Review of the Cinema Year 2010 - the bad.

So the year is drawing to a close. 2010 has been a year when a random trip to the cinema could have you thinking that you had fallen into a time-warp back to the Eighties, with The A Team. Wall Street, The Karate Kid and Tron all on the big screen, together with Stallone and Lundgren headlining a major summer blockbuster. Some trips down 80s memory lane have been more successful than others.

In general, of course, there have been some ups and downs, some surprising delights and some crashing disappointments. Nicolas Cage finally rediscovered his Mojo, but Robert Downey Jr apparrently lost his. Over a couple of posts i'm going to present my views of the best and worst films I've seen this year, starting here with the 10 worst, in descending order of naffness.

There have probably been much worse films released this year, but the likes of Vampires Suck or Fred the movie couldn't even get me past the doors. These ones did out of false hope, blind optimism, desparation or sheer boredom and are presented here with a warning not to bother, even if they're on TV and nothing else is on, these really aren't worth it.

Dishonourable Mentions: Just missing out on the bottom 10, but still to be avoided - Clash of the Titans and The Wolfman were big budget, effects heavy and pretty dire, but still had some limited entertainment value, whilst Valentine's Day was overcrowded, superficial and largely untouching, but not without a few redeeming features.


10. It's A Wonderful Afterlife. This British-Indian black comedy had a few really hilarious moments that saved it from coming lower down, but when it wasn't funny it was pretty dire.

9 Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps There were probably worse films released this year, but few as disappointing and the betrayal of one of cinema's great villains is unforgiveable.

8 Machete Robert Rodriguez' mexploitation B-flick messily sailed well wide of the mark. Nowhere near as much fun as it should have been.

7 Legion For a film which supposedly dealt with the end of the world this was rather too small and limited and took itself far too seriously.

6 Skyline - There were some good low budget sci-fi films this year. This wasn't one of them - the savings were clearly made in the script and casting departments, but its more difficult to see where they actually spent the money.

5 All About Steve Lame Sandra Bullock rom-com in questionable taste. For a Rom-com it helps if at least one of the central characters is vaguely likeable. In fact, it actually takes some skill to take two actors as likeable as Bullock and Bradley Cooper and produce such a charmless film.

4 The last Airbender Confirmation that M Might Shyamalan has lost it (at least for the moment) - over-reliance on special effects, dreadfully wooden acting and awful script. What was he thinking?

3 Due Date Offensively bad attempt at new Planes, Trains and Automobiles featuring Robert Downey Jr's worst screen turn for a long time (possibly ever). Only a few funny moments save this from coming even lower.

2 Our Family Wedding Competely unfunny culture clash wedding film and the low point of Forest Whitakker's career. I think its officially classed as a comedy - still trying to work out why.

1 Get Him to the Greek When Russell Brand is the main star of a film and not the worst thing about it, then you're in trouble. Jonah Hill somewhat reprieved himself with Cyrus, but this was just unfunny and obnoxious.