Wednesday 9 December 2015

My Top 5 Worst Films of 2015


For the most part, my blogging experience is for talking about and celebrating awesome movies. Films that make you woop, cheer, punch the air, cry, gasp and sing with joy.

And yet, there is the odd film that sticks out as being utter shite. Every now and again, a movie comes along that is just so bad, so completely crap, that it just has to be ripped apart. Welcome then, to my Top 5 Worst Films of 2015.

This was a pretty tough post to write - mainly because I try and steer clear of films that I just know are going to be garbage. Unfinished Business, Mortdecai, Seventh Son, Ted 2, The Gallows, Hot Pursuit, The Transporter: Refuelled and Aloha are just a few of the critically-derided bombs that I've given a wide berth across the year. Therefore, I can't really comment on how monumentally bad they are, and instead must choose from the crop that I actually did have the misfourtune of seeing.

Let's kick things off with a few honourable mentions...

Honourable mentions: Jupiter Ascending, Taken 3, Get Hard, The Wedding Ringer, The Loft, Love the Coopers

5th - Pan


Something should have smelt funny when Joe Wright's summer tentpole Pan was shafted to tail end of September, and so it was; billed as a fresh spin on JM Barrie's classic 1911 children's novel, this shiny family film failed to deliver on its promise of actually showing us the blossoming rivalry between Peter (Levi Miller) and Hook (Garrett Hedlund).

Instead it was too preoccupied with a humdrum 'chosen one' narrative where Peter is given only a matter of days to learn how to fly and fulfil a prophecy that spells the end of Blackbeard's (Hugh Jackman) villainous reign. Cheesy acting and a mediocre screenplay saw this film sink beneath the weight of expectation, both from me and the general audience.

4th - Pixels


It says a lot about the amount of shite that hit cinemas this year when an Adam Sandler comedy only arrives at number 4 on my list.

Pixels, which hit cinemas back in September, is an action comedy film about retro video games, alien invasions and stylish matching Mini Coopers. How can a recipe including those ingredients be a disaster, right? Unfortunately, it is exactly that; unfunny, unoriginal and just plain uninteresting.

I feel like I've covered Pixels quite a lot on this blog and I don't really have anything new to say; this simply isn't one of those sleeper classics that has gone unnoticed or is under appreciated in its time. With an entirely different cast and script, this film could've been half decent; a hilarious mesh of Independence Day and Wreck-It Ralph. But with Sandler and James front-and-centre, Pixels is an awkward, silly, dumb, boring, flashy flop audiences decided wasn't worst spending their coins on. 

3rd - Fifty Shades of Grey


Ahh, Fifty Shades of Grey. There are only two reasons that this film doesn't reside at #1 on this list; firstly, Dakota Johnson actually isn't half bad, especially when you consider that she spends the entire time acting opposite the reanimated corpse that was once popular British actor Jamie Dornan. And secondly, everything else in this film is so abysmally bad that it actually takes on some entertaining qualities?

Like, if you discard the horrible gender roles and stuff, you can sort of enjoy the film because it's just so damn trashy and poorly made. Everything from the direction to the dialogue and that godawful reworking of 'Crazy in Love' makes Fifty Shades of Grey a slapdash (pun intended?) cash-grab designed to reach into the pockets of middle-aged women and literally steal their money. But still, the 'so bad its good' factor still comes into play - especially whenever Dornan tries to make his face resemble anything remotely close to 'serious'.

The only thing more embarrassing than his acting in this film is the amount of money that Fifty Shades of Grey actually went on to make at the box office. It's genuinely painful to look at the top 10 highest grossing films of the year list and see that Fifty Shades of Grey resides above something far greater like The Martian. What the hell world, what the hell? I thought we, as a species, were better than this. 

2nd - The Last Witch Hunter

Read my original review of The Last Witch Hunter 

Even though Vin Diesel reportedly poured his love for Dungeons and Dragons into this action fantasy, the end result felt severely undercooked.

Borrowing from everything from Game of Thrones to Van Helsing, Blade and Underworld (you know your movie sucks when you're borrowing from Underworld), The Last Witch Hunter saw Diesel join forces with Rose Leslie, Elijah Wood and Michael 'I'm just here until my cheque clears' Caine for a trashy and ugly sword-swinging romp in New York City.

The film sees Diesel zoom around in a shiny Aston Martin, bed air hostesses and punch witches in the face. It sounds cool, but everything about the execution is woefully off-base. Cheap and nasty CGI doesn't elevate a colour-by-numbers story and the budget apparently didn't stretch as far as lighting or tripods; dark and shaky camerawork in every action scene left me feel a little nauseous. 

1st - Fantastic Four


Oh boy, where do we even start with this one? It's not often that a film comes along that receives such universal hate and vitriol from fans and critics alike. Alas, Fox's third attempt at kickstarting a Fantastic Four film franchise isn't just bad, it's fascinatingly bad. It's so bad that it makes you want to pick apart the various elements that went into creating this shitstorm of a film, from sifting through behind-the-scenes rumours and scandals to watching the wayward mess that sort of resembled the press tour.

The worst part is that I was actually rooting for this film. I wasn't expecting The Dark Knight, but there were elements in the trailer that had me interested in the darker tone and grittier character designs. Plus, the cast is pretty darn good - Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, Toby Kebbell - are all great actors. Hell, even Miles Teller is too when he's not being a smarmy ass in every late night or magazine interview.

Anyway, back to the movie. The first third of Fantastic Four is serviceable. The film is still finding its feet, but that's okay. But then things take a turn for the worse; the writing gets shoddy, the effects look shabby and the entire plot jumps off the rails and into a deep, deep ditch of doom and despair. The final third is some of the worst filmmaking I've ever seen. 

The only thing I want to do now with Fantastic Four (or Fant4stic, whatever you want to call it) is forget it ever happened. If we, as a collective human race, agree to never speak of it ever again, hopefully it'll be forgotten about by the time the next inevitable reboot rolls around in 2020. Good lord, please don't let them reboot this series again...

Which movies stank up the cinema near you this year? What movie-going experience left you bored, angry or upset? Let me know your Top 5 worst films of 2015 in the comments down below! Thanks for reading.

8 comments:

  1. I did see a few bad movies that came out this year yet no film for me was as godawful as Aloha. I really want to find Cameron Crowe, beat the shit out of him. Get the keys to his cars and destroy all of his music collection. He needs to stop having using to drive the narrative, it's lazy-ass filmmaking.

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    1. I didn't see Aloha but I heard it was good...?!

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    2. Well, if you are eager to feel stupid in watching a rom-com where so many obvious things happen. Then be my guest.

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    3. Thankfully I didn't see Aloha - a friend hated it and gave me plenty of warning haha. If it's as bad as you say, I owe that friend a big favour haha!

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  2. Okay, I'm kinda proud to say that I never even BOTHERED seeing any of these movies because I knew they would probably be crap hahaha

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    Replies
    1. Good call Raquel! They're all a big waste of time, especially Fantastic Four. By far one of the worst superhero films I've ever seen.

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  3. Replies
    1. I never got round to seeing Chappie, the trailers just looked like District 9.5. Glad to hear I made the right decision!

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