We love movies. We love cars. We love movies about cars. But there are some truly pathetic car flicks out there. Below, thanks to your help, is our list of 12 of the worst.
This is open to debate, of course, and there are films we deplore that didn't make this list. Agree? Disagree? Let us know in the comments and feel free to add some YouTube clips to support your choices. In the meantime, click next to see what we're talking about.
12.) Gone In 60 Seconds (Remake)
Director: Dominic Sena
Year Debuted: 2000
Why It's Awful: It's not as if the original Gone In 60 Seconds is the best example of cinema ever, it just features great cars. Unfortunately, the remake manages to lose some of the verve and spark of the first film and replaces it with Jerry Bruckhiemer-induced stunts and a truly awful performance from Angeline Jolie. Oh well, it's always fun to watch Nick Cage.
11.) Herbie: Fully Loaded
Director: Angle Robinson
Year Debuted: 2005
Why It's Awful: As cute as the original Herbie movies are, this remake smacks of Disney-fied unoriginality and features Herbie racing in a NASCAR race. It also features Lindsay Lohan's rise into womanhood (which involved, allegedly, a digital breast reduction) and her decline into substance abuse. We're going to show you the blooper real, because it's actually more entertaining than the film itself.
10.) Black Moon Rising
Director: Harvey Cokliss
Year Debuted: 1986
Why It's Awful: Other than the general 1980s-ness, as exemplified by the appearance of both a big-haired Linda Hamilton and Bubba Smith, the production value of the film isn't as bad as some of the others here. Written by John Carpenter and directed with a touch of science fiction noir (hey, everyone loves Blade Runner!) the worst part of the film is that the titular Black Moon concept cars is based on the hideous Wingho Concordia II. It's a bad Canadian, Bertone-rejected wedge unimpressive even by 1980s standards.
9.) Race The Sun
Director: Charles T. Kanganis
Year Debuted: 1996
Why It's Awful: Wait? A movie with both Halle Berry and Jim Belushi? About a high school solar racing team that came in 18th place? Oh man, nothing beats bratty teenagers (played by pre-fame Casey Affleck and Eliza Dushku) and alternative energy. It's like October Sky... in Hawaii! We couldn't actually find a youtube video of this, but the photo above and your imagination should do the trick.
8.) The Wraith
Year Debuted: 1986
Director: Mike Marvin
Why It's Awful: It's like the original Fast And The Furious with a street-racing gang. But instead of Vin Diesel you have a cosmically resurrected teenager. And instead of driving around in a souped-up DSM he has a Dodge prototype. Oh, and rather than Jordana Brewster to stare at you have Clint Howard.
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7.) The Dukes Of Hazzard
Year Debuted: 2005
Director: Jay Chandrasekhar
Why It's Awful: It's not as if The Dukes of Hazzard was a particularly great television show, but it had its moments. Other than Willie Nelson, the movie had almost nothing worth salvaging. We even like the director, Chandrasekhar, who directed some of the funniest episodes of Arrested Development. Extra points for being yet another film on this list featuring Burt Reynolds.
6.) Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
Year Debuted: 2009
Director: Michael Bay
Why It's Awful: As you can read here and here, the genius of Michael Bay is making lots of money by getting people to watch a movie mostly unwatchable. There's no car pr0n in this one, like the original. It's mostly just a bunch of nearly identical robots tearing pieces of metal off of each other for reasons unclear to anyone who doesn't follow the intricacies of the Transformers canon.
5.) Smokey And The Bandit III
Year Debuted: 1983
Director: Dick Lowry
Why It's Awful: A movie so bad Burt Reynolds wouldn't appear it, the plot of Smokey And The Bandit 3 includes Jerry Reed as the Bandit and Jackie Gleason betting away his badge. Rumor has it that Jackie Gleason originally played the Bandit but test audiences didn't get it. Either way, nothing really explains why certain scenes exist or what happens. And to top it all off, there's a sex scene with Jackie Gleason. The-Watercooler.com explains the rest above.
4.) RPM
Year Debuted: 1998
Director: Ian Sharp
Why It's Awful: We were surprised to discover, in doing our background research for why RPM is so awful, that there's no Wikipedia entry for RPM. There's a wikipedia page for The Alarmist and for the made-for-tv-movie with David Arquette The Webbers. Why no page for RPM? We think it's a vast conspiracy perperated by Courtney Cox to make us forget the film. Great cars, bad acting, and David Arquette. Need we say more?
3.) 2 Fast, 2 Furious
Year Debuted: 2003
Director: John Singleton
Why It's Awful: Lacking almost any of the charm, or the cast, of the original, 2 Fast 2 Furious matches the acting skills of Ludacris with dialogue that goes from campy and technically dubious to downright awful. The film is dreadfully slow for an action movie and the concept of Paul Walker earning his way back in to the government's good graces is tired and predictable. The whole film has the value of a set of neon green JC Whitney pedal covers.
2.) Driven
Year Debuted: 2001
Director: Renny Harlin
Why It's Awful: Driven is maybe the worst film directed by Renny Harlin, the genius behind such films as the second worst Die Hard flick, Wal-Mart $5 DVD bin staple The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (to be fair, Wert really likes this one), and massive flop Cutthroat Island. A mixture of convoluted plot, poor acting, and crappy CG combines for a movie so bad we unfairly blame it for killing off the CART series.
1.) Redline
Year Debuted: 2007
Director: Andy Cheng
Why It's Awful: Literally part of the reason why the subprime market crashed (the film was produced with subprime loans) and the economy is in the crapper; the film Redline is a tour de force of awful. The questionable plotline, the gratuitous destruction of exotics, the Eddie Griffin factor, and the awful acting all combine to create a film that makes The Fast And The Furious seem like Citizen Kane. It's so bad, the car gods took the producer's Enzo.