WORST ROBIN WILLIAMS MOVIE

Jakob the Liar vs Jack vs Bicentenial Man showdown

I've just realised that the most recent Robin Williams film I've seen is the Fisher King, so wtf do I know?

if you watched those films then you deserved to (xp)

jesus

Hint: it's also the worst Haley Joel Osmont movie, worst Jude Law movie, worst Spielberg movie, worst Kubrick related movie (o wait no that's Eyes Wide Shut).

Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001) (voice) .... Dr. Know
Bicentennial Man (1999) .... Andrew
Jakob the Liar (1999) .... Jakob
Patch Adams (1998) .... Hunter 'Patch' Adams

Wow. Seriously, wow. What a run. I'm pretty sure this is unmatched in Hollywood.

What kind of loser couldn't smell his bad ones and sat through them?

(tho Death to Smoochy is a fave)

I challenge ledge to a duel.

His appearance in Friends should be on this list, I think that's what pushed me over the edge.

AI has some truly great moments like all Spielberg. Williams is only in it for 5 mins tho so not worth including.

I voted "Bicentennial Man", having read a synopsis of it, which made me feel a bit queasy. Then I realised I haven't actually seen it. Of the ones I've seen, "Dead Poet's Society" is still pretty horrible and one of the worst films I've seen ever. Twats.

I might vote Jack, altho it does have Diane Lane.

Good Morning, Vietnam and The Fisher King were bad enough for me. I skipped all the Fathers Day/What Dreams May Come-type shit.

I will probably be the only person to vote for August Rush, since it was very recent and not very widely seen. But I had to review it, and god, it was awful.

What Dreams May Come could be quite trippy on mute.

When I was a kid Hook was my little brother's favourite movie and we had to watch it over and over and over and over and over and over again.

I worked on a couple of these films and just from the scripts knew they would be the most unholy tripe. 'Patch Adams' was particularly gruesome, though, especially after meeting the real Patch Adams on set.

I know a rapper whose favorite movie is Hook, and his crew is called the Bangarang Gang. (xpost)

YSI?

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) (as Ray D. Tutto)

Good pun.

same as everyone else, i wouldn't go near most of these and so happily relinquish my right to vote.

I worked on a couple of these films and just from the scripts knew they would be the most unholy tripe. 'Patch Adams' was particularly gruesome, though, especially after meeting the real Patch Adams on set.

-- Michael White, Friday, 4 January 2008 16:06 (5 minutes ago) Link

hahahaha i knew a med student who met Patch Adams and said he was a total asshole

Wow, I saw at least 7 of these movies in the theater (and was only paid to see 2 of them). Toys was a real formative "wow wtf" moviegoing experience.

These five all merit big time consideration.

Patch Adams (1998)
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Jack (1996)
FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992) (voice)
Awakenings (1990)

He was in a lot of '80s movies I've never even heard of.

What the hey, I vote Awakenings.

some of these films arent' that bad, you people be overreacting.

Blubber is pretty stinky though,

I remember Good Morning Vietnam being a half decent film.

http://cinema-online.org/pictures/Stills/Upcoming/August%20Rush/02.jpg

the color his hair is dyed in that movie is this really bizarre shade of reddish brown that i think is supposed to look like the character's natural hair color but really doesn't

Seize the Day is a solid best dramatic performance.

Happy Feet

I gotta go with Patch Adams for its failure to be acceptable on any level. But I have to say that One Hour Photo is far more shit than some people let on, and fuck everybody involved in remaking Insomnia too.

so i'm guessing no one saw 'license to wed'? that got pretty horrendous reviews all around

i actually liked 'the night listener'

liked 'One Hour Photo' but i guess it's bit boring

I don't remember specifically why I thought it was some corny-ass bullshit, but I'm pretty sure it's some corny-ass bullshit.

it ends badly

One Hour Photo was at least enjoyable. Patch Adams is evil treacle infected sentimental enema bulb crap

I have big problems with thrillers that rely on central characters behaving completely stupidly in order to develop the plot. Except for Fargo obv.

"develop" the plot yuck yuck yuck

But yeah clearly One Hour Photo is several hundred percent better than Patch Adams.

xpost lol unintentional puns

If you hear the news much, humans have been known to behave completely stupidly.

I can't remember which author said that just because something was possible in real life didn't mean it was a good plot device, but they were on the money.

yeah wtf. can't see how One Hour Photo is 'corny' given the subject. i cut it a lot of slack because it looks so good tho.

xpost

Also seriously Morbs that's like defending some "I'm gonna leave you in an easily escapable situation and assume you're dead" shit.

I've seen six of these in the cinema too! Admittedly, only Deconstructing Harry post-'91*. I used to think he was a funny fella, back in the 1980s. And what was really missing from Xmas telly this year was another airing of Jumanji.

(* - oh, saw Insomnia on a plane too)

So, I'll think I'll have to vote on gut-reaction-to-movie-poster alone, because none of the films I paid money to see were bad (or most of the ones I've seen on the telly, like Garp or Hudson were ok). Jack, then.

i nearly voted Jumanji based on the poster rule. his stupid face.

There's a lot of shit films up there where it isn't completely fair to blame Williams for the shitness. I'm pretty sure Flubber or Robots would've been equally lousy without him.

the funniest part of One Hour Photo was the scene where he's watching the Simpsons and he's NOT LAUGHING SO IT MUST MEAN HE'S DEAD INSIDE OMG

lolz

the poll isn't called "movie most ruined by a robin williams performance"

Fwiw, despite his choice in scripts, Robin was a great guy to work with and quite funny in person.

Good Morning, Vietnam and Dead Poet's Society, easily. Those are meaningful films that were big hits and made people cry.

the whole mawkish DAD thing in Hook....bleh...and Julia Roberts...good god...

sorry. for some reason that movie just makes me mad. and i haven't seen it in forever! hey, its the power of cinema.

I sort of think there shouldn’t be kids movies and that maybe kids shouldn’t be allowed to see movies at all, like alcohol and cigarettes or something

except for Frozen. that was awesome. :)

Hook is one of those I saw when I was a teenager and thought I was pretty fun, and then I saw it as an adult and it really, really does not hold up whatsoever. Spielberg just indulges in his worst tendencies. I think Williams was not too bad considering those circumstances. Honestly my least favorite thing about it is probably Dustin Hoffman, he was definitely going for that Jack Nicholson in Batman/Al Pacino in Dick Tracy thing, but I thought he was just terrible and campy in the wrong ways, and a bad fit.

i loved hook as a kid and can’t see it through different eyes now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

maybe kids shouldn’t be allowed to see movies at all

They tried this in Québec in the 1940s or so. Someone's cigarette lit a fire in the cinema and burned a bunch of kids to death, so the government banned in movie theatres...not smoking, but children.

As for Robin Williams, I've only seen Munchausen and A.I. from this list, only one of which I remember him marring. I didn't like him even as Mork, when I was a kid, I was always wondering why he behaved that way.

Bob Hoskins was great as Smee.

i'm also just now discovering Phil Collins was in it?!

I'm sure I remember an SCTV sketch where someone plays Robin Williams improvising in the middle of a commercial for Tang Breakfast Crystals, but a search keeps bringing up Lin Ye Tang instead.

his hero jonathan winters on the other hand, as fresh today as morning dew. so funny.

ha that’s the second winters ref i’ve seen today— and i have’t thought of him i many years. over on the X thread today is doe and exene doing “what’s in my bag” and exene pulls out a winters lp and i just went 0_0 yay SOLID move exene! tho i dint know that lp.

I also remember that, Martin Short doing a Robin Williams bit on SCTV (plus RW himself guested on the show one time)

xp

fisher king kind of remains a messy miracle imo

but williams was always vastly overrated across all efforts, hyper mode or schmaltz mode

jesus, this trailer. the movie that harold ramis doesn't want you to see! actually, i would totally watch a dvd commentary with harold ramis and all the sctv people. hope they got paid well.

Bill Murray was supposed to be in that role - not sure if it would've helped much though. The one joke I remember and like from that movie is when Eugene Levy finds out that Williams fulfilled a favor for them big-time and you see how practical realities slowly damper his initial euphoria.

Also thought The Fisher King is pretty good. It's not a great film, I have plenty of reservations about it, but I thought Gilliam, Williams, Bridges and Ruehl all did excellent work and make it worthwhile. IIRC the Criterion edition has some nice remembrances about Williams from Gilliam - Williams really gave his all for that movie.

FWIW, David Simon wrote a very beautiful tribute to Williams when he died. I've seen the episode in question and Williams is good in it.

*was pretty good

My wife recently had covid and was quarantining in the bedroom. When I brought her food or whatever I would open the door, wearing a mask, and from the doorway sing/shout "heh-LOOOOOW" in my worst Mrs. Doubtfire impersonation to let her know that she needed to put her mask on. It got old fast but I kept it up for ten days.

Garp is a good film, not sure if Robin takes over the character a bit too much or if that's what makes it work, but that's my canonical example of A Good Robin Williams Film.

Think the issue with his films is something you find with a lot of comedians turned actors where their very nervy, unstable comic energy is allowed to trump almost every aspect of the film. Maybe someone like Rik Mayall as a Brit equivalent.

At least in Mrs Doubtfire there is some attempt at trying to play a father losing his kids. Essentially a lot of comics can't act, but also an issue of direction and conception. A lot of it is dead on arrival.

yeah Garp is decent, the rest of them are unbearable shite. I have not seen Popeye since I was a kid and can't remember much of it. The schmaltzy ones like Dead Poets and Good Will Hunting, where he is attempting straight character acting are as cringeworthy and detestable as mainstream Hollywood movies can get for me.

It got old fast but I kept it up for ten days.

The perfect Robin Williams homage

Nanoo Nanoo

He's perfectly cast in The Birdcage, way more watchable than Nathan Lane.

Moscow on the Hudson is a good movie, but then I like Paul Mazursku.

He was SO good as Armand but I also love Nathan Lane in it. La cage is my all time fave musical and the movie is just so good.

I think I always assumed Jack was the worst RW movie. Not that I have seen Jack but it looked awful.

otm

It never became a catchphrase for Williams, but "you go on ahead. I'll be fine" is a punchline from his standup that's always stayed with me. It's basically him pondering how so many STD's originated in animals, and you can probably extrapolate the rest.

I watched Hook dozens of times on VHS and even had Hook toys, so as an adult I'm stuck with that affection for it. I think that displaces my actual adult assessment of it elsewhere, as one of the worst things a film can do for me is remind me of Hook - e.g Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome is completely ruined when it turns into Hook.

Hook is just so aggressively 1991

Goonies is a gift to children. its made for them and its also a good movie.

― scott seward, Thursday, August 15, 2024 10:16 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Goonies is mostly fine, I didn’t see it until I was in college. It’s a lot darker than Hook visually iirc

― brimstead, Thursday, August 15, 2024 10:18 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i saw goonies for the first time a few years ago, and found it very loud and annoying. it was the wrong time to see it admittedly

The day my mom unexpectedly pulled me out of school early, bought me a Care Bare, and then took me to see Goonies was genuinely one of the best days of my life. No Goonies bashing!

I've been amazed at the number of complaints about Goonies' loudness. To me it perfectly captures how a buncha kids that age would yell at each other. I love its goofing-off-on-a-Saturday-morning vibe, the shots of Portland in the rain, Robert Davi singing opera, and Mama Fratelli saying YOU LIKE TONGUE?

I assume most people havent seen Man Of The Year as thats RW at his most unbearable imo

and I like Club Paradise whenever Peter O'Toole is mincing and Rick Moranis and Eugene Levy are dorking.

oh god I forgot about Club Paradise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MmxI83ZxTc

Is CLUB PARADISE anything like EXIT TO EDEN?

Exit to Eden is depressing.

Is the book what dreams may come good? I read a great collection of Matheson stories this year, what a nut

_Exit to Eden_ is depressing.

I love "evil" Robin Williams-- Insomnia, One Hour Photo. My favourite of his panned movies is Toys, it's goofy and fun and Joan Cusack is fantastic

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=255770182501313

Yeah, Insomnia is one of my favorites of his.

it's crazy to think Robin Williams was the star of a Chris Nolan movie. It's a decent enough adaptation of the original.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOWR57K2ga0

he made so many movies in the '90s

I might have said something upthread on these points but:

* rereading the poll list made me go "Oh yeah, Being Human, I remember ads for that, wasn't that some other 'the wonderful mystery of life across time for a white guy' 90s drivel," and it clearly is but I was astounded just now when I realized the writer/director was Bill Forsyth! My god man, why did you do that?

* when it comes to creepy RW, not that I've seen it in over three decades, but he's probably the best thing in Branagh's Dead Again, just a couple of scenes but they're enough, especially the last one

he's suitably sinister in his tiny role as the mad bomber in The Secret Agent movie from 1996. Bob Hoskins. Gerard Depardoodoo. Patricia Arquette. Christian Bale. music by Philip Glass.

sometimes there are superstar people and i think they might have been better off just playing quirky character actor parts. it can also be cool when someone famous ages out of leading man/woman roles and just starts playing interesting smaller parts in a bunch of oddball movies.

when it comes to creepy RW, not that I've seen it in over three decades, but he's probably the best thing in Branagh's Dead Again, just a couple of scenes but they're enough, especially the last one

This.

I don't think anyone else saw it, but World's Greatest Dad is far better (and one of RW's best) than most of these movies we're talking about

agreed - it’s pretty good

World's Greatest Dad is so good

It’s another one in which he shows peen iirc. But it’s a Bob Goldthwait film, that‘s probably why it’s good.