Putrid, yes, but not rotten

WASHINGTON -- I love my job.

The worst movie I saw last year in my capacity as film critic? "Punisher: War Zone."

Here's a film that inspired a critic from USA Today to ask, "Why punish us?" A film that features, in the role of the comic-book vigilante of the title, Ray Stevenson -- I had the same reaction: who? -- jamming a pencil up his nose to reset some broken cartilage. It's accompanied by a wet, gristly sound effect that suggests someone deboning a chicken.

And yet I say: Thank God.

Apparently I dodged a bullet here. "Punisher: War Zone" isn't even one of the 25 worst movies of 2008.

We asked our friends at RottenTomatoes.com to send us a rundown of the 25 most egregious duds of the last 12 months, based on the website's highly sophisticated "Tomatometer" ranking system. Here's how it works:

Any movie that received at least 30 reviews from a list of approved critics was eligible. Each review is assigned a numerical grade, based on the critic's rating (or, if no rating is given, on an assessment by Rotten Tomato's editors). Those grades are then averaged into an aggregate score, from 0 to 100, just like in elementary school. In the case of a tie, the movie with the most reviews was considered worse.

Last year's Hall of Shame includes "Made of Honor" (score: 11), "College Road Trip" (12) and "Superhero Movie!" (15), a parody of "Spider-Man" and its ilk whose bravely optimistic exclamation point was, apparently, not enough. By way of comparison, "Man on Wire," a documentary about tightrope walker Philippe Petit, got a 100. The animated charmer "Wall-E," about a lovable robot, got a 96.

So. The best -- that is, least awful -- thing on the Rotten Tomatoes list of 25 bombs? M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening." That apocalyptic horror film gets a Tomatometer grade of 19 out of 100. As a comparison, "Punisher: War Zone" earned a whopping 22.

Other films that beat out "Punisher" in the race to the bottom include "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" (4), "Meet the Spartans" (2), "Fool's Gold" (10) and "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" (10).

Everyone, it seems, has an opinion. And these days, it's all too easy to share it, especially if you've got access to a computer and a lot of free time. Which is why it's all the more important to pause at this time of year, a time when the elite movie world seems to fall into lock step, with best-of lists featuring such names as "Frost/Nixon," "Wendy and Lucy" and a handful of others.