Annapolis

A working-class youth (James Franco) goes to the U.S. Naval Academy, where he spends his time either hitting on a female drill instructor (Jordana Brewster) or practicing for a boxing tournament so he can beat up another drill instructor (Tyrese Gibson) he doesn’t like. They say nobody ever sets out to make a bad movie, but it would be easier to believe (or at least hope) that writer David Collard and director Justin Lin did this one on purpose. Collard’s script can’t seem to decide whether to rip off An Officer and a Gentleman or Rocky; at any rate, it’s never less than excruciatingly predictable, unintentionally funny and dripping with moldy clichés. Franco, as usual, is brooding and bland. The film actually was filmed in Philadelphia; the actors didn’t get any closer to the academy than the script does.