Thursday, December 4, 2014

Top 15 Worst Films of 2014:

As always the disclaimer: this list is regulated by one rule only—it’s all films that I actually watched. Last year’s selections were worse and I feel, but for the really cheesy ones, this year was a general ‘improvement’. That said, certain names and franchises just continue to sink while others took themselves a little bit more serious (hello Transformers) and thus elevated themselves into average movie-going fare instead of being God-awful. What is extremely disheartening about most of the films featured this year is that they had material provided for them to deliver but in the end they bombed. Here are the films that made me cringe the most:

1.A Haunted House 2: the first installation was a dud and here is its weak follow-up. MY RATING: 0.5/10

2.Tusk: I don’t even know where to start with this disaster: Michael Park’s long, boring monologues, Justin Long’s hideous squeals or Johnny Depp’s ridiculous French accent This is just all-around dismal. MY RATING: 1/10

3.TMNT: the story would be decent enough but Bay had to gross us out with those awful CGI imagery. MY RATING: 3/10

4.Tammy: triple duty for Melissa McCarthy in this one; she starred, wrote and produced it and it’s no wonder why she’s so uncontrollably over the top in it. MY RATING: 3/10

5.Mischief Night: more dull than God-awful yet still nonsensical. MY RATING: 3/10

6.Before I Go Sleep: Nicole Kidman’s career continues to spiral downwards. In this latest flop, she’s a woman who forgets her memories every time she wakes up the next morning. Why wouldn’t she---her films are forgettable for quite a while now. MY RATING: 3.5/10

7.Left Behind: no one has had more films featured in this list over the years than Nicholas Cage and in that grand tradition, here he shows up as a pilot trying to discover what makes, all of a sudden, children disappear into thin air along with Christians. Oy… MY RATING: 3.5/10

8.Only Lovers Left Alive: nominated last year for the Palme D’or at Cannes and being directed by Jim Jarmusch, I had high hopes. Initially I felt the banter with Tilda Swinton and everyone she came in contact with would grow but as the film soldiers on, it becomes a tedious no-show and no one wants to admit apparently the obvious: its constant and irritating pretentiousness. MY RATING: 4/10

9.The Amazing Spiderman 2: Jamie Foxx covered in blue as a villain is the main offender but now Spiderman himself is becoming pretty corny too. MY RATING: 4/10

10.Annabelle: doing a prequel with literally no ties to what came before makes no sense and trying to copy better films in hope of connecting to something genuine is downright ridiculous. MY RATING: 4/10

11.Noah: too many washed up Oscar winners spoiling the broth and those CGI talking tree things—pretty sure they weren’t in the Bible, Mr. Aronofsky! MY RATING: 4/10

12.Winter’s Tale: this was Akinva Goldsman’s directorial debut and it showed: multiple plots cross wires so often that it’s hard to keep up. Mark Helprin’s novel is rough terrain as is and I’m still unsure about that white horse’s motives. MY RATING: 4/10

13.Maleficent: after being a bridesmaid on so many occasions, Angelina Jolie has surely wrapped up a Razzie for this preposterous film. MY RATING: 4/10

14.The Maze Runner: in this current Hunger Games world, similar films are being produced at break-neck speed. This film is based on James Dashner’s novel that is only five years old. Dylan O’Brien as the savior of an experiment is a stretch but everything else here is the real disaster. MY RATING: 4/10

15.Hercules: one of two Hercules films released this year (I haven’t seen the other) but here is The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) going through literally the many labours of his character. This all begs one question: how many times do we need to do this to get this story semi-decent? MY RATING: 4/10