82. The Fly 2 (1989)
Chris Walas, the animatronics director on David Cronenberg's brilliant and harrowing remake of The Fly sat in the director's chair for The Fly 2. The story centered around Martin (Eric Stoltz) who is the son of Seth Brundle. Suffering from accelerated growth due to to his fly genes, he has grown up in a lab where evil 80's CEO Bartok of Bartok Industries wants to use him as a basis for a new race of Super Fly People. Lacking any of the emotional impact of the first film, The Fly 2 was much more of a standard horror flick with the gore turned up. But it did have a very sad scene involving a mutated dog and the ending is still quite cool and gruesome. However, compared to its predecessor The Fly 2 is instantly forgettable as the rubbish sequel it is.
81. AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001)
AI is an interesting film but it should have been so much more. A project Stanley Kubrick had been working on since the 1970s, it wasn't until his death that long time friend, Steven Spielberg took the job of finally bringing it to life. The main problem when you watch it is that you can't help but feel that if Kubrick or another director who can portray the seedier side of suburban life much better than Spielberg, would have turned out a film that would be so much better. Instead, there are times that the film almost slips into ET level of schmaltz that normally is fine, but feels out of place in AI. Spielberg did comment that Kubrick was the one who wrote all the cute bits and it was him who made it darker, but how ever it was done, this Kubrick-Spielberg cross over was mostly a boring let down.
80. Green Hornet (2011)
Stuck in development hell since 1992, Seth Rogen eventually wrote and took the starring role in the version of the Green Hornet that made it through to the cinema. But unfortunately it was universally hated by everyone who criticized the crap story, rubbish villain and the 3D that felt like it was tacked on to charge extra at the cinema box office. The only person who didn't think it sucked was Seth Rogen who said this before the films release;
Nobody wants to make a movie that sucks and, while I was sure this was going to be great, you never really know until you sit down and watch it with everyone else. I am pleased to confirm The Green Hornet doesnt suck and I dont think Ill have people attacking me in the street over it!
79. American Psycho (2000)
American Psycho the book is a shocking, brutal satire of 1980s materialism. If you can handle the graphic murder descriptions and the whole chapter deconstructing Whitney Houston, then I can't recommend it enough and it should be on all primary school reading lists. So the film adaptation announcement was greeted with joy and a slight amount of concern as we wondered how well it will transfer to the silver screen. Christian Bale was picked to play Patrick Bateman, he had the look if anything. The choice in director was Mary Harron who's previous credit was 1996's 'I Shot Andy Warhol,' although that film was well received, she wouldn't have been most people's first choice to tackle American Psycho. Oliver Stone wanted the gig with a young Leonardo DiCaprio in the leading role, his take would have been most interesting, possibly a cross between Wall Street and Natural Born Killers. Even David Cronenberg was in the frame but to avoid criticisms from feminist groups, Harron was selected. As expected, a lot was left out of the final film which only made it a disappointment to anyone who has read the book. The violence was graphic but not GRAPHIC like it is in the book, some relationships were rearranged and even though Bale did a decent enough job of bringing Bateman to life, it was always going to be hard to condense him into a 100min running time. The film made the character much more shallower than he even is in the book and less accessible for the viewer. Bateman came across as a yuppie with a tendency to occasionally turn to murder, some of the other more interesting levels to his character either didn't translate or were missing all together. But maybe it was the choice in opting for a female director (who also wrote the screenplay) to make a film about a book that is full of testosterone. Maybe a male director could have given it the perspective it needed, or maybe it's just one of those books that would never work as a film. That is what the author Bret Easton Ellis suggested when he gave his take;
''Well, the book has this reputation and it has its following, and if you're going to take that material from one medium to another, you're just going to have to make some decisions about it. The book itself doesn't really answer a lot of the questions it poses, but by the very nature of the medium of a movie, you kind of have to answer those questions'' ''And a movie automatically says, "It's real." Then, at the end, it tries to have it both ways by suggesting that it wasn't. Which you could argue is interesting, but I think it basically confused a lot of people, and I think even Mary would admit that''
78. Cars 2 (2011)
There was a time when Pixar could do no wrong, and then they released Cars. It divided opinions but most agreed it had enough of the ''Pixar Magic'' to warm to it. It also spawned a whole new range of merchandising opportunities from bed covers to sex toys kitchen utensils. If you have children, the chances are you own something with Lightning McQueen's smug face plastered on it. So the inevitable sequel was released in 2011 and it got even more of a shittier reception. Director John Lasseter decided to make Mater the focus of the film after traveling around the world, promoting the first Cars film;
''I kept looking out thinking, 'What would Mater do in this situation, you know?' I could imagine him driving around on the wrong side of the road in the UK, going around in big, giant traveling circles in Paris, on the autobahn in Germany, dealing with the motor scooters in Italy, trying to figure out road signs in Japan.''
Voiced by unfunny ''comedian'' Larry The Cable Guy, the problem with Mater was that he was tolerable as a sidekick, but as a leading car, he was downright annoying. The story might have been bigger but the new spy plot just came across odd, also everything felt like it was an advertisement for toys. The supporting cast that included Michael Caine and Eddie Izzard couldn't save Cars 2 from being Pixar's first major disappointment.