There will be some spoilers regarding each of these films,
but because this is a ‘Worst of’ list, I’m not even going to bother warning you
folks because I do not recommend any of these movies whatsoever. This is Part
1, which will cover #10-5. I don’t have any ‘Dishonorable Mentions’ this time
so we’ll just get started with Number 10. At this spot is a film that quite
honestly isn’t as bad as some of the other films on this list. There’s just one
thing about it that really pisses me off about it, which is more related to the
move the studio made before it was originally supposed to be released last year
than something in the actual movie itself.
10. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
‘Retaliation’ is the sequel to 2009’s ‘Rise of Cobra’, a
film that received pretty negative reviews from both critics and audiences… but
looking back, I’ll admit that I did like it. Sure, it’s stupid, has some
terrible special effects, and probably has little to do with the actual G.I.
Joe franchise (being someone who didn’t really grew up with it, I couldn’t
tell). But in the end, it was a fun little popcorn flick; nothing more, nothing
less but in the case of this movie, there was some anticipation and hope that
this would be better than the previous film. In a way, it pretty much is; it’s
not as over-the-top as the last film, has better effects, and has some great
action scenes (although the first fight between Roadblock and Firefly has some
extremely poor editing). Dwayne Johnson does a good job in the lead role of
Roadblock along with a few other members of the cast. However, it still gets
pretty nonsensical at times (the revival of the character Storm Shadow is never
really explained after his apparent death in ‘Rise of Cobra’), some of the
characters get little to no character development, and the villains aren’t that
threatening (Cobra Commander just stands around acting all menacing). This film
may feature Bruce Willis in the role of the original G.I. Joe, Joe Colton, but
it’s an extremely minor role that could have been given to any actor without making
any difference (and as you’ll see in Part 2, Willis did not have a good year).
But those aren’t my main problems with the film. My big
problem is actually the film’s marketing campaign, which pulled off one of the
biggest bullshit marketing ploys that I have ever seen. The story goes like
this; although Channing Tatum was set to reprise his role of Duke from the last
movie, the first trailer for the film (released when it was still set to come
out in June 2012) suggested that his character would be killed off early on.
After all, the film seemed like it would be focusing on a new cast of
characters, seeing how most of the cast from the last movie did not return.
Well, after that, the film’s release was delayed to March 2013. The official reason
was so that Paramount could apparently convert the film to 3-D, but other
reports stated that there would be reshoots so that Tatum would have more
screen-time, pretty much confirming that he was going to be killed off. The
marketing even began to include him in the advertising; something that really wasn’t
being done in the initial marketing before the delay, at least not to the
extent of what they did after it. Well, in the end, I’m not sure if they even
did any reshoots because Duke is killed off only ten minutes or so into the
movie. Maybe they did, but I wouldn’t know.
Not only does this mean that Paramount might have just
wasted nine months just to convert the film to crappy post-converted 3-D (mind
you, I didn’t see the film in ‘3-D’ but let’s be honest, that kind of 3-D
usually sucks), but I actually think killing Duke off was the wrong idea. For
one thing, I have to give Tatum credit because he was doing a better job here
than in the last movie. His camaraderie with Johnson was terrific, which I
think the film lost when he was killed off. In his place is a generic
good-looking white guy named Flint, who lacks Tatum’s charisma. Also, his death
itself is rather unfitting for the guy who was the main character in the last
film. All that happens is he’s next to a truck that explodes and that’s it;
he’s dead. When they pull the tags off of his body, it’s so obviously a stunt
double. I mean, I’m guessing Tatum must have been busy on another project (I
can’t blame him; he’s doing much better films than this one) so he couldn’t be
as involved with this one as much, but come on couldn’t they have given him a
much more dignified death?
Again, I don’t think this is the worst film of the year (as
you’ll see, the next 9 films are much worse) but in the end, I feel that
Paramount was lying to us when they promised that Tatum would be playing a
bigger role in the film.
At number 9 is the film that somehow became a cult
phenomenon ever since it debuted on the SyFy channel back in July (and it was
released in theaters for a limited time, so it counts). It became so popular that
a sequel is now in production. But really, when you look at it, this movie is
just not that good; even with its completely ridiculous premise.
9. Sharknado
Yeah, the title says it all, doesn’t it? It’s a movie about
a tornado that picks up sharks from the ocean that ravages the city of Los
Angeles… what do you expect? The tagline for this movie, ‘Enough said!’ pretty
much sums this movie up in a nutshell. So, on a whole, the movie’s just stupid.
It has a stupid premise and there are multiple moments that defy all sorts of
logic and physics. For example, in order to stop the ‘sharknado’, the main
characters decide to drop bombs into it. I’m no science expert, but I’m pretty
sure that you can’t do that. On top of that, the acting is bad and the effects
are terrible, but then again what else would you expect from ‘The Asylum’, a
company that has produced multiple direct-to-video films in order to cash in on
major blockbusters (like ‘Transmorphers’ at the time that ‘Transformers’ was
released). But despite all of that, this movie ends up being one of those ‘so
bad it’s good’ movies that is perfect for a Rifftrax or something along the
lines of that. Something that particularly cracks me up in this movie is how
the main character Fin is apparently Superman. What do I mean by that? Well, he
does the following things in the movie; he shoots down a shark that is
thousands of feet above him with only one shot from a pistol, cuts another
shark somewhat cleanly in half with a chainsaw, and jumps into another shark’s
mouth with the chainsaw and manages to not only not get eaten, but manages to
cut his way out along with another one of the main characters who coincidentally
was just ‘eaten’ by the same shark. Damn! So, in short, this is one of those
movies that must be seen to be believed… but don’t get me wrong it’s still a
bad movie nevertheless.
I’m just going to come out and say it; 2013 was the worst
year of comedies that I have ever seen. How bad of a year was it for the genre?
There will be 5 comedies on this list. I can only think of two comedies this
year that were actually really good. One of them might just earn a spot on my ‘Best
of’ list if partially out of pity for being in such a crappy year for the genre.
Starting this set of ‘comedies’ off at number 8 is a sequel to a film that I’ll
admit that I did like, but I question why it was necessary to make a sequel to
this film, especially when the sequel… sucks.
8. Grown-Ups 2
I’m just going to go on record saying that I am a fan of
Adam Sandler. Sure, not all of his movies have been that good but some of his
earlier films are comedy classics (‘Happy Gilmore’, ‘Billy Madison’, ‘The
Waterboy’, etc…). His track record has been less than stellar in the last few
years (2011’s ‘Jack and Jill’, need I say more?) but he’s still made some
entertaining films, like ‘Click’, ‘You Don’t Mess with the Zohan’, and of
course, 2010’s ‘Grown-Ups’; yes, I did like the film. Sure, it had absolutely
no plot whatsoever but on a whole, it was still pretty funny. Sandler and his
pals clearly have great camaraderie, and it at least seemed like the cast was
having fun making it. But why in the world was it necessary for them to make a
sequel? Like I said, the first film had no plot so why even bother… especially
when in the end, this film pales in comparison to its predecessor. I mean this
one just looked bad going in.
While the first film may not have had much of a plot, it at
least gave a reason as to why the events in the film were happening; the main
characters were reuniting with each other after their Basketball coach died. This
movie doesn’t have that… it’s just a day in the lives of these characters with
a whole bunch of random things happening lacking any sense of a cohesive narrative
structure. Sure, the camaraderie between Sandler and his buddies is still
there, but the humor isn’t. I mean, to be honest, most of Sandler’s humor is
fairly juvenile but here it’s at its worst. There were hardly any moments where
I laughed at what was happening on screen. The only thing in the whole movie
that had me laughing was Shaq, who plays a cop here. All in all, ‘Grown Ups 2’
is the second out of three of the last films Sandler’s made that I’ve seen that
have been terrible (no I have not seen ‘That’s My Boy’ because considering the
reception I’ve heard towards it, I don’t even want to bother with it). But, in
the end, the four other comedies on this list are far, far worse.
What do you get when you take a director whose career has
been in decline for the last few years, one of the most charming actors in
Hollywood, and his untested son and put them all together to make a sci-fi
film? You get… this…
7. After Earth
You really have to feel bad for M. Night Shyamalan, and I
mean that. Here’s a director who, early in his career, was a force to be
reckoned with after making hit films like ‘The Sixth Sense’ and ‘Unbreakable’.
But then, starting in 2004, everything changed and his films ended up getting
worse and worse; ‘The Village’, ‘Lady in the Water’, ‘The Happening’, and worst
of all, ‘The Last Airbender’. So at this point, it seemed like there was
nowhere for Shyamalan’s career to go but up… but in the end, his latest film,
‘After Earth’, once again slows down his once-promising career. You also have
to feel bad for star Will Smith. He’s one of the most charismatic actors
working today and yet unfortunately his reputation will most likely be
tarnished with this film, one that he was actively involved with having
developed the story. Oh, how the mighty can fall.
The main problem with this film is that it’s just plain
boring. It has a generic plot that’s pretty much ‘go from Point A to Point B’,
resulting in a lack of tension and suspense because we know what’s going to
happen. It’s also a bad thing when the extremely charismatic Will Smith is
stuck in the bland, unemotional role of Cypher Raige, which also sidelines him
for the majority of the film because his character gets injured, leaving his
son Kitai (played by Smith’s real-life son, Jaden) to do all of his work. Jaden
Smith’s performance has been widely criticized and while I’m not as critical on
him as everyone else is, he just wasn’t ready for a lead role of this magnitude
yet. I think he did a great job in ‘The Karate Kid’, but that’s because he had
a great performance from Jackie Chan to work off of. Here, he may be working
alongside his father, but it doesn’t have the same effect. Will’s character
lacks his charisma and doesn’t get anything to do over the course of the film.
Basically, what I’m trying to say is that both of them were miscast and with
this film, Shyamalan’s career is still stuck in the gutter. Basically, a bad
career move for all involved.
At number 6 is a film that does have a rather noteworthy
premise. Too bad it’s ruined by the writing. What else should you expect from
the author of ‘Twilight’?
6. The Host
The thing about ‘The Host’ is that it does have an appealing
premise to work off of; alien parasites known as ‘souls’ invade Earth and take
over the bodies of the humans. However, when one of the Souls is transferred to
a girl named Melanie, her consciousness manages to resist the control of the
Soul that is now in her body. Sounds interesting, right? How this could possibly
go wrong? Well it can, seeing how this is based off of the book of the same
name by Stephanie Meyer, the author of the ‘Twilight’ books. If you’ve seen the
‘Twilight’ films, you know what to expect to see in this film; a hokey/bland
love triangle and moments/lines that are supposed to be serious, but in the end
they just come off as hilarious; there’s a line in here between the female lead
and one of the male leads where she tells him, ‘kiss me like you want to get
slapped’. I’m not kidding; that’s actually one of the lines in this film. I’m
sorry, but Stephanie Meyer is a terrible writer.
But that’s not the worst thing about this film. Its biggest
sin is that it is ungodly boring. This movie is about a little over 2 hours,
and most of it takes place in a cave where the remaining humans who haven’t
been taken over by the Souls are taking shelter, with little to no action
whatsoever over the remaining course of the film and for the record, that’s about
75% of it. There was like one action scene before that and that’s about it.
Sure, Saoirse Ronan does a really good job in the lead role, especially
considering that she’s basically playing two different characters at the same
time, but as a whole, the movie is just too long which is not good when nothing
at all happens in it. I’m just perplexed as to why Andrew Niccol (the director
of ‘Gattaca’ and writer of ‘The Truman Show’) was picked to helm this film and
to also write the screenplay as well. Talk about a film to ruin your career
with.
Check back tomorrow for Part 2, where we’ll delve into the
Top 5 worst films of 2013.
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