Smug and a self-adorned cine-sophisticate, I rented out Gigli with a friend ready to scrutinise it with the benefit of my enlightened view of film. It was going to be an hilarious two hours. I'd settled down in a very comfy armchair and had poured a glass of some Austrian glug. I couldn't wait to laugh at the stupid dialogue and that ridiculous script but the joke was on us because Gigli transcends the established limit of effective urine stealing. This is because its simply so horrible that you can forget trying to make yourself look intelligent and media literate by ripping the bladder evacuate because the scale of misguided conception baffles the mind and eventually shuts it down. It's like being hit by a sack full of bricks in the face for a full 114 minutes. There's a teasing little scene with J-Lo early on when she tells a bunch of unruly kids that there's a martial arts move that can gouge out the eyes and simultaneously destroy the visual cortex meaning that not only are you rendered blind but you'll never be able to remember anything you've seen. For the Gigli viewer this is like showing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to a hall packed with diabetics. You're left to ponder the short term agony weighed up against the long term benefit as Martin Brest's story unfolds with the principle characters of a unlikeable, emotionally and sexually retarded thug with a soft centre (a fat Affleck), a lesbian who isn't really a lesbian because you can be converted to heterosexuality by an emotionally and sexually retarded thug and an actually retarded man who was probably supposed to be a Rainman-type character who redeems Affleck's arrogant meathead but is in fact a cringe inducing, self-harm facilitating caricature of the mentally handicapped. Look, many movies look good on paper and suffer from poor execution but what's head scratching about Gigli is that it's as dire on the page as it is on screen. Broadly it's supposed to be a romantic comedy, sort of Out of Sight meets Rainman meets Whats New Pussycat? but it's stillborn as a criminal caper, devoid of anything approaching sensitivity and has some of the worst battle of the sexes banter that ever crawled onto the screen. Brest, who directed the dire 16 hour remake of Meet John Doe, Meet Joe Black, shows that when it comes to misjudging material he's peerless. His crimes here are compounded by the fact that this is his own script. That script, incidentally is a roll call of on screen horror. Witness, if you can, the Penis Vs. Vagina scene in which Affleck argues the case for the male genitals or the tear jerking moment in which the soft hearted Affleck, having given the Mentally Handicapped Brian relationship advice, looks on like a proud father as his new friends woos an Australian bombshell during the filming of a Baywatch beach party. You'll envy the man who gets his brains blown out and eaten by goldfish or the horrendous girlfriend of J-Lo, who having realised which film she's in, slits her wrists...stupidly, the wrong way. Once its all over and you sit there open mouthed you're left to (briefly) ponder why Brest did it. Did the kidnapped brother have to be disabled? Surely there must have been a more effective way of facilitating Affleck's transition from idiot to slightly more compassionate idiot? Did J-Lo have to be a Lesbian? Sure, Affleck has to have some obstacles toward getting the girl and we all like a bit of sexual tension but gay viewers must have been flabbergasted that a man who describes men and women as "the bull and the cow" and does lovable things like warmly looking vacuous and endearingly been obnoxious should persuade a woman to er, "hop over the fence". And even if Brest was blinded by his own vanity what in the name of Beverly Hills Cop persuaded Christopher Walken and Al Pacino to cameo? None of it makes any sense. The bottle of wine I had with the film was good though but by the time I regained consciousness the bit left in the bottle was undrinkable.

I am currently on a masochistic quest to see as many of IMDb's Bottom 100 as I possibly can see. Unfortunately, a few are not available here in the US (such as the German film "Daniel - Der Zauberer"--which is currently #1 on this infamous list), but I have so far seen nearly half the films and have finally gotten to "Gigli". Unfortunately, after having reviewed almost 8000 films, I can honestly say I've seen at least a few hundred that were worse than this film. I honestly WANTED to hate this film as much as the reviewers and public hated this film but couldn't. I just didn't reach the proper level of awfulness a film should have to make the list. This actually is true of MOST of the films, as films that are popular to hate (i.e., recent films) are prone to make the list. And, classic baddies of the worst directors in film history (Ed Wood, Al Adamson, Hershell Gordon Lewis, William Grefe and Arch Hall) don't even make this hallowed list--mostly because their horrible films are only known to their small cult-like following.

Please, however, do not get the idea I liked "Gigli". It is offensive, horribly written and dumb--but not quite rotten enough that I hated the film completely. No, it's the Ivory Soap of the movie world--I only hated 99.44% of the film.

First and foremost, the film was written, apparently, by chimps. This is the only thing that could explain why so much of the film made absolutely no sense. The plot meanders everywhere and shows that the film was cut and re-cut and re-cut until it really was incoherent. Some plot elements appear out of no where and just vanish (such as the crazy lady who cuts her wrists) and some actors come and go--for no particular reason (the wonderful actor Christopher Walken appears as if most of his scenes were deleted--the one remaining seemed almost pointless).

Secondly, and this is a killer for any film, the characters (particularly Ben Affleck) were unlikable. Affleck and Lopez cursed and cursed throughout the film, as did just about everyone. In addition, even for a rated R film, the dialog between the leads at one point in the film is quite intense--like we're listening to foreplay between the two. It certainly is special--and a bit embarrassing. Additionally, in a big mistake, these evil people later become nice--quite inexplicably--making their characters seem like caricatures. In fact, then entire final portion of the film made absolutely no sense at all and seemed to be there to fulfill the formula--but how the characters got from their unlikable selves to likable ones seemed to come from absolutely no where.

Overall, an incomprehensible film that has a few nice moments but the whole is just an awful mess.

I will give some credit where it's due, I don't think Gigli is the worst movie ever made. However, that is very faint credit, it is still a terrible movie with few redeeming features.

The cinematography is rather shoddy and the lighting is considerably dull. Neither do anything to compliment some decent surroundings, while the music is just bizarre and badly placed. The direction starts off inept and never recovers, while the script is just cringe-worthy with some lines verging on the really cheesy side, none of the characters are likable or well written and the story is full of plot holes and unnecessary scenes.

The acting in general is terrible. Ben Affleck is rather stiff and uncomfortable, but he is nothing compared to the terror that is Jennifer Lopez. And it doesn't help that there is absolutely no chemistry whatsoever between them. And how great actors such as Christopher Walken and Al Pacino signed up for this film I shall never know. Actually, they weren't too bad, Walken's character was just poorly explored but he did what he could. Pacino fared much better, and he is the sole saving grace of an otherwise dismal picture.

All in all, it is really, really bad but not the worst movie I have seen. 1/10 Bethany Cox