No matter how good stretch leather looks on the gorgeous Halle Berry, it just wasn’t enough to distract audiences from how bad this film was. No plot? No dollars. No dollars? No film studio. What does that mean? Don’t make another film, Hollywood, except if it’s a la Christopher Nolan in The Dark Knight Rises and you’re actually a director who knows what they’re doing.
While Halle Berry did her character justice, the writers just didn’t seem to make it work for the comic-book hero. The “lone bright spot” had a tough time carrying the film, and for that reason, it won 2004’s Golden Raspberry for Worst Picture. However, there was one good thing that came out of it: (bedroom) wall posters of Halle Berry in leather!
2006: Basic Instinct 2
Now, Basic Instinct is just one of those films you don’t mess with. It’s iconic, sexy and thrilling for a reason, and this is most likely due to the decade it was released in. Sure, they might have brought Sharon Stone back for the sequel and perhaps even her little white mini, sans underwear, but more than 20 years later, were producers truly that desperate to make some coin?
You know it’s Golden Raspberry-worthy when the director of the original film scoffed at the new script and flat-out refused to direct a film which was going to be somewhat sacrilegious. With reviews like “ludicrous” and “predictable”, it should’ve been instinctual to know not to resurrect a film from another time.
2005: Dirty Love
Written by and starring Jenny McCarthy, this won’t be the last time Hollywood produces a film about women and their quest to find Mr. Right. Beating films like The Dukes of Hazzard and Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, this film really deserved the bottom spot. With a 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, lying somewhere between a rock and the comedy graveyard, this is a film you’ll want to miss.
Stephen Holden from The New York Times gave a brutally honest review: “even by the standards of its bottom-feeding genre, Dirty Love clings to the gutter like a rat in garbage” Ouch!
2003: Gigli
Queen of rom-coms herself, everyone bows down for the Maid in Manhattan, Jennifer Lopez. It seems that often, love is blind, and blinding – particularly regarding careers. Lopez should’ve left Ben Affleck on the block she picked him up from and strutted her stuff on the movie circuit solo. Why? Well, when reviews of her performance alongside her then-boyfriend make the comment that they “lack chemistry”, you know something’s up.
Mixing a mob story and a romantic comedy is the unconventional love story that Hollywood really shouldn’t have dabbled in. Our favorite review is the one by Newsweek, “after the schadenfreudian thrill of watching beautiful people humiliate themselves wears off, it has the same annihilating effect on your will to live.” Ladies and gentlemen, the 2003 Golden Raspberry hath been served.
2002: Swept Away
2002’s Golden Raspberry goes to Guy Ritchie's film, Swept Away. Starring then-wife and musical legend Madonna, the film is a remake of the classic 1974 romantic Italian film. A fan of the original, critic Roger Ebert was unimpressed with Ritchie’s attempt, noting that Madonna didn’t do her role justice: “Striking a pose is not the same as embodying a person, and a role like this one requires the surrender of emotional control, something Madonna seems constitutionally unable to achieve.”
Having the dishonor of being the Worst Picture of 2002, it really was swept away quickly from box office billboards, grossing under $600,000 in the U.S., despite a $10 million budget!