In this day and age you can do anything with special effects. But can you do it well? I believe that you can, but Hollywood doesn't seem to be in agreement with my belief. Studios continue to put out movies with special effects that disappoint, and I think it is disrespectful to audiences. Either figure it out, or leave it out. Every time I see a bad effect in a movie, I know it could have been done better, or more imaginatively, and it frustrates the heck out of me. The worst is when I see a bad effect in a movie with mostly great effects, such as in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

A visual effect doesn't have to be great or even realistic as long as it works with the story and is believable -- I'll take Harryhausen or Henson over most of the CGI attempts lately. Unfortunately, Hollywood seems to half-heartedly strive for greatness and realism with every movie, and more often than not it fails to achieve either. In my thirty years I've seen some terrible visual effects, some only terrible in retrospect, some only terrible in perspective with what else has been done. I'm not usually surprised by bad effects, though, because I've developed a cynicism about effects, particularly about CGI, that causes me to expect the worst. Nonetheless, I've picked seven movies that did actually surprise me -- a lot.

1. King Kong (2005)

In The Return of the King, Peter Jackson has some bad effects shots, but at least they're just shots. In his next film, King Kong, he has bad effects sequences. And as with The Return of the King, they are all the more apparent and all the more frustrating because there are actually some great effects shots and sequences in King Kong (it did deserve the Oscar). The worst example in Kong is the dinosaur stampede. At first the sequence is tolerable because the dinos are rendered beautifully and the weak green-screen compositing is not any worse than what many of us grew up with. But as the sequence progresses, the interaction between the actors and the computer-generated dinos looks too fake, too much like something made long ago, before computers were even used. Both the part on the cliff and the part where the animals fall over each other are sloppy and unacceptable. It is a completely ironic sequence, too, since it begins with an exchange about movies looking real. At least someone thought to score the thing sped up with "Yakkety Sax" or it wouldn't be completely useless.

Everywhere you look this summer, there's a poster for another movie sequel: a third Ocean's installment, a second Fantastic Four, a fifth go-around with the hapless Hogwarts crew of Harry Potter ... So in honor of 95% of the season's flicks being part twos, threes or fives, Moviefone decided to rank the 25 worst movie sequels of all time. Why be so negative, you may ask? Why focus on the steaming piles of cinematic horse manure when we could focus on all the gleaming gold? Well, for one, Moviefone has already ranked the 25 best movie sequels of all time. And for another, there's a whole lot of crap out there -- and it's damn fun to write about it.

In fact, there's so much excrement in the vast universe of sequels that we had to be a bit discerning when coming up with our "top" 25 worst. As much as it broke our hearts to omit Teen Wolf, Too and Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood (yes, that is a real movie), we had to limit our picks to sequels that we actually thought -- even for a brief moment -- might be good. And although we admire Jennifer Aniston's stellar work in the original Leprechaun, our hopes weren't exactly high for any of the follow-ups. On the other hand, we were super stoked for Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace before George Lucas crushed our spirits by introducing us to the most galactically annoying character in movie history (damn you, Jar Jar!).

What do you think are the worst sequels of all time? Did we miss any on our list? And, most importantly, when can we expect another Leprechaun movie?

What happens to a director who helms three unwatchable films in a row? Well, it depends on how much money they make, obviously. After coming out with the snore-fest Barbershop, then following that up with the universally-panned comedy Taxi and directing a braindead adaptation of beloved comic Fantastic Four, Tim Story is now being handed the keys to another comic franchise, The Losers. The plot, which has gone through several permutations over the years, revolves around a bunch of Army misfits during WWII who are betrayed, then go on a mission to find out who set them up and why. HR reports that the movie "will be a one-off but with sequel potential," which I guess goes without saying. Interestingly, the adaptation that's getting greenlit was written by Peter Berg, who was set to direct but changed his mind for unspecified reasons.

Next week, of course, Story will see the release of Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer, a film I really can't believe they let him direct after the way he handled the first one, but there you go. Silver Surfer reunites the original cast and adds a planet-surfing scout for a planet-devouring villain, who has a very familiar voice. We recently conducted a reader Q&A with the co-screenwriter of the film, Don Payne, and you can read some of the questions and answers from that by clicking here.

Eight weeks before Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer hits theaters, a number of Youtube videos have popped up featuring a giggly fat man in silver body paint and bald cap who walks around what looks like Venice interacting with the locals and declaring himself to be the real Silver Surfer, as opposed to the toned figure on the billboards. "I wanted to play myself and they said 'no.' I wanted to play Mr. Fantastic and they said 'no.' Racism. It's because of my skin color." I'll say this for Fox's viral marketing department -- at least these clips are mildly amusing. The best one features the chubby Surfer actually attempting to surf. "It's a beautiful morning," he says, chatting up a guy next to him who is also about to go out. "Kind of reminds me of the great deepness of space, you know? Kind of goes on forever." He then takes a running start at the water and freaks out because the water is too cold.

The other three videos aren't quite as good as the surfing one, and the one where he offers "surfing lessons from the Silver Surfer" on the street corner cuts way too fast for us to discern anything about what's going on. Fox should hire a cameraman who knows the principles of comedy a little better. Nevertheless, like I said, it's pretty funny if you're looking for something to watch on a rainy day, as it actually is today. I'll close by reiterating the point of the whole thing -- Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer opens in theaters on June 15.