5. Dumb and Dumber To (2014)
“Dumb and Dumber” is one of the funniest movies ever made. The characters are memorable, the plot works by itself, and the movie is successful because Harry and Lloyd are just trying to do the right thing by returning the briefcase. All the situations they have to deal with are mere consequences of their naïvety.
The Farrelly brothers have given us great comedies over the years, including “Dumb and Dumber” (1994), “There’s Something About Mary” (1998), and “Me, Myself and Irene” (2000), but they didn’t succeed with “Dumb and Dumber To”.
In this sequel, Harry and Lloyd are not naïve, they are extremely stupid. The actors seemed to forget the essence of their characters, as they were overacting and exaggerating everything, including their dialogues, their expressions, their mannerisms, and everything they do looks improvised and without planning.
Fans were expecting this film, and they wanted to know what happened with their beloved characters. In return, they got a movie that destroyed all the great things from the first film.
The initial sequence sets the mood of the entire movie, when we see Harry trying to take out Lloyd’s catheter. We know the film is going to explode with pain and scatological jokes, because it doesn’t matter how many times we see Harry changing Lloyd’s diaper, it’s disgusting and not funny every time we see it.
Why is it so bad? The movie has the feeling that someone woke up and said, “Hey, let’s make a sequel!” The cinematography has the aesthetics of a soap opera, the jokes are not funny, and the storyline makes no sense.
4. Ernest Goes to Jail (1990)
Ernest is a character that was born with TV commercials; he had such a big impact that he had his own TV show and a series of films.
The name of the movie is “Ernest Goes to Jail”, so we know he is going to jail, but for the first 34 minutes, Ernest doesn’t get there. We all know it’s going to happen, but it takes a lot of time to set him there and finally get the movie started.
The way Ernest goes to jail is absurd. Mr. Nash looks exactly like Ernest, so he takes his clothes and escapes from jail without anyone noticing, and leaves poor Ernest inside. The plot may well be taken from an un-clever cartoon, as it’s a very long film for a story that can be solved in 20 minutes.
“Ernest Goes to Jail” is basically a cartoon made with real people. It has inventions, Ernest never dies, he has a closet full of the same outfits, and the production design has the esthetics of a cartoon.
Ernest is funny at moments, but it’s not enough to handle a complete movie. The character trespasses the line between funny and dumb and transforms it into a tender dumb.
Why is it so bad? It’s a movie that makes children laugh, but it’s too dumb for an adult.
3. Every Single Adam Sandler Comedy Since 2000
In the beginning of his career, Adam Sandler had a ton of fans; his movies “Happy Gilmore” (1996) and “The Wedding Singer” (1998) were actually really funny and made most audiences laugh.
However, after more than 20 times watching him play the same character, it’s getting harder and harder to laugh at the same jokes over and over again. Most of his characters have almost the same characteristics; they are all man-children, they are morally correct, they are very transparent about their intentions, and they constantly make fun of their flaws.
In most of his projects, Sandler is not only the actor, he is also the writer and/or the producer. He likes to get involved in the whole process, but maybe it works better for him to just be an actor, as we’ve seen proof that he is actually not that bad of an actor. For example, “Punch Drunk Love” (2002) is scored at 79 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and “Reign Over Me” (2007) at 64 percent. In these two movies, Sandler shows he can do more, and maybe his characters are not deep enough, so they don’t demand much from him.
The rest of Sandler’s movies go between 0 and 54 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, with “Hotel Transylvania 2” (2015) being the highest and “The Ridiculous 6” (2015) being the lowest. He also has seven Razzies as actor, producer and writer, for “Jack & Jill” (2011) and “Just Go With It” (2011).
Why are they so bad? All of these movies are basically the same thing; it looks like he found a recipe, loved it, had it work for a couple of years, and now he doesn’t want to try anything new.
2. Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992)
“Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot” is actually a line in the movie said by Sylvester Stallone, completely disheartened, and that should be enough for it to get onto this list.
However, it has it all: the dialogues are not funny, the only supposed humor are the bad words said by Estelle Getty, and the plot is ridiculous (a mother going everywhere with her adult son, who is a cop, just sounds terrible). The movie is so bad that it actually makes you laugh with incredulity, and the lightning is so poor that it makes the movie look like a Mexican soap opera.
Stallone may be the worst comedy actor ever, so who thought he should make a comedy movie? Even he accepts that this is the worst movie in which he has participated.
The film has three Razzies, for Worst Actor, Worst Supporting Actress, and Worst Screenplay. It was also nominated for a Stinker award for Worst Picture. The movie is rated at 4 percent on Rotten tomatoes.
Why is it so bad? The plot is unoriginal and it has Sylvester Stallone trying to be funny.
1. Epic Movie (2007)
“Epic Movie” is about four orphans who win the Golden Ticket so they can go live with Willy Wonka. They try to escape by going into the closet that turns out to be Narnia, and some more silly things happen and bad jokes are told, and at the end, Jack Sparrow kills them all.
It can be funny if one of our friends farts unexpectedly, but if he does it again, instead of laughing, everyone just gets disgusted. That’s what happens with “Epic Movie”; it’s not about the body fluid jokes, but they repeat them so much that it gets a little repulsive.
It’s difficult to believe that studios can invest a large quantity of money in movies that have no plot. All they do is talk and try to say funny things, and you can literally see the actors try to be funny.
“Epic Movie” is just an example of the spoof movies that suffer from the same illness (by the way, most of them are written and directed by the same guys: Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer). “Disaster Movie” (2008), “Meet the Spartans” (2008), “Date Movie” (2006), and “The Starving Games” (2013) all mostly have the same cast, the same jokes and the same plot concerns, and all of them are rated very low on Rotten Tomatoes.
We have examples of great spoof movies that make you feel like you can die laughing by just watching them. These include “Airplane!” (1980) and “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” (1997).
Why is it so bad? The jokes are senseless, the actors are not funny, the plot is poor and predictable, and in order to make parody of so many movies, the storyline becomes forced.
Author Bio: Itzel Urzua is from Guadalajara, Mexico and she is a cinephile and indie filmmaker who loves writing.