It only takes one annoying little scrote who thinks they're saving the day to mess up some of our favourite movies. (And TV shows, come to think of it.) These are the sidekicks, +1s, hangers-on and helpers who we really wish would just shut up and get back in their box.
1. Bubo the Owl – Clash of the Titans (1981)
"Tweet-tweety-tweet-whistley-tweet" – what's that you say, Bubo? Nothing of any value? Oh good. I mean, I'm only a demigod responsible for the wellbeing of an entire city, not to mention a fit princess. To be fair to the cheap-looking metal replica of Athena's bird, Bubo does prove useful in certain navigational and Pegasus-rescuing tasks, as well as distracting the Kraken so Perseus can defeat him. But still, keep it down with all the chirruping and clicking please.
In the 2010 remake he was swiftly consigned (literally) to the bin.
2. Mutt – Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Mutt can be, as his mum Marion Ravenwood says, "a little impetuous" – for that, read precocious and annoying. If the sword fighting and the monkey swinging don't get you, unfortunately the fact that he's Shia LaBeouf around the point where he was not especially favoured (before he became characterised as a crazy-meta-cannibal through the medium of song), might.
What was worse, it it looked like was going to inherit the franchise from Indy himself, Harrison Ford. Noooooo! But whatever, he didn't, and there's no indication he'll be back for Indy 5. In the dog house with you, Mutt!
3. Ruby Rhod – The Fifth Element
Chris Tucker plays the high-camp screechy radio DJ in Luc Beeson's sci-fi fantasy actioner and he just wont go away. Sidekick of sorts to Bruce Willis's stone-faced hero Korben Dallas, as a quick flash of comedy Ruby Rhod might have worked. Instead he's in it a lot. Squealing. A lot. We still have a twitch in our right eye because of this performance.
The part was written for Prince. What might have been…
4. Olaf – Frozen
"Hi, everyone. I'm Olaf and I like warm hugs!" Hilarious, a snowman who likes warm things. Kids love him (apparently – we mean, do they though?) but us non-kids found him a merchandise-ready slapstick goon that we could have done well without.
He's low-rent comic relief in an otherwise surprisingly sophisticated Disney kids' film, and in his favour, he's not in that much. But we just found his face eminently punchable. Sorry, Olaf.
5. Batgirl – Batman and Robin
"Why not Robin? He's annoying," you say. Why yes, he is! But not as annoying at Batgirl, aka Barbara Wilson, played by Alicia Silverstone. To be fair to Silverstone, it's a good win in a film featuring a cacophony of annoyance including Bat Nipples, Bat Ice Skates, and Mr Freeze's puns.
She's an American-accented graduate of "Oxbridge Academy" peddling a cartoon brand of feminism. To Poison Ivy: "Chicks like you give women a bad name." Yeah, but at least Ivy knows exactly what movie she's in.
6. Matt Farrell – Live Free or Die Hard
Although John McClane had help from Al in Die Hard and Leslie in Die Hard 2 among others, he very much completed his accidental missions alone. However, because his partnership with Samuel L Jackson's Zeus was so great, John has had sidekicks ever since.
Live Free or Die Hard's Matt Farrell (played by Justin Long) was perhaps the most annoying of all of them. From the moment John was forced into helping him out, he was nothing but an irritating, preachy little scrote who didn't like rock music, kept getting in the way and was a general hindrance throughout. Yes, he was good at hacking, but it was his fault that Bruce was in this mess in the first place.
7. John McClane Jr – A Good Day to Die Hard
...And it didn't exactly get better with A Good Day to Die Hard, as John was paired up with his poor excuse for a son, played by serial franchise-ruiner Jai Courtney. Let's hope if the sixth one ever gets made that John becomes a solo artist once again.
8. Jinx – Die Another Day
And to think, at one point there were plans for Halle Berry's sidekick to get her own spin-off franchise. We can only assume that this was before anyone had seen the film or, indeed, read the script of what is widely acknowledged to be the worst James Bond film of all time.
And damn, is the script a stinker, saddling Jinx with dreadful puns that would make even Sir Roger Moore wince. You can pinpoint exactly where the writers lost the will to live – it's when the villainous Zao asks, "Who sent you?" and Jinx replies… "Yo' mamma."
9. Jar Jar Binks – Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
Jar Jar Binks is one of George Lucas's favourite characters. No, really. The gurning, prat-falling and frequently incomprehensible monster was apparently influenced by Goofy and Buster Keaton and not – as we suspected – Mussolini. Jar Jar shouldn't have come as much of a surprise, really, as Lucas's previous attempt to deliberately create something "that kids would love" were the deeply horrible Ewoks.
At least Binks got his comeuppance in the end.
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