September 1, 2003

Every year during the summer, it's the same thing. People talk up all the hit films and surprise sleepers like they care about any of it. In reality, though, what folks really want to discuss is the bombs. The duds. The films that even Madonna would consider failures. With summer 2003 being a special sort of cinematic suckfest, even getting on the list is something of an honor in the world of failure.  A ton of big-time money losers didn't even merit a second look when compared to the disasters below.

5. Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

There was tough competition in the blockbuster division this summer, with The Hulk taking the early lead but ultimately making back its production budget. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle stepped in as a contender with backlash to spare. In the end, though, it was the sequel nobody wanted that took the crown. Tomb Raider 2 was never able to overcome the suckiness of the first film and even though it made significantly more sense than its predecessor, moviegoers employed the rationale of "Once Bitten, Twice, You've Got to Be Frikkin' Kidding Me.” With an opening weekend take of less than half of the first Tomb Raider but a budget to match, The Cradle of Life became the bloated loser of the summer.

4. Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas

Even animation had tough competition for bomb of the summer, with Rugrats Go Wild! putting in a valiant effort but just not being sucky enough. And as a second sequel that just had its audience outgrow it, you feel a little more sympathy towards Rugrats than the overstuffed DreamWorks effort that was Sinbad. At some point, studios will learn that celebrity voices mean very little to the box office when you're trying to attract eight-year-olds and they only cost extra. Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michelle Pfeiffer don't mean much to the kiddie crowd and adults haven't been caring much for non-Disney, non-computer animation. This is also strike two for DreamWorks on adventure animation after The Road to El Dorado (and to be fair, Disney also failed similarly two years ago with Atlantis and last year with Treasure Planet) a genre that has just not flown in any way. In this, the Summer of Disney, not only did the Mouse House win, but all their competitors failed.

3. From Justin to Kelly

Every year, some deluded studio tries to make audiences pay for something they already got for free. This year, that void was filled by the flash-in-the-pan stars of the first season of American Idol, Justin Guarini and Kelly Clarkson, who I'm sure are regretting signing those lifetime contracts right about now. What was really misjudged here was the idea that somehow viewers were attached to the people of the show rather than the elimination process. All fame is fleeting but this fame wasn't just fleet, it had afterburners. Exhibiting all the chemistry of two pandas in the zoo, the two leads did a wonderful job of killing all tabloid rumors about them. Not even the pre-teen girls bought into this one as it opened in an embarrassing 11th place. From Justin to Kelly made a quick dash From Theaters to Video where it can exist forever as a midnight mockable movie for those that can stand the pain.

2. Marci X

A late entry into this race, Marci X is an excellent example of the kind of movie that, as the quote goes, "wasn't released, it escaped!” Sitting on the shelf for almost two years, this biteless satire of race relations and the rap community was dropped in a minimum number of theaters with almost no promotion. Paramount tried its best to ignore that this film even existed but couldn't let sleeping dogs lie. The lesson here again: Lisa Kudrow isn't a lead and Damon Wayans isn't funny. Starting in a remarkable 17th place, it's set a futility record for wide releases and on the strength of that alone slides into number two.

1. Gigli

Ladies and Gentlemen, we give you The Perfect Storm of 2003. It's almost a cliché at this point to pick on this film, but it's rare to find a cinematic whipping boy of this magnitude. Not since Battlefield Earth has the vitriol of the critics been so focused, so intense on one film and they killed Gigli before it ever got a fair shake, whether it deserved it or not. The entertainment reporting culture bears some blame for this flop of flops, too, as it drove the public to a Bennifer Backlash that peaked right at this film's release. Let's not excuse the movie either, as amateurish writing (gobble, gobble), miserable casting (Least. Convincing. Italian. Gangster. Ever.), ludicrous plotting, and a laugh-free trailer (I can only assume it was meant to be funny) gave the critics many convenient targets to target. This kind of anger builds on itself until the film becomes the butt of late-night TV jokes, at which point it's time for a studio to cut its losses Ishtar-style. The most entertaining thing about Gigli were the negative pull-quotes, with two favorites being, "This movie was so bad, I had to watch it twice to make sure Madonna wasn't in it!" and "A rigli, rigli bad movie.” If being forgotten is worse than being hated, Gigli at least gets to salvage something as it's earned a place in Hollywood infamy.