Time for a rundown of the worst movies I saw last year.
THE LIST
20. Taken 3
The first one was flawless, the second one was dreadful, but the third one is something else entirely: It's dull. The story doesn't make any sense, and Liam Neeson doesn't kill anybody anymore. So what the hell is the point?
19. Idealisten
It's based-on-a-true-story and deals with the clean-up after a plane carrying nuclear bombs crashes near Thule base in Greenland. That's an interesting story on paper. Unfortunately the reality is that one man spend 10 years trying the dig up the truth, and that's quite boring to watch. Top that off with lackluster direction and an inadequate budget, and you've got a dull misfire that means well. Frankly, we don't need another one of those.
18. Big Sky
Yawn. Already reviewed this. I have nothing to add.
17. Momentum
Yes, I admit Olga Kurylenko was the primary reason I rented this. And yes, she's cool, sexy and saucy, but this film sure doesn't share those qualities. It's just plain dumb. One of those completely nonsensical spy stories that feels like it was written by an 11-year-old.
16. Blunt Force Trauma
I held on for as long as I could. I figured, a film this cool, smooth and moody must have something up its sleeve. It must have an extra layer, some sort of reveal, a clever point. Eventually I had to give up and admit that this was just a cheap, empty, pointless piece of nothing with delusions of grandeur in the looks department. Once you get past the undeniably gorgeous facade, including the capable cast, this is more empty than your average Steven Seagal DTV garbage.
15. Terminator Genisys
The problem with the whole Terminator franchise is that no one seems to realize that the second film shouldn't have worked (And then they, like, sent even more Terminators back in time, right? And.... but now this one is good, and erm .... this one is really, like bad, and advanced and stuff...). The only reason we can ignore the stupidity of the core story in the first sequel is the stunning filmmaking abilities of James Cameron. None of the subsequent films or the TV-show had that, and every additional story made less sense than the previous one. If we count every episode of the TV show as a sequel that would make this Terminator 36. No shit it didn't work.
14. The Transporter Refueled
Sure, you could reboot The Transporter, but if you have to do it, do it right. Why would you reboot a franchise with such a clear identity and make it so vanilla? The lead actor looks like an underwear model, and displays about the same acting range, the film ditches the simple beauty of the original premise in favor of a badly written, ill-conceived mess, and don't get me started on the dull car-scenes. If you can't even get the car-scenes right, why bother?
13. Tiger House
A rare case of everything here could have worked, but somehow, thanks to a concentrated and meticulous effort from the filmmakers, the film fails in every aspect. From the simple premise (this is essentially a home invasion story) to the characters, to the situations they encounter along the way. Every decision, from location to the time of day, is wrong.
12. Barely Lethal
I like a silly, predictable teen movie as much as the next guy, who should have outgrown that genre by now and moved on, but even I have my limits. This reeks of direct-to-video lack of effort. It looks and feels so cheap. And how about this trifecta? It makes Samuel L. Jackson uncool, Jessica Alba completely unsexy, and manages to turn Hailee Steinfeld into a sugarcoated Disney star, devoid of charisma. She was freakin' Oscar nominated!
11. Dannys dommedag
I had high hopes for this Danish end of the world, monster movie. I was actually rooting for it. Unfortunately the script doesn't work at all and the budget is far too meager to relay any sense of doomsday or monsters.
10. Submerged
It sounded fun! A group of people trapped in an airtight limo at the bottom of the sea, but how did they get there? And what happened before? Unfortunately the awful soap opera drama and the unbearable lack of direction during the first hour only lead to a laughable finale, which is basically a 20 minute non-stop session of plot twists so ridiculous you wouldn't be surprised if the limo itself turned out to be the clever fiend behind the whole mystery.
9. American Sniper
Naive, clumsy, and simple-minded. Much like half of the US of A. Oh, and how did that dead baby get past quality control?
8. Poltergeist
We all knew it wasn't going to work. We all knew it. Every one knew this film was bound to fail. We could even tell how it was going to fail, before we saw the first glimpse of it. They probably won't get a young actress as good as Heather O'Rourke, the effects will be of the predictably unscary CGI variety, and the story will bring nothing new to the table, thus making the whole exercise even more pointless. And boy were we spot on.
7. Vice
If you're going to rip off Westworld and Blade Runner, at least have the common decency to look like you're having fun. This soulless, boring B-movie seemed liked at was a chore for everyone involved. Imagine how we, the viewers, felt.
6. Need for Speed
This... I mean... I can't even. I guess it's unfair to put this on my 'worst of' list, because I had SO much fun ripping it to shreds on my podcast. Unfortunately that's about all this humorless car crash was good for. Need for Speed? Indeed. One of the rare cases where a bunch of Hollywood writers actually could have used more speed.
5. Jupiter Ascending
Laughable on every level, this magical, polished turd of a movie looks good in stills, but you don't have to watch more than a few seconds of it to realize just how incompetent it is. Never mind that the story seems like the work of a retarded, drunk, cross-dressing clown - the film even gets the basics wrong. The heroine is as boring as a toilet plunger, the cartoonish bad guy is so aggressively awful it feels like we're in a SNL sketch, and the hero... well, he's half dog. That's 50% less dog than the movie, though. The Wachowski siblings should just quit while they're behind.
4. Chappie
Rarely have I wanted to punch a fictional computer-animated robot more than I wanted to punch Chappie. The movie itself was a repugnant feast, barely suitable for animal consumption, but on top of that we got the most infuriating character created for a film in 2015. Dreadful, absolutely dreadful.
3. Harbinger Down
No other movie's appearance on this list pains me more than Harbinger Down. I had such high hopes for this. A film paying tribute to classic filmmaking, from the guys who brought us the monsters in Tremors and Aliens. How could this go wrong? Well, the script was shit, the filmmaking was shit, and they had no money. In terms of sheer filmmaking talent, this is by far the worst offender on this list. No other movie comes even close to the incompetence on display here.
2. The Visit (Documentary)
A "documentary" about aliens visiting Earth. Except there's no aliens in it and no visiting of any kind, though at one point a guy walks around in a museum in a hazmat suit, pretending he's boarding a spaceship. This is just a bunch of moronic mumbling. Less close encounters then, more like mental masturbation of the chafing kind. I detest so-called documentaries of this variety. They're a waste of time, none more so than this. And by the way, this is the second appearance on a bottom list for a Michael Madsen non-mentary - his previous effort Into Eternity made it to the 7th spot on the 2011 list.
1. Mænd og høns
If you think a chronic masturbator, having sex with farm animals and dirty, disfigured people are the greatest things in the world, then by all means check out this bag of shit. However, anyone with a sense of decency or half a brain will loathe this dull, disingenuous turd of a movie. But at least it's spectacularly unfunny.
FINAL THOUGHTS
That was rough get to through, but don't worry, next up: The Best of 2015.
Right after these words from our sponsor.
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