6 Movie Formulas That Must Be Stopped

Dear Hollywood,

Hi, it's us! The people who spend money on your movies. Please stop making the same ones over and over again. We've seen the same recycled formulas year after year after year-and frankly, we're tired of it.

It's not that we think you're completely useless, just... you know, mostly. We'll admit, you've delivered a few gems recently. Transformers, for example, stumbled upon a refreshing formula: Namely, Giant Robots Fighting Each Other + Megan Fox Standing Around Looking Awesome:

Now that is a formula we can get behind, (if she'll let us. Pow!). You have our permission and, in fact, encouragement to exploit that particular format for a few more years. These next six formulas, however, we never want to see again.

Who's Doing It Next: In The Game Plan, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson plays Joe Kingman, a successful quarterback who's whole bachelor lifestyle gets turned around when he finds out (gasp) he has a seven-year-old daughter! No professional athlete has ever balanced his career AND a family. This should get pretty wild, folks!

Who Did It Best: Kindergarten Cop. Maybe because it was one of the first of its kind, or maybe it's because Schwarzenegger, with his enormous arms, indecipherable accent and near-constant shouting, is just so naturally frightening that you better believe his little co-stars were crying in between takes. We wouldn't be surprised if some of them still have nightmares about the giant, gibberish-spewing Frankenstein that, for a few months, spent every single day screaming at them.

Who Did It Worst: The Pacifier. Our deciding factor:

The scene features Vin Diesel's sensitive and dramatic side and serves as a painful reminder as to why most of Diesel's movies focus more on his kicking-ass and blowing-things-up side. Also, the connection Mr. Diesel shares with the little girl he's sworn to protect is cause for alarm. When he holds her close, you can practically hear the wheels turning in his head as he struggles to find innovative loopholes for that pesky Megan's Law.

Why It Needs To Stop: We don't watch action movies for the subtle nuances of the heroes' performances-which is a good thing, because 10 out of 10 action stars cannot act to save their mother. This is never more apparent than when you remove the Terminator's gun and replace it with a baby.

Who's Doing It Next: Joshua brings us a little boy who, when his new sister shows up, absolutely loses his shit and starts tearing apart his toys, killing his pets and possibly plotting to murder his entire family. It's almost like The Good Son, except for the fact that it's exactly like The Good Son.

Who Did It Best: The Good Son. There's just something so damn creepy about Macaulay Culkin and that, in conjunction with his complete inability to express emotions, makes the role of a cold-hearted, murderous asshole the only one he's ever been right for. Those soulless shark eyes of his...

When we watch his mom drop him off a cliff at the end of the film, we can pretend he's actually dead and finally get some sleep again.

Who Did It Worst: Village of the Damned (1995). Despite the best efforts of Luke Skywalker and Superman, this movie was painful. The people of this aforementioned village took way too long to realize there was a problem. Just about every woman was simultaneously struck with a sudden case of pregnant, and then nine months later the town is loaded with tiny, Aryan mind-readers.

Take note: If there is a town full of identical kids, they're either evil aliens or everyone's wife is having an affair with the same blond-haired, blue-eyed sex machine. Either way, drown those bastards immediately.

Why It Needs To Stop: Because there is not a single nine-year-old on the planet who could take us in hand-to-hand combat, though we welcome any and all challengers. Is a third-grader hinting at suffocating a member of your family? Uppercut that smirk right off his little face and give him some chores. It's called parenting, folks.

Who's Doing It Next: In Who's Your Caddy?, rapper Big Boi stars as rapper C-Note, a streetwise cat who tries to obtain membership to an elite country club that is, apparently, populated exclusively by people who would rather believe black people didn't exist.

Who Did It Best: Trading Places. Not just because it's so funny that we'll look the other way when Eddie Murphy sleeps with transvestites and makes Norbit, but because it was smarter than all of the black-meets-white comedies that came after. It didn't rely on having a bunch of monocle-sporting, white aristocrats dance poorly and awkwardly say words like "dawg" and "jiggy" to get laughs. It had things like "plot" and "character arcs," things that have been ignored by copycats trying to be hipper and edgier.

Who Did It Worst: We're calling this one early for Who's Your Caddy? Not only does it feature a tired formula that we were sick of back when Chris Rock was doing it, but it's also about fucking golf. Oh, and Jeffrey Jones (the principal from Ferris Bueller's Day Off and probably some other movies) is in it, and we're pretty sure we heard somewhere that he was a pederast.

Why It Needs To Stop: If we wanted to see a fast-talking black guy infiltrate a world that still thinks black people will eventually just disappear, we'd watch Trading Places. If we wanted to watch that same exact premise but throw in a rapper or two, we'd watch How High. If we wanted a movie with the same black-meets-white premise, plus rappers and golf, we'd watch The Legend of Bagger Vance.