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Surprisingly, I didn’t see any bad movies in 2012 — certainly not anything like 2011’s soul-sucking Green Lantern. I also made the wise choice not to see Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. That probably saved my head from exploding. All that said, there was one movie that really frustrated me. It had the potential to be something unique and great, but ended up a sloppy mess with moments of brilliance sandwiched by several moments of ambition-fueled haphazardness. I’m talking about Cloud Atlas, of course.
While I enjoyed the individual storylines and performances in the movie, I didn’t like the overall structure. The book moves forward chronologically until the halfway point. From there it moves chronologically backwards. The movie skips all over the place, hopping back and forth at a dizzying rate, particularly in the beginning. The quick and abundant cuts sometimes made the movie difficult to follow and the characters difficult to connect with.
The book interweaves Cloud Atlas’ six tales neatly. The movie places the six tales in the hands of two separate directing teams. When you throw in the distinct directing styles with different time periods, the actors playing different characters in different storylines, and the aforementioned quick cuts, it was no surprise that the movie left many viewers bewildered. It also wasn’t a surprise that critics and fans that love boldness praised the movie.
I felt that the ingredients were all there and could have made for a tremendous movie, but it just didn’t come together. My disappointment with Cloud Atlas is similar to my fascination with Russell Brand — I think he has the potential to be amazingly great, but he hasn’t put it all together yet.
Okay. Time to change the record before I start getting sad. I want to hear about your crap movie experiences in 2012. Was was the worst movie you saw this year?
Well, now I feel like a hipster for enjoying Cloud Atlas. I’ve seen it a few times, and admittedly, during the first viewing, I was lost at times. I just felt like the good parts of that movie, without giving anything away, were as good as anything I had seen in a movie in recent memory. Takes all kinds, I suppose.
On topic: Worst movie I saw this year was “The Watch”.
Worst movie I didn’t see was “Alex Cross”
The Watch was just weird, but a little funny. That movie didn’t need aliens, it just needed the three famous people and the one guy I didn’t know before this movie to be funny on screen while protecting their neighborhood. It tried way too hard, but still made me laugh a couple times.
I have no clue what Cloud Atlas is.
I can’t think of a bad movie I’ve seen this year. I have only seen 3 new movies and liked them all.
Madea Stalks Jack Sheppard… I mean Alex Cross was pretty bad.
I couldn’t finish Total Recall.
And I truly was not a fan of Dark Knight Rises. Where I wouldn’t call it Worst of the Year, I’d definitely call it Biggest Let-Down of the Year.
I actually enjoyed Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. As for my worst movies total recall and that movie with Katherine Heigl. One for the money, I think is what it was called
http://www.rifftrax.com/worst-movies-of-all-time
I’m pretty disheartened the Gone The Way Of Flesh didn’t make the list. Troll 2 and Plan 9 are the only ones on there that are comparatively bad.