2012 in Film: The Year's "Worst" Films.

Almost to the end, folks.  But before we finally recap the best (or, err, my favorites) of 2012, let's take a pit stop to discuss what are arguably the worst films of 2012.  Now as always, I can't presume that I've seen every probable terrible movie out there (I generally avoid Adam Sandler comedies and didn't catch Parental Guidance in time), but I tried to highlight films that were both very bad and whose respective failures meant something more than just their artistic inadequacy.  As always, the films below are in alphabetical order.  So, without further ado, let's dive in!

Alex Cross:
To William Hurt in A History of Violence, "How to do you f*** that up?!"  You have a long-running detective series filled with larger-than-life villains and often insanely over-the-top violence.  You have Tyler Perry, if perhaps cast against type than at least hungry to prove that he can do something different.  You have Matthew Fox theoretically willing to chew up every bit of available scenery.  And you have audiences primed for a kind of old-school adult-skewing genre picture that the previous two Morgan Freeman-starring Alex Cross films (Kiss the Girls and Along Came A Spider) represented back in the 1990s.  How in the world do you make this film this incredibly boring?  First of all, you take an explicitly R-rated story and neuter it into a still-inappropriate PG-13.  Then you pile on generic cliche on top of generic cliche.  Then you instruct every actor other than Fox to be as lifeless as possible.  Finally, you never decide to make a down-to-Earth crime thriller or a would-be superhero/super villain story.  The end result is a painfully dull would-be thriller that can't hold a candle to the most average episode of Criminal Minds.

John Gosling previews the week's new releases (08/10/12)

This week brings us three major releases, one opening Wednesday, the other two on Friday.

The character of Jason Bourne made his debut in the 1980 Robert Ludlum book, The Bourne Identity. The story opens with Bourne being found with bullet wounds and no memory of who he is or why he has been shot. As the tale unfolds he soon discovers that he is a highly trained individual, possibly a spy or assassin, and begins to piece together the reasons why he was left for dead. Since his debut, Jason Bourne has gone on to feature in two further Ludlum penned stories, along with six written by Eric Van Lustbader (a seventh is due at the end of 2012). The character actually made his screen debut in an extended TV movie in 1988, which featured Richard Chamberlain as Bourne, and Charlie's Angels's Jaclyn Smith as Marie. While there were differences between this version and the novel, it would be a closer adaptation than the next version to reach the screen. Director Doug Liman, a fan of the book since reading it in high school, decided he wanted to adapt it for the screen while finishing up work on his breakthrough movie, Swingers. It would take two years before he could wrangle the rights from Warner Brothers and a further year of writing with Tony Gilroy before a workable script emerged. Liman discarded all but the central premise for his version, contemporising the themes and politics in the process. He also added elements garnered from his father's memoirs, a former NSA operative, who had had dealings with Oliver North - traits of whom would be the basis for the character of Alexander Conklin.

Watch/Discuss: The Bourne Legacy depressingly casts Rachel Weisz as neither hero or villain, but 'the girl'.

The most annoying thing about noticing gender issues in films and television is that you can't *not* notice them when its inconvenient.  So while this second trailer for The Bourne Redundancy, err The Bourne Legacy, has a crap-load of great actors, some solid stunt-work, and a time-twisty narrative that seemingly takes place at the same time as The Bourne Ultimatum.  But couldn't the screenwriters think of something more original than "Jeremy Renner rescues his hot doctor from bad guys and takes her on the run with him"?  Rachel Weisz is an Oscar winner and one of the better actresses of her generation, but whenever she treads into big-studio productions she almost always finds herself as the 'tag-along girl'.  Whether in Chain Reaction (one of her first films back in 1996), Constantine (ironically both with Keanu Reeves), and now in this production, she's the pretty face who gets caught up in the hero's peril and gets dragged along and periodically rescued from scary bad guys.  Yes the first film had a 'drag-along girl' (Franka Potente), but the film went out of its way to emphasize just how much danger Jason Bourne was putting her and her family in by virtue of his intrusion.  It's a big difference: potential menace versus lily-white savior.

Summer movie musical chairs: Ted moves to June 29th.

Universal has announced that Seth McFarlane's Ted (which my wife wants to see) will now open on June 29th, 2012 in the 'vacated' slot (by vacated, that means its also opening against Tatum's Magic Mike, Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection, and People Like Us).  Oddly enough, Universal is opening Oliver Stone's Savages just a week later on July 6th.  So if Universal ends up moving Savages to July 13th, don't be too surprised.  I'm genuinely surprised that Universal didn't take the opportunity to move The Bourne Legacy from its August 3rd slot where it would be opening head-to-head with Total Recall.  Of course, considering July 13th will now have only Ice Age: Continental Drift, expect some studio to move one of their bigger movies to the now nearly-empty slot.  That leaves just six titles opening in wide release this July (The Amazing Spider-Man, Savages, Ice Age 4, The Dark Knight Rises, Step Up 4, and The Watch).  If I were Sony, I'd move the Meryl Streep/Tommy Lee Jones/Steve Carell drama Hope Springs into the July 13th slot, as it will provide solid counter-programming against both Ice Age 4 and The Dark Knight Rises and allow Sony to move Total Recall to August 10th.  August has 14 movies opening over five weeks.  I expect that number to drop by at least one while July's total increases to seven before too long. What do you think will go down with this latest round of musical chairs?  Share below.

Scott Mendelson

The Bourne Desperation gets a teaser trailer...

The most striking thing about this teaser (which premiered late last week) is that it's in fact a variation on an old joke my wife and I used to do back when The Bourne Ultimatum came out five years ago.  It's no secret that I kinda hate The Bourne Ultimatum, finding it to be a dumbed-down, streamlined, crowd-pleasing remake of The Bourne Supremacy.  But the goofiest part of the picture is the revelation that Jason Bourne wasn't just a patient in the Treadstone program, no, he was also involved in an even more secret and devious organization: Blackbriar (which, to be fair, was I believe referenced offhand at the finale of The Bourne Identity)!  So if the fourth film ever came to fruition, we'd inevitably see the reveal of yet another uber-secret government-sanctioned wet-ops program.  "If you were horrified by Treadstone... if you were mortified by Blackbriar... then you will shit your pants when you learn about Bald Eagle!!"  Bourne: "Oh my god... you turned us into half-human/half-robot killing machines!"  Reanimated Clive Owen: "Look... what... they (loading-loading)... make (Error!  Error!) you give!"  Sadly that absurdest bit seems perilously close to fruition with this new teaser for The Bourne Redundancy.