This weekend sees the release of Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, a legitimately fantastic TV show that was adapted into a very enjoyable movie (review HERE). However, as the halls of cinematic history tell us, it's not always easy to get what worked well on the small screen to still work well on the big screen.
There are countless examples of movies that did not live up to the standard of the show they had been based on; Charlie's Angels, The Simpsons, Thunderbirds, Yogi Bear, Transformers, Speed Racer, The Dukes Of Hazzard, Land Of The Lost, Sgt. Bilko, The A-Team, Scooby Doo, Masters Of The Universe, I Spy, Alvin & The Chipmunks, G.I. Joe, The X-Files… the list goes on and on and on.
But these are the ten that - for one reason or another - got it wrong so badly, that they will be used by future generations, like mosquitos in amber, of what NOT TO DO when turning a television show into a movie:
THE AVENGERS
No, not that one, the other one. The Uma Thurmann and Ralph Fiennes somehow both forgetting how to act one. The Sean Connery as a weather-controlling mega-villain one. The one that makes no legitimate sense, and is widely regarded as one of the worst movies ever made. That one.
BEWITCHED
This SHOULD have been good. Based on that really cute TV rom-com, with a at the time "so hot right now" Will Ferrell, from the director of Sleepless In Seattle. But then it got lost up its own ass with the meta-story, and we're sorry Nicole Kidman, but you are just not funny. Brittle, emotional wrecks? Yes. Comedienne? No.
DENNIS THE MENACE
In Home Alone, you were on the side of the kid. In Dennis The Menace, you really wanted the old guy to finally snap, and rightfully catch Dennis and eliminate him from any potential future gene pools. Go all Saw and Hostel on him. We know he's a young child, and we don't care. The kid in The Omen ain't got nothing on this little shit.
THE FLINTSTONES
In this movie, McDonalds is called RockDonalds, cos that's super funny. One of the women's characters is called Sharon Stone, cos that's super funny. In the trailer, they say that the movie is produced by Steven Spielrock, cos that's super funny. You know what's super funny and that kids just LOVE? Jokes about rocks and stones. Hilarious!
INSPECTOR GADGET
You would've thought that after Godzilla the year before, Hollywood would know better than to put the most awkward leading man in cinematic history, Matthew Broderick, front and centre in a big budget blockbuster. But no, and with Inspector Gadget, we get the most awkward leading character in any of the movies on this list. And that's saying A LOT.
THE LAST AIRBENDER
Even as M. Night Shyamalan was getting worse and worse, people kept giving him more and more money to spend on his movies, and The Last Airbender is truly the definition of throwing good money after bad. There was just so much wrong with it, and there were so many things going wrong at once, that it's almost as if Shyamalan were saying "You thought my last movie was bad?! I'll show you a bad movie!!"
LOST IN SPACE
Confession time: after three different attempts to watch this movie, the plot still makes next to no sense, and the last half hour is like the original director was replaced by a lunatic asylum escapee. The killer cast and nifty special effects couldn't save what swung wildly from incomprehensibly boring to boringly incomprehensible.
THE SAINT
This SHOULD have been good, with Kilmer hot of Batman Forever, and the director of awesome spy movies like Patriot Games, this SHOULD have been the next Mission: Impossible. Instead, what we got were shockingly bad disguises, which didn't help cover up a plot that was so profoundly dull that it made the idea of sitting through the end credits seem exciting by comparison.
SEX & THE CITY 2
Love it orhate it, the TV show was a massive success, and the first movie - while not great - was still watchable and made over $400 million worldwide. So this was inevitable, and we imagine that Carrie standing on our heads in one of her Jimmy Choo high-heels would've hurt less. Sexist, racist, unfunny and seemingly endless… pretty much everything the show wasn't. And unlike other movies on this list which were adaptations that came sometimes decades later, this was a movie made by the same people who made the show, and they really should've known better!
WILD WILD WEST
"We're going STRAIGHT! TO! THE WILD, WILD WEST!" Let's admit it, that was the best part of the movie, and even the music video for Big Will's song had more comedy and better realised action than the movie itself. Something about a giant spider and Kenneth Branagh has metal legs and … a magnetic neck-brace? Is that right? It's beginning to sound more and more like some kind of LSD hallucination.