The 15 Worst Films of 2013
I hope you brought eye protection because there will be a lot of bile flying around on this one.
I know I was only supposed to do the worst 10 to match my best 10 from last post but honestly the field was so thick with candidates I didn’t think I could limit myself. Remember writing these posts is more for my benefit than anyone else and after most of last year I have a lot of pent up movie frustration to expunge in a literary orgy of tortured metaphors, run on sentences, and analogies to horrible sexual, scatological, and blasphemous images.
Once again I can only list the films I saw. I’m sure there are plenty out there that make these films look cinematographic masterpieces rather than the pond scum that they are but I don’t have the time or inclination to seek them out. I will also say that while most of these movies truly do suck they serve some function if only to give us perspective. Without these 15 films to set the bar low enough to trip a wiener dog the worst film last year would have been Parker or Stand Up Guys. The scripts of those films should have been used as radiation shielding at Fukushima but it did have a few watch-worthy moments and if you were passed out in front of your TV the subliminal suckage your subconscious mind absorbed would not have been TOO damaging. There’s always a low man on the totem pole and if you can’t identify him it’s probably you.
15. G.I. Joe Retaliation. Imagine if you will a reproductive artist creates the ultimate sculpture of a giant pile of poo. It is flawless in every detail, with just the right proportion of corn to excrement and moisture glistening in the carefully positioned lighting in way guaranteed to bring a tear to the eye of any coprophile. Literally a polished turd so perfect and flawless you can almost smell it. Well, that is pretty much what G.I. Joe Retaliation was; a perfect, flawless representation of the sewage outflow of Hollywood action movies. Well executed, but at the end of the day it’s still based on s&$&.
14. Jack the Giant Slayer. Some films take classic literature and tell a cool story with neat twists that makes you appreciate the classic tale with a warm satisfied sense of childhood nostalgia. Others take the stories and molest them in ways no amount of therapy or drinking will ever blot from your memory. This is definitely the latter type. I have a problem with great literature being beaten into a shape that appeals to the brain softening “creative” people of certain companies who’s name may or man not rhyme with “fisney”. This movie would worth your time if you feel the need to see Ian McShane in his douchiest role ever (until they cast him as Douchy McDouchalot, the lead singer of the Douchetones). Normally a crappy period piece at least has some redemption available in the costumes but outfits in this film would embarrass a troupe of transvestite circus clowns.
13. 21 & Over. This one ended up at 13 but to be honest it could have ended anywhere. I know I watched it. I know I wrote 1,343 words about the experience. I think there was an Asian guy and two naked white guys in it. However, except for those details I can’t for the life of me recall this film. I had to read my own review in detail in order to even consider it. Now, I wouldn’t call myself an expert on film theory or legitimate film criticism but it seems to me a movie that is so forgettable that I can’t remember a single scene from it six months later just might be a bad one. I’m just saying. Anyway, it’s foggy nature puts it in the relatively harmless position of number 13, but if I were actually able to recall it odds are it would have ended up lower.
12. Spring Breakers. I’m now at the point that I reach every year while writing this where I want to make every film left the number one worst movie. The funny thing is I don’t have such a hard time with the best films. I will give this film some credit for at least attempting something out of the box and having some white trash nudity, but realistically this film was a laughable joke that wasn’t actually funny. However if you are into scenes being repeated ad nauseam and chicks in bikinis dancing in slow motion while some frat boy squirts water all over them then this or the latest Girls Gone Wild is the film for you.
11. A Good Day to Die Hard. This film may very well show up again when it comes time to hand out the special awards (cough cough Franchise Killer of the Year cough cough). Hollywood in many ways is resembling a vampire stuck forever in an old mausoleum, breaking open caskets to suck on the dry bones of past films in the desperate attempt to find the slightest hint of moisture and blood remaining. John McClane was a staple of my youth. This film is a staple in my taco. This is why if you are going to do a sequel to a classic it is worth talking to the director of the classic if only so he can tell you what you are doing to the series it tantamount to a body cavity search. Or at least watch the original.
10. After Earth. Sci fi movies should never be done by people who aren’t actually sci fi fans. I mean, you wouldn’t go see your lawyer to have your gall bladder removed, would you? Similarly you wouldn’t go to a science fiction movie to unwittingly learn about a religion popular among celebrities invented by a writer if some mediocre sci fi novels that involves the spirits of dead aliens would you? I see this movie as evidence that Will Smith grossly overestimates his and his families star power. The thought process seems to be “Sure, we can write a boring script filled with plot holes, bad science, weird ideology, and have it star my box office unproven son while I yell at him over a radio and it will be successful because I AM A CINEMA GOD!” Well I guess you are not. Also this film has pretty put the final nail in the coffin of my admiration of M. Night Shyamalan (which started dying as the final credits for Unbreakable began to roll).
9. Machete Kills. This film was supposed to be a spoof on bad film making but it seems to have forgotten the spoof part. The first Machete was a fun spoof. This is just all the pain of a bad film with none of the humor. I mean, all the potential good of this very concept had already been milked dry in the first one, leaving us with the corpse to watch decay for two hours. Also someone grab Robert Rodriguez and tell him a crappy joke doesn’t get funnier when you redo it 4-5 times.
8. R.I.P.D. Now I’m at the point where I have to decide which movies would literally cause me less pain to watch a second time and of the eight remaining films on my list this one is only a modest beating. Honestly this film is more boring than painful (although it is also painful) so I guess if I needed a massive dose of Ambien and couldn’t find a street dealer it would work in a pinch. Also if the last thing on your bucket list is to see Rooster Cogburn join the Ghostbusters this would let you die in peace. However it is in all ways awful and deserves to be buried in a shallow grave outside of Kettleman City California.
7. The Counselor. Can’t I just take this and the next six films and call them all the worst films of 2013? Ridley Scott, what happened to you? Honestly this film sounds like the opening scene to a Ridley Scott remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers wherein an acclaimed director comes out with a dull, convoluted, and pointless film much to the confoundment of his fans and a humble reviewer of a very minor blog is compelled to investigate, discovering the current Ridley Scott to have been grown in a pod in his garden and the real Ridley Scott is now Soylent Green. I wasn’t looking for another Aliens necessarily but at the same time I didn’t expect to see the Heaven’s Gate of the 21st century.
6. Hansel & Gretal. This and the next five films collectively could be considered a crime against humanity if shown back to back so the actual order is really kind of irrelevant. The reasons this film is number 6 rather than 3 or 2 is because there was one really, really excellent nude scene and because while the movie sucked like 10,000 Romora eels at least I liked the concept. Kind of a Brothers Grimm version of Vampire$ (the book not the movie. Thinking of the Vampire$ movie just made me throw up a little in my mouth. Thanks a lot, Hansel & Gretel). Also I find it amusing that Jeremy Renner is now a big star but had this stinker back in his closet and the studio opted to capitalize on his recent fame by embarrassing the crap out of him. BTW in answer to the question that I know is burning through her mind yes Gemma Arterton I will marry you in spite of your participation in subjecting me to this monstrosity. In fact it seems the least you can do.
5. A Big Wedding. A big failure, really. We are really scraping the bottom of the barrel (and yet, I still have four movies to talk about). This has everything I hate about assemblage story telling along with all of the assorted stories being ass too. This film is like cutting up 14 of the worst episodes of Threes Company and randomly sewing them together like the Movie Centipede. The reasons why it is number 5 and not number 1 is first off like Hansuck & Regretal it had the most pleasantly surprising nude scene ever (it was like being force to grind up broken glass by chewing on it only to find one of glass fragments you just destroyed your mouth with was actually a decent diamond) and for the fact that this is the only film in my top 5 that did not sully the world of nerd interests. It was not sci fi, supernatural, or interesting.
4. Getaway. I guess pointless, convoluted, plot hole infested stories is a thing for me as 3 of my 15 could accurately be described as such. This one takes it to a new level. I’m not sure what brain parasite ate into Ethan Hawke in order to make him think this script was worth doing but he should get a brain flush immediately (also known as firing his agent). Also, I guess every year I need to have one star end up twice on this list. Last year it was Ryan Reynolds (who only appears once here, a 50% improvement! Well done Ryan) and this year it is Selena Gomez. I honestly don’t hate her as an actor but she is drawn to bad films like a baby seal to the business end of a club and in this one she felt as natural and unforced as Tom Servo, Crow, and Joel do in any episode of MST3K (with the exception that I would have been very glad to see the Satellite of Love crew in this bomb). Also if you are going to force in some eye candy can you have her wear something other than a hoodie?
3. Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters. Ha ha ha. There are days when I really love doing this, and when handed teenie bopper tripe like this and the next two films (you might see a pattern in my bottom three films) I start to salivate like Jason Voorhees stumbling across a college cheerleader camp (Friday the 13th image from the Horror Movie T Shirt category BTW). It is saying a lot when I tell you that this movie was actually worse than Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. I think Hollywood is perplexed as to why all their attempts to ignite a new vampire-ish teenage franchise keeps falling on it’s face like a drunk with a broken beer bottle stuck in the back of it’s head but I think I have an answer. This stems from my experience in the skateboard market. You see until the last cycle skateboarding tended to follow a 7 year cycle where a bunch of kids would get into it for a time making it the biggest thing out there only to have most of them realize that skateboarding is hard, dangerous, and hurts (the last cycle was extended by one thing: Tony Hawk Pro Skater. It’s way easier to dress like a skateboarder and play a video game about it than actually get on a board). It troughs out until the next group of testosterone rediscovers it. I think all the morons who fell for Twilight have had their fill and all the younger kids who would be those morons are so turned off by the first group that they refuse to get into it. I’d say Hollywoods best bet would be to let the sparkly vampire genre lie fallow for another 6-7 years and try again. Meanwhile let the Hunger Games have it’s day. Really, though, there can be only one.
2. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. See everything I just said about Percy Jackson and then multiply that times some of the most odious characters since Divine from Pink Flamingos. While Percy Jackson gets a bit of applause for the effort behind it, this film I would happily see get run over by a combine. Also, with a $60 million budget you would think they could do fake tattoos that didn’t look like a high school kid doodling on his arm with a Marks-a-lot. The entire cast should be wedgied daily, with the blond main kid getting a covered wagon. In my review I gave a list of reasons why this film sucks that resembles the invite list of the worlds biggest wedding. I know most of Hollywood is either completely brain damaged or thinks we the audience are but is a decent story and some direction so hard to accomplish? It’s not like there aren’t examples of what a good movie should be. Next time rent a couple of Scorsese films and when it comes time to make your film do what he does.
1. The Host. You don’t have to be Nostradamus to have predicted that this film would be my number one. It’s the perfect storm as far as I’m concerned: a story style I hate written by an author I have contempt for for an audience I despise in a genre I love. For me she is like Cruella Deville except instead of making her fur coat out of her own Dalmatians she came to my house, skinned my puppy alive in front of me, and sewed it into her jacket still bleeding. Fortunately I was able to let the air out of her movie by illustrating in graphic detail exactly how much it sucked. If this film were placed in a time capsule and opened in 5,000 years by Doctor Who he would probably come back here and give the Daleks a detailed map of how to get to Earth. Awful in every regard unless you are really turned on by cute but bland chicks (where else have we seen that formula used…?).
So that’s my list. Do I feel better now that I have dumped on these cinema surgical remnants? Yes. Yes I do. Have I made the world a better place because of all the reviews I did last year? Well, since I’m sure no one in Hollywood would ever deign to read my blog or ever take any of my criticism to heart in one sense no, not at all. On the other hand if even one of you, my beloved readers, opted to see a great film or avoid an eye raping thanks to what I have written over this last year then yes I believe I have. So my special awards are still to come up and I have a big backlog of new movies to see (I was in LA this last weekend and didn’t get to see anything) so look for more reviews coming up soon. If you have any comments on this list or these movies feel free to post them here and if you have any off topic questions or suggestions email me at [email protected]. Thanks and have a great week.
Dave
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