Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie - The movie that didn't live up to Power Rangers' standards.

Go Go, out of the theatre!

I recently had the pleasure of seeing the new Power Rangers (2017) in the theatre, and I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would. The Power Rangers franchise isn't exactly known for its narrative storytelling or memorable characters, but it explored it from a different angle we haven't really seen before, so I have to give kudos to the team behind that movie.

Because of my enjoyment of the film, I thought it appropriate to check out some of the older Power Rangers shows. I never grew up with Power Rangers, but I can still appreciate the innocent cheesiness of the old Mighty Morphin' series. When I found out that they made a movie tie-in to the show I thought to myself: "So, they pulled a Transformers and used a theatrical film to launch a new toyline, eh? That's cute!" so I decided to check it out...that was a mistake.

I'm not pretending that Power Rangers is high art or anything, but by Zordon this movie was atrocious. I was bored, I was frustrated, and I was baffled all at once during my viewing of this film. If I was a kid in the 90s when this movie was released, and I was super-excited to see my heroes on the big screen, I would have left this movie disappointed.

This movie had a budget of $15 Million. Admittedly, not a fortune but still enough to make a halfway-decent action film. This movie apparently took $10 million and flushed it down the toilet. The fight scenes in this movie look just as bad as the ones from the show, and if you've seen the fights from the show then you know how ridiculous they are. In fact, the whole movie really feels like a 90-minute episode of the show, and not in a good way.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's discuss the plot: The Power Rangers, Tommy, Billy, Kimberly, Adam, Rocky, and Aisha, are going about their lives doing EXTREME sports in order to raise money for the construction of an observatory, when an ancient egg is accidentally unearthed by the construction crew. Zordon, the Rangers' mentor, informs us that the egg contains an ancient evil named Ivan Ooze (such a terrifying name) that must not be released under any circumstance. Unfortunately, the Power Rangers' regular enemies, Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd, crack open the egg and unleash Ooze upon the world.

Ooze is too powerful for the Rangers and manages to put Zordon in a critical state. In order to save both him and the world the Rangers must travel to an alien planet (which looks an awful lot like coastal Australia) to obtain some sort of "Great Power" that will grant them the ability to do...things. They go on adventures, fight some monsters, defeat Ivan Ooze, and then all is right with the world. The End.

The purple gentleman is Mr. Ooze.
He's got quite the lovely goatee.

As always, let's start out with the positives.

First off, while Ivan Ooze is a lackluster villain at best, the actor playing him, Paul Freeman, is clearly having the time of his life hamming it up as a cheesy kid's movie villain. He's the only legitimately good actor in the movie and it really shows.

Also, despite the stupidity of the fight scenes, some of them are entertaining in a so-bad-it's-good manner. The physics of Power Rangers are not realistic, let me tell you.

Those are about the biggest compliments I can give this idiotic movie.

Let me lay this out: what works for a 22-minute-at-a-time TV show doesn't necessarily work for a 90-minute movie. The pacing feels super wonky and the film spends an inordinate amount of time on fight scenes. The movie is even shot the same as the show, just with a more expensive camera. The only time they took advantage of their budget is inserting a skydiving scene that has f*ck-all to do with the rest of the movie. By the by, the skydiving doesn't ever come back as a plot device later in the movie, because they have no idea about Chekhov's Gun.

It occurs to me that this movie could have been a great opportunity to actually develop the characters of the Rangers beyond their one personality trait of neverending niceness and EXTREME-ness, but nope. This movie decided that introducing new powers and new toys to sell was more important than having us actually care about what was happening. Oh look, the Rangers get new costumes! Oh look, new Zords! New monsters to fight! Why should I care!? This supposedly planet-scale movie takes place in one town and an "alien planet!"

Oh, remember how I said that Paul Freeman was the only good actor in the movie? Well, I wasn't kidding. I understand that these actors aren't paid very well, but the Rangers' actors are all terrible. They're certainly good at martial arts and gymnastics, but their performances are about as engaging as a block of wood. Rita and Zedd's performances are nothing to write home abut either, but they're only in the movie for about 5 minutes so maybe they just didn't have the opportunity.

The special effect, with some exceptions, are all awful. Here's a tip: just because you can use CGI doesn't mean that you should. The CG in this movie is so mind-bendingly poor that you wonder why they even bothered. Power Rangers was always known for using people in costumes as giant monsters, so why didn't they use them here!? Just dress some stuntmen up as the MegaZord and Ooze and have them fight in a tiny Angel Grove! But no, instead we need a pair of CGI monsters brushing against one another in a way that makes you wonder why they thought it was a good idea when it was clearly outside their budget!

This movie is so ridiculous and poorly put together that the Power Rangers TV disregarded it entirely! After the movie came out the next season of Power Rangers came up for an entirely different reason for the Power Rangers to have the new powers and Zords! You know you done screwed up when Power Rangers, freaking Power Rangers, says "Yeah, we can do better."

Well, it seems like they did do better according to fans, while this movie is forever mocked as the worst thing ever produced by Saban and his company.

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie is a MegaZord of Cinematic Garbage.

Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 - John Travolta's biggest embarrassment, and that's saying a lot.

Welcome to the Planet of the Idiots.

...Man, what an unpleasant experience.

Battlefield Earth was one of the strangest, and most off-the-wall films I have ever had the displeasure of seeing. It's a pretentious and overproduced mess of a film that stands as a testament to what happens when a movie is not told "no."

This movie was based on a book by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology and notoriously poor writer I might add, John Travolta (a dedicated Scientologist) wanted to make this movie since 1982 when the book was first published, but was unable to until the year 2000 (for obvious reasons.)

But he managed to scrape together the resources to make this piece of garbage and have Roger Christian, whoever that is, direct it. Yaaaay...



So, let's discuss this abomination in depth, shall we? Let's dive in.


Be very afraid.




The film takes place in the year 3000. Earth has been invaded by an alien race of 9-foot-tall dreadlocked Klingon wannabes known as the Psychlos. Psychlos. That's what happens when you let your 5-year-old write the screenplay.

The story of the film follows a lone, long-haired human played by Barry Pepper named Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (Yes, that is the character's real name) as he travels into the ruins of what humanity once was in order to find food and resources for his tribe of cavemen.

While on the hunt he comes across the aforementioned Psychlos and gets captured and taken to their base (where he is able to breathe thanks to some tubes up his nose) where he is put to work doing slave labor in order to mine gold. That's the only reason they're on Earth, by the by, to mine gold. Apparently it's the rarest and most valuable substance in the universe. If only we'd known, eh?

Jonnie is captured with some other humans and tries to attack his Psychlo captors, gaining the attention of the security chief named Turl, played by the illustrious John Travolta who chews more scenery than a pack of rats on set.

Turl puts Jonnie away in the "Man-Animal" cages and is told by his superiors that he's going to be kept on Earth, which he hates, for an extended period of time. So it's up to him to try and do...something to get back at the Psychlo Empire while Jonnie tries to spark an uprising amongst the captured Man-Animals.

Now, if you're wondering what the positives in this movie are, I'll list them below:

-

That's right. NOTHING.

This is one of the most unaware, poorly-made, sickening landfills of a movie you will ever see. There is nothing redeeming about it, absolutely nothing.

The acting ranges from passable to downright hilarious in its execution! The passable actors consist of Barry Pepper and Forest Whitaker as Turl's right-hand man. The rest are awful, including John Travolta.

Now, Travolta's performance is something that's difficult to explain. It's not that he just doesn't care about the role he's in, that much is obvious, but he still plays his role like someone who isn't taking it seriously. His performance is so over-the-top that it's nearly impossible not to laugh when he's hamming it up at Turl the Psychlo.

Every other performance in the movie, the other tribes of humans, the Pychlo administrators, all act like they were given zero direction! They just go as over-the-top as possible with no rhyme or reason! God!

Oh, but don't be fooled! The acting isn't the only thing wrong with the movie! There's also the camerawork! 98% of the shots in this movie are tilted dutch angles, and almost all of them are extremely jarring. It's like half the time the movie is trying to give you vertigo and the other half it feels like the characters should be falling out of the shot! I don't know what the director was thinking when they made this movie, but I feel like they might have been glued to the side of a wall!

The movie's color scheme is awful, even. Most shots are overlaid by color filters, most of which make me sick to my stomach just thinking about them! They consist of a lot of bright secondary colors like purples and greens. I think it's supposed to give the environments an eerie, alien feel, but none of them accomplish this. They just make me hate having eyes!

There is also a lot of slow-mo in this movie, and most of it is shot at a framerate that does not support slow-mo, making it as blurry as a bad Skype call. This movie was released a year after the Matrix came out, so do you think that maybe the director was trying to cash in on the success of that movie?

The writing in this film is just atrocious, particularly the dialogue spoken by the Psychlos. Of course, while you were still learning to SPELL YOUR NAME, Turl was being trained to CONQUER GALAXIES, and to do anything less would be a shame to his entire family line.

Turl's plan to do...whatever it is he's doing makes no sense! He wants to train the "Man-Animals" to mine gold for him and him alone, so he decides to find out what they like to eat so they have motivation to mine. How does he do so? Strand a few people on a mountain and keep them under careful observation until they find something they could eat and then use that food as a treat for the man-animals after they finished mining. Doesn't seem too bad a plan, right? That's only until you learn that they have machines that can somehow teach a man-animal the Psychlo language and culture just like that!...Why didn't they just take a man-animal, stick them in the machine and then ask them "What would you like to eat?!"

The story doesn't feel like it flows naturally. It just sort of meanders along to whatever events the script says have to happen. Facts and plot devices are revealed as they're needed, no thought is put into the order events at all. It follows an "and then" style of writing. This review cannot do this movie justice. It's such an ugly and unpleasant film that makes you absolutely loathe every single person involved. The only way it could be made worse is if it didn't make me burst into unintentional hilarity several times.

A pathetic attempt at a sci-fi epic with ludicrous writing and acting on par with Jim Carrey's worst moments. Battlefield Earth is Cinematic Garbage at its finest.

10 Worst Villains from Animated Movies

There's a saying in showbiz: "Your movie is only as good as your villain." While this may not be true in all cases, I'd say it is pretty valid. An antagonist provides conflict and challenges our protagonist. Thus, they move the plot forward. An antagonist isn't always a person. Sometimes they're the world at large or the protagonist's inner demons. Either way, they're a central part to any story.

Animated films, because they're mostly geared towards families and children, are especially subject to this. Because of their target demographic, they must craft their antagonist carefully so that their themes come across clearly. Because of this, animated films have given us some amazing villains over the years.

Unfortunately, not every animated film is made with care, and so we also have a heaping helping of terrible villains. Now we're here to celebrate their terribleness for your enjoyment. I present to you:

The Worst Animated Villains of All Time

First, let's take a look at some dishonourable mentions, for villains who are still crappy, but not enough so to make it on this list, as well as some that are just low-hanging fruit. 

Ruber - Quest for Camelot

I couldn't remember this guy's name until I looked it up. I'd say that's a pretty good indicator of his awfulness. Despite the voice talent of Gary Oldman, Ruber was about as memorable as a French lesson.

Holli Would - Cool World

I know, I know, but the character is animated so it counts. Holli a villain who just does whatever the plot wants her to do. First she wants to have sex with a real-life person then she wants to merge the cartoon world the real one for no real reason, it makes no sense, much like the rest of the movie.

Everard Maltravers - Legend of the Titanic

A generic villain for a crazy movie with no concept of reality. But not only that, he's a whaler on the Titanic who wants to hunt whales...on the Titanic...why?

Galvatron - Transformers: Age of Extinction

Wait, you mean this wasn't a cartoon?

Roar-Omega-Roar Frat - Monsters University

A bunch of stupid frat boys as villains in a Pixar movie. We all deserve better than this.

The Horned King - The Black Cauldron

Generic, but creepy enough to not make it onto the list.

Jean-Claude - The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Golden Films)

Hmm, a pompous french guy with black hair and a red shirt trying to seduce a beautiful woman while she's being charmed by an (allegedly) ugly guy. Does this seem familiar to anyone?

Zigzag the Vizier - The Thief and the Cobbler

Dammit, Vincent Price! I'm glad he never had to see the finished product.

Gargamel - The Smurfs & The Smurfs 2

Wait, you mean this wasn't a cartoon?

Whoever this guy is - Oliver & Company

Oh yeah...who was he again?

Mr. McNasty - Pound Puppies and the Legend of Bigpaw

A generic antagonist with an idiotic plan. Seems harmless enough until you hear his atrocious musical number "The King of Everything". *shudder*.

Mrs. Mavilda - The Christmas Tree

An evil woman who runs an orphanage for no reason and spends all the government funding she gets on poker games. She also seems to have multiple personalities if her voice acting is any indication...

Ronno - Bambi II

A decent if one-note obstacle in the original turned generic bully in the direct-to-DVD mid-quel. I do not have enough face or enough palm.

Sarousch - The Hunchback of Notre Dame II

2 Hunchback-based villains so far. Weird. Anyhow, Sarousch has the honor of being the first villain to be gay for himself. Yeah, I'm not even kidding. He's creepy and not in a good way.

Mr. Freeze - Batman and Robin

Wait, you mean this wasn't a cartoon!?

Unicron - Transformers: The Movie

Boy, am I going to get shot over this one.

OK, so Unicron's back story was fleshed out in the various comic book adaptations of the Transformers, sure. I also really liked his portrayal in Transformers: Prime. Just putting that out there, because Unicron was just a Generic Doomsday Villain who turned Megatron into Galvatron and was scared of the Matrix of Leadership for no discernible reason in his first appearance. Not a good start to the Transformers equivalent of Satan.

With that out of the way, let's get into the actual list.

These are the 10 worst animated villains of all time. Starting: NOW!

10. Mother Gothel - Tangled

Now, I like Tangled as much as the next guy. It's actually one of my favourite Disney Princess movies. Unfortunately, the weakest part of the movie by far was the villain: Mother Gothel. Gothel kidnaps Rapunzel as a baby so she can use her magic golden hair to stay youthful forever, keeping her isolated in an old tower and telling her the outside world is a realm of nothing but danger. Seems like a setup for a truly evil villain, right? 

If you've been paying attention you probably notice a few parallels to another Disney antagonist: Judge Claude Frollo from Hunchback of Notre Dame, who many see as one of Disney's greatest evildoers. The problem is that Gothel doesn't have as much depth or menace as Frollo does. Frollo has a cold, demanding presence whenever he walks into a room, helped immensely by Tony Jay's excellent voicework. Gothel just seems like a random annoying woman you'd meet on the street. 

It's a shame because every other character in Tangled seems far more defined and memorable, with clear motivations for everything they do. Even the aforementioned Frollo does what he does out of fear of God. Gothel does what she does because...she's selfish, I suppose. A boring motivation for a boring villain.

Despite all that, Gothel isn't the worst that Disney has inflicted upon us. Her aforementioned kidnapping of a baby, leaving a King and Queen in utter despair for 18 years, and a fairly funny villain song on her part keep her at number 10. Trust me, we've got a long way to go from Mother Gothel.

9. Rasputin - Anastasia

Hoo boy, here we go.

So, have you ever heard the historical tale of Grigori Rasputin? It's actually pretty fascinating. He was a peasant-turned mystic and religious figure who befriended the Tsar and played a key part in the infamous Russian Revolution. 

This movie got it pretty close. Here he's an evil wizard with a talking bat sidekick who placed a curse on the Romanov family to end their reign only to be killed and resurrected from the dead so he could kill the somehow-surviving Anastasia Romanov as an act of revenge...yeah, seems about right.

As you can tell, this character is an insult to a real historical figure with his very presence. Rasputin has been reduced to an enigmatic and interesting individual into a Card-Carrying Villain who uses magic spells and evil bugs to do his bidding. What an absolute waste.

On the plus side, if one takes him out historical context, he's not too bad a villain. He's reasonably threatening and Christopher Lloyd fits the role to a tee. It's just a shame that this movie completely destroyed a real, intriguing man from Russia's past by turning him into this weirdo.

8. Frieda - Happily N'Ever After

Now we're getting into absolute garbage territory.

Frieda, AKA Cinderella's evil stepmother ascending to godlike levels of power, is about as terrible a concept as you would think. Frieda's motivation throughout the movie is just to be evil for the sake of being evil. She hates Cinderella for reasons stupid enough to be lampshaded in the movie itself, and completely misses the point of the original character!

This movie is obviously taking a page from Shrek's book in its spoofing of classic fairy tale conventions, and thus takes a lot of inspiration from Disney works. Let's take a look at Disney's take on the character, Lady Tremaine. Tremaine is the kind of villain that could actually exist: a cruel woman who makes an innocent's life miserable. It's a simple villain for a simple premise. This movie misses the mark entirely by giving her an evil laugh and over-the-top power to turn the Kingdom of No-Name-Given into evil-town.

Frieda's one saving grace is that she's voiced by the very talented Sigourney Weaver clearly giving it her all. It's unfortunate that she got stuck in such an awful film that clearly spent more money on celebrity voices than competent writing.

7. The Phantom Virus - Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase

I think this can be used as an umbrella for all the terrible villains from the countless direct-to-DVD Scooby-Doo movies. I did choose the Virus for a reason though, don't you worry.

A lot of people really seem to like Cyber Chase, considering it to be one of the better Scooby movies, and I can see why. It's got an interesting premise and is nostalgic to a lot of people including myself. That doesn't excuse the fact that it blows, however, and blow it does. 

The Phantom Virus is a sentient computer virus brought to life by cartoon science that chases the Mystery Gang through both the digital world and the real world. It has the power to manipulate electronic devices (a power it uses all of twice throughout the span of the movie) and shoot lightning from its hands (again, twice.) So you'd think this guy would be threatening right? Wrong.

Instead of being scared, the audience struggles not to laugh when they see his goofy grin and chin that could poke someone's eye out! Not only that, but he has a hilarious way of running after the gang and a laugh that just never stops! Who thought this spindly, silly-looking lightning bolt was a good design?!

Oh, and the best part? Do you want to know how he's defeated? Well, the gang figures out who made the virus as such: The culprit really likes baseball, so he programmed the virus to make baseball references at every opportunity...I am not making this up. That's like a robber leaving his signature on the wall of a bank he just stole from! This character was stupid, pointless, and not scary in the least. 

Still, at least he's not Scrappy-Doo.

6. Governor Ratcliffe - Pocahontas

Remember how I said that Rasputin was insulting to history earlier? Well, at least he had some redeeming qualities about him like Christopher Lloyd's stellar performance. I can't say the same for Governor Ratcliffe.

Ratcliffe is loosely (and I do mean loosely) based on historical figure John Ratcliffe, the head of the Jamestown Colony in Virginia. Unfortunately, any humanity that the real Ratcliffe may have had was lost on the writers and animators of Pocahontas, as they just made him a generic, greedy settler hoping to exploit the natives' land for profit and power and blah blah blah.

The entire Pocahontas movie is insulting in general, but Ratcliffe dials it up to eleven with his snobbish demeanor, tiny little dog sidekick and unfounded racism against the natives. This guy's a-holishness makes a bunch of people shouting "Savages, savages!" seem reasonable after they've seen him! 

Because of that, Ratcliffe makes the number 6 spot. He made a cry of war seem reasonable. Screw you, Pocahontas. Screw you and your historical tone-deafness!

5. Morgana - The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea

Hey, kids! Did you ever want to see The Little Mermaid done again, only this time in reverse with none of the charm, effort, or timelessness that was in the original? 

Well, never fear! We've got the movie for you: The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea! Watch as Ariel's daughter, Melody, is drawn to the ocean as a child, just like Ariel was drawn to land, but she is forbidden from going there by her parents because of danger and stuff!

But what is this danger? It's Ursula's crazy sister (that is literally how she is introduced), Morgana! She's just like Ursula, except she's skinny! They even got the same voice actress, Patt Carroll, so you'd notice the difference even less!

Watch as Morgana pulls the exact same trick on Melody that Ursula played on Ariel, but this time she gives her a fin instead of legs! Then she does the exact same thing Ursula did, but it makes less sense! 

Who needs to come up with a new villain when we can just recycle the original!? Buy it kids! BUY IT!!

No, really. Morgana is one of the laziest villain concepts in film history.

4. Kralahome - The King and I

You thought Rasputin and Ratcliffe were insulting? Meet Kralahome! Not only is this guy insulting to history, but to a well-known musical as well! 

Kralahome went from a conservative and stern adviser to the King to evil wizard trying to conquer Siam. Rasputin, eat your heart out. But not only is he an evil wizard, he's an incompetent evil wizard with a racist caricature sidekick whose evil spells are defeated by the lamest things!

Evil dragon? Whistle at it!

Evil statues? Have the King's pet panther roar at them!

Just shooting down the King's blimp? Completely ineffectual!

I think "completely ineffectual" sums up Kralahome pretty well, if I'm honest. He's just Warner Bros. attempt to rip off Jafar and their own villain, Rasputin! All of these reasons combined make Kralahome a terrible villain worthy of his place on this list.

3. Sunset Shimmer - My Little Pony: Equestria Girls

Ugh. This one hurts me. Wounds me, even.

It's weird, because this definitely isn't the worst movie on the list but for some reason, some freaking reason, this movie and this villain just really friggin' irked me. Maybe it's because there's a talented cast and crew behind it, maybe it's because so much potential was thrown out the window, but I really hate My Little Pony: Equestria Girls.

One of the biggest hate sinks in the movie is Sunset Shimmer: a generic alpha b*tch antagonist with a secret plan to conquer the pony land of Equestria. Does that sound like something interesting? Well, if done right then maybe it could be. That does seem like what they're going for at the beginning, with her being the student of the Princess but running off to the human world when she couldn't get the power she wanted.

Unfortunately, this character is executed in the most idiotic way possible. First, let's walk through her actions throughout the movie:

She runs off to the human world through a portal that would be closed for "thirty moons" and attend Canterlot High School until the portal opens again.

She comes back to Equestria to steal the Element of Magic crown that she somehow knew existed even though it's only been around for however long 3 seasons takes. 

She loses the crown to Principal Celestia (*sigh*) so she has to be voted Princess of the Fall Formal to get it back.

Twilight Sparkle starts running against her so she sabotages her by literally cutting and pasting photographs in order to frame her for wrecking the school gymnasium. 

When that doesn't work she just kidnaps Spike and threatens to destroy the portal back to Equestria with a sledgehammer (even though it would just pass through the damned thing) so she gets the crown.

Now that she has the crown she pits it on and she somehow turns into a gargoyle that can control the minds of everyone in the school.

She announces that she will use her teenage army to conquer Equestria.

Do I even need to explain what is wrong with this plan!? How does she plan to conquer a land of magic and monsters using an army of teenagers!? Even if they all got magic powers upon entering the portal, they would still have to fight dragons, minotaurs, unicorns, pegasus, and a pair of monarchs representative of the sun and moon themselves! What kind of idiotic plan is that!?

Not only that! When she's finally defeated by Twilight and the Power of Friendship and junk, she just says she's sorry and all is forgiven! What the hell is that!? It's made clear in the movie that she's been an unrepentant bully that's been tormenting everyone in this high school for years and yet one apology is all it takes to be forgiven, apparently! God, this is so stupid!

OK...Ok...I'm calm. To be fair, in the sequels (yes, this movie got sequels) Sunset Shimmer actually got some character development with a redemption arc that actually shows the consequences of being evil, but as it stands, Sunset Shimmer the villain is a terrible antagonist that just made me angry.

2. Lady X - Foodfight!

Foodfight! is one of those rare movies that just makes you feel unclean after watching. You feel violated and disturbed like your very soul has just been defiled by the grubby hands of a deranged maniac. One of the many, many, reasons why this disgusting film has been deemed "the worst animated film ever" is the antagonist of the story: Lady X.

I mean...just look at her. The CG modeling is so bad that she looks like a plastic doll more than a living creature! It's even more disturbing when the filmmakers try to make her sexy somehow, like they just propped up the corpse of Jessica Rabbit and dressed her up like a wannabe dominatrix. Eva Longoria was tasked to do her voice and my heart goes out to her for having to read the lines the demented writers thought would leave a positive impact on us.

Even ignoring the fact that she, along with every other character in this movie, feels like she wants to jump off the screen and attack us, her in-universe evil plan is certainly something else. I can't even begin to describe it, because even I have no freaking clue what Lady's X's plan was! This film is so bad at relaying information that I seriously have no idea what the point of the plot was!

There was something involving robot Exobytes (whatever those are) and killing off product mascots before replacing their products with her own and a giant army of Nazi-looking copy-and-pasted CG models and kidnapping a cat-lady and Tim Curry's character wetting himself and enjoying it and a giant creepy mech voiced by Christopher Lloyd and I DON'T KNOW, OK!?

Then at the end her motivation is revealed to be that she was jealous that a brand of raisins advertised by the cat lady I mentioned earlier sold better than hers and so she somehow created a giant robot mech to interact with the human world so she could replace all those raisins with her own...did that make sense to you? Yeah, me neither. Don't worry. It doesn't make sense to anyone.

Then after a 30-minute climax of a horrendous CG battle between good and evil, Lady X battles the cat lady from earlier in a catfight (HA HA HA HA! Grrrr...) where she is hit so hard that it is revealed that she was secretly ugly all along...and it makes this already ugly movie look even worse.

Need I say any more? A horrendous villain for a horrendous movie. This is what many consider the worst animated film of all time, at least among ones with moderately large budgets. (45 million bucks!) So, you might be thinking to yourself: "What could possibly be worse than the worst animated film of all time?" Well, prepare yourself, because we're about to take a look at the most despicable, selfish, unkind, and downright unwatchable villain in animation history. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...

1. Davey Stone - Eight Crazy Nights

Adam Sandler just really needs to stop making movies. He really does, because this piece of trash film might be the absolute worst thing he's ever crapped out for us to see. Eight Crazy Nights has the dubious honor of being both the worst and only well-known Hanukkah movie out there. My heart goes out to the Jewish families of the world having their holiday represented by this nine-car pileup of a film.

There are a lot of problems with this waste of celluloid, like the writing, directing, voice acting, story, characters, production, advertising, and pretty much everything except the animation (which was also wasted). But the biggest thing that makes this movie an absolute garbage heap is the villain, who also doubles as the main protagonist of the film: Davey Stone, portrayed by the man himself, Adam Sandler.

Davey is what happens when you take all the negative aspects of Adam Sandler's many characters and remove any form of likability those characters might have had. Say what you will about his other works, Grown Ups, Pixels, even Jack and Jill. As horrendous as those films are, at least they don't star Davey Stone. Davey is a selfish, antisocial, drunken, obnoxious, self-pitying, bullying, shouting, unlikable collection of disgusting human traits all compiled into one horrid character.

He regularly drinks himself blind, attempts to traumatize children, and is a piece of crap to everyone who shows him even a little kindness. When he's put on parole for resisting arrest after refusing to pay for his meal, Davey is put in the care of an old man named Whitey (also voiced by Sandler, poorly, I might add) who lets him stay in his home after his own burned down. How does Davey repay this kindness? By making a mess of everything and showing absolutely no respect for Whitey at all.

Keep in mind, Davey is a character we are supposed to sympathize with as the protagonist of the movie, and yet he's so despicable that he crosses the line into villain territory. Y'see, his parents were killed in a car crash around Hanukkah time when he was young, so his response was to become an unlikable jerkass to everyone he knew. His friends, his compatriots, everyone he ever met. He did this for 20 YEARS to become the Adam Sandler lookalike he is in the movie, and even with a tragic backstory, they still manage to make him a complete sack of crap!

Eight Crazy Nights is not only a terrible holiday movie, it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen, period. With an atrocious script and awful characters, this is definitely one to avoid at any cost!



So, that was my list of the worst villains ever to grace an animated movie with their presence. Do you agree? Disagree? Which villains do you hate the most? Leave a comment and let me know!

Until then, I'll see you next time on Cinematic Garbage. Bye bye!

Beauty and the Beast 2017: Tale set on rewind...

So, Disney has recently unveiled the live-action remake of what many consider to be their magnum opus: Beauty and the Beast. The original film was a masterpiece, pure and simple. It had gorgeous hand-drawn animation, a cast of characters we could never forget, and one of the strongest romances in film history. It was the first ever animated film to be nominated for Best Picture. I think that sums it up well enough.

Naturally, with such a milestone, Disney would want to cash in on its success when it becomes nostalgically profitable, like 26 years after its initial release when those who saw it as kids are now adults and able to pay their way into theatres. Now, Disney cashing in on some of their well-established franchises is nothing new. Hell, they did it with Cinderella and the Jungle Book recently and those turned out OK. So, why is Beauty and the Beast being featured on a blog called "Cinematic Garbage?"

That's because it is awful.

This movie fails as a remake, doing no justice to the original in the slightest. It removes what made the original so great and replaces it with a ton of pointless, tacked on nonsense that does nothing to fix any problems people might have had with the original.

Before you say "well, we should judge it on its own and not in comparison to the original" this movie copies it almost note-for-note. That's like saying you shouldn't compare the 1998 Psycho remake to the original when it's a shot-for-shot remake! It's blatantly obvious that it's trying to recreate the magic of the original while having no clue as to why it worked as well as it did!

As such, we're going to go in-depth as to why this movie failed in such as epic manner.


First, we're going to be fair. We'll discuss the positives.

Kevin Kline as Maurice
Josh Gad as LeFou
Audra McDonald's singing voice (for all of 30 seconds, but still worth mentioning)
The pretty CG castle

OK, positives over. Now let's get into the bad.

First, and most importantly, almost every actor in this movie is horribly miscast. Aside from the aforementioned Kevin Kline and Josh Gad, none of the actors in this movie fit their roles. I almost feel like this is a cast list I would come up with as a joke with my friends and never actually use in a movie.

Emma Watson never feels like she knows what she's doing as Belle. When her performance as Belle in the remake of an animated classic is a step down from her performance as Hermione, you know you're in for some crap. Watson has three expressions throughout this entire movie: grinning, frowning, and crying. Far cry from the incredibly animated faces in the original. Example: instead of happy and comforted in the arms of the Beast during the famous ballroom dance scene, Watson just stares blankly at Dan Stevens' CG face.

But her biggest sin as Belle in this movie comes not from her acting, but her singing. Good God, her singing is terrible in this movie. It's not quite Pierce Brosnan bad, but it's up there. They try to fix it by autotuning her to Hell and back, and it ends up making her sound more like GLaDOS than Belle. I never saw a character in Watson's performance. All I saw was someone reading lines and making the best out of a bad situation.

Oh, but Emma Watson isn't the only one miscast in this train wreck. There's also the Beast's servants at his castle! Ewan MacGregor didn't sell me as Lumiere, mostly because I didn't buy his French(?) accent. Though his candlestick is the most appealing CG inanimate object in the castle, he just didn't fit the role. Speaking of unappealing CG objects, what the hell were they thinking with most of them in this movie? Cogsworth's face is strangely mechanical (even for a clock) and Ian McKellen tries, as he usually does, but his role basically amounts to spouting exposition, pointing out the time, and arguing with Lumiere. Emma Thompson is fine as Mrs. Potts, I guess, but she brings nothing Angela Lansbury couldn't.

 Audra McDonald is cast as the Wardrobe of all things (who is narcoleptic for no apparent reason) and, despite her accolades, barely gets to sing in this movie while Emma Watson and Dan Stevens get to sing-talk their way through the musical numbers. Also, her CG model? Way scarier than the Beast! She has these black, soulless eyes and these curtains for a mouth that look like the flapping jaws of death itself! What was  wrong with just a normal face like all the other inanimate objects have!?

Oh, and Stanley Tucci is in this movie as a piano. Yeah, I know that seems tacked on and pointless, but so was he.

Luke Evans plays Gaston in this movie, and he does...fine. He also can't sing, leading to a painfully autotuned Mob Song. Josh Gad does a good job as LeFou and managed to get a few laughs out of me. Now, I'm sure you've heard the fact that LeFou is gay for Gaston in this movie and...it goes nowhere. LeFou's crush on Gaston amounts to nothing but a few jokes you'd see in any romance movie with the "dogged nice guy" character.

You're probably wondering why I haven't talked about the Beast yet. Well, that's because there is barely anything to say. Dan Stevens' portrayal of the iconic Beast is so bland and unoriginal that it nearly brought me to tears in the theatre. If that's not enough, the Beast is a complete a-hole for the majority of the movie. In the original, he was a jerk, obviously, but it felt like he was at least trying to be civil when Belle first arrived. Here, he's so stupid that he never even considers that Belle could be the one to free him until she runs out of the castle and gets attacked by wolves. Belle and the Beast share no interaction between the points when she first arrives and when she finds the rose. Because of that, there is very little connection between the two and the scene where Belle is yelled at and sent off has no impact!

The lack of chemistry between Watson and Stevens is something of a big problem in a ROMANCE movie. Gaston and LeFou have better chemistry than Belle and Beast. Belle and Maurice have better chemistry than Belle and Beast! They remove key scenes and interactions between characters, completely messing up the pacing, leaving the movie feeling disjointed and unnatural.

Speaking of the pacing, y'know that pointless stuff they added I mentioned earlier? Well, here's a quick rundown of what they are and where they go.

Gaston being a war veteran. That goes nowhere.
The Beast's tragic backstory involving a dead mother and abusive father. That goes nowhere.
The Beast's magic book that allows him and Belle to travel anywhere in the world which they use to go to Belle's childhood home to answer a question no-one was asking. That's as far as it goes.
Gaston and LeFou's attempt to straight-up murder Maurice. Leads to the same outcome as the bar scene in the first movie. So it goes nowhere.
With every petal that drops from the rose the castle falls apart and the inanimate objects become less animate. Leads to a great scene at the end, but not much else.

There's everything new in the movie. Aside from that, it's pretty much the same as the original, except with worse acting and no charm.

Don't go see this movie if you haven't already. It's a pointless remake meant to do nothing but attract the money from our wallets, plain and simple.

Beauty and the Beast (2017) is grade-A Cinematic Garbage.