I’m not saying the worst, otherwise I would need to include the star wars sequels or transformers movies… Just some really dumb movie that somehow got praised.
For me has to be Ready Player One. That movie message is so “uhuh” obvious that is stupid, the whole nerd that saves the world in a thing that otherwise would be useless to know in real life… The so over the top evil gaming corporation. The whole 80s and 90s movies and games references get old after half an hour… And it’s so pandering towards the geeks and nerds, they really want the viewer feeling really cool for knowing that is the Shining hallway, or that is a Monty python reference… Or look a GUNDAM! YOU’RE SO COOL FOR COLLECTING THOSE GUN PLA! Look we have also overwatch and halo in the background! You’re so cool modern gamer!
Also the obviously attractive “nerd” hacker girl that thinks she’s ugly and deformed for having a small hard to see red tint in one side of her pretty face… Cmon man. In no universe anyone would think that actress is ugly.
And the message at the end is so hilarious: Look man, you’re cool for getting these references and being a real gamer is cool, but go outside more!
Is like the creators have no self awareness.
It’s definitely a movie cut from the same cloth as Catcher in the Rye. You love it as a teenager because you vibe with the main character. Then you grow up and see how self-polluting and obnoxious the character is.
I did love the exchange between Mary McDonnell’s character and the fundie lady. “Do you know who Graham Greene is?” “Please, I think we’ve all seen Bonaza”. It has a layer of humor that couldn’t have been intentional. The fundie lady is mixing up Graham Greene with Lorne Green, and Mary McDonnell would go on to play the political half of Lorne Green’s character in the Battlestar Galactical reboot a few years later.
Isn’t that kind of the point of Donnie Darko? Comparing it to The Count of Monte Cristo which did that for me, the Count seems like an amazing badass as a kid but just kind of an ass as an adult; he literally says so at the end of the story, but you gloss over it as a kid. Bringing that back to Donnie Darko, he comes to the conclusion the world is better off without him.