Fuck this planet.
I just for some reason watched a movie I'd never heard of which was called Red Planet and starred Val Kilmer. I was setting myself up for defeat, clearly, but in a way I've triumphed: I'm pretty sure I found the worst movie in the world.
I've seen some terrible movies, some TERRIBLE movies. And I've learned that terrible movies are not unique: the budgetless, the sophomoric, the poorly dubbed, the ill-conceived, the plotless, the paceless, the ludicrously ambitious, the poorly researched, the explodey... every familiar sin of filmmaking provides its own morbid moments of entertainment. Even medium-large summer movies for which Sarah Michelle Gellar might have auditioned serve a valuable purpose, because they remind us of the power of suffering.
But this movie, this movie was special. As far as I can tell, somebody wrote a parody of big-budget Hollywood astronaut movies in the year 2000, and somebody else directed it, very faithfully, as a serious drama. They cast people like Tom Sizemore and Carrie-Ann Moss, people who exude gravitas, so as to get the most out of naked shower scenes and eaten-by-the-bugs-from-The Mummy deaths. And they concluded the film with a scene in which a man is hurtled through the atmosphere of a planet at rocket speed with nothing shielding him but a pressure suit; he dies, and floats for a while in the vacuum of space, before somebody arrives to restart his heart by punching him arrhythmically a few times in the chest (romantic quip and Big Kiss immediately follow). Famous cinematographic moments were lifted directly from Alien, Planet of the Apes, and 2001; and, for those who want to know what they're getting into, the entire plot is laid out in voiceover during the opening credits. Oh, and there's a military robot adapted for civilian purposes who runs amok.
If you're thinking this sounds like other Outer Space movies you've seen, then let me convey how INCREDIBLY BORING the whole thing is. The core of the boringness is the completely predictable plot, but the BRILLIANCE of the boringness is the constant possibility of a plot twist, which the movie steadfastly refuses to deliver. John Cosmonaut displayed an ominous character flaw! Oh, never mind, he just got killed. Billy Spaceman said something kind of creepy... but that'll never be mentioned again, and shouldn't reflect poorly on his character. The movie ended two hours ago, and I still feel nauseous from impatience. But wait, the Red Planet touch of genius: every time someone must be left behind (it happens three times), the scene goes like this:
"You have to leave me behind."
"I can't do that."
"You have to."
[Nods wisely, walks away.]
Now, because whenever I watch a movie I have to read 17 reviews of it, I fled to imdb. Which confirmed, once and for all, that imdb is useless as a source of opinions worth typing.