I've been trying to get around to completing my annual "Worst of" list of movies for the past year, but have had some trouble narrowing my selections down. 2005 was host to an inordinate amount of crap, making the act of distilling one of the shittiest years in movie history into a mere ten picks daunting indeed. Further, there was no clear-cut absolute worst movie to put in the vaunted #1 position.
That was until last night, that is, when I saw The Ringer.
I really don't know what I can compare the experience to, except maybe sitting in your doctor's waiting room, simultaneously suffering from a migraine headache, walking pneumonia, and prolapsed hemorrhoids
while the guy next to you loudly opines on yesterday's episode of Dr. Phil while emptying his colostomy bag on your shoes (that’s going in the review, by the way). I can count on one finger the number of movies I've walked out on, but I left a good ten minutes before the end of The Ringer, because a) I'd gotten the gist, and b) I almost lost it.
Understand something, the preview that played before this movie was for Big Momma's House 2, and people laughed. The bar had already been set so low for this audience I shouldn't have been
surprised by the often enthusiastic reception The Ringer enjoyed, but it was all I could do at several points during the film not to hurl my 32 oz. beverage at some nearby cackler while loudly questioning his primate ancestry.
I’m not overly concerned with how the “special” cast members were treated, since – by most accounts – everything was hunky dory. No, The Ringer is simply the latest (and worst) in a long line of horrendously unfunny “comedies” utilizing shots to the groin and insincere attempts at being heart-warming to manipulate audiences, who are all too willing to be manipulated in the first place. Anyone paying money for this should be ashamed of themselves. Hell, I saw it for free, and I know I’m mortified by the experience.
"Night Patrol". 15 minutes, and the manager was just handing out free passes on the way out.
Almost "Pet Sematary".
Maybe if you substituted the 32-ouncer with a 40-ouncer it would have been funnier.