SCI FI PI

SFF. You love it.

That’s what makes it so much more heartbreaking when the genres of Sci Fi and Fantasy are treated like a bunch of cute little younglings trying to give Anakin a hug (in Episode III - *spoiler* it didn't end well.)

It hurts to see your hopes and dreams slashed apart, doesn't it?

It doesn’t just make you sad, does it? It makes you feel angry. Betrayed. Dirty. Like Michael Bay has just come to your house, slapped your dad, felt up your mum and murdered your sister. Damn you, Michael Bay.

So here they are! We've had the best SFF of 2011 - here is our steaming pile of the Worst 10 SFF Fails of 2011.

Look upon their works, ye mighty, and despair!





Dishonourable Mention
Cowboys and Aliens
Such a perfect Hollywood pitch. Marry two of the greatest genres cinema has produced. Get Spielberg and Ron Howard to exec produce and produce. Get Iron Man helmer Jon Favreau to direct. Get Indiana Jones and James Bond in it. What could possibly go wrong? It was just… well… it didn't… eh. Meh.






10. Battle Los Angeles

Not only unoriginal but clichéd, corny, unimaginative and, worst of all, boring. This film was 112 minutes of sensory bombardment, and not in a good theatre-of-cruelty type way, but in an ear-bleeding, eye-scratching, ball-shrivelling, soul-destroying, make-it-stop type way. A wannabe computer game run-and-gun that effectively destroyed LA, but even seeing that couldn’t cheer us up. When a film provokes people to statements like “actually, I thought Skyline was better”, you know you’ve messed up big time.






9. I Am Number Four

I Am Number Four would perhaps more descriptively have been titled “I Am a Number Two”. It managed to marry two of the most evil things in the multiverse – Michael Bay (who produced) and Twilight – to become a witless teen angst wannabe sci-fi in which alien superpowers rather than vampirism are the soppy metaphor for puberty. Teresa Palmer was the one good thing in it.






8. Conan the Barbarian

Really? You really thought you could take on Schwarzenegger and John Milius? You fool, Momoa! You were always gonna get beat down like Kirk beneath Spock’s Vulcan rage (okay, half Vulcan, whatever). Given, 2011’s Conan was truer to the source material in its delivery of artery-severing violence, and Momoa wasn’t THAT bad, but otherwise this was just an out and out brutal, cynical, leering rape and pillage of an 80’s fantasy classic.






7. Apollo 18

Found footage. That’s so hot right now. And cheap and easy. Right, Paranormal Activity Bazillion? Let’s do it on the MOON! Could have worked. Really didn’t. Instead the true tedium of lunar discovery was played out, minute by yawning minute, to its “oh. Really? Meh” revelation of the aliens, which you knew were coming since the trailer. Sigh.





6. Priest

Paul Verhoeven made Showgirls, THE worst movie ever. And then what did he do? He made Starship Troopers and, like, TOTALLY redeemed himself. Director Scott Stewart and star Paul Bettany made Legion, THE worst movie ever. And then what did they do? They made Priest and, like, TOTALLY destroyed another cult classic comic book. If they even LOOK at The Sandman I’m reaching for my phaser.






5. Season of the Witch

This film has a great premise. Two Soldiers of God (Nic Cage and Ron Perlman), weary of the literal and moral massacre of the Crusades, abscond and strike a deal with a Priest (Christopher Lee, he's in everything) to transport a mind-messing witch to a monastery. Great, right? It’s Name of the Rose meets The Exorcist with a hint of Wages of Fear. Or should have been. Instead we got Centurion meets Howling III: The Marsupials with a hint of the original Godzilla. Yes, that’s how bad the effects were. And the dialogue. And the performances. Once again, Nic Cage stars in a film we got excited about, and then it sucked. Hard. So… Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance… trailers are looking pretty great so far, huh?





4. Red Riding Hood

From the director of Twilight, who could have guessed that this would turn into the insipid, confused, dazzlingly boring pile of wolf scat that it did? Oh that’s right, everyone. The only joy that could be gleaned was knowing its dismal failure was karmic punishment for Catherine Hardwicke. Pray this doesn’t set the precedent for the slew of fairytale “reimaginings” slated for this year – because, like, Beastly rocked, too, right? Brian Singer can’t possibly mishandle Jack and the Beanstalk. He can’t.






3. Sucker Punch

Others have always defended you, Zack Snyder, as they made their mumbled little apologies for you reducing the great Watchmen to a badly acted, hollowed out mediocrity. Who cares if you can put a sequence together? Go tell it to Tarsem Singh. You can congratulate each other on your latest visual feasts of nothingness. Because, Zack Snyder, we both know you were trying to be clever and ironic and subtly subversive with your fanboy girl-power postmodern mash-uppery but then you just got confused and hey presto! Sucker Punch.






2.Transformers: The Dark of the Moon

Now we’re really into the belly of the beast - there is no greater Hollywood beast than Michael Bay. With this the third in the Transformers trilogy, Bay managed to be even worse than his previous film – Transformers: Revenge of the Sith, sorry I mean Fallen (he can’t even come up with an original title) – an heroic feat based on his misapprehension that a) orange people are sexy and b) if you shoot at things upwards, you don't need a plot, or anything resembling a real human emotion. Great performances, a clear engaging plot, insistence on visual effects always serving story and never simply for their own sake – all these things will never be said of Bay or any of his films, and DOTM was no exception. So it made $1.1 billion worldwide. So what? Stop encouraging him.






1.Green Lantern

It’s the sheer grandiose interstellar scale, the epicness of the fail that meant Green Lantern went to the top of 2011’s steaming heap. You expect certain things of Michael Bay. It’s not a disappointment when he delivers DOTM, more like an Agent Smith-style inevitability. But Green Lantern, we had such hopes for you. You promised so much with your proud comicon teasing. But not only were you not the best superhero movie of the year, you weren’t even the best GREEN superhero movie of the year – you got beaten by The Green Hornet AND Kermit the Frog. That’s saying something. So, for your confused tone, your hopelessly splintered narrative, your overbearing but ultimately pointless effects, and for destroying yet another promising franchise, Green Lantern, you get the prize. Now take off your ring and don’t even THINK about making a sequel. A reboot, maybe, five or so years down the track, if Ryan Reynolds promises to stay away, but definitely no sequel. Please!