Also I haven't seen Cats, so y'know, bear that in mind
10. 6 Underground
Alright, look. Michael Bay is an easy target, and it's not clever or inspired to put one of his films on a worst of the year list, and to be fair, 6 Underground is an improvement on some of his catalogue. But it's just.... ugh. This is Bay letting loose, ditching some of the stuff that people didn't like about his other movies and embracing the Bayhem. And it was.... a slight improvement, but in this case it's just going from godawful to just plain ol' awful. So good job Bay, but your film still sucks. 6 Underground is obnoxious as all hell, masquerading as fun while really just playing up its weirdly unimpactful action and stiff, painfully awkward dialogue. This is a film that massively overestimates the charisma of Ryan Reynolds, who's just not cut out for roles like this, trying to bring Merc With a Mouth levels of swagger to a character whose ultimate goal is never really explained. He operates as a ghost, using his billions to kill the bad men because they're bad, and he embarks on this quest in this particular way for a reason that's never really explained. Not that the film cares, because it's all about the fun, the over-the-top action and group banter and crazy hijinks that fully recognises how silly it is, which is fine, save for the fact that it's not fun at all. The action is hollow, lacking any weight or impact and never really earning its craziness. The group dynamic is Fast and Furious lite, but that's no compliment, taking that franchise's notorious penchant for the F-word and somehow making it weaker. 6 Underground's biggest sin though, is that it's so full-on, all the time. It's unfathomably obnoxious, so loud and abrasive and weirdly dated, feeling like an awful direct-to video film from the 90s. It feels endless, and just when it sets up its climax, there's still a whole lot of film left to go, and it somehow only gets worse. But hey, Bayhem, am I right?
9. Serenity
You know films that are made by their crazy twists? Like they're just fine, until a wild third act reveal makes them great? Yeah, Serenity's not that. Points for creativity, but in fairness, it'd take some twist to make a film like this feel worthwhile. Serenity's pulpy neo-noirness should work, especially given its fantastic leads, but what we end up with is a turgid, bloated mess, and I'm still not quite sure why. The premise, with Matthew McConaughey's crusty fisherman trying to catch an elusive fish while his ex-wife, played by Anne Hathaway, tries to persuade him into murdering her current partner is an intriguing one, but something about it just feels horribly overripe, Not for lack of trying, but the script here is painfully broad, never making the chemistry crackle or the twist connect to anything. It's a busy enough film, but given how mishandled everything is, that's not a good thing, making it feel horribly overstuffed. Safe to say the McConaissance has hit a roadblock, as he stumbles through the film in a way that's less dazed and confused and more lost and bewildered. The whole film feels like that, wobbling around its dodgily executed premise like a sunstroke stricken sailor. I get the whole De Palma vibe they're going for, but it lacks the go-for-broke sleaziness and actual technical proficiency that he has, so just watch Body Double, or Dressed to Kill, or Blow Out if you're curious. This is a weird, confused mess of a film that's unable to decide on a tone. Send it out to sea, and leave it there
8. The Lion King
Disney's journey into their vaults to soullessly recreate their classic films in order to tighten their vice-like grip on the box office has made for some progressively dodgy films, and The Lion King is potentially the worst of them all. I'll say this: I've got a huge amount of respect for the people that worked on this film. Although it lacks anything that makes the original work, it looks fantastic, and was made with so much care and effort that it's crazy. When all is said and done, it's a technical achievement for the ages, and for all of its issues, that's something it does absolutely fantastically. Unfortunately, the same level of care was not put into the rest of the film, which plays out like a shot-for-shot remake that completely lacks energy, or fun, or substance. It feels empty, completely hollow in its story (it's just the original), its tone (it doesn't have one) and even in its voice cast (James Earl-Jones aside, none of the voices ever feel like they're bringing anything special to these characters). Worse still, it's the most transparently cash-grabby Disney remake yet, never justifying itself for any other reason. Some of these remakes I get, but wallet-expansion aside, why did they make this? The animals look too real to talk, let alone sing, and their emotions never feel genuine, because they never actually emote. The result is painful to watch, reviving a much beloved animated film (which I really like), in a way that lacks any kind of heart, soul or energy. It looks amazing, and anyone who worked on that end should be more than proud of themselves because holy shit it's a real feat, but damn if the film itself isn't lifeless and flaccid
7. Shaft
Of all of the problems with the third(!) take on the Shaft series, the most prominent is maybe the most surprising: the constant millennial-bashing, taking shots at the current generation at every possible opportunity. This does nothing to stop Shaft 2019 from feeling dated, actually making that much, much worse. It's a tonal mess, with bland action and broad, awkward humour clashing against each other and barely tying together a totally incoherent story. Any charisma it has is instantly negated by the coarse, abrasive, deeply unlikeable mood of the film. Admittedly, the performances aren't bad here, but everything else is so offensively bad that they actually can't do anything with it. It is every crime film ever, just with a Shaft mask on, and speaking of, why did we get a Shaft film in 2019? It's a film that is so frightened of the climate it's being released into, stubbornly making ill-judged jokes in an attempt to reluctantly address what's relevant. It's a messy hodge-podge of a film that almost immediately establishes itself as a totally unnecessary product that seeks to only appeal to a very small, possibly extinct audience. Like, and I don't mean to sound condescending, but were there any die-hard Shaft fans who were dying for a sequel? Did anyone want more Shaft? It worked in the 70s, because that's the era for this story, but nothing about this works now. It's a desperate, depressing mess of a film, so crass and crude and almost paradoxically toothless and safe. It reminds me a lot of last year's The Happytime Murders, and given that that film was a spoof, and a bad one, that is not a good thing
6. The Dead Don't Die
Oh god. The Dead Don't Die is a film that got progressively worse the more I thought about it last year. Jim Jarmusch's deadpan style is fine, but this is just not it, man. This was a zombie spoof Jarmusch style, which is great on paper, before you see the film and realise how tired it is. It is utterly bereft of energy, so dry and cynical and just really hard to enjoy. It tries to make sly comments about America, but never commits to any ideas. It tries to be slick and subversive and break the fourth wall, but none of that feels earned or fun, instead just taking you out a film that you didn't really care about in the first place. It frequently uses anti-climaxes, but they never feel like they have a purpose, just tired, abrupt endings to plot threads that the film doesn't have the energy to begin to develop. It kind of explains why this is happening, and almost turns that into a social comment, only to decide that it doesn't really care about that and keeps going to find more things to not care about. I get that cynicism and particularly cynical humour can be tough to utilise onscreen, but this is next level, even for Jarmusch. It's not even that nothing happens and it's full of deadpan humour, it's that the film sets things up to happen and then makes it expressly clear that it doesn't care, and that stops you from caring, which stops you from listening, laughing and ultimately, remembering. I just hate the idea that not caring is cool, that being detached has more artistic value. I really detested this film's empty, uncaring approach, which felt more lifeless than the corpses that wandered its bloated runtime
5. Velvet Buzzsaw
I remember when I heard that Dan Gilroy was making a horror satire set in the art world. I was excited. Oh how foolish I was. Velvet Buzzsaw is, in fairness, not without its merits; it does have a good cast, some memorable intentionally funny dialogue and an interesting setup. I mean, it's hardly boring. But having good elements is one thing; making them work well together is a whole different thing. The gooey-grindhouse horror feels at odds with the sharp comments on the cutthroat world of criticism. It's both way too clever for its own good and way too stupid to stand on its own two feet. It's two entirely separate movies, completely at odds with each other. It's too smugly clever to be enjoyable, and way too silly to have anything of value to say. The campy, over-the-top tone should have been fun, but it just isn't because it feels like an accident, like something that isn't supposed to be there. It's a load of different films happening at the same time, and if any of them do work, they certainly don't work together. The result is alien and unlikeable, self-satisfied and absolutely ridiculous, and if it does have anything to say about criticism, then I'm still waiting to hear it. I wanted to like Velvet Buzzsaw more than anything else on this list, but what we ended up with is just.... ugh. It's just such a disappointing mess.
4. The Dirt
I guess the next four films on this list can be described as being deeply unpleasant, absolutely obnoxious experiences that I just wanted to end. I'll get that out of the way now, because they all made me feel so absolutely empty. I don't care about Mötley Crüe, at all, and I think if I did, this would be higher. The Dirt so desperately wants to be a cool, Wolf of Wall Street style take on the rise and fall of this band, urging you to join them on their debauchery. The problems here though, range from a deeply unpleasant laddish humour to an utterly obnoxious tone that never feels like it fits any given moment. The result is cringe inducing and painful, genuinely hard to watch as it tries to involve you in this utterly repugnant story. It wants you to care; to think that these guys are as cool as the filmmakers obviously think they are, but my god does that backfire. It's an embarrassing film to watch, because watching it feels like participating in something wrong, like even by acknowledging it you're doing something you're not supposed to. Not in a fun way, like something like Risky Business does knowingly, but in a seedy way, where it wants to impress you with its brash, rock n' roll story but instead you can't help but focus on everything problematic in it. It's a worryingly crass film, one that takes the sex drugs and rock n' roll at total face value and portrays that culture with none of the knowingness. Just watch This is Spinal Tap, and in the meantime, this film can lick my love pump
3. Wounds
When Under the Shadow came out in 2016, it established Babak Anvari as a serious one to watch in terms of horror. It was nuanced and intelligent, grounded in a specific context yet possessing great universality. It was fantastic, and it made me really excited for whatever he did next. So it's a shame to say that Wounds is absolutely awful. Everything about this film is unpleasant, from characters that are impossible to like or care about to a story that feels so hollow and generic. The ambiguity and subtlety of Under the Shadow is gone, with Wounds feeling so basic and broad, making absolutely no impact because there's nothing here that can resonate. But what's especially bad about Wounds is how nasty it is. And not in a good way. Good horror comes from a passionate place, grounded in something that the audience can care about. Wounds forgoes that and suffers for it, no soul, nothing to care about, just an empty atmosphere and some misjudged disgusting imagery. You can't be scared if you can't care. Wounds is at its worst not when it's trying to be scary but when it isn't, not even being able to pull of the fundamental step of getting the audience to care about what's going on. This sets the film up for a fall right from the start, and from there it's just so incredibly hard to watch, progressively nasty and unlikeable, and not in a good way. It's an ill-judged mess from a filmmaker who has proven that he can do so much better. Anvari's first film was called Under the Shadow, and that's exactly where Wounds belongs
2. Polar
2019 was the year I fell in love with John Wick, watching the trilogy for the first time and coming to adore them as some of the best action films in years. 2019 was also the year we got Polar. Polar is John Wick.... but bad. I love Mads Mikkelsen, and the thought of him as a badass assassin fighting his way to retirement is undoubtedly exciting, but this was such a misfire. It was tasteless, trashy and surprisingly mind-numbingly boring. EVERYTHING was over the top here, and yet it all just blended together like slush, trying so hard to make an impression that it just became flavourless, silly trash. It was such a confused film, containing everything from a needlessly explicit sex scene to Richard Dreyfuss doing karaoke. Hell, Mads Mikkelsen's character was called Duncan, which isn't exactly a cool-assassin name. This is a film that thinks that over the top gore is automatically cool, which it definitely isn't. The result is a miserable mess with a worrying obsession with bloodshed, and almost no substance to back that up. It's obnoxious as all hell as well, trying so hard to be hip and stylish. And this isn't even talking about the twist, which is awful, and confusing, and means nothing because the film is just too bad to make it feel like it matters. Polar is a waste of style, a film that's desperately trying to be a John Wick-Punisher fusion and just ends up as an embarrassing pile of sloppy, cynical sileage
1. Hellboy
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