I've never written a truly negative post, but that ends today. 2018 was a year of wonderful films, from outstanding indies to awards heavyweights, top shelf blockbusters to awesome surprises. But with the good comes the bad, and 2018 had some truly groanworthy cinema. Christmas may be over, but we've still got a load of turkey to get through. Rules are pretty much the same as my best list, if it came out in Ireland in 2018, then it's eligible. Oh, and this is my opinion. If you like these movies, that's absolutely fine, I just didn't. Let's get this over with, these are my least favourite movies of 2018!
10. The Nun
I've never had any real interest in The Conjuring movies. I don't know, they just never appealed to me. But at least I kind of get why other people love them. The Nun on the other hand, is as bloated and boring as horror movies get. It's not even an interesting kind of bad. It's just.... bland. It's hard to get invested enough to be actually scared by anything here. There's no particularly frightening ideas, just "AHH! SCARY NUN!". And honestly, it's just kind of boring. The film doesn't even have much of a plot, it's just a typical haunted house movie with a nun. But it's a bad, scary nun, I guess? And yeah, there is a reason for her to be so demonic and scary, but with how shallow the whole thing feels, it's pretty difficult to care about why she's doing this. The horror is even occasionally quite funny, as the film takes itself so seriously that it just kind of goes the other way. And when the comic relief (?) does come in, it's just.... awkward. Like, is a French Canadian really that funny? Even better, is a nun even that scary? No it isn't, and no it isn't. The Nun is bland, shapeless, boring horror that isn't even bad enough to be interesting. But pray for me, because it's only number ten....
9. An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn
Oh man. I wanted to like this one, I really, really did. I love Aubrey Plaza, I love Jemaine Clement, and I love Matt Berry. But this film just didn't come together. At all. It attempts the quirky, deadpan style of Wes Anderson or Yorgos Lanthimos, but doesn't seem to understand how those guys can make it work. The cast, great as they are, don't seem to know what they're doing most of the time. Plaza does her best to be the film's emotional core, and Clement is genuinely quite funny, but Matt Berry is absolutely wasted in this movie, and Craig Robinson is just.... grunting. And that gets old. FAST. Above anything else, nothing feels like it means anything. The quirkiness is just there for the sake of it, it doesn't hide any real pathos, and isn't even especially funny. The frustrating thing is that there's flashes of brilliance, but they're just bogged down by so many, creaky, awkward, confused moments. Again, this is the kind of movie I should like, but it just didn't go anywhere particularly interesting. A love triangle with too many sides becomes a movie with too many issues, and it's a real shame.
8. The Happytime Murders
I suppose the biggest surprise here is that this movie isn't higher. And as a Muppet fanatic, I really should hate this. But the thing is, when you put so much effort into trying to shock and offend, you end up being toothless, and actually kind of sad. Wasted potential? Maybe, but was it ever gonna be good? Like, is anyone surprised that it sucks? The movie acts like it's so crass and so edgy, when all it's doing is just making puppets do "raunchy" things, and failing to understand how to make it actually funny. Putting puppets into adult situations isn't funny on its own. You need something else, but this film just doesn't do that. There's also this really weird, glum kind of cynicism to the whole thing. The film never has fun with itself, because that wouldn't be "gross" and "edgy", not understanding that The Muppets broke ground by being both sly and wholesome. And while anyone can watch The Muppets, this film doesn't seem to know who it's audience is. If you're curious about this one, just revisit The Muppets. They're actually funny, and unlike this movie, their stuff is never going to date. Just like it's cast, this film is mainly fluff, and is a lot softer than it wants to be
7. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
Why are we still making these? Was Jurassic Park actually supposed to be a series? It was good first time around, but 25 years and four movies later, we have this flabby, flaccid mess of a movie. We start with a rescue mission that's really hard to care about, and end with a dinosaur auction that's really hard to care about. I'm gonna list every reason I don't care about this, because I've got a few
1- The characters are so bland. Even from the start, none of them are interesting. None of them develop or change, or go beyond being hollow mannequins that don't do much more than give concerned looks over the horizon. The characters feel empty here, nobody had any personality, and as such, I really don't care about them
2- The plot is a mess. The transition between the volcano and the auction is limp and messy, and the way the film just introduces another genetic hybrid because "hey, people liked when we did that last time" is sloppy and lazy
3- The dinosaurs have no presence. Think about the first movie. The mix of CGI and practical effects gave them weight, and impact. They felt like they were there. And as good as the effects are, the dinosaurs, you know, the things we're supposed to really care about, just don't feel like they're actually in the movie. Especially the Indoraptor, the superbeast that drives the conflict of the third act. It's pretty embarrassing that they couldn't do something that was done perfectly 25 years before.
4- The villains suck. Big budget blockbusters are full of bland evil businessmen, and if you can't care about the source of conflict, then you're hardly gonna care about anything else in the plot. Toby Jones looks like he's having fun (I think?), and I actually had to remind myself that Rafe Spall was in this. Which about sums that up
There's definitely more that I hate about this movie, and I've got a lot more to say about this and nostalgia manipulation in general. Maybe some day I'll write a post about that, but for now, just appreciate the irony that this is a film about greedy sellouts exploiting dead things for financial gain
6. A Wrinkle in Time
Oh dear. I didn't want to hate it. Some movies suck because they're lazy, manipulative and hollow, but it's especially painful to watch a film with good intentions be an absolute trainwreck. Ava DuVernay is awesome, one of the most interesting filmmakers at the moment and hearing everything she wanted this film to be kind of makes me feel bad for hating it. But it's an honourable failure, nothing dishonest or malicious about it. And I suppose that's something to be admired, especially when everything is as messy as it is. The cast is talented but given nothing to do, and the film does the impossible: it makes Reese Witherspoon unlikable. The characters are poorly drawn, except for Meg, whose journey of self discovery is muddled and never feels earned. The sentimentality feels forced and stiff, and the film's over-reliance on CGI makes it feel even more artificial and shallow. And that's not what it should have been. I know what DuVernay was trying for, and she's definitely trying to say something important, but the film never quite makes it to where it needs to be. And maybe I'm the wrong target audience for this film, but as someone who loves when a film can show me the world from a different perspective, I was just let down by this. I hope it does find it's audience, and inspire someone, because I just did not like it at all. Sorry, Ava
5. Sierra Burgess is a Loser
Netflix made some great things this year. This film was not one of them. I'm going to be brief about this, because a film this redundant and shallow really deserves a write up that's redundant and shallow, but a film that romanticises catfishing and makes fun of the deaf is not a good film. Shannon Purser seems cool in real life, but plays probably the most unlikable character in a film this year, who I think we're supposed to like? Look, if you want to watch a good Netflix coming of age movie, watch To All the Boys I Loved Before. Because if you watch this movie, the real loser will be you
4. Winchester
Nothing is worse than a horror movie made by someone who doesn't understand horror. Horror isn't just about scares. It's an effective storytelling medium that uses the fear of the characters and danger of their situations to tell a story, and when it's at its best, it finds real emotion in their turmoil, or says something interesting about the world we live in. And maybe that's what a film about Sarah Winchester, the heiress to the gun company, should have been. An expression of guilt and remorse for all of those who died looking down the barrel of the weapons her family made. Alas, we got this. A boring slog of a film filled with cheap scares and forgettable story beats that takes Helen Mirren, of whom I am a big fan, and just kind of wastes her. YOU HAVE AN OSCAR WINNER IN YOUR MOVIE. USE. HER. But no, we get ghost jumpscares, and random, boring backstory, and bland visuals. Mirren looks like she's there for the cheque, the effects team must have been gone to lunch, and nothing is actually scary. I'm going to be completely honest with you too. I'm sitting here writing this, actually struggling to remember what happened in this film. Which isn't something I can say about any of the other movies on this list. It can't even be an interesting kind of bad. Even The Nun, which was also really freaking boring, wasn't this forgettable. At least I can remember what happened in that movie. But this? This is baaaaaaaaaaaad. Even if you're a Dame Helen Mirren completionist like myself, do yourself a favour and skip this
3. Overboard
I think it says a lot that the first of the two remakes on this list lands at number three. Did an Overboard remake need to happen? No. Does the plot of the original work in a modern context? Not really. Was the gender flipping unnecessary? Very much so. Overboard is the kind of movie that thinks it's being fresh and modern and subversive by taking an older movie and updating it. It seems to think that by flipping the script, it's breaking new ground. Which is actually kind of understandable. Romantic comedies are at a really interesting point. Because people are so genre savvy now, clichéd and dated romantic comedy tropes are dying out. People aren't as willing to settle for trash anymore. And that can result in some really great stuff, like Crazy Rich Asians, which makes the romantic comedy interesting by exploring a narrative that we don't see enough of. So I can see what they were trying to do by remaking Overboard. They were trying to take this story and apply it to now, pointing out everything that's a little bit dated, or strange. The problem is that, first of all, the story of Overboard just doesn't work in 2018. And by trying to point out how creepy and dated the whole idea is, it becomes pretty creepy and dated. And that could be ignored if the leads had chemistry, but they don't. They're hollow, and unlikable, and they don't gel together on screen. And in trying to be subversive, the film fails to answer its own question: "can a relationship built on lies work?" And while the film suggests it can, it never quite explains why, so all the genre savviness and subversion just falls through, with no chemistry or charm to fall back on. If you're going to watch any version of this story, go with the 1987 movie. It actually makes it work, where this remake just goes.....
*puts on sunglasses*
Overboard
2. The Cloverfield Paradox
*takes sunglasses off*
Some films are just inexplicably awful. Awful to a mind boggling degree, to the point that they forge their own kind of terrible brilliance. This is one such movie, one that dives so deeply into its own batshit crazy logic that it's just irresistibly bad. I mean, it's really lazy, and the plot is pretty dull, but the stiffness of the actors, and how seriously they take this ridiculous story, makes it a masterpiece of awfulness. Something that actually happens in this movie is that the earth goes missing, and Chris O'Dowd's severed arm finds it. Chris O'Dowd's severed arm finds the earth. Chris O'Dowd's severed arm. Finds. THE. EARTH. This actually happens. From there, it's mind bogglingly bad, with laughably awful dialogue, and things that happen because.... they just.... do.....? And everything in this movie is taken 100% seriously, too. Which makes it even more enjoyably shit. When bad things happen, it's done in a way that's so over the top "ohnoit'sabadthing", and that makes everything all the more silly. Is it so bad it's good? Not quite, but it's so staggeringly awful, that it's kind of fun to watch. But because that definitely wasn't the intention, that's not really a good thing, either. Can Chris O'Dowd's severed arm find me a better film?
1. Death Wish
If you had told me at the start of the year that my least favourite film would have been an Eli Roth remake of Death Wish starring Bruce Willis, I wouldn't have doubted you. If you had told me that it was somehow, somehow, worse than that description makes it seem, I probably wouldn't have believed that. But alas, it's actually worse than it sounds. I've always hated Eli Roth's bizarre fascination with gore and violence. Not that I'm squeamish or anything, but it's just so tasteless. And weirdly, this film, a remake of Death Wish, is too violent. See, violence on screen goes deeper than just content. A filmmaker can put anything on screen if they know what they're doing. It's all in the handling, and Roth's weird sadism and hollow gore just gets tiring after a while. Not to mention this film's perspective on its hero. It thinks it's discussing vigilantism, violence and the lengths we go to pursue justice, but it's just showing us Bruce Willis killing people, and the half heartedly saying "but he's doing it for his family, so it can't be wrong!". Everything in this movie rubs me the wrong way. That scene in the gun shop is just unbearable, completely missing the style and slickness of what it was going for an ending up as a cynical and grim celebration of violence that just feels wrong. Violence on its own isn't cool. Good filmmakers can take violent ideas and shape them into something fantastic. This film doesn't do that. It thinks that putting random bloodshed on-screen, it automatically becomes badass. It doesn't. It just becomes sad. This film is truly awful, and I'm trying to pretend I've never saw it
No comments:
Post a Comment