How bad is Monster High? This bad:
1) Even if I hate you, I hope you never have to see it.
2) It should bear the credit “written and directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.”
3) I’d rather not watch anything for 84 minutes than sit through it again.

The list could go on and on, but let’s get down to business: Two aliens named Dume and Glume — ha, get it? — steal a wooden box containing a doomsday device. After it lands on Earth on the grounds of Montgomery Sterling High School, whereupon it kills a dog, the box is then stolen by one Mr. Armageddon.

Then lots of weird things appear in the school halls: head-smothering condoms, neck-strangling plants,a preppy zombie, a horny gargoyle, a mummy, a creature in red sneakers. It ends with the students squaring off against Mr. Armageddon at a climactic basketball match. Apparently, this plot is so complex that every scene requires narration.

The jokes — I apologize to the word “jokes” — are so insipid, that I also should apologize to the word “insipid.” An example: Dume and Glume rap! About penises and vaginas! Sample lyric: “You got your fimbriae / And your scrotum sac / And if your hymen is gone / It ain’t coming back.” Yes, Monster High has all the subtlety of a Three Stooges short. (Sorry, Moe, Larry and Curly.)

Apparently, all of the brainpower went into crafting names for the characters: Norm Median, Candice Caine, Mel Anoma, Miss Anne Thrope, Coach Otto Parts. The movie has exactly one thing going for it: boobs. Lots of large, naked breasts appear, and they’re from the era where they were real, rather than purchased on layaway. However, all the nude women are unseen from the neck up, as if they didn’t want anyone to know their identity. Smart move, ladies. —Rod Lott

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Last year, Four Lions received praise as a daring, cutting edge satire of the terrorist boogeymen we’ve been trained to fear over the course of the past decade. The praise is more than deserved, but I couldn’t help but wonder how it would have been received if had been made and released in 2002, instead of 2010. Would the critics still have been able to find the humor in it, while the wounds of 9/11 were still so fresh?

Given the reception Ernst Lubitsch’s masterpiece, To Be or Not to Be, received upon its release, the answer is, “Probably not.” A satiric farce set in Nazi-occupied Poland, the film was made while WWII raged on and the public was still only becoming aware of the unimaginable horrors perpetuated by Hitler’s evil regime. The film was met with outrage, as critics and audiences were unprepared and unwilling to see the terrifying enemy they were fighting overseas portrayed as blithering buffoons in silly uniforms. Twenty-three years later, Hogan’s Heroes would start a six-season run on network television. Time heals everything.

The film pairs TV legend Jack Benny (in what would be his defining film role) with the gorgeous Carole Lombard (who tragically died in a plane crash three months before its release) as Joseph and Maria Tura, Warsaw’s most beloved theatrical couple, whose company is forced to shut down following the Nazi invasion. Maria’s pre-invasion flirtation with a handsome Polish airman (Robert Stack) leads to their troupe using their acting skills to prevent a Nazi double agent from revealing the locations of the families of Poland’s exiled air force to the S.S.

Viewed today, To Be or Not to Be is less transgressively outrageous as it is outrageously funny. Made by a master in his prime, it is required viewing for anyone who considers themselves a student of film comedy, and remains as fresh and relevant as anything you can expect to see in a theater today. —Allan Mott

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Why doesn’t this turd have the words National Lampoon in its title? What sort of incriminating photos did the producers have of Cuba Gooding Jr.? Can the Academy for Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rescind the awarding of Oscars? And most importantly, why did I have to see if this really as bad as everyone says it is? Because it’s worse.

Any movie in which a character lip-synchs and dances to James Brown’s “I Feel Good” should be thrown in cinematic jail for life, but Boat Trip keeps piling on offenses, like doing a Chariots of Fire parody (those ceased being funny in 1983), giving Saturday Night Live’s Horatio Sanz a starring role, having Cuba dry-hump a porthole until he jizzes on a guy’s face, and having Roger Moore suggestively lick weenies, among other things.

The story (with apologies to the word “story”) has Gooding brokenhearted after his girlfriend (Vivica A. Fox) dumps him when he barfs on her cleavage and proposes marriage. To cheer him up, his ultra-horny janitor pal Sanz convinces him to accompany him on a cruise to engage in lots of promiscuous sex with loose women. But unbeknownst to them, a vengeful travel agent (Will Ferrell, whose cameo is the film’s only saving grace, outside of Victoria Silvstedt’s purple panties) books them on an all-male, all-gay ship. Let the homophobia ensue!

The initially disgusted Sanz thinks the trip might be okay after all when he accidentally shoots down a Swedish bikini team’s helicopter with a flare gun and they must board, enabling them to suntan and do jumping jacks topless. Gooding, meanwhile, falls for the ship’s dance instructor, Rush Hour 2 hottie Roselyn Sanchez — who does things to a banana here that presumably killed her career — but he can’t reveal to her that he’s not a homosexual.

Despite all the cheap shots, the film actually does carry a “being gay is just fine” message, but I doubt very many could make it that far. Its humor is absolutely infantile, and the look suggests a cheap, made-for-cable comedy that wouldn’t get watched without gratuitous nudity. —Rod Lott

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Video Wars is so obscure that, 27 years after its release — in a rented room at the Holiday Inn, I’m guessing — it didn’t even exist, according to its absence from the Internet Movie Database. Trust me: It was for the best.

The globe is being brainwashed by one Prince Radolpho … Rapemonger? Rightmonger? (The audio is horrible, so I can’t tell what the fat villain’s last name is.) Anyway, his aim is to control the destiny of anyone anywhere in the world, and requires a trillion-dollar annual allowance from America. To combat this scourge, the U.S. government has a plan that’s “too secret, too sensitive, too everything … we’ll have to field a special team.”

That’s comprised mostly of one guy (George Diamond) who looks like Joe Mantegna’s second cousin. He’s trained in “subversive activities” and must find Prince Radolpho’s computer terminal. To do this, he’s given some gadgets that look assembled from various cast-off parts in Radio Shack’s bargain bin. This film’s Q rattles them off: “a rotational axis with combined sensor … and last but not least, your acid pen.” Replies our hero, “I hope it doesn’t leak in my pocket!”

This leads to a gaggle of Russian female agents, many of whom are real hatchet-faces; multiple aerobics sequences; a snowman with spy-camera eyes; a chase on snowmobiles; and the can’t-miss pick-up line “You like chicken, baby? Well grab a wing.” Take none of this as a recommendation. This no-budget spy comedy is worse than an eye stab.

The whole video game element is pure gimmick, having very little to do with the actual movie. Early on, there’s a scene in which a room full of businessmen are playing a game, and they’re taking to the joysticks as if they’re masturbating. And toward the end, there’s an arcade contest where, judging by the screens shown, the object is to look at 8-bit patterns of random-size squares. That’s about it. Do not insert coin to continue. —Rod Lott

In space, no one can hear you scream “Crikey!” But that’s where, in Collision Course‘s opening moments, a U.S. satellite explodes, sending its beacon-equipped core crash-landing in Australia, where a crocodile promptly swallows it. CIA agents are deployed to retrieve it, unaware it’s in a croc’s belly, putting them on a collision course … with danger!

Meanwhile, Animal Planet host Steve “The Crocodile Hunter” Irwin and his masculine wife, Terri — playing themselves because that’s all they can do — spend their day collecting all sorts of wildlife for zoo research. With all his scenes framed TV-style and talking straight into the camera, Steve finds something, catches something and indulges himself in a five-minute, diarrhea-of-the-mouth treatise on the animal, whether it’s a wily snake, a venomous spider or hungry crocodile. His typical, hypercaffeinated shtick is peppered with such exclamations as “If you ever see a snake like this, DON’T MUCK WIT’ IT!”

The two “stories” converge briefly when the agents come upon the croc in Steve’s possession and he mistakes them for poachers, putting them all on a collision course … with laughter!

Actually the movie puts you on a collision course … with sleep! It’s pretty dull, livened up only by the prospect of seeing Steve have his face penetrated with poison-dripping fangs, but alas, such blooper-worthy shenanigans never come to be. No mistake about it, this is simply an episode of his TV show with a pointless government-agent wraparound, putting me on a collision course with … aw, never mind. —Rod Lott

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