The Worst of the Worst

In my life, I've seen boring movies like Captain America: The First Avenger and Transformers: Dark of the Moon. I've seen movies that ruin intriguing or funny premises with grotesque humor (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and every raunchy comedy ever) or unnecessary explicit sex (every single solitary gay or lesbian movie ever (no offense to gay people)). But I don't think I've seen anything quite as horrifying or gross as The Garbage Pail Kids Movie.

The movie is not only worse then The Room and Bio-Dome, but it's only got a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. Not that Rotten Tomatoes is the to end all of movie reviews but you have to be really bad.

The plot: Some kid named Dodger and another guy named Captain Manzeni discover, in the literal sense, garbage pail kids. 

That's it.

Not only is the premise horrible but the execution is as well. The acting is REALLY horrible. At least Tommy Wiseau you can laugh at. With this film there is NOTHING redeemable. NOTHING.

Not only that, but the garbage pail kids are more gross then needed. The film features no sex but there is a scene where, I'm not making this up, a girl named Tangerine who's obviously 24 nibbles Dodger's ear. Seriously.

The music, puppets, acting, writing, directing and lighting. Everything is horrible. The only amusing thing is that in the film a bar is labeled "The Toughest Bar in the World". The joke would make more sense if it was in MLP or Animaniacs.

The movie is the WORST MOVIE PERIOD in my opinion. I give it a 0 out of 4.

Avengers Assemble by Nat4

This a remake of an old review of mine of Joss Whedon's The Avengers (which is currently the 3rd highest grossing film of all time). After some viewings I've come to a kind of opinion shift: Whedon's strength's and weaknesses are on display in this film.

You know the plot so I won't tell you it. So let's just jump right in to...

THE GOOD

Most of the acting in the film is good. Robert Downey Jr. IS Iron Man. Chris Evans does a good job as Captain America in a far superior script than Captain America: The First Avenger. Chris Hemsworth is still enjoyable as Thor. Though I would have felt more comfortable with Edward Norton, Mark Ruffalo does a good job as Bruce Banner. Samuel L. Jackson is obviously good as Nick Fury, as is Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson. Jeremy Renner is the only actor to play Hawkeye in my book. Scarlett Johansson does a surprisingly good job as Black Widow considering she's done such horrors as Lost in Translation (come on Sofia Coppola, you have a talent as a writer and director. Use it correctly) and Iron Man 2. But Tom Hiddleston steals the show as Loki, playing it with just as much effort as he did in Thor. 

The ending fight scene is, hands-down, one of the best fight scenes in cinema. It even puts Michael Bay's Transformers films to shame (considering that it was the closest competition action scene wise). The music of Alan Silvestri is exceptional though my brother says it would have been "20% cooler if Michael Giacchino did it". 

The film also includes some funny lines and all the heroes bounce of each other like a dysfunctional family. 

And now....THE BAD

Unfortunately, as Joss Whedon's good side is on display, so is his achilles heel. Though the CGI is good, there are some moments where I was like "CGI." Joss also feels the strange need to include weird camera angles and annoying shaky-cam shots. My sister (who can do even deeper analysis than I can) said the Thor and Loki relationship was under-played. This isn't just a supervillain,  this is someone Thor has known basically his whole life. 

Cobie Summers is unintentionally annoying as Maria Hill, Nick Fury's pack-mule. Her main goal: point out the painfully obvious. But that's not the worst aspect.

Now, I know not every film is perfect (except for  Big Fish, Stanley Kubrick films, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Citizen Kane, Amadeus, Fiddler on the Roof, Schindler's List, The Patriot and Signs), but when a film has parts that are not only good but great and the bad stuff blatantly stands out, it's annoying. But by far the worst scene: Tony Stark and Loki having a conversation in Stark Tower. This scene quite literally has no point. According to Joss Whedon, at least 30 minutes of footage was cut due to timing reasons. Most deleted scenes involve Captain America trying to deal with modern life. Oh sure, cut the Captain America scene but no the pointless scene in Stark Tower that...that's what the people what to see. 

Overall, I still enjoy the film as does my family. Joss Whedon got 80% percent of the movie right but he still needs to hone is craft. I checked on a calculator and the 143 minute film would have been at least 173 minutes (two minutes shorter then The Fellowship of the Ring) had the 30 minutes of cut footage been left in. I would like to see that extended cut if it exists. 

The Avengers is a 3.5 out of 4.