Good Bad Movies

October 22, 2008
By Drew Thomason
Staff Writer

Top 5 good bad movies

You’ve all seen them and enjoyed every minute. Some of you even own them, but would be too ashamed admit it. When your friends come over, you hide them.

Get your mind out of the gutter. The topic being discussed is good bad movies. You know the ones-- bad acting, worse scripts, but something about them is enduring. Below is a top five list of good bad movies. If you haven’t seen one of them, immediately go rent it.

5) Any movie involving the following story elements. 1) Human kind in immediate danger. 2) A female protagonist who needs help. 3) Keanu Reeves.

The Matrix Trilogy, Constantine and Chain Reaction all come to mind. Reeves' acting, or lack there of, coupled with extraordinary grave circumstances fuse to create a perfect storm of good bad moviesness.

4) Coming out in 1995 when the internet was just starting to take off, Hackers tells the story of ‘Zero Cool,’ a hacker who was ordered by the court to stay away from electronics until his 18th birthday because of a computer virus he wrote.

When he turns 18, he immediately hacks a corporation's computer and discovers a conspiracy to unleash a catastrophic computer virus. He and his band of hackers, including a young Angelina Jolie, spend the rest of the movie trying to thwart this plot.

Thirteen years later, the reverence the characters have for the speed of the computers and internet in the movie is laughable. Add to that bad '90s clothes and slang and out comes a drama turned comedy.

3) 1995 was an epic year for good bad movies. Waterworld, staring Kevin Costner, is a post-apocalyptic showing of a world where climate change has melted the polar ice caps, creating a world of nothing but, well, water.

Humans have gathered in small floating communities and are fighting for resources such as oil and plants. Costner is a Han Solo type, stopping at these enclaves only to pick up supplies or trade.

There are rumors of dry land, and a little girl is the key to finding it. Costner, who starts out the movie with a frozen heart, eventually develops feelings for this girl and her caretaker.

Ripe with overacting by Dennis Hopper and underacting by Costner, a movie meant to emphasize the dangers of global warming turns into a laughfest. The plot is asinine and is a clear ripe off of Mad Max, but what else could we expect from Costner?

2) Who could best take down criminals, the FBI, local police? Guess again. According to 3 Ninjas, three adolescent boys can successfully take down professional criminals.

Despite the brothers' clearly Caucasian ancestry, their grandpa is Japanese and, true to stereotypes, is a master of martial arts. Every summer he passes this knowledge to his grandsons.

Three criminals sneak into Grandpa Shintaro’s house and the brothers have to use their martial arts skills and ingenuity to fend them off.

A child of The Karate Kid and Home Alone, 3 Ninjas is full of idiot criminals who for some reason don’t know how to use a gun and instead get beat-up by little children.

1) Hudson Hawk. Bruce Willis has made his share of good bad movies, such as The Fifth Element. But his crowning achievement in this arena is Hudson Hawk.

Written and shot following on the coattails of Die Hard, Hawk is a comedy action movie that couldn’t decide what genre it wanted to be in. In it, Willis is a cat burglar who times his thefts with songs.

He is forced into a plot to recreate an alchemy machine created by Leonardo da Vinci. Everyone from the CIA to the Vatican gets involved in this mystery drama comedy action.

There are huge continuity problems, which the director and writer said were suppose to be part of the film’s appeal and in reality you either get them or you don’t. The majority of those who saw it in theater didn’t get the film and it flopped.

If you are in need of a semi-musical mystery drama comedy action flick, or just need to waste a Sunday afternoon, Hudson Hawk is where it is at.