Sure, everyone likes to look back on decades fondly–but instead of piling on the praise for the decade’s best, we decided to take a look at the biggest bombs of the past decade.
–todd williams
Who seriously thought this was a good idea? Take a comedy classic like Airplane!, re-imagine it with an all-black cast, don’t make it a spoof and just fill the movie up with every negative stereotype that you can muster, from the pot-smoking crew, to rims on the wheels of the plane, to a Mandingo-craving white girl — and you have this train-wreck of a film. Kevin Hart is a lot funnier than this material would allow him to be, and if you’re looking for clues as to why he hasn’t blown up as a comedic actor — well, consider this as Exhibit A.
Biker Boyz (2003)
Think of every action movie cliché. Dead father? Check. Long-held secret? Check. Rebellious and cocky youngster who isn’t aware of how good he could be if he just learned a little discipline? Check. Ridiculously beautiful eye candy who just happens to be the one person who believes in our hero? Check. Laurence Fishburne is a great actor, but we’re pretty sure he was just getting a paycheck with this one.
The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002)
Eddie Murphy is clearly the Teflon movie star. Since his early box-office dominance, he has managed to star in some of the biggest turkeys of the last 20 years — none bigger than Pluto Nash. A big budget, numerous rewrites and shooting delays yielded one of the most reviled films of all time. For lesser talents, this would’ve been the end of their Hollywood ride and the beginning of slumming in straight-to-DVD fare and cable TV movies. Not Murphy, somehow … he just keeps on tickin’.
Who’s Your Caddy? (2007)
Seriously — is the “street-wise” black guy invading the environment of snooty white upper class WASPs still funny? Of course not, but that didn’t stop this movie from being made. You know the drill, stereotypical race-baiting fish-out-of-water story. It also features a midget gangster named “Big Willie,” and (of course) the newest club member, aspiring rapper C-Note, has to engage in a golf battle to earn his membership. You know how it ends — and you probably would’ve been happier had this disaster never had a beginning.
Catwoman (2004)
Coming on the heels of her Oscar win for the controversial Monster’s Ball, Halle Berry became one of the most powerful actresses in Hollywood. Berry was on a level that few black actresses reach, so what did she do? Sank her bankability by starring in a string of cinematic turds — none stinkier than this pile of kitty litter. Shot by French non-director Pitof, and stripping away the traits that had been associated with the character, this film was dead on arrival. You can actually see Sharon Stone’s career dying on-screen.
Glitter (2001)
How many artists have successfully pulled off the semi-autobiographical, melodramatic, musical vanity project? Only Prince. So the odds were stacked against Mariah Carey’s big-screen spectacle. And it crashed and burned spectacularly. Bad acting, bad dialogue and (gasp!) bad songs led to it becoming the first major misstep of Mariah’s previously golden career. She recovered eventually as an artist and, surprisingly, as an actress. But judging from this, she had nowhere to go but up in that department.
Pride (2007)
Yet another movie that you’ve seen before. Black sports team struggles against and rises above the oppressive racist culture of the 1960s. This time, (drumroll please), it’s a swim team! See! That makes it different — this time, it’s a swim team. Gotcha. Terence Howard weeps his way through a movie that is so heavy-handed in its approach that it makes Very Special Episodes of “Diff’Rent Strokes” look like Hotel Rwanda.
Bones (2001)
Snoop Dogg stars as a ghost … or a demon … or a zombie … we’re not sure what he is, exactly. What is known is that Snoop is the pissed-off spirit of pimp-with-a-heart-of-gold Jimmy Bones. Of course, Snoop doesn’t really seem all that angry at the people who conspired to kill him in the 1970s — he also doesn’t seem to know he’s not supposed to be playing Snoop Dogg. He says random quips like “Dog eat dog” throughout the movie that have no bearing on the plot or context of the character. It’s not scary, it’s not funny, it’s not entertaining. It’s just really, really bad.
Crossover (2006)
You’ve seen this movie before, except the last time it was called Above the Rim and wasn’t quite as laughably bad. Basketball star wins a scholarship to the big university, where basketball star really wants to learn medicine (say it with me — “Message!”) But basketball star is torn between street ball fame with his boys, and the money-hungry dealings of an ambitious sports agent. The basketball sequences are about as realistic as NBA Jams for the Sega Genesis and the acting and dialogue are even worse. A flagrant foul for all involved.
She Hate Me (2004)
This movie has about four story lines too many, from the corporate conspiracy theories to the entrepreneurial sperm donor for lesbians, to Mafia connections, to a pseudo-love triangle — and Q-Tip pops up for some reason. Spike Lee trots out a seemingly endless line of graphic sex scenes and scantily clad baby-crazed lipstick lesbians. Not sure what he was going for, but other than the late-night cable aficionados, nobody else will care to check out this one.
Honorable mention:
Any Movie That Begins With the Phrase: Tyler Perry’s … well, except for Why Did I Get Married?
