A Public Service Announcement

     Perhaps my guiltiest pleasure is really silly movies: movies of such cartoonish implausibility that complete (albeit temporary) paralysis of the reason is required to view them at all, much less with enjoyment. Comic-book movies. Vampire movies. Movies with lots of gunfire and explosions. Movies with body counts that would rival World War I (which didn’t result in too many movies of quality). To give you a sense for the depth of this...condition, I may be the only living American who actually liked Green Lantern.

     However, there are limits. Over the past three days I’ve encountered them twice.

     First, there’s Milla Jovovich’s star-vehicle series Resident Evil, loosely based on the video games of the same name. I happen to like Milla Jovovich. I find her quite beautiful and talented. (Yeah, yeah, she could use some tits. Her husband, director Paul W. S. Anderson, doesn’t seem to mind.) As I enjoyed the first five movies in that series rather a lot, I was waiting for the sixth and last: Resident Evil: The Final Chapter.

     Great God in heaven, what a stinker! A completely idiotic premise, an incoherent plot, grade-school-quality acting, and a conclusion that almost had me wishing the villains had won! It made me grateful that that was “the final chapter"...if it was, and dear God, may it please be so.

     After I saw that abortion this past Wednesday, I thought I’d seen the worst movie since Bloodrayne. I didn’t expect to see an even worse one today: a movie so bad that it might have taken the Worst Movie of All Time crown from Bloodrayne.

     That movie was Underworld: Blood Wars.

     I consider Kate Beckinsale one of the most beautiful women alive. She doesn’t have Jovovich’s breadth of talent, but she’s awfully nice to look at. (Yeah, yeah, she could use some tits, too.) I’d managed to enjoy the previous Underworld movies despite their general implausibility and two-dimensional quality. But this latest celluloid turd...this ultimately stupid insult to moviegoers...this complete waste of everyone and everything that was expended upon its making...this utter befoulment of the cinematic form is so bad that I think if I were forced to choose between a bullet between the eyes and watching it again, I’d say “Shoot me now. Please.”

     Friends, creditors, and poor relations, avoid these movies. No matter how cheaply you can purchase them from a remainder bin or at a flea market. I tell you sincerely, with tears in my eyes, no compensation could possibly be enough! If she’s beautiful, intelligent, sensuous, daring, and thinks you’re devastatingly handsome and sexy, but suggests that it would make a really nifty “date night” to tuck in, snuggle up, and watch one of them while making random whoopie, immediately tell her that you have gonorrhea, syphilis, and herpes II simplex, apologize for not admitting your maladies sooner, and move swiftly away.

     You’ll thank me. I promise you. Now excuse me, please, while I get drunk enough to dull the pain.