A film can be bad in many different ways.
Whether it fails to meet expectations, features uninteresting characters, boasts a poor script or – among many other reasons – is ill-conceived from the outset, the end result is almost always a negative viewing experience.
In ranking the films I enjoyed the least this year, there are those I found disappointing (while still having moments of potential and pleasure), films regarded as “so bad they’re good”, and the outright worst I saw in 2019.
Disappointments
The Beach Bum
Matthew McConaughey stars as a celebrated poet named Moondog who lives a life of hedonism in the Florida Keys. If director Harmony Korine intended The Beach Bum to convey how a life of hedonism is numbingly dull then he succeeded with flying colours. At just over 90 minutes the film feels significantly longer as Moondog experiences a series of misadventures that are occasionally funny (the Martin Lawrence shark sequence) but overwhelmingly tedious.
Gemini Man
Gemini Man sees Ang Lee more invested in technology than a compelling story in a sci-fi film that pits Will Smith against his younger clone. With action sequences that aren’t particularly fun and sci-fi elements that lack the depth of better films, the novelty of the high frame rate only serves to highlight that no amount of technology can compensate for a forgettable movie.
Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
As someone who enjoys the over-the-top action of the Fast and Furious franchise, this spin-off should have been great. Instead it has Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham peacock for well over two hours in a series of action set pieces that have zero tension. A Fast and Furious movie can be a lot of things, but I should never be bored as I was during Hobbs & Shaw.
Stuber
Kumail Nanjiani is a good comedic actor. Dave Bautista can be great in roles that utilise more than his physical presence. Iko Uwais is arguably the best action star working today. All these elements should have made for a great movie – instead Stuber is an unmemorable buddy cop film that fails to utilise the potential of its three leads.
Terminator: Dark Fate
After so many attempts to recapture the perfection of the first two films, Terminator: Dark Fate is proof that sometimes the best thing a franchise can do is to die. The action doesn’t have any weight, the continued changing of the timeline is to the detriment of earlier films, and while 72-year-old Arnold Schwarzenegger is still great as the iconic character, at this point I just want the series to stop.
WTF?! (“so bad, they’re good“)
The Fanatic
Declared the worst film of the year upon its August release, the hype surrounding Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst’s latest offering ought to be experienced if for nothing else than John Travolta’s wild performance. There are pleasures to be had in The Fanatic, but pleasure and quality are two very different things.
The Worst Films of 2019
6. Men In Black: International
If there is one thing that makes me dislike a film more than anything else, it’s boredom. For close to two hours director F. Gary Gray (who is capable of so much better) elicits few laughs in this sequel / reboot to Men In Black while alluding to character details that go nowhere. Tessa Thompson occasionally provides glimmers of a better movie, but those moments are few and far between.
5. Murder Mystery
Since signing a distribution deal with Netflix five years ago, Adam Sandler has starred in a succession of Happy Madison Productions that have given little hope of the iconic comedic actor ever returning to form. Reteaming with Jennifer Aniston for a film that makes Just Go With It look like Happy Gilmore, Murder Mystery fails to elicit a single laugh. As someone who grew up loving many of Sandler’s films I still hold hope that one day he will deliver another comedy that stands alongside his funniest work.
4. Polar
The opening seconds of Polar set the tone for the charmless trash that plays out for the ensuing two hours. Coming across as a cheap imitation John Wick, Mads Mikkelsen stars as an assassin pursued by his former employer in a performance deserving of a much better film. This is a gratuitously ugly piece of work that sees Matt Lucas give the most embarrassing performance of the year.
3. After
For as maligned as Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey were as cultural phenomenons, I can understand how the toxic romances masked in supernatural and sexual flavours appealed to some. After offers nothing memorable in its depiction of a good girl falling for a complete asshole. For so much of the running time nothing happens and when it is finally revealed that the leading hunk is in fact a total shithead, I was none too pleased to have wasted my night on a glorified piece of fanfiction.
2. Unplanned
Putting aside the film’s not-at-all subtle propagandist views, Unplanned is poorly made and mind-numbingly dull in the way pro-life talking points stand in for interesting characters. While I personally abhor the film’s politics on women’s reproductive rights, the cartoonish Planned Parenthood director, played by Robia Scott, is hilarious in much the same way Kevin Sorbo had me howling as an atheist professor in God’s Not Dead. Of all the films on this list, Unplanned is the only one I would want to revisit solely for Robia Scott.
1. The Lion King
The “live-action” version of The Lion King has no artistic reason to exist. As a remake of the 1994 animated feature, Jon Favreau’s adaptation is inferior in every way, especially in how the new elements eliminate the heart that made the original so beloved. The decision to portray the world in a photorealistic manner makes it impossible to distinguish many of the animals – and most damningly – connect with them as characters. It feels rather reductive to say The Lion King exists solely to make money, but I feel very strongly that if not for the corporate greed of Disney to capitalise on nostalgia this film would not exist.
Check out other instalments in my 2019 YEAR IN REVIEW:
Robert Crosby 