Tonight I was forced to sit through the worst movie in the history of film.
I know … I know. I’ve stated similar words before. But, truly, tonight was different.
First, here’s the official trailer:
The film is called Zoom. It stars Tim Allen, which should have been Tip No. 1. It thoroughly entertained my two nephews and my 4-year-old son—Tip No. 2. I’d never heard of it—Tip No. 3.
Now, there are generally different categories of horrific cinema. For example, AI and Godzilla both sucked. But AI was supposed to be terrific, while very few people walked into the theatre to watch Godzilla with high expectations. Hence, AI has to be considered the worse of the two films.
Zoom, however, defies the odds. It was clearly made to suck, it clearly did suck and it still was worse than one would think. I mean, the movie was made for kids. Which means one can’t have high expectations. And it still failed to meet them.
Why …
1. Tim Allen is just a very bad actor. Very, very, very bad. He can’t carry a good film.
2. The plot made 0 sense. Literally, 0. Quick summation: Tim Allen was a superhero named Zoom. He left the biz years ago to run an auto shop, but is needed to train new recruits. The new recruits are all kids—one whose power is to enlarge his butt (and other body parts). Allen is asked to train the kids, but he doesn’t want to. The government wants to load the kids up with Gamma Rays, though I’m not sure why. Allen’s brother is an evil ex-superhero returning to earth, and the kids need to stop him. Or something like that.
3. The explosions, space shifts, etc—all looking ridiculously fake and stupid.
4. When Chevy Chase has a prime role (in 2006, when the thing was made), there are problems.
5. The cinematorgraphy is brutal. It looks like someone did this with a a Flip.
6. Every so often a random pop song is used for background music, but with no rhyme or reason. Enrique Iglesias’ Hero, Five For Fighting’s Superman. Just … random.
7. They fly a spaceship to Wendy’s, simply because—apparently—Wendy’s paid for product placement.
8. Kevin Zegers plays the bad guy, and can’t be allowed on screen again. Ever.
On the bright side, the film only made $12 million worldwide—astonishigly low.
On the down side, I saw it.