The Most Disappointing Movies of 2009! By William Bibbiani  [6 more lists]

The Watchmen, a film perhaps destined to top this kind of list, was not the failure it could have been either critically or financially, but it sure was disappointing. Not a box office bomb, but not the kind of success that could have legitimized big budget adaptations of serious comics, and not bad, but also narrowly missing the point of the books. Ignoring the weird parts (Carla Gugino’s awful makeup, the massively over-produced opening fight sequence, Zach Snyder’s smug reference to 300), Snyder’s film spent so much time with its superheroes that it neglected all of its supporting players – the everyday human beings who end up suffering as a result of the powerful protagonists’ decisions. As a result, the twist ending (which was changed to be more plausible, missing the fact that the sheer madness of the original revelation was vital to the plot) has little impact, and a film that could have been either the very best or very worst of 2009 ended up being completely forgettable. Like we said: Disappointing.

The first Crank was, in its way, one of the very best comedies of the decade, personifying to hilarious effect the manic need of mainstream cinema to provide constant entertainment at the cost of dignity and coherence in its tale of a man who needs constant adrenaline just to stay alive. This sequel, from the same filmmakers, could have coasted by on more of the same – good-natured anti-social wackiness – but instead became an exercise in sheer unpleasantness. A film about loving life begat a sequel about wallowing in misery, and with wholly unnecessary racist subtext throughout (“That’s awfully white of you” is considered a compliment... by the hero). Crank 2 became the very kind of cruel, by-the-numbers ADD cash-in that the first film so effectively – and perhaps accidentally – satirized.

Raw sexuality is often lacking from mainstream Hollywood these days, so when the tawdry commercials aired for this Fatal Attraction knock-off about an obsessive-yet-totally-hot white secretary (the smoking Ali Larter) destroying a successful black businessman’s life and wife (The Wire’s Idris Elba and Beyonce Knowles in her first non-singing role), we hoped for a return to sleaze: a man (and an audience) seduced by forbidden fruit then paying the price. What we got was an uncomfortably chaste sex thriller without any of the “sex” or "thrills" that define the genre. Idris Elba acts like a saint and gets toyed with, to limited success, by an attractive woman with neither personality nor back story, with no nudity, sex or indeed anything tantalizing enough to warrant watching this by-the-numbers PG-13 nonsense. The film's working title was "Oh No She Didn't." If only she really had.

Writer/director Tony Gilroy decided to follow his excellent but joyless Oscar-nominated drama about corporate lawyers screwing each other over with a terrible and joyless comedy about corporate spies simply screwing each other. Despite a star-studded cast of Hollywood’s prettiest and most talented (though not everyone qualifies as both), the only sparks flying come from the film’s story as it crashes and burns before the audience's very eyes. The boring twists, unlovable romantic leads and lackluster “comedy” undermine Gilroy’s impeccable cast and photography, resulting in one of the dullest films of the year.

Steven Soderbergh has directed some brilliant films. The Girlfriend Experience isn’t one of them. One of the director’s “artsy” films (read: it’s not an “Ocean’s Eleven” sequel), The Girlfriend Experience promised a story of a modern prostitute providing “the girlfriend experience” – a complicated psychological concept of women selling relationships to men rather than mere sexual intercourse. In the lead role he cast Sasha Grey, the hot young adult superstar of over 200 pornographic films. And somehow, the result was really, truly, incredibly BORING. Soderbergh was more interested in knee-jerk reactions to the recent economic crisis than really exploring his protagonist (or really exploring the economic crisis for that matter), while poor Sasha Grey acquitted herself admirably, but clearly has more charisma and artistic freedom in her XXX-rated performances.