It feels very fitting that at the start of a new decade, we would be looking back on a year that felt like a mini-decade itself. 2019 was a very eventful year in cinema, with a whole slew of the usual great to good films, as well as the middling mediocrities, and outright atrocities.
If it seems like I'm struggling to make the year sound interesting, that's because for me, it was a bit of a toll taker. Last year, I stated I was tempted to drop my reviewing habit altogether, but while I have no intention of doing so, I feel I will be writing less. As life takes me in some new directions, I can't devote as much time to writing, and to keep forcing myself into it may only increase my burnout. So my postings will be a lot less frequent, but hopefully I can regain some spark with some much needed breaks.
And to be honest, the burnout may have had a lot to do with just how many films I saw last year, tallying up a record of over 120 films, which I have my AMC Stubs A-List subscription to thank for, or despise for given the topic we'll be discussing today, those being the worst films of last year. Or at least the worst films *I* saw, because I couldn't be bothered to give Playmobil: The Movie the time of day.
But as always, some dishonorable mentions. Just barely missing the list was Pet Sematary, which updated the classic Stephen King story while simultaneously sapping it of any identity or scare factor, and lived up to its signature tagline that sometimes dead is better. Hellboy was a failed reboot of the cult classic comic book character, forsaking decent story or coherency in favor of an onslaught of gratuitous gore, and couldn't so much as touch Guillermo del Toro's attempts. Dark Phoenix closed the mainline X-Men saga on a very underwhelming note, dragging its characters and conflicts out to such an embarrassingly hollow degree, most of its cast couldn't be bothered to care. Noelle was a poor Disney+ launch title, wasting the formidable talents of Anna Kendrick on a blatant Arthur Christmas riff, complete with a number of gags that landed with a thud, and was abrasive in its blatant product placement (stupid iPads). The Laundromat was a waste of all talent involved, squandering a game cast beneath the bungled, uneven narrative cogs pieced together with no coherency, and made me wonder if people are giving Steven Soderbergh a pass because he didn't retire.
So with those messes out of the way, it's time for the true top ten worst films of the year.
Number 10
The Curse of La Llorona
Dir. Michael Chaves
Even by those standards, this film feels cheap, as most of the budget seems to have gone to the actors and the house, leaving the visuals themselves to look bland and flavorless, with even the titular haunt feeling like just another riff on Valak from The Conjuring. There was so much more scary material that could have been mined from this legend, but the film has no interest in actually diving into it, and is simply content to affirm the status quo. Oh, and apparently having Annabelle for a split second is enough to make this a Conjuring film.
Number 9
Wonder Park
Dir. Plausible deniability
This may seem unfair, since Wonder Park is clearly meant to be a set-up for a potential Nickelodeon TV series. But so have others in the past, and they felt more like movies than this. In spite of some Pixar worthy ideas, the film too often sheepishly backs away from them, ignoring the messy but intriguing negative emotions of a girl's world turned upside down (or Inside Out, eh?), rendering them mere footnotes that the film only remembers when it has to generate some quick drama and self-doubt.
Largely, the film leans on its sense of humor and quirky characters to carry it through, and even that can't hold it up, because their antics are often more annoying than charming, and so many of them are thinly sketched with no real layers to their characters. Not helping is the erratic pacing of the narrative, as within the span of ten minutes, a character distrusts, trusts, dismisses, then forgives our main character with no sense of progression. It may not be a huge time waster, but the small screen is where this movie should have stayed.
Number 8
Anna
Dir. Luc Besson
Luc Besson has had such a fall from grace in recent years, and his latest action flick doesn't do much to rectify that. Following a young Russian woman turned model/spy, this movie is so in love with needlessly complicating what should be a simple idea, especially in regards to the sheer number of timeline jumps this movie falls back on. This movie loves flashbacks, often doing so to supply context to each intense scenario, that feel more like the film pulling new plot developments out of thin air, and uses them so much that by the time the movie is five minutes from ending, it's practically slipped into self-parody.
The movie so often has to rely on this jumping to offset what a dull time waster it is, populated with characters that can't sustain their game cast, with even Helen Mirren not being enough to supply life to it. Even as an action director, Besson does an ultimate disservice to his set-pieces through his toothless approach to staging, that hardly earns it's R-rating, when it already feels like it's been defanged for eventual edited for TV broadcasts. It may not be as insulting as Lucy, but that's only because it has such a low bar to top in the first place.
Number 7
Cats
Dir. Tom Hooper
Tom Hooper began the decade winning the Academy Award for Best Director, and he may very well end it by winning a Razzie as well. Rarely do you see a film so misbegotten as Cats, that is so mesmerizing in the pure absurdity of its presentation, that any description of the horrifying visual aesthetics defy comprehension. Despite their commendable confidence, it's woefully misplaced on a movie with so much alarmingly sexualized pandering, complete with bewildering and nightmarish CGI creations, specifically the troupe of dancing cockroach people.
If it weren't for the notoriety, however, there'd be little left to remember Cats for, given that Hooper proves he's not a capable musical director. He rarely shows flair for the numbers, as do Andrew Lloyd Weber's needlessly overlong and verbose songs, making for an entirely introductory musical that sticks with its single gear, with an embarrassed all star cast struggling to lend it legitimacy. But confounding as it is, I still do have a soft spot for just how wild this film really is, as this feels like a potential Rocky Horror Picture Show in the making, and will likely resonate with cult audiences for years to come.
Number 6
The Hustle
Dir. Chris Addison
The Hustle had plenty going for it, pairing Anne Hathaway with Rebel Wilson for a potentially hilarious caper comedy, but ultimately came across as more annoying than inspired. After a surprisingly watchable opening 20 minutes, once the duo form, everything goes wrong. Pitting the two against each other in their race to seduce a tech mogul, it completely flies off the rails, as the two take mean-spirited shots at each other, when seeing them paired up would have made an infinitely more funny film, and what we ended up with feels boring by comparison.
Hathaway is clearly having some fun in the role, but Wilson's material is far less entertaining, and so their chemistry and antics aren't so much charismatic or funny, as they come across grating and lazy. The story itself tries to pretend to be smarter than it actually is, never pulling the rug out from under the audience, so much as tripping over it and crashing into a wall, especially when we get into the final sections of the film, including a final twist that's as outrageous as it is insultingly obvious. Say what you will about Charlie's Angels, but at least that had some energy to it.
Number 5
Men in Black: International
Dir. F. Gary Gray
I love the original Men in Black, but this is such a disappointing rebirth to the franchise. As opposed to the snappy and deadpan workspace comedy of the original film, International is a full on regression into full-blown cartoonishness, that completely lacks the grounded spirit and spontaneity of its original inspiration. Cartoonish would also explain the visual design, which forsakes creative practical effects and makeup for off-putting CGI creations, and by taking the film away from the central New York setting, also loses a lot of what gave the series its sense of character and personality.
Tessa Thompson tries her best, but she's let down by her Ragnarok co-star Chris Hemsworth, who is essentially spinning his wheels on another vapid prettyboy idiot, and feels like he's simply going through the motions. The script gets lost in so much needless and ridiculous fluff, feeling both threadbare and overly long at the same time as it jumps from location to location like Uncharted, and I frankly can't think of any movie that had a more stunningly obvious villain reveal. It's so weak, it makes Men in Black 2 look good by comparison.
Number 4
Jexi
Dir. Jon Lucas and Scott Moore
Okay, let's give some credit to a terrible, terrible movie. If my phone had the voice of a snooty and emasculating Rose Byrne, I'd be pretty obsessed with it too. That's all I can say positively about this crass comedy, which plays like the Friedberg and Seltzer parody version of Black Mirror meets Spike Jonze's Her. The comedy is completely uninspired, taking what should be easy comedic targets about how intrinsically tied we've become to our technology, but tosses aside that potential for an onslaught of cheap gags that rest purely on their vulgarity.
It's such a repetitive movie in regards to comedy, with non-stop sex and bodily humor that reek of desperation, especially coming from Michael Pena's hard-headed sweary boss. That mean-spirited streak is especially pronounced once the movie reaches its second half, where it tries to aim for sincerity from its main character's loneliness and self-discovery, but feels cheapened and unearned by association of that low brow cruelty, feeling utterly tone-deaf in its construction. This feels like a Funny or Die sketch painfully expanded to feature length, with the same amount of substance stretched out to 80 minutes.
Number 3
Miss Bala
Dir. Catherine Hardwicke
A remake of the 2011 Mexican film, Twilight's Chatherine Hardwicke takes charge of this Gina Rodriguez starring vehicle, but even having not seen that film, I can still tell this is a horrid update to it, purely based on its own merits. This movie is little more than people competent at their craft going through the motions, and even still performing well below their talent level. Everything from the direction to the screenplay feels painfully unimaginative, and with how little emotional investment this movie fuels itself with, it's impossible to really care about the trials and hardships faced by its main character.
Gina Rodriguez tries her hardest, but she deserves so much better than this movie, which earns its spot due to the fact that the movie seems to relish in her misery. It's such a painful movie to endure, trying to pass itself off with the poignancy of Cormac McCarthy, but with none of the skill to back itself up, and so ends up feeling gratuitous in its violence and unpleasantness. And yet, it's such an easily forgettable movie at that, that despite its repulsive edge, can't even linger in that way. Sometimes I forget I ever even saw it.
Number 2
A Madea Family Funeral
Dir. Tyler Perry
I'll give the other entries on my list this; at least they held my attention. I don't remember why I even watched this movie, just that I hated every minute of it, to the point I could only even give it cursory glances after a while. Tyler Perry's films have always walked an uneven line between comedy and drama, both of which remain true here, and his comedy proves especially grating here, particularly from the likes of Perry, Cassi Davis, and Patrice Lovely as the core older woman trio, whose chemistry is non-existent and like listening to nails on a chalkboard. Not helping are Perry's also annoying Joe, and new character, the voicebox wielding, wheelchair bound Heathrow.
And another credit to the other films on this list; at least they feel like movies. This is the cheapest, most flavorless TV movie-level filmmaking one can possibly imagine, actually showing Perry regress as a filmmaker with such a lack of imagination behind the camera, and feels content to coast on his name while the box office numbers roll in. Despite being the final film for Madea, it doesn't even have a proper ending, concluding on a jokey note of a character dating Mike Tyson, and then the movie just stops. It isn't just annoying, it's outright incompetent, and certainly we can all wish Perry's signature character a well earned good riddance.
Number 1
Serenity
Dir. Steven Knight
Okay, let me just say something first! Just because I say something is the worst movie of the year, that's purely based on a technical level rather than a subjective entertainment level. Because while Serenity is, indeed, my pick for worst film of the year, and has been since last January, believe me when I say I enjoyed every minute of this mess.
To be fair, there's no real indication of just how bad or insane this movie could be right from the outset, and it does show some actual promise early on. The main driving force that fuels the movie, Anne Hathaway's former flame hiring Matthew McConaughey to kill her new husband Jason Clarke, is a decent enough set-up for a morality tale of dark intentions, with all the heavy-handed symbolism to go with it (McConaughey's character hunts a rare fish named "Justice," incidentally). But something about the island he lives on, and the odd characters that he lives and works alongside, also seem to be pulling it in a different direction, like it's gearing up to be something out of The Wicker Man. And that's fitting, given how much McConaughey seems to embrace his inner Nicolas Cage, with the most McConaughey performance of his career.
But then comes the revelation halfway through the film, where the film flies spectacularly off the rails. That being the revelation that this entire island, and its inhabitants... is all part of a fishing RPG. The first time I watched the movie, I couldn't believe that this was the turn the film was making, and on subsequent viewings, it only makes what happens beforehand even more hilarious, from the arbitrary rules that come with living on the island, to the fact that the kid who created this game seems obsessed with his father's naked body. Only making it funnier is the total commitment of its cast, with the likes of Hathaway, Clarke, Djimon Hounsou and Diane Lane giving it their all, spouting this dialogue and playing out these roles with such sincerity, and to say their confidence was misplaced is an understatement.
I almost felt bad when I saw it for the first time, as while the woman sat next to me was crying during the ending, I had to bite my tongue just to keep from laughing. It's fitting the year started with Serenity and ended with Cats, with the former being especially confounding in every single regard. I couldn't believe this movie actually exists, but it made me happy that it did, because I enjoyed this more than some movies I actually liked in 2019. This was my Winter's Tale, and I would take this over Assassination Nation any day of the week.
So I implore you, go out and catch that fish!
And so brings an end to my takedowns of the worst films of 2019, but join me back again next week, when we can put it well to rest, as I rundown the best that the year had to offer. See you then!
The Lion King was my least favorite movie of 2019. Dark Phoenix was a close second.
ReplyDeleteWhen's your best movies of 2019 list coming?
ReplyDeleteMonday. I've been busy.
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