turns corpses into mutant zombie killers (with claw-like appendages) was implanted on earth. It’s been reawakened, with certain death awaiting all of earth’s inhabitants who don’t get a golden ticket on a spaceship off this rock. Ron Perlman plays a priest with an ancient prophetic book who’s looking for a few brave soldiers to turn the machine off. The opening sequence was all that was released for a trailer last year and is over-the-top violent fun in a way only B horror flicks are. To be honest, grading it at all isn’t fair since it never asks you to take it even moderately seriously. I certainly can’t recommend it, but it seems disingenuous to mark it lower than a C since it is exactly what it sets out to be—sci-fi trash. C