8 Incredibly, Impossibly Annoying Movie Sidekicks
We all love a good action, sci-fi or horror movie, especially the ones with lots of ass-kicking, giant monsters and blood splatter. But oftentimes some of the coolest movies and concepts around are sullied thanks to the inclusion of a worthless, annoying sidekick. This character often spouts off annoying jokes as a hackneyed form of comic relief that only Hollywood people seem to think is funny. Narrowing down the worst, most annoying sidekicks in film history wasn’t easy, but we’ve got a pretty solid list. In our research (read: watching lots of movies) we noticed that when a sidekick character sucks, it’s because A) they were badly written from the ground up, or B) they were portrayed by bad actors giving really awful performances. So here’s a list of movie sidekicks who were both.
8) Shake, The Punisher
Have you ever been on the bus or train when a guy starts babbling Shakespeare? No? Well, if you’re curious what that might be like check out the original Punisher movie from 1989 starring Dolph Lundgren. See, Punisher’s got an informant by the name of Shake (get it?!) who prattles off Shakespearean quotes while wandering around town drunk, played by Barry Otto. He’s not too offensive and doesn’t get in the way of Punisher annihilating 91 people, but throwing in some old quotes isn’t the same as characterization, Hollywood! Skip ahead to about 2:22 to see what we mean.
7) Jon Carnahan, The Mummy and The Mummy Returns
Jon Carnahan (John Hannah) from the modern-day Mummy franchise is one of those characters that seems like he should have been cut right out of the script. He spends all his time being useless, running from trouble and being poncy. Were they going for that hard-to-get 8-year-old market in a series about undead monsters running around trying to murder people? You’ve already got Brendan Fraiser, who’s fairly funny in his own right, you don’t need more nonsense like this yahoo.
6) Minilla, Son of Godzilla
Here’s what makes Godzilla cool: destroying cities and fighting monsters. You want to know what isn’t cool? Having him become a dad. Back in 1967’s Son of Godzilla — the eighth flick in the series — some giant preying mantises unearthed an egg which a smaller version of Godzilla dubbed Minilla jumped out of. Godzilla spent the rest of the movie training the little bastard how to use his radioactive breath and other powers. Oh, look how cute, he’s puffing out smoke rings! Now he’s hanging out with a little kid! Are you serious?! Godzilla should have made himself an omelet with that egg and moved on to kick more monster ass! He also lead to this ad, which we can’t quite tell if it’s real or not. Either way, it’s a bit sickening.
5) Leo Getz, Lethal Weapon 2-4
We can’t reiterate this enough: action movies don’t need a comic relief character, especially a grating one like Leo Getz in the Lethal Weapon movies. The original did well without going for yucks, didn’t it? So why include Joe Pesci, a man who can be a great actor, but can also come off as the equivalent of an annoying kid brother you want to lock in the closet so you can play video games in peace and quiet. Bringing him back for the third and fourth installments after he had a starring role in the second was just torture. We’re not sure what Richard Donner has against audiences, but it seems pretty awful.
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4) John Connor, Terminator 2
How can John freaking Connor be on the list? Because in T2, he’s only around to get in trouble so Arnie and Ma Connor can save his ass for two solid hours, as well as occasionally providing comic relief through his scenes with the Terminator. Plus he’s a kid — and all of it equals movie sidekick. The biggest problem, however, is Eddie Furlong’s cracking, pubescent voice. It’s painful, like listening to an orchestra of howling cats in heat clawing at blackboards on top of mountains of Styrofoam. Even this montage of him saying “shit” is annoying.
3) Herman Ferguson, Judge Dredd
Let’s be honest, Rob Schneider could fill a whole list of annoying characters all by himself, but the worst of the worst came along in the 1995 Judge Dredd film starring Sylvester Stallone. In pretty standard movie circumstances, Judge Dredd (Stallone) arrests the ultra-annoying Herman Ferguson (Schneider) and later finds himself trying to keep both himself and Ferguson alive. It’s a tried-and-true plot has resulted in some pretty good movies, but Judge Dredd isn’t one of them because you spend the entire time wishing Dredd would just blow Herman’s face clean off and then move on with the rest of the story.
2) Ruby Rhod, The Fifth Element
Meet the most annoying human character on record: Ruby Rhod from The Fifth Element. Played by Chris Tucker — an actor who has made his career on playing loud, obnoxious characters you want to pummel with one of his own appendages — Ruby Rhod is an intergalactic media personality that Bruce Willis’ Korben Dallas doesn’t strangle with his bare hands for some reason, instead helping to keep him alive when the space shit hits the space fan. Every time we think about rewatching the movie, the thought of Rhod sickens us to the point where we just put Die Hard in again.
1) Jar Jar Binks, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Obvious? Yes. Doesn’t make it any less correct. Jar Jar was a shitty character on paper that was made even shittier thanks to bad CGI and one of the most obnoxious accents portrayed by Ahmed Best. Making matters worse, Star Wars fans had waited forever or a new installment only to find themselves watching a small child with shaggy hair talking about podracing and yet another badass-looking villain get thrown down a hole.
