You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting
Every year I pay the price (literally and figuratively) for my love of movies. Sometimes I watch such crap (much of it knowing it will be crap) that I walk out of the theatre wanting to reevaluate my "I will watch anything"
position. Then I see a poster for the new Jason Statham movie and I think "this is going to be terrible...I must see it" and the feeling goes away.
Moviemaking is a terrific medium that transports you to
wonderful worlds and introduces you to compelling characters. It's a great art form but I believe to truly enjoy the highs, you must endure the lows. In 2013 there were many. Here are the worst movies of 2013 from the just terrible to the most shi**y.
#10: G.I. Joe Retaliation
Channing Tatum gets off easy by dying in the first 10 minutes of this sloppy sequel which brings The Rock in to 'save" the franchise. From
a dollars stance point it worked but from a creative perspective, it most certainly did not. The problem with the first G.I. Joe was the story. The filmmakers felt differently and the story in Joe 2 is even stupider. The Rock is given little
to do given his prominence in the film's poster and is phoning in his performance when he is on screen. Bruce Willis shows up looking bored and frankly old, putting the same energy that he did in the last Die Hard sequel. There is one excellent
action sequence that is so good it feels out of place but it last 10 minutes. Unfortunately for me I had to sit through the remaining 80 and against my better judgment, I was sober. Fool me once...
#9: Oblivion
You know a movie is predictable when I can guess the entire plot of a movie before it begins. I'm proud (ish...?) to say I did so with Oblivion and I have many a people who can vouch for me. That
means I was waiting the entire running time of Oblivion to be proven correct (cough *clones* cough), hoping against hope that maybe the film would some originality; no such luck. Add to this the spotty nature of the CGI and I felt like I was watching the Sy-Fy
Saturday night movie only a couple quality notches above Sharknado. Hell, flying fish would have actually surprised me so it would've been a nice addition. Tom Cruise deserves better and so do we
#8 Oldboy
I'm not one of those movie snobs that say movie should never by remade. In my mind, the original is always out there (these days preserved in beautiful HD) so a bad remake is a nuisance at best.
I came into this year's Oldboy remake ready to be entertained and leaving my memory of the original at the door. I did expect however some originality with the story and characters. What I got instead was a badly directed hatchet job that took
everything unique and special about the first one and regurgitated it on screen like cinematic throw up with no specific order or purpose. Josh Brolin as the titular Oldboy is miscast, overacting to the point of comedy. Toning that down is the job of
the director and Spike Lee fails miserably. He doesn't add anything new to the story and also manages to massacre one of my favorite action sequences ever (if you've seen the original you know it involves a hammer and a lot of dead bad guys). When
a movie makes you walk out appreciating Michael Bay's directing, you know there's something not quite right.
#7: Grown Ups 2
Put 4 talented comedians who are individually
very funny together in one movie and what do you get? Horse manure apparently and this unfortunate cinematic proof resulted in the original Grown Ups in 2010. But it made so much money for Adam Sandler (who produced it and had his highest grossing
world wide box-office hit to date) that he bought his co stars all cars and said "let's do another one." I didn't expect much when I walked in so in a way I was not disappointed, but even for a sequel this movie is a sloppily edited and written mess
with very little laughs. Adam Sandler comedic formula (half a dozen funny ideas mixed into a 2 hour movie with half a dozen funny people who are given way too much room to improv) is not working anymore and even he seems bored by it. The cast is
likeable and they look to be having fun but at our expense. The only joke in Grown Ups 2 is on us.
#6 The Great Gatsby
Of all the movies on my Top Worst List, The Great Gatsby commits the biggest movie sin: it's boring. Not just
a little dull but soooooooo boring. In my review earlier this year I dissected the film arguing that its story is outdated and does not resonate anymore. I still believe this but I also want to propose the theory that director Baz Luhrmann knew all that
going in. He knew a book written 80 years ago with a weak female "protagonist" and a cipher of a narrator was the opposite of timeless. He took on the movie as a challenge to make such a boring piece of work into a lively spectacle. HIs directing
style, best described as a flamboyant acid trip with elaborate costumes, looks to infuse anything it touches with an energy not necessarily inherent in its subject matter. The fact that it doesn't work in The Great Gatsby even with Leo DiCaprio and a
mostly talented supporting cast (I'm looking at you Toby Maguire) proves just how boring the plot is. It's an interesting attempt but one that falls flat leaving me bored silly and 12 dollars poorer in the process.