The Sigil (2012)

You know, there are times when I worry about the direction the horror genre is going in, especially these low budget ones. I can respect them trying, trying to make something out of nothing. But that's what Kickstarter is for now.

Forty-two bodies are discovered in a Los Angeles house, and the authorities pass it off as a radiation leak. Not sure how they managed that, since none of it makes any bloody sense, but they did. The sister of one of the deceased is Devan (Devan Liljedhal), and her friends Brandon (Brandon Cano-Errrecart, who is also the director and co-writer) and Nate (Nathan Dean Snyder) go to investigate, coming across Miki (Miki Matterson) and her boyfriend/friend/possible brother Matt (Mathew Black).

Oh and, by the way, despite the fact that this film constantly keeps mentioning that the death total is forty-two, in fact the back of the box reads "where he and 41 others perished", we get a close up shot of a newspaper article which reads "43 found dead in Los Angeles building".

Normally I would commend a group trying to do a production on a small budget. But, when you have on the cover of your film the words "Welcome to the dawning of a new horror phenomenon", you automatically set the bar extremely high. And this film failed miserably by giving us the same old crap we're used to, or by inputting some really confusing bits so you don't really know what's going on. And then, to top it all of, they put "LA 2014", so these events take place next year, and the tag line "They never saw it coming", have a picture of the LA skyline with a gas mask looming over, it implies that whatever it is, it will devastate the city, it's widespread. Instead we have a film that's focused around one fucking building.

This 'found footage' film does switch between first person from the camera and third person looking at the characters I initially thought was a good thing, because that was one of the main problems with most found footage films; that one character constantly records everything even though there are moments when he shouldn't. You know, like when your friend is being attacked. Until I remembered the start of the film said "These damaged tapes were retrieved from a house located in west Los Angeles", which actually means we shouldn't be seeing any of these scenes. Do you want to know why 'Cloverfield' basically mastered this technique? By filming the necessary bits, stopping the footage when needed, and we come back to the characters at a later point.

Then again, it's not the first time the the film lied. "These tapes contain graphic and disturbing  images", yeah no they don't. "No connection has been found between the tape's content's and the events 6 months prior" except for Devan constantly mentioning the brother who died in the "events 6 months prior". You cannot have a message saying this is found footage and not have all of it found footage, you can't have it both ways. If they didn't put the whole FBI thing at the start on it would have been fine.

But it would help if I actually cared about the characters. I mean, within five minutes we see our lead girl Devan hear her mother cry over the death of her (Devan) brother, her (mother) son, and IMMEDIATELY leaves. She doesn't stop to help her mother go through this hard time, oh no she just runs off to Los Angeles. Her friend Nate is an unlikable jackass who, as the film goes on, you want to punch in the face. Miki, who I had to watch three or scenes again to learn her name, acts like a bitch most of the time. Meanwhile Brandon and Matt aren't memorable at all.

The acting itself, I want to say it's terrible, and for the most part it is, but there's something in my mind telling me that they were trying their best. It's no excuse though, it was still bland, it was still uninspired, you can get more emotion out of Kristen Stewart. And then the effects. Oh God the effects. At least other low budget productions attempt to try and make them look good, this film didn't bother. The room is shaking? Well let's just shake the camera and not have the actors do anything, I'm sure that'll work well.

Now the main feature, how scary is this? How scary is the "dawning of a new horror phenomenon"? Not much. You know why I like the settings of most horror found footage films like 'Grave Encounters', 'Grave Encounters 2', 'The Lost Coast Tapes', or to an extent the 'REC' films? Because the settings are huge, it's easy to characters to get lost, to become isolated, the setting is scary, it's unnerving, and there's generally music to help this. This film is set around one house, no-one gets separated, there's no music, there's never something which you see in the corner of your eye, even the setting is bland. This film is about as scary as an episode of the Teletubbies.

So, final thoughts? This isn't good. Oh boy it isn't good. It's like they wanted to do something but had no idea what. The acting is underwhelming, it doesn't even qualify as a horror, there's barely a story, the characters are infuriating, bland, or both, I cannot find one shred of anything good that I can say in this film's defense. Well, okay maybe one thing, it's not the worse thing I've ever seen.

Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

So, I'm sure many of you remember the 2010 film 'Kick-Ass'. Personally I thought it was okay,  I personally thought it was okay, not bad, but could have been better. I didn't hate it, but I can see why people would.

So, since the events of the first film, Dave Lizewski/Kick-Ass (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has retired from being a superhero but yearns to go back to it. In order to train he asks Mindy Macready/Hit-Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) for help, but she's trying to live a normal life of her own, so Kick-Ass joins forces with the hero group Justice Forever, lead by Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey). However Chris D'Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) wants revenge for the death of his father, and has re-branded himself as the first supervillain, the Motherfucker.

My major concern going into this was that they've focused the film on Hit-Girl rather than the superhero community as a whole. I'm glad to say this doesn't happen. I have to say, the film's story is really good. It's roughly the same length as most films and, for a slightly big cast like this, we learn everything we generally need. We learn characters back stories, their journey through the film, the action scenes are well timed, emotional scenes are effective, and the film manages to squeeze in some great comedic aspects as well. Admittedly it starts off a bit slow, but when it picks up boy does it pick up.

I suppose in a way it feels slow at first because it feels like another origin movie, and most origin films aren't really that good unless they're one-offs. Let's face it, 'Batman Begins', 'Man of Steel',  the original 'Kick-Ass', 'Green Lantern', they're all origin films which you could argue are good but they're not great. I mean, the whole bit about Dave being trained, exploring the origins of Justice Forever and its members. But the main focus is on Kick-Ass, Hit-Girl, and the Motherfucker, and it is good to see their roles in the film; the searching for a sense of purpose and dealing with consequences for Kick-Ass, the conflict of a double life and deciding who she is for Hit-Girl, and the obsession for revenge for the Motherfucker.

Speaking of the characters we have a fair few in here. Sounding off the main bunch we have the three main characters, Colonel Stars and Stripes, Night Bitch (Lindy Booth...I know right?), Battle Guy (Clarke Duke), Mother Russia (Olga Kurkulina), Javier (John Leguizamo)...screw it I'm not listing them all. There are loads of them, some of them I admit some characters are underused, like Genghis Carnage (Tom Wu), and Black Death (Daniel Kaluuya), but others are really well done, like Doctor Gravity (Donald Faison), and Uncle Ralph D'Amico (Iain Glen), while there are also some true gems like Javier, Colonel Stars and Stripes, and Mother Russia; Mother Russia herself has one, if not the, best scene in the whole film, one of the most awesome scenes I've ever seen, and it's all about her justifying her salary.

The acting helps a lot, with a majority of the cast feeding off each other, producing some great chemistry, such as from Faison, Booth, Kurkulina (With this being her first acting role), Hell, Iain Glen was only in the film for ten minutes at the most and he dominated his scene. The main three, Taylor-Johnson and Moretz gave good performances, and Mintz-Plasse surprisingly holds up well as the villain. John Leguizamo and Jim Carrey meanwhile deliver some powerful and unforgettable performances, and are probably the best performers in the film.

Now, the violence in the film. Going into this, I expected a fair bit of gore, it's a 'Kick-Ass' production. There was apparently so much violence, that Jim Carry pulled out of it. I won't go into it out of respect, and as much as I can respect Jim Carrey's request, there isn't actually that much violence in the film itself, in fact it deals more with what happens as a result of said violence; the multiplier effect. Oh there is violence in it don't get me wrong, but there's less of it compared to the first film, which adds a lot more to the film, in a way it actually makes it more real.

To be honest, I found this film a lot of fun. The first film, okay that was good but not great, but this one I thought was really really good. The film is entertaining, the acting is great, the characters are memorable and well thought out, the action is explosive, it really is a great surprise for me. It might actually be the best superhero film I've seen this year.

Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters (2013)

You know, I'm all up for seeing a film adaptation of a book. Sometimes it can be good. Sometimes it can be bad. Or sometimes it can just be meh. Now, as for the Percy Jackson series, I haven't read the books. My sister has though and I ended up seeing '...Sea of Monsters' with her, despite our initial feelings that the first film, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, was quite dull and unmemorable. I personally only remember Steve Coogan playing Hades. And that's it. Well, that and the fact that it's very similar to the Harry Potter origin; boy learns that he has a magical heritage and that he has powers, and he is sent to a place of learning and sanctuary to better understand his powers.

So in our second installment of the Percy Jackson series, we find that Percy (Logan Lerman) is feeling slightly depressed with the fact that he hasn't really accomplished anything since he solved the riddle of the Lightning Thief. However Camp Halfblood (Seriously? It's called that? *Sigh*) comes under attack, they find that the magic tree barrier, created out of Zeus' dying daughter Thalia (Paloma Kwiatkowski) is dying again...sort of. So Percy, along with his friends Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario, who is wearing more clothes than she did in 'Texas Chainsaw') and Grover (Brendon T. Jackson), as well as his new half-cyclops brother Tyson (Douglas Smith), heads off to find the legendary Golden Fleece to try and heal the tree and bring back the barrier that's protecting the camp, before Hermes' estranged son Luke (Jake Abel) can get it in order to bring the Titan Kronos back to life.

You know, for a film called 'Sea of Monsters', I kind of wanted to see a Sea of Monsters. We only see ONE sea based monster in the so called Sea of Monsters. And the benefit of going to see the film with someone who has read the book, is being told what the film has changed from the book. Like the book starts off in the human world where we get told a lot more about Tyson since Percy meets him there and not Camp Halfblood, and while Grover starts off with Percy and Annabeth in the film, in the book he doesn't turn up until much later in the story. And Luke used a cruise liner instead of a private yacht. Hey, anything to save money I guess.

The story seems rushed, with some major plot points are glanced over and others not really cared about. Characters don't really seem that emotionally involved and not really interested in what's going on. In fact they seem more involved in petty things than the greater good. So much so that it does actually screw them over at one point in the film which proceeds to put them in danger. Bizarrely the only interesting character is Luke, and that's more because I like the way Jake Abel portrays him, though in hindsight Luke isn't that great a villain.

Actually, I lied, there's another character I like, and that is Hermes, played by Nathan Fillion, and that's simply because Nathan Fillion is a God among men, he really does steal the show. The others are either pretty bland or majorly underused. I suppose if I had to pick someone, Alexandra Doddario was the better of the main cast. Hell the teachers aren't that great. You know how in the Harry Potter franchise whenever a cave troll or a dangerous fugitive comes to Hogwarts the teachers tell the students to get somewhere safe? Yeah, whenever something bad happens to the camp, the teachers (Or guardians I suppose is a better word to use) are nowhere to be seen.

The majority of the effects are really good, in particular the Charybdis, but it is let down by some poor CGI as well, such as the mechanical bull, the Manticore, and Tyson's one eye. Though in fairness you do get used to the one eye. The bad effects outweigh the good effects, that's really all I'm saying.

This is so much like 'Monsters University', it could have been so much better. I assume, I haven't read the books. But this is a meh film. Everything is so mediocre, the acting, the effects, the story. I won't say it's a bad film, but it's not exactly good. I don't know what the books are like, I've heard good things, but it's weird that this doesn't seem to follow the same success that the Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings franchises have accomplished. It's better than the first one, I can say that, but I wouldn't expect that much from it.

Monsters University (2013)

So I just recently got back from holiday with some mates from university. Oh we had a good old time camping, and one day we decided to go into one of the local towns, King's Lynn, and ended up going to the cinema. Have to say I liked that cinema. Anyway, the film we went to see was Monsters University.

Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) dreams of going to Monsters University and graduating so that he can become a scarer. However his studies are interrupted by James "Sully" Sullivan (John Goodman), and the two become quick rivals as they survive the academic year.

In all fairness though, I really didn't care how Mike and Sully came to know one another. I've seen what great friends they've become in 'Monsters Inc' so I pretty much knew they were either good friends to begin with or they were cliched rivals. In actual fact I cared more about how they came to know Randall (Steve Buscemi), though I do feel this wasn't really given the time it needed.

With that aside the plot is somewhat old. For the most part you can tell what direction it's going in, it just feels like something you've seen before. It's all about the characters trying to find their own identity, but it doesn't really work because everyone is different; only the girl sorority that look like Barbie Dolls from Hell look the same and half the monsters have three eyes.

I'll give the film credit for having a great variety of monster designs, but that actually holds the film back in a way. While there are so many different designs, they're all quite unmemorable and uninspiring. It holds some comedy back because the jokes are so predictable, including the slug monster "hurrying" to class, and, ultimately, because the film plays it seriously, there aren't really that many fun moments or things which make it different to similar films. Shamefully I only really got into the film when the final major plot point came along. And out of all the monster designs, only two really stood out, which are Dean Abigail Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren) and the Librarian; Dean Hardscrabble, who is this winged centipede-like creature, has an imposing and intimidating appearance and presence, while the Librarian, while her design is simple, it still has this menacing and dominating design.

The voice acting is great though, you can certainly feel the emotion, which you would expect from the likes of Crystal, Buscemi, Goodman, Nathan Fillion, and Helen Mirren. The comedy is good as well, there aren't any pointless pop culture references for adults and they haven't dumbed it down for kids, it's just, like the story, most of the jokes are more predictable than laugh-out-loud.

I'm not saying I didn't like the film, far from it, it's a good movie. I'm just saying it could have been so much better. It's funny, but could have been funnier, it has a good story, but it could have been great. I certainly liked the throwbacks...throwforwards...references to the first film, including a certain cameo, but as a standalone movie, it's just good. They could have spent more time on certain bits, but for what it is it's still pretty damn good.

Hell (2011)

Time to continue with the old end of the world story, and Roman Emmerich's at it again. Well, to be fair, he's only a producer on this film, the film is directed by Tim Fehlbaum on his directorial debut. Can he bring about a new take on the end of the world? Or will Emmerich give Fehlbaum some tips? Well let's step into 'Hell' and find out. By the way, yes, 'Hell' means 'bright' in German.

We find ourselves in 2015 and the atmosphere has broken down from solar flares. This has resulted in the planet heating up by ten degrees Celsius, and resources are scarce. Okay, already I'm calling bullshit. If Earth's atmosphere was destroyed by solar flares, well, the planet would heat up, but I'm pretty sure to the point of "Oh my God my skin is melting". Anyway, we follow Marie (Hannah Herzsprung), her lover Phillip (Lars Eidinger), her sister Leonie (Lisa Vicari), and a new follower Tom (Stipe Erceg). They're struggling to survive in a world where civilisation has collapsed.

The problem with the story is it doesn't fully explore the concept. It says resources are scarce and yet the main characters are never seen struggling; they seem to have loads of water and food, and when they run out of fuel they conveniently find a fuel station which has LOADS. Which is quite bizarre seeing as how the world ended, you'd have thought that the fuel would've been used up or rare. Hell, (No pun intended), the hostile people don't seem that threatening. We find they have a hunting ground, and yet when our heroes give chase they seem to walk miles. Then again, even the film forgets every so often that the world is in peril, such as why does one person need protective headgear when outside, yet another runs out perfectly fine?

Heck we see a bird flying perfectly in a scene where Phillip burns his hand on the car. If the planet's temperature gone up by ten degrees Celsius, then surely ALL plant life, you know, trees and grass, would be dead, and yet we see grass and the trees just look like they've lost their leaves. Not only that, but there are chunks which feel they don't seem to go anywhere. Most of the time the scene feels like filler with no destination in sight. I'm not saying there isn't a resolution, but it just drags on and on. That being said the story has some moments which are pretty well thought out, just not given much depth.

With that in mind the camera shots and music are well done. The camera shots convey the brightness superbly, showing just how dangerous the world is, and the music manages to convey the tension and desperation of the scenes.

The acting is pretty good, the problem is, again, they're not really fleshed out. The lead, Hannah Herzsprung, certainly grows on you as the film goes. The others manage to adequately portray their roles, but in hindsight there's nothing spectacular. In all honesty, it's the characters that are the problems.

The characters just plod along until hostile forces come along, until then there's really nothing of note. The two male characters hardly emote which actually makes it hard to differentiate the two, so later in the film it's actually confusing which one's which. I tend to forget that Leonie exists, the only reminder being Marie mentioning her name every so often. Marie herself, I must admit, there's nothing really to say, she seems to more or less remind us of other characters who look for loved ones during the end of days.

Thinking about it, it's not a bad film, but it's not exactly that good either. The characters aren't that memorable and the plot needs fleshing out, but the film does have its moments, in particular showing how far humanity will go to survive, the acting is pretty good, while the cinematography and music are great. As a directorial debut, Tim Fehlbaum does a pretty good job, he certainly has the potential to help bring together some great films. It's just a shame this one wasn't fully explored.

Top Ten Unintentional Jerks

Now, I was going to do a top ten Disney Villain songs, because I went on a bit of a Disney binge last weekend. The problem was, as I started writing about song number six, I started to think there really wasn't much point, seeing as how most of the songs have been on other peoples lists, and things have already been talked about on them. There really isn't much for me to add. But here's the list anyway.

10. Savages - Pocahontas
9. The Plagues - The Prince of Egypt
8. Shiver My Timbers/Professional Pirate - Muppet Treasure Island
7. Friends on the Other Side - The Princess and the Frog
6. Poor Unfortunate Souls - The Little Mermaid
5. My Lullaby - The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride
4. In the Dark of the Night - Anastacia
3. Hellfire - The Hunchback of Notre Dam
2. The Mob Song - Beaty and the Beast
1. Be Prepared - The Lion King

Now that's out of the way, let's go on to the unintentional jerks. These are the people we're supposed to feel sympathy, compassion, or just simply like and yet they do the weirdest things which actually make it hard to do. Confused? Well I'm sure you'll get the gist of what I'm doing as you read on. So let's start this off.

10. Glinda the Good Witch - The Wizard of Oz

Oh yeah, I'm starting off with this character. Why? Well, it's simple. Dorothy (Judy Garland) wants to go home, however she has just killed the Wicked Witch of the East and her sister, the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton), is not happy. Glinda, one of the two good Witch sisters, saves Dorothy (For now) and tells her that only the great and powerful Wizard of Oz knows how to get her home.

And so Dorothy goes on a long journey, meeting the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), Tin Man (Jack Haley), and the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr), almost put to sleep by a poppy field, attacked by Flying Monkeys, and almost killed by the Wicked Witch of the West. After all that, Gilda turns up and tells Dorothy that all she needs to do is click her heels, while wearing the ruby slippers she got from the Witch of the East. Which means Dorothy risked her life FOR NOTHING. Oh yeah, there wouldn't have been a story, Dorothy wouldn't have learnt a lesson, but she did risk her life when all Glinda had to say was "click your heels three times" in Munchkinland.

Oh and the fact that Glinda says bad witches are ugly and then asks Dorothy is she's a good witch OR a bad witch.

9. Dr Nefario - Despicable Me 1&2

And it's not because he's voiced by Russell Brand! No, seriously I don't find him funny at all. The only time I do find him funny, is when he hasn't scripted the jokes.

But anyway. In 'Despicable Me', he sees quite clearly that having Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier) and Agnes (Elsie Fisher) is actually doing Gru (Steve Carrell) some good, so what does he do? He calls the orphanage so they can take the children away so Gru can concentrate on stealing the moon. Oh yeah, Dr Nefario is a sidekick to a villain so that makes him bad, but that's still a dick move. It's not like the moon won't be there the next night. So it won't

 be in optimum position, so what? And that's when he's NOT experimenting on the Minions.

Well, it's not like he can do worse...oh wait, he does. In 'Despicable Me 2' he helps the villain El Macho (Benjamin Bratt) kidnap those cute little Minions and turn them into blue skinned killing machines. And then he turns on El Macho saying he won't help him hurt Gru and the others because they're "family"? Oh yeah, I'm sure the Minions will completely understand that.

Oh wait, THEY DO. For some reason!

8. Peter Pevensie - The Chronicles of Narnia

You really have no idea how much of a dick Peter (William Moseley) is. I mean, generally it's being a dick to his brother Edmund (Skander Keynes) by constantly putting him down. Hell, one of the moments is learning that Edmund lied when he said he and Lucy (Georgie Henley) went to Narnia, and yet, here's the thing, if Edmund DID say they went, would you have believed him? Because apparently the doorway through the wardrobe doesn't work if you're looking for it. Which doesn't explain how they found it again but that's not the point.

And then comes 'Prince Caspian', where he thinks he knows better than everyone else. Therefore he devises a plan where he'll lead Prince Caspian's (Ben Barnes) forces against a fortress that has never been taken, then gets into a fit when it falls apart and a big chunk of their army is killed. Sure, Caspian has to take some responsibility for running off and confronting his uncle, but all Peter had to do was open the gates so the Narnian army could get in before the guards are alerted.

I do enjoy the Chronicles of Narnia, despite its flaws, and Peter is a very big flaw.

7. Gohan - Dragonball Z

Oh don't look so surprised Gohan, you know what you did! The thing is, you wouldn't expect Gohan to turn up on this list. He is a kid who is thrown into numerous wars, first against the Saiyans, then Frieza, then the Androids and Cell, etc, etc.

But, there is a huge reason why Gohan is on this list; animal cruelty. Oh yes, animal cruelty. I can understand Gohan being forced to survive in the wild after Piccolo abandoned him to toughen him up, but he terrorises a sabertooth tiger AND a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Oh, Gohan helped that ONE dinosaur, had a dragon which was rarely seen as a pet, these two animals were trying to eat him at one point, but they're animals. Gohan continuously frightened the sabertooth and ran it into exhaustion, while hunting down the Tyrannosaurus and cutting off bits of its tail, effectively mutilating it! It's not like Gohan's tail which can randomly regrow whenever the plot wants it to.

Gohan, he cares about everything except for certain kinds of animals.

6. Gandalf - Lord of the Rings

Oh believe me, he may be a great wizard, but he's a crap hero. The main problem with Gandalf (Ian McKellen), is that he doesn't convey information well. I mean, let's start with the obvious, carry the One Ring to Morder to destroy it and stop Sauron getting a body and conquering Middle Earth. Shall we walk thousands of miles, or use the giant eagles which Gandalf used in 'The Hobbit' decades earlier?

How about this, when the Fellowship are going over a mountain when Saruman (Christopher Lee) tries to kill them with magic. Gimli (John Rhys-Davis) offers an alternative; go through the Mines of Moria. The problem? Well, not only have orcs, goblins, and a cave troll taken over, but a Balrog has also moved in. And Gandalf KNOWS THIS. Does Gandalf tell the others? No he just tells Frodo to decide on what they do, without telling him about the dangers. So Frodo says go through the Mines, where they're attacked and Frodo almost killed before they even get into the Mines, and almost by a cave troll in the Mines, and Gandalf has to make the sacrifice...or the fake sacrifice anyway, to stop the Balrog. All of which could have been avoided if Gandalf had just said:
Gandalf - "Alright Frodo, do we continue up the mountain? Or go through the Mines of Moria?"
Frodo - "Well..."
Gandalf - "Oh by the way, the dwarfs living there are dead, and orcs, goblins, a cave troll, and a Balrog now live there, all of which could kill us"
Frodo - ".........."
Gandalf - "Moria it is!"

I'm not saying that going across the mountain was easier, but when there's an extended scene where Gandalf counters Saruman's spells, but why does he feel it's necessary to put others in danger just to make himself look good?

5. Jack - The American

I recently saw 'The American', and I really didn't like the main character. He's a loner, he tries to separate himself from everyone else but can't help but get attached, hey, I can understand, it's human nature.

We first find Jack (George Clooney) and a female companion in Sweden, being attacked by a gunman. We don't know why, but he is. Jack takes care of his attacker, asks his lover (Irina Bjorklund) to call the police. And the second she starts to go towards the cabin, Jack shoots her in the back of the head. And from what I can tell, for no reason.

If he hadn't shot her, he'd run. Sure, she could identify him. And? So she'd tell the police, they'd do a local search, before extending it nationwide, before then alerting police worldwide. By that point he'd have disappeared, got a new identity. Basically anything else he could have done would've been better. He even admits that she had no idea of the line of work he does, later turning out to be a contract killer, and that she was "just a friend". So for the rest of the film I'm waiting for him to kill the other people he befriended. And he has the gall to accuse a priest of hypocrisy just because he fathered a child at some point. Yeah! That's far worse than killing someone!

No we just watch Jack continuing with his life, possibly putting more people in harms way, and doing little to nothing trying to make us like him. Just because he's George Clooney it doesn't mean we should like him!

4. Claire Bennett - Heroes

You know what, I love all the seasons of Heroes. Oh, the first one is the best, and I'd have loved to have seen where it would have gone had they not re-written the ending to season two because of the writer's strike, especially since Sylar was suppose to gain invisibility and impenetrable skin in the original plans for season two part two. In fact why didn't they just stick to that original plan?

Anyway, as the seasons progressed Claire (Hayden Panettiere) is thought of as the vulnerable little girl by her adoptive father Noah (Jack Coleman), despite the obvious; she has the power regeneration. So in the early seasons I was all up for this being resolved, I was on Claire's side, she's virtually indestructible, how could she get hurt?

And then she really got moody. Like Peter earlier, Claire started to feel she knew better than everyone else. And this really got annoying. She started to act more like her evil alternate futuristic counterpart (........*thinks about it*...........yeah) than the original cute and caring cheerleader we found ourselves liking. In fact, this was the point where I wanted to see more of Panettiere, but the more I saw the more I was disappointed. I can't think of anyway that they could make me want to see Panettiere again.

Helloooooo Hayden.

3. Dobby - Harry Potter

I am so going to get so much flak for this. So many people love Dobby (Voiced by Toby Jones), they say he's great, they say he's a hero. I don't think he's as great as everyone says he is. And it's primarily down to his actions in the 'Chamber of Secrets'.

You see. In '...the Chamber of Secrets' Dobby is trying to stop Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) from going to Hogwarts. It's later revealed that it's because Voldemort (Christian Coulson) is back using the Basilisk to kill people. Or attempt to anyway, he kind of sucks at doing that. But anyway, I just told you the threat in one sentence. So, it would be easy for Dobby to say this right? No of course not! There's this thing where he tries to hurt himself because he's serving the Malfoy's and therefore can't tell Harry without trying to bash his own head in. So, okay, he can't tell Harry the traditional way, and decides to get Harry grounded by dumping cake on Bishop Brennan/someone important to the Dursley's. Now, it would have been good to see Dobby regretting what he was doing. What does Dobby do?

He smiles of course!

And when that doesn't work, what does he do? He enchants a bludger which BREAKS Harry's arm. And he was lucky to only get that, since he could have easily died! Dobby nearly killed the main character!

In fact, Dobby's attempt must be in the top five for the attempts on Harry's life.

2. Ian Malcolm, Sarah Harding, and Nick Van Owen - The Lost World: Jurassic Park

You know, I didn't really notice this when I first watched it. I was, what, eight when I first watched it. But the good guys in this really aren't helpful.

They're suppose to be the good guys, they're suppose to portray the...prevent animal cruelty message, and yet how can we take it seriously when they are doing things without thinking of the consequences. Free the dinosaurs? Yeah sure, they're not going to run amuck and seriously harm people. Take their bullets? Definitely! They won't need it against the Tyrannosaurus Rex that's trying to eat them!

Let's continuously screw things up so no-one else survives!

1. Edward and Bella - The Twilight Saga

Gee, I wonder why he's (Robert Pattinson) on here! Could it be the telling Bella (Kristen Stewart) what to do, where to go, who to hang out with, who to not hang out with, abandons her, makes her suicidal, THROWS HER AGAINST A WALL, leaves her to be attacked by a villain from a previous film, keeps her away from her family, makes her dependent on him, what exactly is there to like about him? Hell, when he thought she was dead he planned to risk all of vampirekind just because he couldn't live without her.

And then there's HER. The manipulative, male dependent, selfish, vain, uncaring, lousy excuse of a human being.

Stephen King was right, Stephanie Meyer can't write worth a damn.



And there's my list. I apologise if it feels rushed, it pretty much was, but the point remains! These are suppose to be the likable characters, and yet they continuously do things which they shouldn't do. Bella and Edward are the biggest ones, everyone else is "meeeeeh I can see what you mean".

Coming up next, Hell.