Over the years, I really
have tried to start avoiding movies that by all indications will be bad, unless
there is a compelling reason to do so. And yet, when you see somewhere in the
neighbourhood of 200 films a year, you’ll see some stinkers. What this does
mean is that many of the films that will dominate others worst of lists will
not dominate mine – because I didn’t bother to watch them (hell, for all I
know, some may even have been good).
Some films that were bad, but not bad enough for
the worst 10, include: The Accountant
(Gavin O’Connor) is a rather forgettable action movie, not bad per se, but
rather silly. Bad Moms (Jon Lucas &
Scott Moore) is a decent effort, but too by the numbers to surprise and
shock the way it wants. Billy Lynn’s
Long Halftime Walk (Ang Lee) takes a great book, but gets so lost in
experimenting, it doesn’t translate it well. Bleed for This (Ben Younger) is a run of the mill boxing movie,
with little to recommend it. The Boss
(Ben Falcone) is yet another film that wastes Melissa McCarthy’s talents in
an unfunny comedy. The Club (Pablo
Larrain) was an overly grim film about a house full of pedophile priests,
which doesn’t really provide much insight into its subjects. Chevalier (Athina
Rachel Tsangari) has
a great idea about a group of men competing in a contest to see who is the
best, but didn’t really do anything with that execution. Disorder (Alice Winocour) is
well made, but a hollow, about a veteran with PTSD, who becomes a bodyguard,
but may be insane. Dog Eat Dog (Paul
Schrader) is the veteran, trying his hand at an exploitation movie – and
not faring well. The Girl on the Train
(Tate Taylor) take what should be a fine, guilty pleasure of a thriller and
completely messes it up. Jason Bourne
(Paul Greengrass) is more of the same – and fairly uninspired – in the
fifth overall, and fourth with Damon, film of the series. Keeping Up with the Joneses (Greg Motolla) has four hugely talented
actors, and completely wastes them in a nearly laugh free comedy. Last Days in the Desert (Rodrigo Garcia) had
an interesting view of Jesus, more down to earth than normal, but not much else
going for it Live by Night (Ben Affleck)
has some great period detail, but is a pretty lifeless gangster homage. Louder Than Bombs (Joachim Trier) was a
long, dour, slog of a film despite its great cast. Maggie’s Plan (Rebecca Miller) never finds the right tone for
itself, as it spins out wildly in all directions. Mekong Hotel (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
makes
literally no sense without a lot of context not in the film – more of a DVD
extra feature than a film unto itself. No Men Beyond This Point (Mark
Sawers) is a mockumentary with a good premise – men stopped
being necessary, and hence stopped being born, years ago – but takes only the
most obvious path through the film. Pride
and Prejudice and Zombies (Burr Steers) should have at least been a hell of
a lot fun, but alas was just kind of silly.
The Program (Stephen Frears) contains a committed performance by Ben
Foster, and little else in their Lance Armstrong biopic. Tale of Tales (Matteo Garrone) tells multiple stories based on
fairy tales, all of whom go onto too long, and don’t add up to much. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the
Shadows (Dave Green) is a film that even I, a turtle fanatic when I was a
kid, could not excuse. 31 (Rob Zombie) is
an unscary, and worse, boring, horror film. Triple 9 (John Hillcoat) is a misfire from the talented Hillcoat –
a by-the-numbers corrupt cop tale. Two
Lovers and a Bear (Kim Nguyen) either needed to fully embrace its
weirdness, or else try for something more realistic – instead, it comes off as
rather half assed. X-Men:
Apocalypse (Bryan Singer) rivals
X-Men: The Last Stand for worst in the series – even if I liked its joke about
The Last Stand, in the film.
Bottom
10
10.
Money Monster (Jodie Foster)
Jodie Foster is capable of being a fine director –
her work on Orange is the New Black and House of Cards proves that (as does
some of her previous film work) – but her latest film as a director was
woefully dreadful and ill-thought out. A film with George Clooney and Julia
Roberts – not to mention rising star Jack O’Connell should not be capable of
being this dull – but it is. The film is a short of updated version of Sidney
Lumet & Paddy Chayefsky’s Network – with George Clooney as Wall Street show
host a la Jim Cramer, whose show is more sideshow than news – Roberts as his
producer, and O’Connell as a poor man who lost all his money listening to
Clooney’s advice, who ends up taking him hostage. What follows is supposed to
be satire mixed with drama and a social conscience – but the film cannot get
over the fact that everyone is miscast, and the supposedly cutting edge
observations were outdated a couple of decades ago. Money Monster is an old
school movie star vehicle – I usually like those – but this one is boring and
forgettable – and with this much talent, that should be possible.
9.
Suicide Squad (David Ayer)
How do you screw Suicide Squad up this badly? How do you take a movie that
stars Will Smith and Margot Robbie – and features the Joker – and end up with a
movie this dull and forgettable – that feels like this much of a mishmash, or
barely connected scenes and characters. Had it not been for Robbie – who truly
is great as Harley Quinn, despite the rest of the film – the film would rank
much higher (lower?) on this list. The plot of the movie is pretty much
incoherent, the special effects laughable – and most of the actors are left
hanging with no real characters to play (no one is hung out to dry more than
poor Cara Delevigne – who can be a good actress, but is stuck dancing in front
of a horrible CGI portal of crap). It really should not be possible to make
this movie, this poorly, but here we are.
8.
Independence Day: Resurgence (Roland Emmerich)
As someone who was 15 when the original came out,
Independence Day will always hold a special place in my heart, even if I have
to admit that it really isn’t that good
of a movie (its fine and all, but have you watched it lately). What I’m trying
to figure out about this long awaited sequel is why the hell it took 20 years
to come up with it – really they had that much time, and they came up with
this? Jeff Goldblum is fine, I guess, but the rest of the cast really is a
charmless void, the action sequences aren’t particularly good, the special
effects okay, and the story god awful. All of Roland Emmerich’s films are big
and dumb – but his best ones are big, dumb and fun (his last film, White House
Down was an absolute blast). This feels like a direct to DVD sequel that
somehow got put in theaters.
7.
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (Jake Szymanski)
How do you take four charming, funny leads and make
a comedy with as few laughs as Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates? For one thing,
you miscast the extremely talented Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza – forcing
them into roles that are the equivalent of overgrown man children. Second, you
make Zac Efron and Adam Devine be the most obnoxious version of themselves for
the entire runtime. Third, you repeat all the worst jokes ad nausea. This could
have been a good movie – but what it really needed to do is push itself farther
– instead it takes the easy way out, and concentrates on lame jokes.
6.
It’s Only the End of the World (Xavier Dolan)
Canadian wunderkind Xavier Dolan is a very talented
filmmaker – I have liked all of his films before this one (some more than
others, sure) – but It’s Only the End of the World is the most shrill,
disagreeable film of the year – trapping the audience in a house full of
horrible people, and then making everything even more claustrophobic by
shooting the majority of the film in close-up. The movie, based on a play, is
really a series of two handers – between a long absent brother/son returning
home to tell his family he is dying, and never quite finding the words. The
main character remains a cypher – who is he – everyone else in the movie are
horrible, except for the poor, sweet character played by Marion Cotillard (perhaps
miscast, but she’s the only decent thing in the film). Dolan’s film got critically
savaged at Cannes – and still won the Grand Jury Prize. He’ll be fine – I’m
sure he’ll make a great film again someday. But this one was 90 of the most
unpleasant minutes I had this year.
5.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Zack Snyder)
Batman v Superman is a huge, lumbering, overstuffed
at times incoherent action film that does virtually nothing right. It’s a sign
that DC really wants what Marvel already has – but doesn’t want to lay the
groundwork for that – essentially introducing the world to nearly every
superhero it could in the span of one two and half hour movie, regardless of
whether or not they make sense in the course of the film. The film is also needlessly
dark – both visually and thematically, continuing what Snyder did (far better)
in Man of Steel by taking Superman so seriously he’s essentially a joyless
asshole, and not allowing new Batman Ben Affleck to use his best assets – his
wit, charm and humor. Worst of all is Jessie Eisenberg as Lex Luthor – his
characters actions make almost no sense, and the hyper articulate and
intelligent Eisenberg seems to have no idea how to play him. The movie also
pauses several times to essentially film mini-teasers for future movies and it’s
the climax is horrible, CGI soup. The one bright spot is Gal Gabor as Wonder
Woman (and the music that she brings with her) – which marks her standalone
movie in 2017 as something I’m actually looking forward. Without her, this movie
would be even higher on this list – it’s hard to imagine they spent this much
money making something this bad.
4.
Man Down (Dito Montiel)
I saw Man Down at TIFF 2015, about an hour after I
walked out of Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson’s Anomalisa – so perhaps it
looked even worse when paired up with a masterpiece, but I honestly don’t think
so. This movie flashes back and forth in time – following a soldier played by
Shia LaBeouf – and his life before going off to war, during the war, the
immediate aftermath of an incident in that war, and into some post-apocalyptic
landscape. The one decent thing I can say about the film is that Shia LaBeouf
is fiercely committed to this characters and he ACTS very loudly throughout the
film. It’s hard to believe that he would go from this, to American Honey –
where he delivers his best work to date, and on a completely different level.
Man Down is an obvious, preachy movie that tries very hard to keep all of his
secrets until the closing minutes, although they are obvious from the outset.
The movie has a few other talented actors in the supporting cast – Kate Mara as
LaBeouf’s wife is wasted, and Gary Oldman as an army shrink is just plain
bored. The movie itself is like Oldman – boring as hell, and trying so hard to
be relevant and profound, when it really is anything but. Watching it, I wanted
nothing more than for it to end.
3.
Zoolander 2 (Ben Stiller)
I have no idea why it took Ben Stiller 15 years to
make a follow-up to his cult hit Zoolander – and I have no idea why, when he
did, it was this lazy and downright terrible. Because my wife was a big fan of
the original, that film has grown on me over time (I didn’t much like it when I
saw it in theaters, in the wake of 9/11) – but that films silly, throw everything
at the wall and see what sticks aesthetic worked very well – mainly because
much of the movie is downright silly and goofy and deliberately dumb – which
allows a few smarter moments to go unnoticed. But the sequel has none of that –
it really is a laugh-free void for its runtime, with everyone just going
through the motions. I understand that sometimes movies that don’t need sequels
have them rushed into production before anyone has really thought things
through. But everyone here had 15 years to figure this out – and if they
couldn’t, they should have just left well enough alone and not bothered.
2.
American Pastoral (Ewan McGregor)
There would be no shame is making a poor version of
Phillip Roth’s 1997 masterpiece novel – which won every prize it could have,
and is arguably his best work (I think it is – but with Roth, there are so many
choices it’s hard to decide). Roth doesn’t really lend himself to cinematic
adaptations – which is why they so infrequently happen, and usually are not
good when they do. But Ewan McGregor’s American Pastoral is a different animal
altogether – in that it is not even an honorable failure (like Robert Benton’s
The Human Stain) – but something far worse – an adaptation of a great book that
seems to have no idea what that book was about, or why it was great.
Shoehorning Roth’s novel, and its strange chronology, into a movie would be
hard – and changes are necessary. Yet many of the changes the movie makes –
especially that god-awful final shot – make me think that no one involved in
the production had idea what Roth’s book was about. McGregor, a first time
director has also fatally miscast himself in the lead role – draining the
character of his Jewishness (which is essential). As a director, he’s not bad
at setting up a delusional, Norman Rockwell-esque world – but is unable to
punctuate with reality later on. Watching the film, I spent most of the time
staring in the screen in slack jawed disbelief at just how badly they had
screwed this movie up.
1.
Hardcore Henry (Ilya Naishuller)
Hardcore Henry is not the
first movie that is shot using the 1st person perspective that are
common among video game shooters – that may well be the 1940s noir Lady in the
Lake (of which there is a poster that Hardcore Henry pans by quickly in a
fleeting moment). I’ve never much warmed to the idea – but perhaps it could
work – but Hardcore Henry is not making the case for it. This is a mean, nasty,
cynical, violent film – none of which I object to overly much. The film is also
boring, which is worse, headache inducing even worse, and at times offensive in
the ways it portrays, well, just about everyone. This is a nihilistic film to
be sure, and it embraces its nihilism so much, that it simply made me want out
of the theater. There is a certain strand of storytelling that feels that the
darker, angrier, viler things are the more realistic they are – The Walking
Dead has headed that way in the most recent half season – and it’s something I
reject. Yet, perhaps the film could still be a fun action movie – but it’s
incompetently made more than anything. This is easily the most unpleasant
experience I had in a movie theater this year – and the worst.
