Here we go, boys and girls: the top 5 worst movies I've seen this year. These are the films which drove me crazy; the ones that pissed me off, left me feeling bitter, and/or flat pissed me off.
5. The Lone Ranger - The biggest flop of the summer shares the honor of worst blockbuster of 2013. The Lone Ranger's dilemma is that the filmmakers couldn't decide whether this was an action comedy, or a gritty, dark take on the television series and as a result it ends up being neither compelling or exciting to watch. Note to Disney: just because you brought together the same people who were behind the mega-successful Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise (Gore Verbenski directing, Jerry Bruckheimer producing, Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio writing and Johnny Depp starring), that doesn't mean you can try and essentially make the same damn movie again and expect the same result as the last series of movies you've been working on!
4. The Hangover Part III - You remember the first Hangover movie, right? You know, the one that was actually funny? Yeah, director and co-writer Todd Phillips sure can't, because he's tried like hell the last four years to duplicate the same success of the first movie, but to less extent each time. 2011's The Hangover Part II gave us the same jokes as last time that were hit-and-miss but overall a big disappointment, but in 2013, I'll gladly take the recycled gags and wacky hijinks from Part II than whatever the hell this conclusion to the Wolfpack trilogy is supposed to be, because I can tell you, it isn't comedy. Not once did I laugh at the antics onscreen (including Zack Galifinakis accidentally decapitating a giraffe - really), and any of the charm that overgrown frat boys Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Galifinakis) had is long gone by this point. I hesitate to call this a comedy, and I'm not calling it an action-thriller because it's neither exciting, nor thrilling. It's more like a bitter, cynical finale that's given up entirely.
3. Evil Dead - And speaking of mean-spirited and deeply cynical movies, this pointless and unnecessary remake by director/co-writer Fede Alvarez epitomizes everything I've grown to despise about recent horror films: their lack of creativity to set up an interesting scenario - five friends enter a deserted cabin in the scary woods, and bad thing start happening; characters doing incredibly stupid things because the plot says so; and grizzly scenes of torture violence and copious amounts of gore for the sake of shocking an audience, as opposed to scaring them. This sort of thing worked for Saw, but since then, many studios are taking their cues from the Jigsaw school of torture porn, and it's done a great disservice to the genre. Also, allow me call a film like this for what it really is: lazy, uninspired shit.
2. Romeo & Juliet - Yes, you're reading that correctly. This bastardization of the Bard's famous romantic tragedy comes in at second place, after I called it the worst movie of the year. I think the only factor keeping this monstrosity out of the top spot is that Lesly Manville as the Nurse for House Capulet and Paul Giamatti as Friar Lawrence are actually good and are able to convey the spirit of Shakespeare's prominent supporting players, despite the atrocious handling of the source material by Academy-Award winning screenwriter Julian Fellows (who ought to know better), a major miscast in Haliee Steinfeld as Juliet, terrible acting by everyone involved and sludgy pacing. Besides two redeeming characters, this movie is an insult to Shakespeare himself, dumbing down his beautiful and elegant words to please the Twilight crowd.
My pick for the worst film of 2013 surprised even me. This film came out waaaaaay earlier in the year, but because of the bad word of mouth it received, I wisely avoided it. That is, until I watched the film on Netflix on a late November night. I can honestly say that not only this is the absolute worst movie of the year, not only one of the worst comedies I've ever seen, but this irredeemable crock of shit is the frontrunner for worst film of the decade.
1. Movie 43 - I've watched some truly awful movies while doing this blog: That's My Boy, LOL, Last Ounce of Courage immediately come to mind. This year's Movie 43 ranks right up there as one of the worst movies I've ever had to review. That will be a review coming either Christmas Eve, or early in the new year, but here's the main jist of why this abomination had me fuming more than all the others I've listed: a film like this shouldn't even exist. Someone over at Relativity Media (the same studio which spawned the previously mentioned Romeo & Juliet and the dreadful sci-fi bomb, Skyline) was pitched the idea of various comedy sketches that would be packed with big A-list talent, talented comedic actors and competent comedy writers & directors and would be brimming with offensive, shock humor and audiences would love it. They were sadly mistaken, as the box office returns and universal contempt by film critics and audiences alike showed. The reason I say this shouldn't exist is because, in a perfect world, this idea of a film filled with mean-spirited, one-note jokes (the "Homeschooled" segment is particularly a nasty piece of work); aggressively tasteless and humiliating scenes involving female characters (I hope jokes about menstrual blood, facial feces and buck naked women being used as iPod joke tickle your fancy!); and gags that have a glimmer of potential wasted with lazy comedy writing (the"Superhero Speed Dating" segment featuring Justin Long, Jason Sudekis, Kristen Bell and Uma Thurman should have been the highlight) would have been laughed out of the building and/or locked away like at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Instead, this vile, ugly, revolting, shallow, and stupendously unfunny piece of shite got the green light and anyone who paid to watch this in a theater (or on Netflix, which I did) paid the price. Do yourselves a favor: AVOID WATCHING THIS GARBAGE AT ANY AND ALL COSTS!!!
5. The Lone Ranger - The biggest flop of the summer shares the honor of worst blockbuster of 2013. The Lone Ranger's dilemma is that the filmmakers couldn't decide whether this was an action comedy, or a gritty, dark take on the television series and as a result it ends up being neither compelling or exciting to watch. Note to Disney: just because you brought together the same people who were behind the mega-successful Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise (Gore Verbenski directing, Jerry Bruckheimer producing, Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio writing and Johnny Depp starring), that doesn't mean you can try and essentially make the same damn movie again and expect the same result as the last series of movies you've been working on!
4. The Hangover Part III - You remember the first Hangover movie, right? You know, the one that was actually funny? Yeah, director and co-writer Todd Phillips sure can't, because he's tried like hell the last four years to duplicate the same success of the first movie, but to less extent each time. 2011's The Hangover Part II gave us the same jokes as last time that were hit-and-miss but overall a big disappointment, but in 2013, I'll gladly take the recycled gags and wacky hijinks from Part II than whatever the hell this conclusion to the Wolfpack trilogy is supposed to be, because I can tell you, it isn't comedy. Not once did I laugh at the antics onscreen (including Zack Galifinakis accidentally decapitating a giraffe - really), and any of the charm that overgrown frat boys Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Galifinakis) had is long gone by this point. I hesitate to call this a comedy, and I'm not calling it an action-thriller because it's neither exciting, nor thrilling. It's more like a bitter, cynical finale that's given up entirely.
3. Evil Dead - And speaking of mean-spirited and deeply cynical movies, this pointless and unnecessary remake by director/co-writer Fede Alvarez epitomizes everything I've grown to despise about recent horror films: their lack of creativity to set up an interesting scenario - five friends enter a deserted cabin in the scary woods, and bad thing start happening; characters doing incredibly stupid things because the plot says so; and grizzly scenes of torture violence and copious amounts of gore for the sake of shocking an audience, as opposed to scaring them. This sort of thing worked for Saw, but since then, many studios are taking their cues from the Jigsaw school of torture porn, and it's done a great disservice to the genre. Also, allow me call a film like this for what it really is: lazy, uninspired shit.
2. Romeo & Juliet - Yes, you're reading that correctly. This bastardization of the Bard's famous romantic tragedy comes in at second place, after I called it the worst movie of the year. I think the only factor keeping this monstrosity out of the top spot is that Lesly Manville as the Nurse for House Capulet and Paul Giamatti as Friar Lawrence are actually good and are able to convey the spirit of Shakespeare's prominent supporting players, despite the atrocious handling of the source material by Academy-Award winning screenwriter Julian Fellows (who ought to know better), a major miscast in Haliee Steinfeld as Juliet, terrible acting by everyone involved and sludgy pacing. Besides two redeeming characters, this movie is an insult to Shakespeare himself, dumbing down his beautiful and elegant words to please the Twilight crowd.
My pick for the worst film of 2013 surprised even me. This film came out waaaaaay earlier in the year, but because of the bad word of mouth it received, I wisely avoided it. That is, until I watched the film on Netflix on a late November night. I can honestly say that not only this is the absolute worst movie of the year, not only one of the worst comedies I've ever seen, but this irredeemable crock of shit is the frontrunner for worst film of the decade.
1. Movie 43 - I've watched some truly awful movies while doing this blog: That's My Boy, LOL, Last Ounce of Courage immediately come to mind. This year's Movie 43 ranks right up there as one of the worst movies I've ever had to review. That will be a review coming either Christmas Eve, or early in the new year, but here's the main jist of why this abomination had me fuming more than all the others I've listed: a film like this shouldn't even exist. Someone over at Relativity Media (the same studio which spawned the previously mentioned Romeo & Juliet and the dreadful sci-fi bomb, Skyline) was pitched the idea of various comedy sketches that would be packed with big A-list talent, talented comedic actors and competent comedy writers & directors and would be brimming with offensive, shock humor and audiences would love it. They were sadly mistaken, as the box office returns and universal contempt by film critics and audiences alike showed. The reason I say this shouldn't exist is because, in a perfect world, this idea of a film filled with mean-spirited, one-note jokes (the "Homeschooled" segment is particularly a nasty piece of work); aggressively tasteless and humiliating scenes involving female characters (I hope jokes about menstrual blood, facial feces and buck naked women being used as iPod joke tickle your fancy!); and gags that have a glimmer of potential wasted with lazy comedy writing (the"Superhero Speed Dating" segment featuring Justin Long, Jason Sudekis, Kristen Bell and Uma Thurman should have been the highlight) would have been laughed out of the building and/or locked away like at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Instead, this vile, ugly, revolting, shallow, and stupendously unfunny piece of shite got the green light and anyone who paid to watch this in a theater (or on Netflix, which I did) paid the price. Do yourselves a favor: AVOID WATCHING THIS GARBAGE AT ANY AND ALL COSTS!!!
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