Bad Movies....

I tripped across the Worst movies ever made blog fest, and now I have to bag on some beloved movies. 

Now I should start out by saying that I love movies. I even love disaster movies…sort of. As a scientist—one who actually studies the events used to depict the destruction of the world as we know it—most disaster flicks are really, well, sadly…BAD. In fact, they are generally so bad they’re good.  So the first five spaces on this list were saved for disaster flicks, the others are just here for the shame of it.

Number 10: The Day After Tomorrow featured a—wait for it—geologist who travels to Antarctica regularly, but is willing to jump crevasses to retrieve his samples (no, no geologist would leap across an ice pit for a freakin ice sample; seriously, why risk death when you could just drill up another one?). Later in the movie Our Geologist decides to hike across the Eastern Seaboard to save his estranged son in the middle of a snow storm. Unfortunately, this geologist who spends all his time in Antarctica was unable to steal a Skidoo from any of the local ATV shops between DC and New York. Right, I buy that too. No one in the movie has a goram snow plow, and, of course, the wolves escape from the zoo and instantly move to attack people. I buy that, really.

Number 9: Armageddon. You know, I have to admit that the bad in this one was also entertaining, in a tremendously awful sort of way. I saw this humdinger in a tiny pit of a movie theatre somewhere in Texas. We were supposed to be camping that day, but it had been raining so we splurged on a skanky hotel that was right across from a sticky floored movie theatre. This movie “features” such issues as fire in a vacuum, badly done low grav effects, and the general notion that you could split a bolide impact by blowing it up with a nuke.

Yeah…. About that. Oh, and the general idea that the space agency could actually turn around a space mission that quickly is, well, generous.

Number 8: The Core. I’m sure you’re picking up on a theme by this point. Here we have a problem with the core of the Earth and our intrepid geologists are going to save the day. You know, considering how much play geologists get in disaster flicks, you’d think the job was more glamorous. It’s not. Anyhow, the core involves some of my all time favorite: Mantle Diamonds. When they whipped that one out on screen I laughed so hard I was thrown out of the room by the people who’d actually been watching the movie. Even thinking about it now brings a tear to my eye.

Number 7: 2012. Ah, 2012, how awesome of you to make neutrinos overheat the core of the planet *snicker* Right, so this movie had me laughing at the general ridiculous science in the first five minutes. That’s not easy to do. But then, then the continents shift while our heroes are in flight, moving a whopping 1000 miles???!!!!! Dude, that’s impressive stuff. Oh, but that’s not all, “Sir we have something at 29,000 feet.” Perplexed commander “What the hell’s at 29,000 feet.” Geologist (again playing the awesome dude come to save the day) responds with more than a hint of smugness “Mt. Everest.”

Good times.

Number 6: Deep Impact. You know, this movie wouldn’t be so damned high on my list except for the one thing that I ABSOLUTELY hate about disaster flicks: kids in danger. If you have a kid, you know what I mean. If not, let me clue you in: you’ve spent nine months praying that the little squirt makes it to the infant stage. Then, for the whole first year, they could literally just die, for no f&%*ing reason, so you waste a considerable amount of resources worrying and then you decide to go out for a movie, and they have kids dying!!!! Yeah, not fun. So yeah: no babies in danger people.

Number 5: Independence Day. Now, this is what I’m talking about a movie where we save the world by downloading a virus into the alien mothership. Dude. At least this one doesn’t feature a geologist fracking up science.

Number 4: Starship Troopers. Now, I read the book. I didn’t have my hopes high, but aliens who could poop something into orbit? Really? I mean I’m all about no and creative ways to destroy the enemies of Earth, but shit bombs? Oh, and the brainsucker alien at the end *sigh.* I’m sorry Neil Patrick Harris, I love you, but that movie stank.

Number 3: Volcano. Now while many of the other’s have been bad, this one was so bad we couldn’t finish watching it while drinking (it was college). It was that bad.

Number 2: Attack of the Clones. Seriously, this movie had the potential to fish the whole prequel out of the s*!7 hole it was attempting to dive into, and instead of saving face it featured the worst acting by Natalie Portman EVER. And that had to be hard to do. She’s actually pretty good, so how did the director make her look so bad? To this day I’m confused (and Han shot first!).

Number 1: *ANY* Movie directed by Uwe Bole. Period. The worst ever.