Another year has come and gone and you know what that means.
That’s right, it’s time to look back upon all of the films that have come out
in 2014. It’s when we both honor the best films of the year and cleanse
ourselves from the worst of the year. Of course, because of the typically
cynical nature of the internet (don’t deny it, it’s true), we’ll be starting
things off with my picks for the worst films of the year because let’s be
honest those lists are far more popular than the ‘best of’ lists. If you
remember, my list last year mainly consisted of comedies, showcasing what was
easily the worst year ever for the comedy film genre. This year, thankfully,
the list is a little more varied in terms of film genres with only one actual ‘comedy’
making the list. But of course, we are still talking about the ‘worst films of
the year’ and while many others will no doubt be putting films like
‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’, ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’, or even ‘The
Amazing Spider-Man 2’ on their list, those films won’t be appearing on this
list… and don’t try and give me crap for liking these films, either. Instead, I
give you what are my personal picks for the Top 10 worst of 2014. Now normally
when it comes to these year-end Top 10’s, I usually talk about a lot of key
points from all of the films I list but of course because this is the ‘worst
of’ list, I’m not even going to bother with a Spoiler Warning. So let’s not
waste any time and dive into my picks for the absolute worst films of 2014.
When it comes to the films that I see every year, I tend to
stay away from the so-called ‘worst’ of the year, only watching them after they
left theaters so that I don’t have to pay a full-price ticket to watch them.
Admittedly, I also don’t see a lot of ‘bad’ movies so the Number 10 spot on my
‘Worst of’ list is usually reserved for a film that, while not very good, isn’t
really as bad as the other films that will come later on the list. That is the
case with my Number 10 worst of 2014, a film that tries to be the equivalent of
another popular film franchise but doesn’t quite live up to the reputation.
10. NEED FOR SPEED
Okay first let’s get the obvious thing out of the way; who
decided that it was a good idea to adapt the ‘Need for Speed’ video games into
a film? I’ll admit that I haven’t played a lot of the ‘Need for Speed’ games
(save for ‘Underground’, an IPhone port of the recent ‘Hot Pursuit’, and one of
the arcade games) but even then I can tell that there really isn’t much of a
plot to these games other than street racing and avoiding the cops. So again,
how do you make a frigging movie about that? Well just try and be the ‘Fast and
the Furious’ movies, of course. But you see the main problem with this film is
how it tries to do just that. One of the great things about the recent ‘Fast
and the Furious’ movies is that they have become very much self-aware of how
silly they are so they just roll with the punches. ‘Need for Speed’, on the
other hand, tries to go for a much more serious tone and as shown from the
reaction towards 2009’s ‘Fast and Furious’ (which for the record I did like),
that’s not really the best option. I mean, considering that this a film about
racing and crazy stunts, you’d think that the writers would go for a more
light-hearted story but instead they go with a story that’s all about revenge,
brotherhood, etc. And really, considering that this is a video-game adaptation,
it’s really hard to take a lot of this seriously.
To the film’s credit, there are some genuinely good things
about it. For one thing, the actual driving sequences in the movie are really,
really good. And there’s a very good reason for that as they were actually done
with practical effects, which is really cool given the fact that they could’ve
just easily been done with CGI. But thankfully the filmmakers didn’t go that
route, resulting in some very visually impressive stunts. Also, the cast is
pretty solid as well. Aaron Paul, in his first major leading role since the end
of ‘Breaking Bad’, proves that he definitely can be a solid leading man.
Dominic Cooper plays a really fun despicable bad guy and Imogen Poots is
incredibly charming as the female lead. There’s also Michael Keaton in quite a
scene-stealing role as the head organizer of the big race that Paul and
Cooper’s characters partake in at the end of the film. Ultimately though, ‘Need
for Speed’ tried way too hard to be something that it wasn’t. It tried to be
serious when in reality it’s fairly hard to take a film based off of a series
of racing video games with minimal plot that seriously. The film does have it
moments, mainly thanks to the practical stunt-work during the racing sequences,
but ultimately you’re much better off with the recent ‘Fast and Furious’
movies. They too can be quite silly but unlike this movie, they know that. And
while I am a fan of 2009’s ‘Fast and Furious’, this is basically the exact same
thing for anyone who wasn’t.
I’m certain that I’ll be pissing off a lot of people who
were fans of this movie and the book series that it was based on. But I’m sorry
folks, this film really didn’t do much for me, especially when compared to the
other big ‘Young Adult’ book-to-film adaptations that came out this year.
9. DIVERGENT
Yeah… I’m sorry to anyone who was a fan of this movie. I know
that a lot of audiences really liked this movie and to be honest I’m not
exactly the target audience for this series in the first place. However, I do
have to disagree with popular opinion on this one. And while I’m not one to
compare films, I do have to compare this to another adaptation of a young adult
book. For the record, I’m not comparing it to ‘Hunger Games’ because, well,
there’s no contest there. Instead, I’m going to focus on the other major
young-adult book-to-film adaptation of this year; ‘The Maze Runner’, which if
you recall I really liked. That film had a very engaging premise that kept you
invested the whole way through. This film, however, doesn’t have that same
benefit. I swear I was kind of bored throughout the majority of this movie. I
never really cared about any of the characters and I felt that the movie
dragged at certain points and considering that this is nearly two and a half
hours long, that’s really not a good thing. For the record, I haven’t read the
book that this was based on so I don’t know if it’s the same way, but this was
just a fairly bland film that I think tries just a bit too hard to be ‘The
Hunger Games’. And while I hate to use the word ‘rip-off’ because let’s be
honest nothing’s really original these days anyway, this film has quite a lot
in common with ‘The Hunger Games’ in terms of certain plot elements (for the
record this book was first published in 2011, three years after the first
‘Hunger Games’… just saying…).
But like with ‘Need for Speed’, there are some good things
about it. For one thing, director Neil Burger (who I feel rather sorry for having
to be stuck doing this film, having directed some really solid (and in some
cases underrated) films in the past like ‘The Illusionist’ and ‘Limitless’)
does create some really eye-catching visuals from time to time in this, which
can mainly be attributed to the fact that in the story, the characters
occasionally get put into simulations that are part of a series of tests. While
certainly not the best lead from a young adult series, the main character Tris
is actually a pretty likable protagonist and Shailene Woodley does do a pretty
decent job in the lead role, proving that she definitely is one of the best
actresses of her generation. But ultimately, like I said, this film really
didn’t do much for me and I don’t really have much interest in seeing the other
films in this series. Of course like with almost every major young adult
book-to-film franchise out there, the final book in this series, ‘Allegiant’,
is being split into two films. Given the fact that I wasn’t that invested in
this first film, I can already tell that this wasn’t a good idea (on a side
note, thank you Fox for not doing the same thing to ‘The Maze Runner’). In the
end, though, I don’t think this was as bad as something like ‘Twilight’.
‘Twilight’ was god-awful, this is just… meh…
You’ve got a director regarded as one of the worst working
today in Hollywood helming a film that had a lot of potential given what it’s
about. Well, you can kind of tell where this is going.
8. POMPEII
A film like this, about the infamous eruption of Mount
Vesuvius and how the ancient titular city of Pompeii got absolutely decimated
as a result of the eruption, does have some potential to be a fun little
disaster film. But in the hands of director Paul W.S. Anderson, this ends up
being a big case of ‘style over substance’. For the record, this is only the
second film of Anderson’s that I’ve seen, the other being ‘Mortal Kombat’
which, while not exactly a great movie, wasn’t that bad. But the rest of his
filmography isn’t exactly well-liked by a lot of people, especially his
‘Resident Evil’ films in which he continues to over-glorify his wife, Milla
Jovovich. As for this film, it feels rather uneven at times as it starts off as
a gladiator movie (in other words, it’s a cheap version of 2000’s Oscar-winning
‘Gladiator’) and it stays in that genre up until it actually gets to the
eruption of Mount Vesuvius. I mean sure, I guess the whole ‘Vesuvius’ thing
probably isn’t enough for a whole film but it feels like this is two films in
one and that the film started off forgetting what it was all about. Sure, the
visuals in ‘Pompeii’ are nice, especially after Vesuvius does erupt, but you
don’t give a crap about any of the characters in the film, especially given the
fact that because this is based on a real-life event, you can already tell how
this is all going to end. And yet they try to hammer in a love story trying to
be like ‘Titanic’. But again, why should we care about these two lovers when we
know that they’re just going to die anyway like everyone else in this movie?
Now because I don’t have HBO, I haven’t been watching ‘Game
of Thrones’ so this is basically the first major thing I’ve seen Kit Harrington
in. Overall, I don’t really think he’s that bad in this but he just doesn’t
have anything to work with so his character comes off as being really bland.
The same can be said for his love interest, played by Emily Browning, who
really, really needs a new agent after starring in a bunch of crappy films like
this, ‘The Host’, and of course, ‘Sucker Punch’. Then you have Kiefer
Sutherland, who overacts his ass off to rather embarrassing results as the main
bad guy, a general who is looking to marry Browning’s character. The only real
major highlight in the cast is Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as a gladiator who
Harrington’s character Milo befriends while they are both slaves, who manages
to actually give a good performance here despite the crappy screenplay, so much
so in fact that you actually wish that the film focused on him instead of the
incredibly bland love story. That’s ‘Pompeii’ for you, a film that actually had
some potential but was ultimately wasted mainly due to the fact that it was a
case of ‘style over substance’. It may have had some nice visuals but given
what we know about this real-life event, it’s hard to care about a group of
characters that are all going to be dead by the end of the film.
I listed this film’s predecessor on my ‘Worst of’ list last
year and surprise, surprise, guess what film lands the Number 7 spot on my 2014
list? That’s right, it’s that first film’s sequel.
7. SHARKNADO 2
Yes, because last year’s ‘Sharknado’ became such a big sensation
ever since it first aired on the Syfy channel, mainly due to social media and
the title of the film above anything else, it has led to a sequel getting made.
And, like last year, this film does count on this list because it did get
released in theaters, if only for one day. With the first film, I noted that
though it was a bad movie, it was one of those cases like ‘Batman and Robin’ or
‘The Room’ where it’s ‘so bad, it’s good’ because of its cheesier elements.
However, the more that I think about it, I might have over-exaggerated that a
little bit. Sure, this film does have some genuinely ridiculous moments that
result in unintentional hilarity, like the many scenes where the main character
Finn is apparently Superman due to some of the crazy things he does in the film
(like shooting a shark that’s high up in the air with just one shot from a
pistol or diving headfirst into a shark’s mouth and managing to cut his way out
of it with a chainsaw). But for the most part, it was an incredibly dumb
b-grade film with lame effects and bad acting and at times it tried to take
things way too seriously when in reality we’re talking about a film that is
about a tornado of sharks that wreaks havoc upon the city of Los Angeles with a
tagline that says it all; ‘Enough Said’.
‘Sharknado 2: The Second One’ is pretty much exactly the
same thing, except this time it is in New York, resulting in quite a lot (and I
mean a lot) of product placement, including an entire sequence taking place in
the New York Mets’ ballpark Citi Field, multiple shots of Subway (including a
cameo from the ‘Subway’ guy himself, Jared Fogle), and multiple scenes of
television broadcasts featuring cameos from Al Roker and Matt Lauer from ‘The
Today Show’ and Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan from ‘Live with Kelly and
Michael’. In contrast, the first film did not have any product placement of any
kind, which I guess shows how popular that first film was if this film is full
of cameos and product placement. Like the first film, ‘Sharknado 2’ does have
its ridiculous moments, like when Finn surfs on a shark inside the ‘sharknado’,
but it also has the exact same problems of the first film. Laughable special
effects, poor acting, and while this one isn’t necessarily taking things as
serious as the first film did, they still try to add in some emotional drama, which
is really unnecessary seeing how this film is called ‘Sharknado’! I mean, in a
sense, it’s rather pointless to critique this movie as we all know that it’s
bad. It’s just that quite frankly I’m a little disturbed that these two lousy
B-movies became such a cult sensation. But hey, if you’re a fan of these two
films, that’s fine. I’m just not one of those people who got caught up in all
of the hype, probably because I already knew they were going to be bad going
in.
Oh yeah, and this film also has the most pointless post-credits
scene of all time, which I think is trying to parody ‘Avengers’ as this one
also features the main character going somewhere to get a bite to eat but
really it’s just a waste of time.
This year’s been pretty solid as far as animated films go. I
didn’t see ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’, but I heard very good things about it
and I did see two superb animated films in ‘Big Hero 6’ and ‘The LEGO Movie’.
But then you’ve got this film…
6. THE NUT JOB
Boy, talk about a bad start to the year as far as animated
films are concerned (thank god ‘The LEGO Movie’ came out just a month later).
Now usually when it comes to family films, especially animated films, I’m not
as critical towards them if I find that they are at least good for kids. Films
like ‘Cars 2’ and the recent remake of ‘Annie’ are prime examples of this. But
as for ‘The Nut Job’, I doubt that there’s even much here for kids. I mean,
I’ve read a review online in which the author had taken his kid to see the film
and the kid wanted to leave early, which kind of shows how weak the material in
this movie is. As the title suggests, there’s a lot of nut jokes in it
(including some that I think are a little too risqué for a kids film) and it
gets old pretty quick. It may be a heist film, about a bunch of squirrels
trying to rob a nut store that at the same time is a front for a bunch of
criminals who are planning to rob a bank, but as far as the genre is concerned
the writing and the film’s characters are pretty sub-standard. The animation is
decent enough but nowhere as good as something from Pixar or DreamWorks. So
with all of that in mind, some of you might think that this really isn’t that
bad; just a rather mediocre animated film that is light on the jokes.
Well, as many critics have already pointed out, the biggest
problem with the film is with its main character, Surly. Though voiced by the
incredibly talented and funny Will Arnett, who thankfully had a much better
turn as LEGO Batman in ‘The LEGO Movie’, Surly is just an incredibly unlikable
character. He’s very self-centered and egotistical, putting himself before
others and as a result, he ends up destroying the other animals’ food for the
winter as a result of him trying to get food for himself. He doesn’t work well
with others and constantly bullies his partner in crime, a mute rat by the name
of Buddy, around. While he does ‘redeem himself’ at the end of the movie, it
doesn’t really feel that genuine because of how big of an a-hole that he was
before. In short, it’s because of this incredibly unlikable character, the lead
character in the film, that ‘The Nut Job’ ends up being a fairly poor animated
film. Like I said before, while I’m usually one to forgive an animated film if
I find that it’s harmless enough for kids, I don’t even think that kids will
like this one too much. They might end up being rather bored by it, which is
not a good thing when it comes to animated films. But it seems like a lot of
kids did like this film as it was commercially successful enough for a sequel,
which is planned for a January 2016 release. Oh well…
And that’s the end of Part 1 of this list. Check back
tomorrow for Part 2 in which I list my Top 5 worst of the year.
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