Mario’s Musings (Quarantine Edition): A Montage of Bad Movies
Let’s appreciate this insane image for a bit before you read the rest of the article.
During the COVID-19 quarantine, three friends and I decided to make a weekly ritual of watching critically panned movies. The only criteria being that they had to have really low Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes scores. And with that, hilarity ensued as the four of us texted each other in a group text and mocked the movies we watched together. So far, we’ve watched Blank Check, Mortal Kombat, Bloodsport, Sidekicks, No Holds Barred, The Main Event, Countdown (2016), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, Batman & Robin, You (the Netflix series), and Gotti.
That’s quite the list so far, and we’re still going. So let’s do a lightening round of reviews:
Blank Check
Preston Waters gets his bike ran over, a crook writes him a literal blank check, and he goes on his Apple computer and forges a check for one million dollars. Then we get montage after montage of this kid spending this money somehow, while the crook now tries to track down the kid who cashed in on HIS money. Then you get the cherry on top; Preston kisses Shay on the lips, a woman twice his age. Preston is 11 years old. Miguel Ferrer steals the show as the crook, as he is constantly hamming it up whenever he’s on screen.
Mortal Kombat
What? This movie isn’t terrible! Well, let’s be real, Johnny Cage is the best part of this movie, and most of this movie is exposition setting up the world of Mortal Kombat, while all the fighting takes place in the last twenty minutes or so. Then you have the Goro animatronic… yikes.
Bloodsport
Man, this movie is wild, the fighting is great but it features a little TOO MUCH acting from Jean-Claude Van Damme. On the other hand, this movie features a young Forest Whitaker and the world’s greatest sidekick, Ray Jackson.
Sidekicks
In a way, this movie is kind of depressing. Barry is a huge Chuck Norris fan and constantly has daydreams where he is teaming up with Norris and beating up bad guys. That’s really it. Eventually he learns martial arts from his teacher’s grandfather and enters a tournament. It’s a knock off Karate Kid.
No Holds Barred
Hulk Hogan, ACTING. It’s the age old “let’s pretend wrestling is real” movie. It’s hilarious, it’s terrible, and the only thing holding it together is Kurt Fuller as the evil television network owner. I’m pretty sure this film was written by Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon over the course of a weekend.
The Main Event
Our second WWE Film on the list, that basically rips off the plots of Rookie of the Year, Like Mike, and every film before it that features the “kid gets special powers that let him compete with adults” storyline. This movie also features pretty much every current member of the WWE roster member trying his or her hands at acting. Verdict? We need more Smooth Operator.
Countdown (2016)
The THIRD WWE Film that features a scene that takes place at a WWE Live Event. This movie was hard to make fun of because it was so boring. Kane as the world’s largest cop is a sight to behold though.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
Woof, this movie. This was the first live action Turtles movie to not have the puppetry work done by the Jim Henson Company, so the Turtles look awful. Then there’s the storyline where the Turtles spend the whole movie in feudal Japan, while Casey Jones is spent babysitting a bunch of Japanese soldiers that get sent to the future in place of the Turtles.
Batman & Robin
This movie is a masterpiece. George Clooney unfortunately looks bored most of the time as Bruce Wayne/Batman, but he does have some good moments with Alfred and Chris O’Donnell’s Robin. But the star here is really Arnold, who is having the time of his life hamming it up as Mr. Freeze; filling the movie with ice puns and the scene where he directs his henchmen to sing the Snow Miser song.
You (Netflix)
Okay, this show is the ONLY one that didn’t meet the criteria, but one of us thought the show was ridiculous and needed to be watched. And was he ever right on that one. This show is ridiculous on so many levels and I fully understand why people love it. I was hooked after the first episode and I honestly hated adhering to the schedule we set for ourselves (one or two episodes per week). Somehow Joe Goldberg, our lead creepy stalker, was the most likable character on the show despite all the creepy and awful things he was doing to get the attention of the women he pined for.
Gotti
Man oh man of man, was this movie awful. John Travolta plays notorious mobster John Gotti, and does it with the most stereotypical accent imaginable, in a movie that plays out of order, and is directed by E from Entourage (never let him direct movies again). Part of this movie takes place in the 1980s, yet somehow has music from Pitbull playing during a block party scene. Burn this movie with fire.
Well, that was a fun lightening round, and since we’re STILL technically in a pandemic, we’ve continued the adventure of bad movies. Some upcoming options are Batman v Superman, Super Mario Bros, and Street Fighter.
Stay tuned for more fun!