Weve all been in the situation of watching a movie

after reading a certain great book and being

sometimes pleased, but most of the time deeply
disappointed, and weve all seen lists of all the
worst and best movie adaptations in history. All
these reactions come from a critic stance in which
we require the movie to be as interesting and
challenging as the book, but by different means
because likeliness is not a required virtue for a great
adaptation. Since most lists of this sort are all
timers, weve put together one that collects 12 bad
movies made after great books from 2000 to
present.

12. Cloud Atlas (2012)

Cloud Atlas (2012) vs David Mitchells novel
Now I know that there are two big sides here: the
ones that say the Wachowskis did a magnificent job
by tampering and changing in other words taming
Mitchells narrative structure, and the other side
that argues in favor of the novels narrative, no
matter how ingenious someone had to be to put in
on film. Im on the second side, so unfilmable as it
may be, I think Cloud Atlas deserved a more
creative approach and actors playing multiple
roles just didnt do it.

11. Never let me go (2010)

Kazuo Ishiguro does a great job of creating a story
placed in a futuristic context. While the book is full
of insights and deep emotions in the first part of the
novel, the movie is poorly sketched and lacks
important details in the beginning. Though the
actors do a pretty good job, its a pity the movie
revealed the mystery about their purpose as donors
right from the start.

10. The Road (2009)

The Road has a lot of fans, be they film viewers or
book readers that were delighted by John Hillcoats
screen version of the novel, but this wont stop us
from pointing out the movies sentimentality and
emphasis on all-too-human Hollywood commercial
feelings that were surely not the novels stake. So
you generate a lot of emotion in your viewers and
hide the real nasty cannibalism stuff from the novel
and theres your critics acclaimed adaptation no
thanks.

9. The Time Machine (2002)

We never expect a movie to match the book 100%,
but we do want the story at least to resemble the
book. Simon Wells takes his great grandfathers
novel and literally butchers it. The movie wouldnt
have been a total failure if it hadnt been based on
the book. The book is clearly about the decaying of

civilization, about the fact that nothing lasts forever,

whereas this movie is almost all about romance and
is, in the end, a totally different story.

8. Cosmopolis (2012)
Ive read Cosmopolis three times and Ive enjoyed
discussing and analyzing it. I saw David
Cronenbergs movie full of hope and expectation
having a lot of trust is the guy who made A history
of violence and eXistenZ. Sure, Naked lunch was a
fail an honest try though but thats just the case
with cult-novels, especially of beatnik origin. Don
Delillo is as contemporary as they get, so the stakes
were high. Cosmopolis made all the sense on paper,
but in an adaptation that tried to respect the
narrative, it all seemed too virtual and meaningless.
Scenes were cut down in size and actions, actors
appeared to be puppets performing without any
gift a set of predetermined tasks, so I guess
somewhere along the almost 2 hours of film it all
lost any relevance.

7. Blindness (2008)
The problem with Blindness is that its too
institutional and not at all experimental. The filthy
dcor and whitish lighting might have angered the
Hollywood crowd, the rape scene surely turned
some stomachs - but these are actually the good
parts of the movie. What it surely lacked is
experiment, because no matter how good the actors

 here I find it wasnt the case as a viewer I just

wasnt fooled for a second by their blindness and
restrained motion. A pair of Bob Wilson
balls&brains would have called for casting blind
people (not actors) or something in that direction.

6. Captain Corellis Mandolin

(2001)
The movies a joke, a well organized forgery that
resembles Louis de Berniress novel only by name.
The novel has a complex story that involves
communism, fascism, Nazism, homosexual soldiers
and hard sex scenes that get somehow transformed
in a romantic were-on-a-fucking-holiday-on-aGreek-island-during-war with Nicholas Cage cast
as an Italian soldier. Hell no.

5. Midnights Children (2012)

Rushdies one of my favorite writers and needless
to say Midnights Children is one memorable read
which first comes to mind when asked for any book
recommendations. As a Rushdie fan Ive always
thought about seeing his books on the big screen,
and, knowing his leaning towards popular culture,
the result seemed to be a guaranteed interesting
experience. Deepa Mehtas movie is quite
disappointing, though not that bad. The problem is
that the shots are too naturalistic for the magical
realism weve went through in the novel, and that
the storyline is sliced and thinned to fit a 2h+ movie

in a way that makes you miss out on a lot of

interesting backstories and narrative construction. In
the end, a lack of coherence and fantastic imagery
puts this film on the list.

4. Dorian Gray (2009)

Dorian Gray is a movie of aesthetics and excess
and, with its high quality imagery sliding from
Victorian to grotesque, it brings a way too
exaggerated version of Oscar Wildes infamous
novel. And speaking of The picture of Dorian Gray,
the story is altered, Wilde often only suggested or
alluded to actions but in the movie we find them
interpreted in an ongoing softcore orgy.

3. Brief Interviews with Hideous

Men (2009)
Well, if youve read David Foster Wallaces Brief
Interviews with Hideous Men you were probably
hoping that Lars von Trier would eventually direct a
movie based on it, and certainly not a first time
runner like Krasinski. Though his effort may be
lauded, the result is nothing but a disaster. You can
clearly tell that he loves Wallace and his writing and
tried to be as faithful as possible, but thats the
thing, high fidelity plus lack of directing experience
results in an incoherent mosaic filled with parts and
quotes from the book that lose all relevance in the
fast forward world of movies.

2. On the road (2012)

On the road (2012) vs Jack Kerouacs cult novel
Tough be the life of the director that chooses to
adapt Kerouacs beat-cult novel. Walter Salles
movie rivals our no. 1 on the list, in fact it could be
a tie. Actors suck, narrative is chopped with so
many unjustified changes and the overall
atmosphere is still and sterile and has nothing to do
with Kerouacs vitality writing. While it may not be
easy to fit Kerouacs stream of consciousness onto
the big screen, I think infinite more could have been
done with the novels actions; its road movie
material.

1. Atomised / Elementarteilchen
(2006)
Atomised (2006), dir. Oskar Roehler, novel by
Michel Houellebecq

Directed by Oskar Roehler and winner of the Silver

Bear award from Berlin Film Festival, Atomised is
our top pick as the worst book adaptation ever (not

just our set time-frame). Houellebecqs The

Elementary Particles is a complex and somewhat
experimental novel that deals violently with
contemporary social life, the human body being
deeply examined and used until its obsoleteness is
acknowledged. Houellebecq offers us a big fuck
you to the human race and he does it explicitly and
magnificently in a way that some critics called for
censorship. The movie on the other hand is a softporn hippie wanna-be intellectual take that misses
by a long shot all the novels great features. And its
boring, too.