ThatFilmGuy92
DESPITE THE PUBLICATION DATE, THIS REVIEW WAS WRITTEN FOUR YEARS AGO.Like an attempt at a late-night sketch gone terribly, terribly wrong, Gigli is well deserving of the Worst Picture award as well as the box office flop that it has become notorious for. Starring the then-couple of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez in what is possibly the biggest lack of on-screen chemistry in cinematic history, Affleck plays your run-of-the-mill wannabe-tough-guy thug assigned to kidnap the mentally challenged younger brother of a federal prosecutor to save a big-time mob boss and Lopez as a hard-ass lesbian collaborator sent to see that Affleck does his job right. What transpires is two hours of awkwardness and pain-mostly that of whoever's watching it.Featuring Justin Bartha (of The Hangover) in an early role as their Baywatch-obsessed hostage, the scenes involving his character puts pressure on the poor, unsuspecting audience to feel sympathy for him. The alleged "brain damage" as portrayed here is not only offensive but also so poorly acted that one would think that there's a plot twist where the whole illness is a sham. It's not.More of the agony that comes from sitting through this movie is the blatant sexism and homophobia coming out of Affleck's inability to shut up for more than thirty seconds. There're vibes of Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy; difference is that Chasing Amy was made for a lot less and was a lot better.Watching this in 2014 in a world where Affleck's career has skyrocketed to box office bonanza (slightly for the better) and Lopez was probably just a figment of everyone's imagination gone wrong, the only real redeeming qualities in this movie are the somewhat memorable yet unfortunately diminutive appearances by Al Pacino and Christopher Walken as, respectively, a mob boss and a detective.As for the ending, it's that scene that just keeps going on and on until either the screen finally cuts to black and your head explodes. Whichever comes first. 1.5/5.
pyrocitor
You've probably seen your fair share of terrible, godawful cine-trash. You'd probably boast that you've guffawed your way through dreck like Jaws: The Revenge and Troll 2, and emerged, picking your teeth, demanding more. Maybe you've straight-faced your way through a conversation defending the 2015 Fantastic Four remake as a reflexive postmodern treatise on the autocannibalistic agony of commercial artistry without collapsing into hysterical, derisive laughter. You might jeer that you sit through an annual solo(!!) screening of The Room, seated on a throne of plastic spoons. You probably think you're invincible. And here you are, stumbling through the movie graveyard, preparing to test your mettle against The Big One. The Grandfather of Garbage, the Sultan of Cine-Sh*t. The man. The legend. Gigli. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. 'Ha', you sneer, defiantly hitting play on Netflix. Somewhere in the distance, you hear a faint skittering, as all nearby mice, birds, and insects flee in terror. 'This isn't so bad! I've already made it through the whole first scene of Ben Affleck's fourth-wall- breaking, excruciating Joiysey posturing and Big Hair with my wits intact. Gigli- schmeely!" Oh ho. Just you wait, friend. This is the mere foreplay before the true agony begins. Now we venture into the land of Inquisitives. "What are they saying? I can't decipher the bogus-Jersey!" "What is happening? Who is that man, hunched over those sunflower seeds? Is that Justin Bartha, that lovable scamp from National Treasure and The Hangover? What's he doing? Is he......is that...supposed to be like Rain Man? Why is he rapping? Oh. Oh no. Oh no no."Yes. But if this jaw-droppingly offensive depiction of an intellectual disability face-to-Big Hair with Affleck's mawkish gangster isn't already enough to make your eyes start to bleed, don't worry: you've yet to meet Jenny From The Block. She arrives, crop-topped, with a chorus of funk guitar fanfare, here to engage in glorious battle with Affleck and his Hair. A battle of the sexes, you say? Nay - they battle to see who can be the most embarrassing actor. And the battle is fierce. You think you've stomached flat, tone deaf, emotionally gyroscopic overacting before? Not like this. NOT. LIKE. THIS! As they open their mouths, words tumble out. Words arranged so impenetrably ornately, so indefatigably nonsensical, so riotously wretched, that they extend beyond the screen like creeping Poltergeist claws, and vigorously disembowel any viewer despicable enough to be within reach. Over time, the words feed off the despair of their listeners, accruing more malevolent mass, and becoming monologues. Monologues, anointing Affleck his true title of the 'Sultan of Slick,' christening Lopez Queen 'Dykeosaurus-Rexy,' and, in a feat of Tarantino-theft that would defy belief if everything else in this movie hadn't already defied belief out of the dictionary, explaining the process of 'Digital Orb Extrusion' in Tai Moi Chai. At this point, logical thought is a distant whiff of a memory, scattered like grains of sand in the ocean of Affleck's Hair Product. You'd want to let out a silent scream. But Affleck and Lopez have stolen all the words. And all you can do is babble. But lo! A bright star emerges! Here, we are visited by a kindly extraterrestrial from the Planet Walken. Concealing his fear behind his bug-eyed Cheshire cat grin, he attempts to approximate conventional human parlance to warn you of the dangers that ensue from prolonged exposure. But your brain has already eroded too much to decipher the coded messages hidden in his talk of ice cream and pie. Desperate, he croaks out a final warning of Gigli's most devastating side effect: "Your tongue will slap your BRAINS out trying to get TO it!" But it is too late. The final Brain Slap has begun. You fester in your own sick in this purgatory of Gigli's apartment, slobbering and gibbering like a lobotomized bulldog, as the strains of inappropriately saccharine romantic synth music form a dubstep remix with the word "Baywatch," and jackhammer a gong in your cavernous skull. Here, the movie sinks in for the kill. You hear Bartha utter the phrase "penis sneeze," but you are numb. You see every other woman in the film reduced to a boorishly flirtatious or hysterical, whimsically suicidal lesbian caricature, but you are numb. Hell, you even sit through the final hallucinogenic indignity of Al Pacino(?!), clad in a Talking Heads oversized suit, actually trying (??!?!) to infuse some class or energy into the film. But you are numb. Numb, because you have sat through two of the most stupefying monologues in cinema history. Behold: Ben Affleck's fist-pumping ode to the penis, and Jennifer Lopez's yogic aria to the vagina. With their powers combined, the film finally filibusters any remaining brain cells out of your head. 'He turns her straight, 1964 James Bond style?!' you would normally incredulously gripe. Normally. But by the time you reach the sanctuary of Baywatch, it's too late. Your motor functions have run their course; you are more vegetable than human now. The Brain Slap is complete. If only you'd listened to Walken, emissary from a faraway galaxy. He would have warned you about Gigli - namely, that the effects of consumption approximate, in the words of the beloved Douglas Adams, "having your brains smashed in by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick." But there is no gold here. Only pain. Only suffering. Now - if you had a chance of preventing this fate, dear viewer. If you could turn back time, and avoid drinking in this unfathomable chasm of universal offensiveness, this abominable void of oblivion. If you could save not only yourself, but the world as you know it. If you could take the hype not as a comedic, drunken challenge, but as a dire, chilling warning. Would you be, in the words of Walken, "InTERested?" -1/10
Seth Landers
I like Ben Affleck. He's a talented person and I'm sure he's a nice guy, but clearly he wasn't thinking straight when he decided to sign on to this mess. Not even him, Christopher Walken, or Al Pacino could save this movie from failing.At one point, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez as a couple was a big thing for tabloids & the media but here, they have zero chemistry in this movie, which isn't good for a romantic comedy. It's barely acted and it feels as if there wasn't even a script during production. The film revolves around Affleck as a gangster who has to kidnap a mentally challenged man (played by Justin Bartha), then J-Lo helps him out and the catch is that she's a lesbian. Imagine Kevin Smith's decent movie "Chasing Amy" minus the enjoyment, while adding a crime plot and pretentiousness and you have "Gigli".Apparently, this flop of a movie costs around $75.5 million dollars. Where did all the money go? How can anyone green-light this? I went into the movie with an open mind and five minutes into it, I knew it was only going to get worse and worse. I take full responsibility for seeing it out of my own curiosity, so you don't have to sit through this painful 2 hour garbage. If you like Ben Affleck, go watch "Good Will Hunting" instead of "Gigli" and you'll thank me later!
