BEETLE REVIEWS ONE OF THE WORST FILMS OF ALL TIME- THE ROOM

Let me start out by saying that The Room is one film I feel every reviewer MUST review. It's not an easy task, believe you me...but it's SO worth it.

I'm sure that by now most of you have heard of The Room, an independent film written, produced, directed, and starring that most unforgettable of actors, the amazing Tommy Wiseau. Shortly after its release (I don't think it ever made it to theaters to be honest, but I'm not sure) The Room quickly grew well known as one of the worst films ever made. Of course, with me being the intrepid reviewer that I am I could not resist a film that is regarded as such, so I set out to strap myself to the seat and watch The Room .

The Room is about Johnny (played by Tommy Wiseau), a kind, naive banker whose sluttish wife to be, Lisa, is having an affair with his best friend, Mark, behind his back. That's pretty much it for the plot folks, not that that really matters much. People don't watch The Room for the plot, they watch it for the acting witnessed within (I'll get to that later).

While Johnny is the main character there are plenty of side characters that pop up, from the creepy kid pervert, to the mom who just found out she's got breast cancer (a throwaway detail that is never brought up again in the film, watch for her reaction to her discovery of this disease), to Johnny's clueless best friend. They honestly don't add anything to the plot, and are just there...because. It comes across like Tommy Wiseau got a bunch of his friends together to act in this film, even though none have any believable chemistry with each other (Even Johnny and Lisa lack chemistry, to get the point across that they are in love Wiseau throws in several explicit sex scenes between them that feel unneeded and only add excess to the film. In fact there are a total of 3 sex scenes within the first 26 minutes of the film, a world record.) We never really care about any of these characters. Lisa spends the majority of the film sleeping with Johnny and Johnny's best friend, and then complaining to her mother that she doesn't love Johnny and blah blah blah. The creepy kid pervert, named Denny, spends most of the film giving Lisa creepy looks and saying unintentionally inappropriate lines. The Mother is a nagging, complaining, bitchy shrew. While Wiseau does try pretty hard to make the character of Johnny likeable, it only half works, we can see he is a good man but we just can't commit ourselves to care about him (Wiseau's performance doesn't help matters either)

The script is one of the worst ones sampled (It's all exposition, we are told EVERYTHING), and the acting is atrocious. the assembled cast have ZERO acting ability (I did some research and it ends up they were indeed just actors, most seem to have only negative things to say about their time spent filming The Room) , the worst actor in the bunch being the almighty Wiseau himself. This is why people watch The Room, the script is so terrible and the acting so bad that it's impossible not to enjoy this bad film. Wiseau is the Jesus Christ of bad acting, every line he speaks is terribly acted out, his emphsis being put on the wrong words. Bask in his glow people, it's a rare treat to be able to see the ultimate low in acting ability, but believe me, it's here in The Room.

The whole film feels thrown together. There are scenes that lead to nowhere, there are subplots and details that are brought up and dropped almost immeadietly after they are introduced (The mother's breast cancer is one example, Denny's owing some dough to a drug dealer is another one). Character's lack arcs, constantly contradict themselves and lack motivation or reasoning for doing what they do in the film, none of them resemble a real human being in the slightest.Another perplexing part of the film is that every guy in the film seems to be obsessed with playing Football, I can't quite understand why Wiseau did this but it comes across as quite bizarre and unintentionally hilarious.

Wiseau is actually trying to convey some sort of message about his life in The Room. Apparently he's been screwed over by women, and the moral of The Room seems to be: Don't trust women becuase they are dirty whores. Not a good message, but it does hold some truth to it (some women are bad, but none are nowhere near as bad as Lisa.) Wiseau tries to convey this message throughout his film, and while he does stumble with it, we still understand what he's trying so hard to say. Wiseau also comes across as a bit egocentric in the film, thinking that everyone should love him and care about him even though we all know that's not how the real world is. In The Room we essentially get a peek into the inner workings of Wiseau's mind and his flawed understanding and perception of the world, it's almost fascinating.

The Room is every bit as bad as people are claiming it to be. It's a drama that is unintentionally hilarious. I was surprised to find myself thoroughly enjoying The Room despite how bad it was, laughing at just about every scene. It's really hard not to like The Room and while it is one of the worst films I have ever seen, I want to recommend it to everyone I know, the combination of "so bad it's funny" acting, pointless scenes, unrealistic characters, terrible dialogue (so bad it's memorable), and the standout performance of Wiseau makes The Room a fun, unforgettable experiment in the art of bad filmmaking.

1/5 Stars

The Room gets 1 star becuase it is a terrible film, but I still strongly urge everyone to view this baby at least once, trust me...you'll be glad you did.

And on a seperate note, Wiseau has been known to take down any review he finds of The Room. Let's see how long mine stays up here.