My companion piece to last week means, unfortunately, I gotta write about some bad movies, too.
Like I mentioned last week, I haven’t seen all of the movies that ever made it to the track — 59 of 120 — but I’ve seen a good chunk of the really popular ones. Some of the other, super-poorly-rated movies I can’t say I plan to watch; think The Smurfs 2, God Bless the Broken Road, The Shaggy Dog, The Hurricane Heist, Reagan or The Identical. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer gets a lot of hate, but I revisited that last year before the MCU’s excellent 1950s-set Fantastic Four: First Steps and I won’t lie, the Jessica Alba-Chris Evans movies aren’t bad! So that won’t make it onto the list here.
There aren’t really any real dishonorable mentions. Stuff like Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones isn’t horrendous, 2 Fast 2 Furious is gloriously cheesy, and I have a soft spot for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. I’ll include one for kicks.
10. Journey to the Center of the Earth
Brendan Fraser won an Oscar a few years ago, which was awesome to see, and it’s been amazing to see his career renaissance. Journey to the Center of the Earth was part of the original Fraser era, where he was in stuff like the Mummy movies and Bedazzled, and was a Jules Verne adaptation.
I can’t say it’s bad, just lower-tier from what I had to choose from, but it was definitely forgettable. I think I saw this at a movie night at a friend’s house and really only remember the finale. JJ Yeley failed to qualify the No. 96 with the film on the hood at Daytona International Speedway.
9. The Longest Yard
Evernham Motorsports had a slew of movie and pop culture sponsors in the mid-2000s, ranging from the re-release of The Lion King to Spy vs. Spy by MAD Magazine. In 2005, Kasey Kahne ran a scheme promoting the remake of The Longest Yard at Talladega Superspeedway.
It’s not a bad scheme, but a little underwhelming — the barbed wire on black bars is cool, but the footballs are kind of hard to see (the yellow numbers are sick though). I’ve seen the movie, but it’s so unmemorable that I couldn’t tell you a single thing about it.
8. The Punisher
Similar to the two above, The Punisher is more forgettable than anything, but it didn’t get the best reception upon release, either. I’ve never been sure Thomas Jane was the best Punisher, though they eventually landed with the great Jon Bernthal for the Netflix series.
Movie quality aside, Brendan Gaughan had this insanely cool, blood-spattered No. 77 at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2004. Gaughan ran well, though he finished 20th, and I remember reading he said this was a race/potential win that got away from him.
7. Superman Returns
Superman Returns is two-and-a-half hours long and an absolute bloated mess. That’s all I got, besides noting that I think he’s the character to be featured most in NASCAR. Comic versions aside, he’s had at least five features since 2006.
Just realized that Jane and Routh did act together a few years later, though. In Edgar Wright’s great Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Jane plays a Vegan Police cop who uses a de-veganizing ray on Routh’s character, who drank half-and-half.
6. Man of Steel
Speaking of Superman, outside of the first two Christopher Reeve entries and James Gunn’s 2025 film, none of his movies have been particularly great. Here’s one of the more underwhelming movies and schemes, all rolled into one on Dale Earnhardt Jr.‘s No. 88 from 2013:
Man of Steel and director Zack Snyder have their defenders, but I really can’t get behind a movie where the entire finale is two invincible beings punching each other through buildings. Quick research tells me the collateral damage of the movie is estimated at $700 billion and 129,000-plus citizen fatalities, which is pretty dark for a Superman film.
5. Navy Seals vs. Zombies
It feels a little unfair to put this one on here, as I loved talking to director Stanton Barrett — who’s been a Hollywood stuntman and NASCAR driver for more than 30 years — a few years back. It’s just simply on here because, as a low-budget movie, there’s some not-great CGI and stuff sprinkled in.
That’s not to say it’s not a fun watch — it’s a blast. And I loved that Stanton ran three cars across two series to promote it throughout the late summer and early fall of 2015.
4. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Zack Snyder seems like a cool guy, but man, does he miss often with his movies.
I loved the dual-car promotion for BvS with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson at Auto Club Speedway, but the movie wasn’t as much of a success as Jimmie’s win was. I never loved the Henry Cavill version of Clark Kent/Superman.
3. Rush Hour 3
I hold the extremely controversial opinion that I really don’t like the Rush Hour movies. The first one is fine, but I was never really a fan of Chris Tucker, and the stuff in Police Story is just so good that nothing Jackie Chan did on the American film side ever stacked up to it. But Rush Hour 3 is particularly awful. Incredibly unfunny movie. I remember watching all three back-to-back for the first time on some channel or another during the early stages of COVID.
This was yet another Hall of Fame Racing scheme on the No. 96, this time driven by Tony Raines at Pocono Raceway.
2. Justice League
More Zack Snyder, except this is only half Zack Snyder, because he left Justice League mid-production for family reasons.
Joss Whedon took over, and the resulting Justice League is a total mess, but the schemes were cool.
In 2021, the nearly-four-hour-long Zack Snyder’s Justice League came out. While I agree that it’s slightly better, his manufactured “gritty” style always feels too hamfisted and never really worked for me.
1. Cars 2
Aptly, one of the worst movies on the schemes roster has one of the most underwhelming schemes. While I don’t hate it — the solid-color cars Juan Pablo Montoya drove always looked cool, think the Taylor Swift car — there’s a lot less going on creativity-wise than some of the other Cars-related schemes.
Cars 2 seems like it’s undergone a bit of a critical reevaluation lately, so maybe I need to rewatch it at some point, but I remember being wildly disappointed by the sudden break from the stock-car action. Obviously, that can’t be the whole movie, but immediately jumping to competing against Formula 1 cars and the like seemed like it could’ve waited for the third movie.
Admittedly, I haven’t seen some of these in years, so my opinion could change. But I’ll stop here for now.
Though we’ll be a week removed from the race, I’m going to break from Reel next week and take a look back at the history of Richmond Raceway. Since we just had its 80th anniversary weekend here this past weekend, and I worked on an exhibit for the Virginia Museum of History and Culture about the track, its history has been at the forefront of my mind for the better part of five or six months now. So be prepared for me to wax poetic about my home track!
Adam Cheek joined Frontstretch as a contributing writer in January 2019. A 2020 graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, he covered sports there and later spent a year and a half as a sports host on 910 the Fan in Richmond, VA. He's freelanced for Richmond Magazine and the Richmond Times-Dispatch and also hosts the Adam Cheek's Sports Week podcast. Adam has followed racing since the age of three, inheriting the passion from his grandfather, who raced in amateur events up and down the East Coast in the 1950s.