While I consider myself a horror geek, and my best and worst of horrors should contain plenty of films as I tend to watch almost everything horror related, when it comes to my worst general films of the year, that’s a different story.
See, I’ll watch any horror, but ask me to sit through films like Grown Ups 2 , Movie 43, Diana or Scary Movie 5 and it aint happening, so my top ten worst films of the year may have a few missing. That is simply because I had the sense not to watch them, so my top ten worst films consists of films I watched in the hope they would actually be half decent, but weren’t.
10- Olympus Has Fallen: Director Antoine Fuqua
The first White House invasion film in my list, Olympus Has Fallen started well, and even though it got ridiculously over the top, it was enjoyable for the first forty minutes or so. However, not even Gerard Butler could fix the boredom that struck all of a sudden, when you came to the realisation that the director and writers had no more tricks left up their sleeves.
9- Iron Man 3: Director Shane Black
A controversial decision I am sure, but I make no apologies when I say Iron Man 3 really disappointed me. The film was going so well, The Mandarin was a sinister, menacing villain who was hugely enjoyable to watch on screen, and Robert Downey Jr was clearly loving every minute playing Tony Stark. However, the jokey dialogue began to wear thin, and even though I adored the cute little kid Stark met after his home had been destroyed, it was now that the film began to collapse. It became silly, and there were far too many jokes and niceties when I seriously wanted to see Stark fall apart and come back stronger. The ending was just too spectacular, but the biggest issue I had was when (SPOILER) The Mandarin made his so-called brilliant little change, and became a joke. I had to gather all my strength not to walk out. Never has a twist brought so much anger, and ruined so much for me. I was literally devastated, and I just don’t understand how this nonsense became one of the biggest film in history.
8- White House Down: Director Roland Emmerich
I think deep down we all expected this to be crap, and Olympus Has Fallen definitely had the edge. While Emmerich’s White House Down boasted a better cast than Olympus, and some much better big action set pieces, the film was way too long, way too comical and, I am sorry to say, far too patriotic. Emmercih has this habit of adding in every possible big speech, one-liner or famous landmark to please his audience, and I get tired of it. Just make a film, and stop trying to appeal to the masses. White House Down was just so cringeworthy I nearly threw up. It was annoying too, because the film had some cool ideas, and boy can Emmerich shoot action well. Sort your script, and sort the pleasing everybody nonsense, it is not necessary.
7- The Moth Diaries: Director Mary Harron
If you ever needed a cure for insomnia, then this is it. The Moth Diaries, based on a popular novel, is based in a girls boarding school where a new arrival causes some friction between two best friends. There is an indication that the new arrival, played by Lily Cole, is a vampire. To be honest, you won’t even care, and if you haven’t nodded off before the end, you will notice a silly Carrie rip-off at the end. You’d be better off sticking your head down the toilet for ninety minutes.
6- G.I. Joe: etaliation: Director Jon M. Chu
The trailers promised lots, and a cool 3D trailer which showed off the films new 3D transfer was awesome. However, the final product was just awful. All the cast looked uncomfortable, bored and desperate for it all to be over. The fight scenes were OK, but nowhere near as good as they should have been, and the story was just not engaging at all. A total mess, zero tension, no urgency and flat as a pancake. Hideous.
5- Ghost Shark: Director Griff Furst
Usually I enjoy these low budget, B-movies, but Ghost Shark took the biscuit. Normally I would laugh along at the audacity of what the director was trying to show the viewer, but Ghost Shark was just too silly, and bad, really really bad. As expected, a shark comes back as a ghost which, for this sort of film, is a cool premise, but seriously, a ghost shark jumping out of a puddle? The idea here seemed that even a drop of rain would allow the ghost shark to travel, and while films like Sharknado can do crap and do it well, this film was just plain crap. No excuses for this level of shite, and while the mighty Sharknado relished in its badness, Ghost Shark felt uncomfortable with it.
4- Stolen: Director Simon West
See, if Nicolas Cage is starring in your film, then you gotta know how to handle him. In Stolen, director Simon West clearly didn’t, and he allowed Cage to drop to sickening levels of badness. Not only that, the film was awful too. Cage played a robber who gets caught after a big robbery, burns the money, and after eight years in prison returns to pay the price for burning said money. His daughter has been kidnapped by Josh Lucas’ one-legged bad guy, and the film struggles to ever really get going. The ideas were there, as were the intent, but Stolen was a big fat waste of talent, and a big fat waste of time.
3- A Good Day To Die Hard: Director John Moore
I enjoyed this film for the first ten or twenty minutes, but then I realised that for the first time ever, Bruce Willis’ John McClane came across as desperate, unfunny, and out of fashion. McClane heads to Russia, is reunited with his son (played by Jai Courtney, and please if Die Hard continues, lets replace Willis with Courtney) and has to deal with terrorists while getting in his sons way. The comedy was awkward, McClane felt like a washed up hero who’d had his day, and the big action spectacles just didn’t have the flamboyance of the previous Die Hard films. We know McClane is invincible, but here it felt like it was being forced down our throats, with bad one-liners, awful scripting and some really, really annoying characters. Sad to say, but I think Die Hard needs to be put to rest now.
2- R.I.P.D: Director Robert Schwentke
Oh dear oh dear, R.I.P.D seemed doomed to fail from the start. The idea was quite cool, a police department made up of dead cops who appear in real life as alter ego’s (Jeff Bridges woman is still the most unsettling image of the year), and casting Jeff Bridges very nearly saved the film, but man this was rubbish. I tried to like it, I really really did, but Jesus it was just awful. Ryan Reynolds was uncharismatic as Nick, a recently deceased cop who has joined the R.I.P.D under the guidance of Bridges’ Roy. Bridges’ stole the show, and made the entire film watchable at least, but this was just crap on an altogether different level. Bad jokes, childish action and some dodgy special effects added up to a film so bad, it deserves to be forgotten instantly. In fact, let’s be nice to Bridges and pretend that this film never actually happened, he deserves better than this.
1- The Host: Director Andrew Niccol
I was actually excited about this, the film based on the book written by Twilight’s Stephenie Meyer. It was also directed by Andrew Niccol, who made the excellent Lord of War, Gattaca and In Time. I expected much more than this bland, boring mess that had me using the fast forward button more than once. I hated The Host, and I hated it more because I expected it to be good. Using the Invasion of the Body Snatchers sort of premise, the story saw a group of resistance fighters trying to survive as aliens have ‘hosted’ most of the human race. Even the excellent Saoirse Ronan as a girl hosted, but refusing to allow the alien to take over, could not save this dribble. So painfully boring, with dull music and long pauses between conversations which also helped induce boredom. One of the dullest films I have ever seen, and sadly I have cheated this list because I never actually made it to the end. I tried and tried and tried, and just after an hour I had to turn it off, so maybe it doesn’t warrant being on this list if I couldn’t finish? Or maybe it does?
All Things to All Men was my worst film of 2013.