Posted January 11, 2016

Sigh.  Another year...and yet another smorgasbord of depressingly awful films screened.

Even though it's a soul-sucking experience to have countless hours of one’s life wasted in a darkened cinema watching so many putrid films every year, I really dig writing these Worst Films blogs.  I really do.  They effectively allow me to exorcise my moviegoing demons that have stayed with me during any given year, not to mention that they further allow me to participate in a public service to inform you all of films that you should probably avoid at all costs.  Movies are an art form, sure, but they're also a corporate business, and most of these films mentioned pathetically seem to be either lazily cashing in on overused genre trends…or are just feebly trying to make a quick buck by nonsensically throwing just about anything on the screen and hoping it sticks.

I think that the ten worst reasons to enter a cinema in the year that was reflects many damning trends…and a few new frustrating ones.  Erotic-less erotic thrillers (three) made the cut, as did an overproduced sci-fi action thriller that had no business being as awful as it was considering the talent on board.  Lame and uninspired buddy comedies, as per usually, makes another appearance here, as does an egregiously misguided video game to movie adaptation.  Then we have the obligatory comedy sequel to a film that never required a sequel, followed by an even worse remake of an iconic comedy classic.  Lastly, we have arguably two of the most head-shakingly wrongheaded films of 2015 in terms of approach and execution.  One is a super hero reboot and the other is inexplicably directed by Cameron Crowe, but they both just as well could have been helmed by Ed Wood Jr..

I can’t see a reason to further elaborate on my wall-of-shame selections below.  Let the cold-hearted critical drubbing begin.  Here are the TEN WORST FILMS of 2015, followed by two dishonorable mentions lists.   

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY

In order for a film to receive a dreaded zero star rating from me it has to do one of the following: (a) It has to be artistically bankrupted in most respects and/or (b) I have to find the film’s inherent material morally reprehensible. 

I’m pretty sure that FIFTY SHADES OF GREY was a rare double threat offender in this regard. 

HOT PURSUIT was as cringe worthy of a film to endure as just about any during 2015.  It was one of those paper thin and dime-a-dozen buddy comedies that inspired more gag reflexes than laughter in audiences.  The fact that it starred Reese Witherspoon – hot off of her Oscar nomination for WILD – made the film all the more shameful. 

Remember a time many years ago when the name Cameron Crowe attached to any film inspired limitless confidence in viewers? 

Oy vey.  Another FATAL ATTRACTION-esque, fill-in-the-blank-from-hell thriller.  In this fill-in-the-blank-from-hell case the film concerns a psychotic high school boy that begins an illicit sexual fling with his mid-fortysomething teacher that turns into a lethally dangerous relationship.  

Yeah.  I hated THE BOY NEXT DOOR.  It was terrible and silly.

Next.

Oh boy.  Another year and yet another pathetically awful video game to film adaptation that was not even really trying hard to be good at all. 

Also, note to Hollywood: When attempting to reboot an already lackluster first entry, don’t hire the same screenwriter that worked on that film to pen the new one.  Sheesh. 

ERMAHGERD!  Yet another erotic thriller makes the list, this time of the murder mystery variety.  No kinky FIFTY SHADES OF GREY sexcapades here. 

Remember the hilarious and endearing Chevy Chase starring, Harold Ramis directed, and John Hughes scripted 1983 original?  

But of course you do, and that film was precisely what I was both thinking about and yearning for all throughout watching this dreary, unfunny, crass, vulgar, and genuinely shameless cinematic reboot.  Now, the original VACATION film could hardly be described as a family film (for its time, it certainly earned its R rating,).  Yet, the characters of that film felt tangible and their family came off like a genuine family, so much so that it left you nostalgic for your own memories - painful or enjoyable - of your own treks down the holiday road with mother, father, and siblings in tow.  The family that occupies this new iteration never once - not for a solitary moment - felt as endearingly sweet and dysfunctional as the original Griswalds.  More disconcerting with this new film was the fact that the makers felt that upping the ante on puerile bathroom and bodily function humor was somehow progressive minded.  Ed Helms and Christina Applegate are talented comedians and were well cast here, but the script they were forced to trudge through should have been thrown in a raw sewage lake to rot.  Ironically, the characters of this film actually find themselves in a raw sewage lake, thinking its fecal matter is actually purifying mud.  

To be fair, I greatly enjoyed the first HOT TUB TIME MACHINE because of its willingness to fully embrace the sheer silliness of its inherent premise – men go back in time via, yes, a hot tub time machine to re-live their glory days as teenagers during the 1980’s – not to mention that it was grounded in nostalgia for an era that I grew up in.  There was a wink-wink level of self-deprecating humor to the film that was hard to dislike. 

You just know that you’re in deep trouble when an elaborately expensive sci-fi film contains the line of dialogue, “Bees are genetically designed to recognize royalty.” 

Ouch. 

JUPITER ASCENDING just may be one of the best looking awful movies that I’ve seen in many a moon.  It was a would be enthralling and involving sci-fi saga from the Wachowski siblings, the same pair that, yes, bestowed THE MATRIX to us all those years ago.  The problem with this film was not with its conceptual design and visual effects (which were uniformly stellar and evocative); no, the real issue with JUPITER ASCENDING was that its plot was borderline incoherent and left me scratching my head out of self-loathing confusion.  Even when characters in the film talked and talked…and talked…in an effort to explain the convoluted web of plot particulars, the film still remained a distant and aloof mystery to me.  By the time Channing Tatum showed up as a – not making this up – intergalactic and genetically engineered half wolf/half man hero to save the day…even the sheer laughable preposterousness of his character didn’t elicit enough unintentional laughter in me to sustain my interest in JUPITER ASCENDING.   

There has never – and I do mean never ­– been a more woefully mismanaged super hero film than FANTASTIC FOUR.  It was simply one of the most joyless, dull, and foolishly envisioned big budget adaptations of a comic book series that’s been placed on screen.  I’ve rarely seen such a botched opportunity to do justice to a super hero movie property, but FANTASTIC FOUR astoundingly and shockingly was a Thing-sized trainwreck on multiple levels. 

CrAiGeR's MISSED OPPORTUNITIES of 2015