There is something inherently hypnotic about a train that gets wrecked. I’m talking literally, not just metaphorically. We’ve all seen the YouTube videos about seeing a train take out a big rig or a smaller vehicle in spectacular fashion, preferably with nobody being hurt in the process. But every once in a while, we get to witness something truly spectacular when a train really takes flight. I’m not talking about the engine, but rather the entire train itself, caboose and all. Sometimes, it’s horrific, and other times, it’s totally epic. And horrible at the same time. This is why we refer to movies of certain…..qualities as train-wrecks. It’s because the film fails in nearly every single way. While some of these films start out on the track well enough, it doesn’t take long for the whole thing to become completely derailed. There are multiple reasons for why a film crashes and burns. It could be because of studio interference, the film wasn’t fully conceptualized during the screen-writing process, or the cast and crew don’t know what the hell they’re doing. Sometimes, a film can fail so badly, it can derail a particular franchise to the point it will never recover. When I bring up these films, keep in mind, that I’m not necessarily going to hate them all. Hell, some of them I absolutely love because of their faults. With that in mind, let’s get into the films that I feel are total train-wrecks.
Suicide Squad
The trailers and marketing material lead everybody to believe that this was going to be a bad-ass anti-superhero film. So what happened? Batman V. Superman is what happened. People’s overreaction to that particular film’s extremely dark and serious tone forced Warner Bros and the film-makers to try and lighten the mood with Suicide Squad. To do that, they had to do some pretty extensive re-shoots that added more humor to the film. The ugly truth of the matter is, is that the film was doomed from the beginning. The concept of Suicide Squad is fantastic, but the execution was just awful. You take a group of some of Batman’s notorious rogue gallery and you throw them together in a film with supernatural elements to try and save the world. They took a fantastic concept and threw these characters into one of the most generic and cliche-ridden films in the DCEU. Don’t believe me? Watch the film, it includes every cliche up to and including the whole “portal in the sky” concept which has been done to death. I enjoyed certain aspects of it, including Margot Robbie’s performance as Harley Quinn and Will Smith as Deadshot. Everything else is a hot mess.
Jaws: The Revenge
The original Jaws is one of the greatest thrillers ever made. It was the film that put Steven Spielberg on the map and became the world’s first summer blockbuster. Despite the technical issues with the shark, the film actually benefited from those issues, and scared people out of the water. It had interesting characters and a pace that was totally white-knuckle. The quality of the sequels would get worse with each entry until we get to Jaws: The Revenge. This was the film that killed the franchise completely. Jaws 3 had some serious issues, but it was still a lot of fun for being a B-movie. Jaws: The Revenge is a complete disaster in every single sense of the word. First, we have a shark that somehow follows the Brody family to the Bahamas because of some kind of personal vendetta? Oh, it gets worse: Apparently, Ellen Brody has developed some kind of psychic connection to the shark. A “shark-sense” if you will, that alerts her to whenever the shark is attacking something or someone. Sounds ridiculous? I’m not done yet. During the final “confrontation” Mike Brody and his friend Jake use electronic devices to zap the shark, and when they do, it roars. The shark…..roars. The whole thing was riddled with continuity errors, logical fallacies, and glacial pacing. This movie was boring. Why the hell did I love it as a kid? I don’t think I’ll ever know.
Moonraker
I’m a huge fan of the James Bond films. I always have been. The suave, smooth-talking British spy is one of the most memorable characters ever created. I would say that I love all the James Bond movies, but that would be a lie. There’s two or three that I’m really not a big fan of, but they’re still pretty decent. The one film in the series that I can genuinely say that I hate was Moonraker. Moonraker was released in 1979, two years after Star Wars and the same years as Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The timing couldn’t have been worse, and putting James Bond in space with laser guns was one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever seen for a Bond picture. To his credit, the late Roger Moore did the best he could with what he had, but the script was awful, the visual effects were laughable and the overall plot was completely derivative of better science fiction movies. They even gave the character of Jaws a voice and a girlfriend which takes away any kind of menace that the character had. The main villain is a complete joke and your typical businessman out to destroy the world for one reason or another. I would say that “train-wreck” is the perfect adjective to describe this movie.
GI JOE: The Rise of Cobra
The Rise of Cobra. There’s a dumpster fire if there ever was one. Loosely based on the 80s cartoon and toys of the same name, GI JOE: The Rise of Cobra follows an elite squad of highly trained soldiers tasked with protecting the world from a mysterious organization that’s weaponized nano-technology. Given how ridiculous the cartoon was, there really wasn’t much expectation that this movie was going to be any good. Not only was the movie not very good, it completely misses the entire point of the cartoon. It’s like Stephen Sommers didn’t even bother watching the cartoon or reading any of the comics. Why was the team using these supersuits? Not only that, you had this bizarre underwater base that really just looked like something out of the video game. The characters were mostly done wrong. We didn’t need an origin story for Cobra Commander. He didn’t need one. We also didn’t need to know how Duke and company got to be a part of GI Joe. The only two characters that were compelling in any way were Snake-Eyes and Storm-Shadow. Those two characters had more development than anybody else in the film. Don’t even get me started on the horrendous CGI effects. If you’re going to watch a GI JOE film, watch Retaliation instead. It’s better. Not by much, but at least it bears a resemblance to the cartoon…..somewhat.
Hellraiser: Revelations
If there was ever a way to be both a dumpster fire AND a train-wreck, Hellraiser: Revelations found it. This movie, if you can even call it that, is basically nothing more than a cheap fan film. It was clearly rushed and put out by Dimension Studios to retain the rights to the franchise. The script was so awful that Doug Bradley, who played Pinhead in the first 8 movies, refused to sign on. I’m a huge fan of the series, even some of the direct-to-video entries, but this was too lame, even for me. It was horrendously produced with lame costumes, lousy visual effects, and a Pinhead that isn’t even remotely threatening. This movie damn near killed the franchise. Hellraiser: Judgment, the follow-up, while flawed, is a much better film.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Oh, dear. This is one that I knew was coming the moment I saw the first trailer. Luc Besson is a fantastic writer and director, but when his ego takes over, you get train-wrecks like Valerian. Billed as one of the most expensive indie films ever made, the film barely made back its budget, but it failed to ignite with audiences that weren’t familiar with the graphic novel, which is to say…..everyone that isn’t French. Visually, this is a stunning movie. Unfortunately, the casting was awful, the story was lame, and it just seemed to feed Besson’s ego. There was no chemistry between Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne and most of the other actors basically sleep-walked through the whole thing. It was boring, and a lot of it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Stick with The Fifth Element, that’s a much better sci-fi film.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
The Final Frontier could have been a phenomenal entry into the Star Trek series. It has some really interesting ideas, and some scenes actually carry some serious emotional weight. It’s just too bad that the film was bogged down by a film studio that wanted the film to be more comedic like Star Trek IV, while William Shatner wanted to do something more along the lines of the original film, something more philosophical. While Shatner deserves some of the blame for how the film turned out, Paramount are the ones that neutered the whole thing. The quality of the film also suffered because of a much lower budget than previous entries. You can tell, because the visual effects are terrible. Despite this film being a train-wreck, I actually like it a great deal, even if it’s only for the ideas that are presented. Thankfully, it didn’t kill the franchise, as Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country put the franchise back on track with an incredible film.
I could go all day and night talking about movies that have ended up as train-wrecks. I didn’t bring up The Predator because it was very recent, and I’m curious to see if a director’s cut will fix some issues with the film. Alien 3 was not really that big of a train-wreck in my opinion. The version you have to see is the Assembly Cut, which presents a more cohesive narrative. There are other movies out there, but these are some of the ones that really stick out as train-wrecks and dumpster fires.