Nick Hartley

I have seen a few sports movies in my day.

This weekend, I decided to go to one on a date with my girlfriend. After leaving the theater disappointed, I racked my brain, coming up with the top five worst sports movies ever. (This list is subject to debate, of course.) Here are five of the worst things to come out of Hollywood since Britney Spears’ career.

5. The Replacements (2000)

Pro-football players strike; replacements from all over come in and make the season continue with ease. Keanu Reeves stars as Shane Falco, a once promising quarterback, who earns his living scraping barnacles and other debris off boats tied to the marina. How can one take Keanu Reeves seriously as a football player? Washington Sentinels have the ball on their 20-yard line when they are called for a 10-yard holding penalty; the next play was run from their seven-yard line. I think Hollywood went on strike long before this year.

4. Semi-Pro (2008)

Will Farrell stars as has-been Jackie Moon in this movie, which is like every other Farrell movie. The 70s look was decent but could have been better. Woody Harrelson’s talents were wasted by the same people who have been killing Farrell’s career in the past four years. Every sports movie he stars in is almost exactly like Talladega Nights. You see a three-point arc when the three-point arc was not instituted into basketball until the 1979-1980 season. The movie is funny, but it’s still Talladega Nights, only a basketball version of it.

3. Slap Shot II: Breaking the Ice (2002)

Ron French had to wake the Hanson Brothers, who were the dorky co-stars in the first Slapshot, from their pot-induced comas to act in this horribly-planned movie. Why is it that sequels tend to suck big time? This movie received a zero percent rating on Rotten Tomato, which the movie rightfully deserved. Even Gary Busey, of all people, struggled to make this movie bearable.

2. Summer Catch (2001)

Even Jessica Biel could not save this movie from being horrible. Freddie Prinze, Jr., struggled to even make his acting skills look halfway decent. Freddie plays a pro-baseball prospect playing in a summer league in Cape Cod. Along the way, Prinze’s character falls in love with a rich girl from town. With its lame and predictable jokes and sappy romantic lines, this movie seems to go on forever without any real baseball action mixing in. I wanted to choke on some popcorn just to get out of watching this horrible movie.

1. Little Big League (1994)

Making a winner out of a Minnesota sports team is way unbelievable, but Little Big League adds a twist to make young Billy Heywood the team’s owner/manager. The movie sort of follows the real life Minnesota Twins during that time, as they are in last place when Billy starts managing the team. The movie is ridiculously pointless but entertains the hopeful sports enthusiast.