These movies might be real stinkers but at least the filmmakers/studios were brave enough to screen them for critics before launching them on audiences. Almost every film from the horror genre hit theaters without preview screenings. There was also an incredible amount of comedies and sequels/prequels that went straight into theaters, avoiding the review process all together. So while the films on this list were bad, in all honesty they're probably not as terrible as the batch that snuck into theaters bypassing the critics.
I can't shake the image of
Nicolas Cage running through the forest in a bear costume from my mind. A neutered remake of the 1973 thriller, this 2006 film was without a doubt the worst film of 2006 (and quite possibly the entire decade).
An incredible waste of talent, time, and energy,
Trust the Man proves that even an independent film with respectable actors is capable of trying to pass off burping, farting and other potty humor as art.
This thing was so horrible I got up and left about halfway through the screening. I wasn't the first person to leave the free screening and I was told a mass exodus occurred shortly after I gave up on the film. The writers must have forgotten the definition of parody when they threw darts on a board to come up with this script.
Trust your instincts and avoid this mess at all costs. Sharon Stone was perfect for the role back in the early '90s but that's no excuse for repeating the character so many years later. Seriously, do you know a single person who begged for
Basic Instinct 2 to be made?
Before you type up that email letting me know how wrong I am about this film, consider a couple of key points. One, even if you're a huge fan of Christopher Paolini's novel you have to admit the acting in this movie was atrocious. Two, the advertising trailers failed to explain that those thinking of taking in a screening of
Eragon would need to be well-versed in the source material in order to make heads or tails out of the storyline. And three, it's obviously an inferior version of Tolkien's
Lord of the Rings.
James Franco made some horrible choices in 2006. He clichéd his way through what can only be described as an insult to military films in
Annapolis. His hair managed to pull off a better performance than he did in
Tristan & Isolde. And the piece de resistance was
Flyboys, a $60 million film that brought in $6 million over its opening weekend before word-of-mouth shot it down in flames. Here's hoping 2007 is a much, much better year for Franco.
I liked this one a whole lot more when it was called
Madagascar.
If there's a point to this collection of recycled gags it's completely lost on me. Every joke is predictable, every set-up results in having one of the actors covered in poop. Toilet humor can only carry a film so far before it's necessary to flush the whole mess.
The more I think about
Apocalypto (and believe me I've tried to block it from my mind), the more I intensely dislike it. I ask those of you who've seen this ultraviolent gorefest, if Mel Gibson's name wasn't attached to this movie would you have been interested? Hmm, let's see. It's about the Mayans and told with subtitles. Women, men, and animals are slain with their deaths shown in graphic detail. Yeah, let's see that one right before the winter holidays. Actually I think what disturbs me the most about
Apocalypto was that it got by with an R rating when it so obviously deserved an NC-17.
Hoot is stuck in the 1970s, and not in a good way. The acting, the dialogue, the premise, every aspect of this film feels rooted in that decade. The main characters don't even use cell phones or instant messages, or wear clothing from this century, yet it's supposed to be taking place now. This very weird, very forgettable message movie never succeeds in engaging the audience. Plus, the adorable owls at the center of the story only get a couple of minutes of screen time. That's just cheating the audience.
