Maybe it's because I started reviewing movies again in earnest for the first time in several years, but this is the first time in a decade where I could have had a Top 20 Worst Films of the Year list. Unlike good movies though, I don't like to ruminate on the bad films, so we're going to stick with 10 this time around. As always though, we star the list with the dishonorable mentions:
Back to Black
IF
Long Legs
Moana 2
Mufasa: The Lion King
Peter Five Eight
The Substance
10. Venom: The Last Dance
Director: Kelly Marcel
Starring: Tom Hardy
Studio: Sony Pictures
Genre(s): Action
Rated: PG-13 (For intense sequences of violence and action, bloody images and strong language)
Starring: Tom Hardy
Studio: Sony Pictures
Genre(s): Action
Rated: PG-13 (For intense sequences of violence and action, bloody images and strong language)
Starting off our list is the (hopefully) final installment of Sony's 'Venom' series (and just a heads up: Venom ain't the only superhero we'll be discussing in this list). "Venom: The Last Dance" makes the baffling decision to completely scrap most of the older cast members (save for Tom Hardy and his black passenger) and end this "trilogy" in a way that feels inconsequential even to the previous two movies. It is largely boring with action sequences that don't deliver any thrills and was just one of three examples of why Spider-Man villains typically aren't interesting without the famous web-slinger to play off of.
9. Harold and the Purple Crayon
Director: Carlos Saldanha
Starring: Zachary Levi
Director: Carlos Saldanha
Starring: Zachary Levi
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Genre(s): Comedy
Rated: PG (For mild action and thematic elements)
Genre(s): Comedy
Rated: PG (For mild action and thematic elements)
In another world, "Harold and the Purple Crayon" would have been a fully animated film, about a young boy who can create anything he wants by drawing with a purple crayon. Indeed, the opening hand-drawn animated sequence near the beginning was the blueprint for what could have been a very good family film. Instead, the movie ages the character to be a man in his forties who DOES create things by drawing with his purple crayon, but rather than creating magic, the film creates cheap laughs and cringe-worthy situations. A bit more creativity would have been much appreciated here.
8. Emilia Perez
Director: Jacques Audiard
Director: Jacques Audiard
Starring: Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez
Studio: Netflix
Genre(s): Drama
Rated: R (For language, some violent content and sexual material)
Genre(s): Drama
Rated: R (For language, some violent content and sexual material)
While "Emilia Perez" seems to be popping up on many critics' Best Films of the Year lists for being "bold, daring, and timely," call me a grump because I found this whole affair to be stupid. Aside from a story that isn't as interesting as it thinks it is, the film is also directed by a French man who is making a movie primarily in English and Spanish (the problem: the director speaks neither of these languages). Throw in the fact that the movie peddles in some of the worst stereotypes about Latinos, and I'm making the bold prediction that people are too afraid to admit that this isn't a good movie. Well, I'm not afraid: "Emilia Perez" is not a bad movie, but a TERRIBLE movie!
7. Argylle
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Starring: Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O'Hara, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, John Cena, Samuel L. Jackson
Studio: Apple Original Films
Genre(s): Comedy/Action
Rated: PG-13 (For strong violence and action and some strong language)
"Argylle" is a movie that bombed so hard, that it caused Apple to rethink their commitment to releasing movies in theaters (hopefully this year's "F1" is a good enough movie that it causes them to rethink their lack of commitment again). The problem is you can't pin your hopes on being a successful movie studio by releasing something as terrible and obnoxious as this. While the movie hinged on the mystery of who (or what) the title character was, the movie was so dumb that audiences stopped caring about the mystery long before it was solved (and then they hated the movie more when the mystery was revealed).
6. Borderlands
Director: Eli Roth
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Jamie Lee Curtis
Studio: Lionsgate
Genre(s): Action
Rated: PG-13 (For intense sequences of violence and action, language and some suggestive material)
If "Detective Pikachu" and the 'Sonic the Hedgehog' films have been proving that video game adaptations can be enjoyable popcorn films, something like "Borderlands" comes along to try and bring the medium back to the dark ages. Extremely ugly, completely non-sensical, with top-tier talent looking like they are trying their hardest to look like they understand what the screenplay is forcing them to say, and you get a movie that is less memorable than the botched launch of the real-life video game "Concord."
5. Madam Web
Director: S. J. Clarkson
Starring: Dakota Johnson
Studio: Sony Pictures
Genre(s): Action
Rated: PG-13 (For violence/action and language)
Director: S. J. Clarkson
Starring: Dakota Johnson
Studio: Sony Pictures
Genre(s): Action
Rated: PG-13 (For violence/action and language)
Hey look, a Sony Spider-Man spin-off film is here again (and it won't be the last)! "Madam Web" is probably the most disappointing on this list, as (unlike the other two) at least this one had a concept that seemed workable on the surface. Thanks to some poor writing, underdeveloped characters, and the most 90s style of filmmaking, "Madam Web" is memorable for all the wrong reasons.
4. Kinds of Kindness
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Starring: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe
Studio: Searchlight Pictures
Genre(s): Drama
Rated: R (For strong/disturbing violent content, strong sexual content, full nudity and language)
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Starring: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe
Studio: Searchlight Pictures
Genre(s): Drama
Rated: R (For strong/disturbing violent content, strong sexual content, full nudity and language)
Yorgos Lanthimos has directed some of the best films of the past several years. I wonder if that fact secretly bothered him, because "Kinds of Kindness" is all kinds of terrible. Telling three separate hour-long stories, each one starts out interesting only to become confusing and end in ways where I couldn't tell you what any of these stories were actually trying to say. There's a difference between polarizing but artistic, and just plain nonsense.
3. Sasquatch Sunset
Director: Nathan Zellner, David Zellner
Starring: Riley Keough, Jesse Eisenberg
Studio: Bleeker Street
Genre(s): Drama
Rated: R (For some sexual content, full nudity and bloody images)
Director: Nathan Zellner, David Zellner
Starring: Riley Keough, Jesse Eisenberg
Studio: Bleeker Street
Genre(s): Drama
Rated: R (For some sexual content, full nudity and bloody images)
If you like seeing big foots having sex, pooping on the road, and peeing in the air...well, you might have more fun with this than I did.
2. Kraven: the Hunter
Director: J. C. Chandor
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson
Studio: Sony Pictures
Genre(s): Action
Rated: R (For strong bloody violence, and language)
Director: J. C. Chandor
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson
Studio: Sony Pictures
Genre(s): Action
Rated: R (For strong bloody violence, and language)
And the 'Unholy Spider-Man Trilogy' comes to an end on this list, with the most recent (and by far the worst) attempt to create a Spiderverse from Sony. Though this one has more violence and f-bombs than the others, it is by far the most stupid and least interesting of the three. No wonder Sony is putting their larger plans on ice (for the time being).
1. Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver
Director: Zach Snyder
Studio: Netflix
Genre(s): Science Fiction
Rated: PG-13 (For strong bloody violence and gore throughout, strong sexuality, nudity and some language)
Director: Zach Snyder
Studio: Netflix
Genre(s): Science Fiction
Rated: PG-13 (For strong bloody violence and gore throughout, strong sexuality, nudity and some language)
While I told myself I would put myself through the wringer a second time after I picked the first half as the worst film last year...well, here we are. I admit this time around I may have been on my phone half the time only half paying attention, but this is just as bad and a waste of time as the first part. Adding to the frustration is that the R-rated director's cut of this same movie was released a few months later and WAS an improvement like the first director's cut (though not enough of an improvement to be worth watching)!
Ultimately, I was debating whether I should consider this at all. However, the same issues apply that not only is this just as bad as the worst film last year, it also has this weird thing where the filmmakers had a better version of the movie that they purposefully held off on releasing until later. In the days of DVD this made sense: you could sell the movie on disc twice to consumers (potentially). This strategy has never made sense on Netflix since a stream for one movie is worth the same as two streams for a movie (which is: $0.00). The fact that they did this twice with equally terrible movies is not only worth a second strong rebuke but a reminder that Netflix does not value your time (or mine).
And that is 2024. See you in a week for a list of movies that ARE worth your time!
 |
Comments
Post a Comment