Lights, camera, awful! Movies we hate the most

We asked our staff to share the one movie they hate above all others. It's kind of cathartic, really. You can bash your own worst movies with us in our online chat (Aug. 29, 3:30 p.m. ET) or on Facebook.

‘Sex and the City 2’
I love HBO’s “Sex and the City.” Love. It. Every time I flip by a rerun on TV, I watch it, no matter how many times I’ve already seen the particular episode. First movie? Adore! Second film? Ugh. I’m sorry the postal service didn’t lose the Netflix disc. In the sequel, everything was off. That opening scene at Stanford and Anthony’s wedding? In what crazy universe would those two — who despised each other in the series — end up in love and married? Samantha’s fierce devotion to a satisfying sex life and naughty quips were immensely fun on the show and in the first movie. In the sequel? So forced and painful. I could go on and on, but let’s just say that as a big “SATC” fan, I want my two and a half hours back. And no third film. Ever.   —Anna Chan

‘Battlefield Earth’
Thank you, John Travolta, for “Grease,” for “Saturday Night Fever,” and even for “Welcome Back, Kotter.” But “Battlefield Earth” wipes out all those good memories. Travolta, a Scientologist, longed for years to turn Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s science-fiction novel into a movie. Bad idea. Travolta himself plays a Psychlo, one of a race of 9-feet-tall aliens with dirty, clumpy hair and a penchant for freaky nose jewelry. He snarls and screams and has some plan to get humans (he calls them “man-animals”) to serve as slave gold miners but I couldn’t follow the plot, I was too busy imagining what Vinny Barbarino would say if he had to wear his hair that way. If the dialogue seems familiar, it’s because it’s a lot like when your brother was in seventh grade and he made you act in his own Super 8 monster movie. Actual line: “I am going to make you as happy as a baby Psychlo on a straight diet of kerbango.” The film is also better viewed if your theater is slowly sliding into the sea, as nearly every shot in the movie was filmed at a weird angle.   —Gael Fashingbauer Cooper

'Bride Wars'
Insulting, stupid and a crime against matrimony, "Bride Wars" featured 89 minutes of Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson as ostensible lifetime best friends who can't seem to agree to share a wedding date. Having spied a wedding in New York's Plaza Hotel as kids, the pair decide they simply must have their own nuptials there years later. Then, in a series of coincidences that only happen in the movies, the two get engaged and plan their weddings at the same time ... on the same day ... in The Plaza. Horrific pranks and unfunny mean fighting ensues, which causes us to hate both of them. "Bride Wars" again reinforces the idea of the "perfect" princess wedding that clearly all women expect and desire — and will apparently toss aside lifelong relationships aside to achieve. The cookie-cutter ceremony these two women expect turns them into white-clad cliches, and by the end (when they make up in five seconds, sitcom style), you're left wanting an annulment.  —Randee Dawn

Paramount Pictures

"I'm king of the bad movies!"

'Titanic'
I know it won an Oscar. I know it set a box office record. I know millions of teenage girls swooned over Leo and his undying love for Kate. I can hear Celine Dion’s haunting voice as I type this. But as I sat in the packed theater watching this unending build-up to the huge event that everyone knows is coming, I found myself doing my own version of “Mystery Science Theater,” talking back to the screen and annoying the friend seated next to me. There is zero chance that a drifter like Jack would have gotten the attention of, much less the undying love of, a woman of Rose’s station in 1912. Drop her very wealthy fiancée for a guy who sleeps under bridges and draws naked pictures of legless prostitutes just cause she’s bored? Ha! And when Rose flips the bird to a ship’s steward as she and Jack try to evade capture, I almost walked out. But I did stay, hoping they would both go down with the ship. One for two!  —Denise Hazlick

‘In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale’
Oh, let me count the ways that this 2007 film let me down. If the moviemakers are going to use a video game in the title, it could be helpful if the movie had something to do with the game (it didn’t). When the main character’s name is Farmer, and he’s a farmer, don’t hold your breath for any intricate character exposition. I wonder how notorious director Uwe Boll described the project to the actors before they signed on. “Farmer slays foes as he rids the land of evil on his way to discovering he’s the lost son of the king?” Did they ever read a script? Somehow Boll managed to gather up some respectable names for this exercise: Jason Statham, Ron Perlman and Leelee Sobieski among others. John Rhys-Davies, “Gimli” from “The Lord of the Rings” series, has a part here too, but a catatonic Burt Reynolds and wildly miscast Ray Liotta stick out like sore thumbs in a production that plays like it was all thumbs. This movie is unsparingly bad.   —David Gostisha

'Jack'
A large part of the reason I hated Robin Williams' 1996 movie "Jack" was that it was a total trick. The trailers made you think it was a rollicking Robin-Williams-playing-funny-guy comedy about a boy who looked like a fully grown man, but really it was a terribly sad, tragic tale about misunderstanding, horrible disease, and lost opportunity. If that’s the kind of material I’m after, trust me, I’m all about combing through some non-fiction source material, or settling in for a good cry movie. But for the love of God, movie studios: don’t trick me. Teasing funny and giving me tragic is an offense of the highest order. I’m still holding it against Robin Williams.  —Courtney Hazlett
Story: 'Mystery Science' alums know bad movies better than anyone

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