DOC’S ‘PROBABLY CONTROVERSIAL’ RUNDOWN OF FILMS RELEASED IN THE UK IN 2015, WORST TO BEST – PART ONE, 103 – 91





Dr-Lenera-290x300

 

So instead of my usual Top Twenty and Bottom Ten, I decided to do something different this year, something that could be more fun. I watched a ridiculous number of films this year, exactly 103 in fact, but, due to the number of screeners for films I recieved to review, I just didn’t have time to review as many new films as usual, so I thought I’d list every one of them, in order from Best to Worst. I’m sure some of my rankings will be controversial – in fact, I can think of one right now which will cause people to shake their heads – but in the end there’s no accounting for taste, and I reckon there will stil be a great many rankings you will agree with.

Though I tried to see everything I could, there were still lots of films I missed, either due to they not being on locally to me, or to me just not having time because I still have some semblance of a life, or to me just not interested in seeing them! Some of the films that looked truly bad, I just avoided. I should also say that it’s been quite a good year for films in my opinion, with over two thirds of the movies that I’ve seen being ones I ranked 5.5/10 or higher.

And final note; there will be a few entries which are considered 2014, but I’ve counted them if they weren’t released in the UK till 2015. Similarly, I haven’t included any 2015 films released in 1216 except for Scrawl which may be having a DVD release soon. Okay, on with the show!

 

 

gallows103/ THE GALLOWS
I apologise to our readers for including a horror movie as my bottom film, but this thoroughly amateurish tripe just sucked on almost every level, the only scary things about it being how it was considered worthy of cinema exhibition and how it [sadly] made money. From probably the most unwatchable shakycam [you literally can’t see anything for about a third of the film] ever to the painful acting to the jaw droppingly dumb ending, The Gallows was bad on every level. 1.5/10

 

 

102/ CAPTIVE  xtimthumb.phpqsrchwww.cartoonhd.mobi_thumbs_movie_733eb89c7ed551fd47aa0bed736578f0.jpgaw340ah498azc1.pagespeed.ic_.7byAXorwuM-150x150
Unlike many it seems these days, I’m not specifically anti-Christian, but any more horrid faith films like Captive and I’ll convert to Satanism. Even though it features two really committed performances from the leads [hope they were paid well], this was an unbelievably stupid and offensive [especially to the families of the killer’s victims] piece of rubbish that, come the final scene on Oprah Winfrey, almost had me throwing up. 2/10

 

 

unfriended_ver2_xlg101/ UNFRIENDED
80-odd minutes of looking at a computer screen with other people at their computers, Facebook and Skype.  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Well, it’s obviously some people’s idea of a good time.  2.5/10

 

 

 

100/ TAKEN 3 taken-3
I doubt anyone who thrilled to Taken would have expected any sequel to be as bad as this, and I actually didn’t mind Taken 2 too much, but Taken 3 is, despite trying a different kind of story to the first two, rubbish; thoroughly stupid and stupefying, but may have still been dumb fun if it hadn’t been thoroughly ruined by Olivier Megaton’s ‘why use one edit when you can use twenty’ horrible direction which makes most of theaction impossible to actually make out. 2.5/10

 

 

152x215xsuffragette.poster.jpg.pagespeed.ic.HlaMWbo_jv99/ SUFFRAGETTE
If it wasn’t for the fine performances all round, I’d probably rank Suffragette even lower, as I found it a chore to watch, be it the vomit inducing filming [there was once a time when even handheld camera operators would at least try to keep their camera steady some of the time] or the offensively stupid, man hating script which dumbed down and simplified the issues [i.e. many men couldn’t vote too, though you wouldn’t know it if you watched the film] to suit its Feminist agenda. 2.5/10

 

 

98/ FIFTY SHADES OF GREY ob_427091_fifty-shades-lingeriesecrete
Secretary for idiots, this is one entry I doubt many would argue with. I suppose the key word is blandness, which to me is often far worse than true badness as true badness can be fun. Hampered by lackadaisical direction, a pathetic script that couldn’t soar beyond the limitations of the terrible source material, a truly stiff [sorry] male lead, plus the bizarre fact that it wasn’t even very sexually explicit, Fifty Shades Of Grey was just pure tedium. 3/10

 

 

interview97/ THE INTERVIEW
I should have known really. The Interview was never going to be anything other than your usual modern American lowbrow comedy which alternated between being unfunny and cringe worthy. Plus it starred the odious Seth Rogen, that man of many talents and all of them rubbish. But, silly me, I went to see it out of principle when it had almost not been released in cinemas. But, to be honest, those Koreans wanting to ban it may have had the right idea. 3/10

 

 

96/ SPYspy
Another so-called comedy, and this one got a lot of good reviews too. Obviously the state of movie comedy is so bad now that people swearing at each other repeatedly is considered good. Melissa McCarthy remains about as funny as a potato, while I continue to be very worried that the appaling Paul Feig, another talentless individual for some reason is really quite popular, is writing and directing this upcoming Ghostbusters movie. 3.5/10

 

 

terminator95/ TERMINTOR: GENESYS
I suppose it wasn’t too bad for the first twenty minutes or so, but this soon turned into an unholy mess that felt like several episodes of a TV seres stuck together, alternating between trying to be clever [but actually being stupid, since almost nothing makes sense] and rehashing the first two films in the franchise, while laying on oodles of poor CGI which was actually inferior to that in the earlier movies. The two Clarkes were simply awful, while Arnie seemed bored. 3.5/10

 

 

94/ THE AGE OF ADALINEpimg_7501531231199523-e1431282714485
Sometimes there’s little more fustrating than a film which wastes its potential, and The Age Of Adaline did that throughout, a good [if not entirely new] idea undone by stupid writing and the decision taken to either not show or rush through the most interesting parts of its story, resulting in a film which, aside from Blake Lively’s surprisingly strong performance, was just a dreary muddle for the Nicholas Sparks crowd. I wanted to be touched, but was just bored and irritated. 4/10

 

 

Inherent-Vice93/ INHERENT VICE
A really controversial choice this I know. I never know what I’m going to get with a P. T. Anderson film, and some I do like alot, but I found Inherent Vice to easily be his poorest so far, an absurdly soporific, shambolic mess where it doesn’t seem that Anderson had any kind of coherent vision, yet alone have much of a desire to actually entertain. Some say that there’s hidden depths to it, that it’s really all very sophisticated, while it certainly has a reputation for getting better the more you watch it, so maybe one day….  4/10
filmes_6588_trov

 

92/ TED 2
I fully expected Ted to be your typical unfunny comedy fixated on swearing and penises, and the premise did suggest a one joke movie, but to my surprise it was genuinely sweet as well as genuinely funny. Not so this lazy, crass and often dull sequel which was little more than a Family Guy clip show [one trick pony Tod McFarlane really showing his limitations] than anything else for much of the time, while the rest of the so-called comedy only occasionally actually made me laugh. 4/10

 

 

seventh-son-91/SEVENTH SON
A poor Sword And Sorcery film is often good for a laugh, but Seventh Son, which probably ought to be even lower in my list but was so darned fun I just can’t bring myself to do it, was often hilariously bad. Incoherent, stupid and random, but never dull, it felt like somebody cut down three films into one 102 min feature and removed all the bits that would have made the story make sense. And you deserved a medal if you understood what the hell Jeff Bridges was saying throughout. 4/10

Avatar photo
About Dr Lenera 1969 Articles
I'm a huge film fan and will watch pretty much any type of film, from Martial Arts to Westerns, from Romances [though I don't really like Romcoms!]] to Historical Epics. Though I most certainly 'have a life', I tend to go to the cinema twice a week! However,ever since I was a kid, sneaking downstairs when my parents had gone to bed to watch old Universal and Hammer horror movies, I've always been especially fascinated by horror, and though I enjoy all types of horror films, those Golden Oldies with people like Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee probably remain my favourites. That's not to say I don't enjoy a bit of blood and gore every now and again though, and am also a huge fan of Italian horror, I just love the style.

2 Comments

  1. Haven’t seen a lot of these, probably for good reasons but despite Inherent Vice being an odd mess I couldn’t list it alongside Terminator: Genysis which is astonishingly bad all round.

    • I really wanted to enjoy Inherent Vice and tried to get into the right mood, but didn’t really get anything from it except some nice performances here and there. I guess I found Terminator:Genysis rather enjoyable for its first quarter, before it turned into absolute bull twaddle.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*