Thursday, January 28, 2021

The Top Ten Worst Movies of 2020

This might be the most challenging worst list I’ve ever written.



And yeah, it’s mostly due to the lack of content.  2020 was the temporary death nail for cinema as I know it.  I love the normal movie-going experience I once knew.  It’s been a tough challenge for me to handle in particular because the movie theater was once my safe haven.  It was my hobby.  Going to the theaters on a Friday night to watch a new release in my stadium seating with a bag of popcorn turning my mind off for a hour and thirty minutes.  Things…are different now…and it is still tough for me to accept that.

And honestly, I don’t know if movie theaters will ever be the way I once knew ever again.  Even when the pandemic is over, it will be tough sitting that close to people in a secluded room once again.  It might be awhile for me to personally feel safe sitting next to random strangers of any kind like I use to.  Until that day comes though, I just have to adjust to the new normal of viewing films safely from my house.

I honestly have gone on and on about this topic a lot this year.  For movies more than any other because that’s been the hardest adjustment for me personally with this pandemic.  As so many movies I was looking forward to this year got delayed indefinitely.  Now more than ever before, the movies I’ve had to view this year where straight from streaming services.  I’m not going to sit here and say that I’m not used to this medium for new movie viewing.  I’ve had plenty of time to get used to that.  But as my main way of doing so?  I still rather sit in a movie theater with my bag of popcorn and one day I’ll get to do so again.

So yeah, this was a strange year for film viewing indeed.  And with not much material to choose from against recent years, this was the toughest worst list for me to write yet.  Same will be said for the best list.  But I still viewed enough material to comfortably write both lists.  But let’s just say when it comes to both lists, there will be more 4/5 out of 10 movies on my worst list and more 6/7 out of 10 movies on my best list than I’ve ever had in the past.  Same goes for honorable/dishonorable mentions….speaking of which….

 

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS:

 

Sonic the Hedgehog

Honestly, was pleasantly surprised that this didn’t turn out to be the worst thing ever.  It was just a mediocre family movie more so than an abomination that further proves there will never be a universally accepted video game film adaptation.  Good job I guess to all those involved.  Treat yourselves to some Olive Garden....my god that was one of the worst product references in a movie I’ve ever seen.

 

The Call of the Wild

What a boring movie this was.  Only watched it for the horrid dog CGI.  And yeah that lived up to the billing.  I think we can all agree that dogs should not be CGI.  My god look at the eyes on that thing.  It’s almost hypnotic.

 

The Witches

Anyone else remember when Robert Zemeckis used to be a good filmmaker?  For a guy that became so enamored with making CGI so photorealistic for the last fifteen to twenty years, he decided that his CGI technological achievement for 2020 would be Anne Hathaway's scary smile.  I'm not even going to link it in this blog.  Google search it at your own will.  All I got to say in regards to it is

BBBWWWAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

 

 

Superintelligence

Melissa McCarthy and James Corden.  These two should not be in movies together.  Plain and simple.  Surprised I didn’t hate this enough to make the actual list but I guess I was more forgiving of comedies this year since I badly needed some actual laughter.  Which this did have a couple surprisingly.

 

 

Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island

I’ve seen this on A LOT of worst lists this year.  And rightfully so, it’s a confusing mess from a studio that knows better.  But honestly, I think this is a HILARIOUS confusing mess more than being outright bad.  So yeah, on a technical writing level, it sucks.  But I found this to be entertaining so it’s saved from making the list proper.

 

Trolls: World Tour

Just because I said this wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be doesn’t mean it wasn’t going to make my worst list. 

 

Onward

So when it comes to my film review final grades, a lot of them still hold up months after writing them.  This film however got progressively worse the more I sat on it.  Onward is the most unambitious Pixar film I've ever sat through.  All the amazing animation can't cover the fact that this is an uninspired story that barely even feels like a Pixar film.

 

That's it.  I can't even compose a fully inspired dishonorable mentions list this year.  Anyway, onto the feature presentation:



THE TOP TEN WORST MOVIES OF 2020


 


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Onward wasn’t the only film that has shrunk on me since reviewing it.


10. Mulan (2020)



By all technical standpoints from my review of it, I still admire that Mulan wasn’t a shot for shot remake of the original like Disney has been pumping out as of late.  I appreciate that they tried new different ideas and attempted to be authentic with an all Asian cast instead of trying to whitewash the story.  So thank you Disney for not converting every single aspect of the original animation into this live-action adaptation.

With that said, this movie brought great dishonor by being an absolute bore.  Just because the movie had new ideas doesn’t mean any of those ideas worked.  They did not.  The Chinese cultural elements of this movie were completely mishandled inaccurately.  The witchcraft ideology this movie mishandled actually does have some lore from what I’ve read to historical and cultural elements from my admittedly limited understanding.  But that still doesn’t change the fact that they only included this in the movie as a plot device because you could have removed her character entirely and it wouldn’t have changed a damn thing really.

And then you have the acting.  It’s very bad.  I admire staying culturally authentic but a lot of these actors and actresses seem to not be putting forth any effort really outside of Jet Li and Donnie Yen.  I mean I established in my review that the writing was garbage, so maybe most of these actors and actresses were looking for some sort of character depth in general?  I don’t know, but there was a reason this movie was in development hell for ten years before finally being pursued.

This is still admittedly better than A LOT of the live action remakes Disney has been churning out lately.  I would probably put this in the middle tier of the trend.  And like I said, in a more eventful year, this would likely not even be worth mentioning on any list.  But slim pickings, next.



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And speaking of slim pickings…I almost feel bad placing this on here.


9. The New Mutants



I mean this movie has gotten picked on to death after being delayed so many times, whitewashing controversies, and just Fox killing the X-Men franchise with overexposure with not much growth outside of a few exceptions.  And I’ll be honest, this movie wasn’t nearly as terrible as I feared it to be.  I’ll even go the extra mile and say if it was given to a different team to work on it; it might have been good.

Let’s just get this huge positive out of the way first.  I liked the team building in this.  When it came to these New Mutants sharing their trauma stories in the psychiatric ward, it was actually investing.  You actually felt bad for these kids and their mutant discoveries and how it terrified them.  It kind of reminded me of 2017 Power Rangers in a sense.  A movie where you got to study these characters and their development was fairly progressive.

It’s too bad that they tried to make this a horror movie.  Because that’s where all my problems just kept getting more and more frustrating.  This is a really bad horror movie.  The jump scares are predictable.  Some of these scares are outright laughably bad.  The CGI is ugly.  And honestly the climatic fight without spoiling it is just so over the top lame and lacking any sort of originality.  It almost reminded me of a traditional superhero climax fight without anything really being earned.

The New Mutants didn’t need to be the way it was.  Because the groundwork is clearly there for a competent character study movie.  Maybe they should have made this more of a teen drama/action movie.  That would have made more sense.  But nope, instead we got a superhero horror movie.  We already have Brightburn for that and that wasn’t proof we needed superhero horror films either.  But I at least admired Brightburn for going all out with the horror concept even if it didn’t work all the time.  The New Mutants should have tried going for a different genre instead of committing to horror.  It sucked at it.  Next.

 

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I was planning on giving this one the full review treatment.  I had way too much say about my frustrations with this.  But I couldn’t structure a full review of this without repeating one word so often that it became overkill.  So I’ll just put it all out there now.  That one word by the way was disappointing.



8. Wonder Woman 1984



And just like with my last few entries, in any other year, this probably wouldn’t be placed on a traditional worst list of mine.  Just because this movie was extremely disappointing wouldn’t place it on any other year’s worst list.  But in 2020, so many 4 out of 10 movies like this one become more viable contenders.  I just didn’t expect this to be one of the 4 out of 10 ratings though.

What went wrong here?  How did the sequel to the film that single-handedly saved the DC Extended Universe become as bad as some of the worst this cinematic universe had to offer?  Studio meddling had to have some sort of effect on the quality of this.  That’s my only plausible explanation because with how much shit DC Films has gone through in the last five years, you’d think they’d finally learn their lessons by now.

Honestly, most of my problems with this movie fall back on the script.  I don’t know how much of this was Geoff John’s fault since I heard he had a huge involvement with this.  But it just felt like they were trying to fit way too much into this.  Too many villains.  Too many interpersonal conflicts.  Just too much going on in what should have been an exciting sequel that we initially expected.  Honestly should have just had Maxwell Lord and that’s it.  Save Cheetah for the next one instead of forcing her into this hamfisted.  And speaking of Cheetah, what god awful CGI.  I don’t know how much of that was due to the pandemic effecting post-production, but Cheetah’s CGI was super hideous.  Was that the reason for the dark shading during that fight sequence?  I don’t know but I definitely did not like it.

And then there is the implications of so many actions in this movie.  When your movie revolves around magical elements like wishing, you are asking for people to pick out your plotholes.  And for the most part, how Maxwell utilized the wishing stone was actually smart.  I have no problems with that.  I do have problems with Diana and Barbara’s utilization of the stone.  I get why Diana wished for Steve and how important he was to him.  But did the guy that Steve’s spirit ended up taking over….did he have a family?  Did he have a job that wondered where he was?  Did Diana straight up rape a guy who she thought was Steve?  And I get the plot device of the stone taking away part of you when you use it but how does her love for Steve translate the stone taking away parts of her powers?  It doesn’t connect.  I at least understood why the stone took away Barbara’s humanity, but the loophole for the stone giving her another wish was just even more of an excuse for her evolution into Cheetah and I thought it was bullshit.

Most importantly though I just felt like this movie just dragged an awful lot.  Like I said it had a lot to do with trying to put WAY too much into this movie.  I mean they had a ten minute segment about the invisible jet and it served no purpose for the story.  They could have had that in another movie and it would have felt more significant.

Instead we get Wonder Woman 1984.  A sequel that completely squanders a lot of the goodwill that the DCEU got for the original.  And it will probably still end up getting a threequel once the world goes back to normal.  Me being the superhero nerd that I am will still probably end up seeing it anyway.  But this time I’m lowering my expectations.  Glad this went straight to HBO Max so I can hide my dismay from a crowded theater.  Next.

 

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So I’ve already talked about movies that I’ve reviewed that have gotten worse over time.  Let’s talk about ones that haven’t necessarily gotten better, but ones that I’ve lightened up on.


7. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run



By no means am I saying Sponge on the Run was a good movie.  I still very much did not like this.  But you know what I’ve admired more about it in hindsight?  That really is some good CGI.  And maybe that appreciation comes with the fact that I saw that Kamp Koral sneak preview and my god that looks like a PS2 game turned into a spin-off of one of the defining cartoons of my lifetime.  That’s going to suck and suck hard.

Otherwise, a lot of my complaints with this movie still stand pretty intact.  This movie just feels like what a major corporate studio hack wanted a SpongeBob movie to be.  Marketable and able to set up tons of sequels and spin-offs and possibly even a SpongeBob Cinematic Universe for all we know.  Which by all means, do whatever you’d like to the little yellow guy.  He’s clearly still a cash cow for Nickelodeon after twenty years.  Who am I to tell them otherwise to keep finding ways to make this property profitable into another decade? 

But this movie is just lacking identity.  Which the other two SpongeBob movies had in spades.  The first movie felt like a proper ending to the series and is still canonically the actual ending the day this series does ride off into the sunset.  The second movie I had my fair share of problems with, but at least it had a vision and a sense of purpose.  And it might have been a live-action hybrid mixed in with some CGI, but it felt like an actual SpongeBob movie.  Plus it gave the series villain, Plankton, a showcase for how much his character has evolved over the years.

“Sponge on the Run” just feels like a shell of SpongeBob itself.  With the same tired jokes that the series has ran dry (Squidward is a sourpuss, Krabs loves money, Patrick is dumb, etc.).  The same clichés that any family movie has come to expect by now.  And to further showcase how by the numbers this movie felt, pop culture references.  I could have mistaken this for a DreamWorks or BlueSky film with how much this felt like a by the numbers animated flick.

 

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2020.  The year where being number one at the box office basically means nothing anymore.  Case in point.


6. The War With Grandpa



As I’ve stated before in my beginning soliloquy this year, I didn’t go to the theaters during the pandemic.  Even when the three or so theaters near me reopened saying that they are operating under strict protocols through the CDC and that it’s safe now.  Sorry, but no.  There is zero way to make a movie theater, even with spaced out seating, safe.  It’s still a confined space for one to two hours….anyway, that’s not my point.  My point being that one of my friends did venture out to the theaters to see a couple movies during the pandemic once theaters reopened.  She said this film was one of the few trailers placed in practically every movie she saw.  So basically, this movie got to number one by default due to zero actual competition.

Naturally, this went straight to on-demand streaming shortly after being a multi-week number one at what’s left of the box office.  And my god, it’s an artifact of much happier times.  To put this simply, it’s a 2000s style awful family comedy.  Chalk full of all the same tired clichés that have been done to death.  Except without any of the charm, likability, or charisma that so many of those had.  It reminds me an awful lot of last year’s 2000s style family comedy “Playing With Fire”.  But at least “Playing With Fire” had my jaw drop at how dumb and bad it was.

This just left me bored and uninspired to talk about it.  I mean my god, this movie is about a grandfather and a child fighting over a shared bedroom of all things.  It’s easy to say the kid is just being a little shit, which he is, and call it a day.  But the extents that Robert DeNiro goes to to humiliate this kid and by extent himself are just exhausting.  Didn’t this guy use to have standards at one point?  Now Robert DeNiro is just a caricature of himself.  Constantly humiliating himself to no bounds.  He’s just collecting a paycheck at this stage in his career and it’s just sad to see him to resort to such tomfoolery. 

 

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Now we are getting to the stuff that would be sure fire locks for worst lists in a normal year.  Starting with hilariously misguided failed Oscar bait.


5. Hillbilly Elegy



This is my least favorite type of Oscar bait material.  The shamelessly pandering type of films.  This time its poverty porn – kudos to The A.V. Club for coining that because they seriously knocked it out of the fucking part by calling it that.

Most of my problems with this movie are regarding Ron Howard’s directorial vision.  Exactly what was he trying to go for with this?  Is he trying to reinforce the stereotyping of rednecks because they are more or less Trump supporters?  And no I’m not mending words by saying that.  That was more or less what the source material is about.  The real life story is about a guy describing his upbringing and gives us a glimpse into the lifestyle of the white working class mountain folk.

Howard’s vision is to more or less glorify this sub-group of people so we can try to better understand why they are the way they are.  And honestly, it is just a messy execution.  Instead of trying to make us sympathize with any of these characters addictions or their rhetoric, it just glorifies it and makes the message all the more befuddling to its film viewers.

The acting is fine for what it is.  Amy Adams and Glenn Close are both great actresses and I guess they are trying to make something out of nothing.  But both have done far better in their careers.

Like I said, Ron Howard’s direction is what mostly makes this movie not work.  I get that Ron Howard is one of the more acclaimed directors of our time, but to me, he has missed far more than he has hit the landing with his movies.  He is one of the most overrated directors working today and I really wish more people would stand back and actually take a look at his credits.   

I get that this year’s Academy Awards field will be smaller than normal, but if “Hillbilly Elegy” is considered to be one of the frontrunners for nominations this year, then no thanks.  Nominate “Sonic the Hedgehog” instead.  Next.

 

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Hey you know that cinematic universe trend.  Maybe everyone except Marvel should reconsider it.  Especially Warner Brothers, who keeps finding ways to fuck it up.


4. SCOOB!


Or better yet, maybe Warner Brothers should stop trying to make theatrical film adaptations of Scooby-Doo.  While I still think the live-action films are worse, this CGI adaptation is still pretty freaking awful by its own merits.

Honestly, going to keep this one short.  Not just due to me already reviewing this turd, but because it is just going to sound like a repeat of the same criticisms I have with “Sponge on the Run”.  This feels like Warner Brothers reinventing this over fifty year old property for a newer generation.  But I’ll give “Sponge on the Run” this credit, at least they had a target demographic in mind.

Exactly who in the hell is Scoob! for?  Not even the children are going to be able to follow this absolutely preposterous plotted movie.  If this movie was playing in theaters, I bet a ton of kids would be asking their parents who The Blue Falcon, Dick Dastardly and Muttly, or Captain Caveman are.  Or why a 90s based childhood for Shaggy would include smartphones or Ruth Bader Ginsberg costumes.

But if I was a kid, I think the most logical question I would ask my parents is “I thought this was a Scooby-Doo movie?”  Because this certainly was not an actual Scooby-Doo movie.  This was ashamed to even be that.  Sure there are a few nostalgic moments that referenced the Scooby-Doo property, but outside of that, this was just a by the numbers kid flick.  When your movie spends more time on Simon Cowell than references to your over 50 years of memories, you know you’re ashamed of your past.

Well I’m not.  I’m still a Scooby-Doo fan to this day.  And shortly after my wife and I watched this, I put in an old Scooby-Doo episode and I enjoyed those twenty-two minutes of nostalgia far more than I did ten minutes of whatever the hell this was trying to be.

Best of luck to the Hanna-Barbera verse.  Based of your first movie, you’re going to need it.

 

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…yeah this came out this year in case y’all forgot too.


3. Dolittle


This movie’s existence just fascinates me more than anything else.  It just feels like a movie that is out of its time period.  More or less, the kind of shit that Robert Downey Jr. was making before Marvel turned him into one of the biggest stars alive.  I’m not kidding guys.  If you had Robert Downey Jr. in your movies before 2008, for the longest time there was an eight out of ten times chance that your movie was destined to suck ass.

But unlike some of the shit Downey Jr. used to star in, this one honestly fascinated me at how batshit insane it turned out.  Like RDJ goes through at least five different performances mixed into one character.  He hides his face so many times that I wonder if even he is aware that this movie is an embarrassment to his career.

And then there are the wasted talents that are voicing these animals.  In normal talking animal movies, they usually give these characters multiple lines or enough dialogue that you think, oh yeah that is Rob Schneider voicing a polar bear.   Here?  Apparently John Cena, Emma Thompson, and Marion Cotillard are some of the voices of the animals.  I sure as hell couldn’t tell they were in this.  Hell, Tom Holland voiced one of them.  You couldn’t have included a “Dr. Doolittle.  I don’t feel so good” reference?!  HE WAS RIGHT THERE!

There are just so many bafflingly bad decisions that I couldn’t place this any lower.  When one of the most iconic scenes in this film included Dolittle doing a colonoscopy on a dragon with the dragon farting on him….AND THAT IS NOT EVEN THE MOST SHOCKING DECISION MADE IN THIS MOVIE; you know you’ve got a hilariously terrible film on your hands.

 

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Ever since I mentioned this being one of the worst non-Disney films of all-time, I’ve sat on it.  Is it really that bad?  No.  It’s the worst.


2. Artemis Fowl


I feel pretty bad for any fans that are still standing after this botched adaptation.  Because I’ve seen some pretty bad botched adaptations of books.  And this is incredibly high up there on that all-time list.  Definitely the worst Disney has ever done from that standpoint for sure though.

When I reviewed this, I compared “Artemis Fowl” to a lot of properties.  But honestly after six months, I found the perfect comparison point.  This is “Home Alone” with Harry Potter universe characters.  To anyone that actually sat through this, tell me I’m wrong.  A bunch of mythical creatures trying to break into this one house.  It’s all there.

This should have stayed in developmental hell.  I’ve seen more effort put into Disney Channel Original movies than I have for this $125 million dollar adaptation….geez why would you spend that much to make your shitty movie all the worse.

 

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Yes that is a link to the “Stuck With U” video again.  Why am I sharing it you may wonder?  Context.

There are many, MANY things I hate about that song, but one thing I hate about it that I didn’t elaborate on the most is that song is perfectly contempt about the times this song is bringing up.  I wouldn’t wish this pandemic onto even the worst of my enemies.  It’s been a miserable cultural zeitgeist for the past year, even with the few personal positives in my life.  It is hard to ignore the times we are living through as the general public is exhausted by the pandemic.  Many are trying to do their best in hopes that the light at the end of the tunnel helps bring us back to a sense of normalcy.  Others are just thinking that the media is overblowing something that has killed millions and ignoring basic health and sciences.

So yeah, the last thing I want to see is any sort of media that reminds us we are living in the shittiest of shitty timelines...


1. Songbird


…you know what?  Let me take this moment to talk directly to Hollywood for just a minute.  I know the temptation is there to make MANY movies about the pandemic as soon as possible.  I fully expect to be reminded that this moment in time is one of the worst years of all-time.  So many bad moments in history, too many movies to even begin placing in pre-production based on these events.  Not just with the pandemic.  Whether it be all the political turmoil or the social justice reform.  2020 will be one of the most theatrically adapted years of all-time.  So with that said, can we halt the brakes for just one moment?

Seeing movies like this get fast tracked is just…evil.  Who actually wants to see reminders of how horrible the virus is?  And that it is still evolving to different mutations in real time?  What sort of twisted shit is this?  And with the amount of recognizable celebrities that signed off to star in this?  Why?

I’m not even going to fully talk about the movie itself.  It doesn’t even justify its own existence.  It is one thing to use a current tragedy as the jumping point of your movie.  As much as I hate the idea of it, it has been done before with previous tragedies.  But it is another thing entirely to create something provocative or interesting.  At least make your film worth seeing and have it say something.  Say something about government mandated lockdowns.  Say something about the government not properly handling a pandemic.  Say something about the general public being divided.  Don’t just sit there and just use a worldwide tragedy as the reason for making a half-assed thriller turned into a bad love story.

I don’t need constant reminders that this timeline sucks.  And for the record, I just saw HBO Max’s made in the middle of the pandemic movie, “Locked Down”.  I didn’t like that one either, but at least it tried to be an actual movie that was more than just scare tactics about the pandemic.

 “Songbird”.  A movie so inherently evil and tasteless that it had to be made by Michael Bay…

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2020/07/02/safety-measures-stop-production-michael-bay-post-pandemic-movie-songbird/5370620002/

….oh, it actually was made by Michael Bay.  Now it makes more sense.  2020.  A year so bad that one of the worst tragedies of our lifetime had to be made into an awful Michael Bay movie.  Please socially distance yourself from this shitty film by more than just six feet.

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