Ugh…I don’t want to talk about these movies, nor do I even want to think about them…but I’ll try…Is there an order to their badness? I guess, but they’re all so close in their poor quality that any of them could earn the #1 or the #9, so the numbers attached to them are irrelevant.
THE TOP MOVIES THAT I AIM FOR WHEN I AM PEEING
10) The Mummy– Admittedly, I only included this because lists come in 10’s and I only saw 9 movies that deserved the full extent of my wrath. “The Mummy” was just very, very, very mediocre and only seems worse than it really is because it aborted the ‘Dark Universe’ with its mediocrity. In fact, “The Mummy” is so thoroughly mediocre that it wasn’t even the first movie to prematurely end the ‘Dark Universe’, as “Dracula Untold” was the original attempt and it was better at being bad.
9) Sleepless– Um…Er…I remember not liking it, which I remember more than the movie itself… According to my notes, the editing was disorienting for the wrong reasons and the characters seem to be perpetually unpleasant. As soon as Jamie Foxx gets a call from his wife, who says “You need to pick up your son for his game. Don’t fuck this up“, I was like: “Shit, it’s one of THESE kinds of movies“. You know, the one where the estranged wife is always bitching and the son is always moody. There’s also a female Internal Affairs agent who’s presented as ‘strong and empowered’, which translates into ‘hostile towards everyone, all the time’. I just didn’t like how every interaction is so vitriolic. The film is also very predictable and safe, so even though our protagonist is a corrupt cop, we immediately assume he’s undercover…which he is! One thing I did like is how Foxx is stabbed and he continuously sells the wound throughout the bulk of the runningtime, adding to the tension. But the movie has a generic action-oriented finale that requires him to do all sorts of stunts, so it’s like he forgot that he was stabbed and is possibly bleeding to death. These criticisms are also all entirely worthless though, because if you bother watching this, you will immediately forget about “Sleepless” along with its flaws.
8) The Case for Christ– When I first saw the trailer for this, I knew it would fail for an army of reasons, the biggest being that the book is about as unadaptable as any book could ever be. I’ve read the source material and it’s mostly a collection of interviews, which is about as visually interesting as two guys talking about religion. But hey, “The Shack” was another one I thought would suck and that ended up being a pleasant surprise, so maybe- nope, “The Case for Christ” sucks. I do find biblical theology, historicity and archeology to be fascinating, so I didn’t mind the interviews, but most of the content is dedicated to the failing marriage of the protagonists. They both come across as aggressively unsympathetic and their arguments start to feel very repetitive. I grew frustrated and bored to the point of misery, although I was amused by an absurd subplot involving a shooting.
7) xXx: Return of Xander Cage– This was just…lame…The action scenes are fine for what they are, but they are upstaged by the corny dialogue, the convoluted storyline and deplorable characters. The cast look like they’re treating the film as one big joke, with half of them entering every conflict with a smirk to show us that there is no reason to give a shit about their well being. Vin Deasil’s ego appears to be out-of-control right now based on what we hear about the behind-the-scenes drama for the “Fast and the Furious” franchise, but “xXx: Return of Xander Cage” is that ego in cinematic form, as every scene is designed to show or explain to the audience how cool he is. I like Vin Deasil fine, but he has this smug look on his face throughout the entire movie that I hated and I ended up rooting for the villains to knock him down a peg. I suspect that the filmmakers were at least partially going for self parody, but instead of giggling, I was rolling my eyes.
6) Transformers: The Last Knight– I still can’t decide if “The Last Knight” is the worst “Transformers” movie, or if I’ve simply grown so sick of the formula that I’ve just had enough. These movies are too long, have no respect for their own continuity, showcase annoying comedic routines and rely on boring characters and their even more boring relationships…These were the sins of the first movie, but the cuts at this point have all become infected and I fear I will die if a “Transformers 6” comes into being. For all the shit I give Michael Bay, I do think he’s a competent director…so WHAT THE F@CK WAS WITH THE ASPECT RATIO!? Those black bars surrounding the picture would suddenly appear, disappear, grow or shrink, often within the SAME F@CKING SCENE. That had to be some of the most amateurish bullshit I have ever seen from a high profile movie.
5) Rings– I did a review of this once…you should read it, because I don’t remember a damn thing about this piece of crap. They try to take the series in a new direction, but unfortunately, their definition of ‘new direction’ is to be like every other horror flick that has come out within the past 10 years. The acting sucked. The jump scares sucked. The story sucked. Nothing anyone does makes any f@cking sense. This was just an inept horror flick that failed to understand the appeal of its predecessor. Not only did “Rings” probably kill off its intended franchise, it also lead to the cancellation of the new “Friday the 13th“, which is another reason it can rot in hell.
4) Resident Evil: The Final Chapter– I’ve already discussed this shitty movie in my ‘Compulsive Franchise Disorder’ critique of the “Resident Evil” franchise, so just read that as I don’t want to talk about this again.
3) Underworld: Blood Wars– I’ve already discussed this shitty movie on my ‘Compulsive Franchise Disorder’ critique of the “Underworld” franchise, so just read that as I don’t want to talk about this again…but I guess I kind of will. “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” might be the worst movie from a technical perspective, as it’s incompetently shot, edited, choreographed, written and even acted, but “Underworld: Blood Wars” made me angrier. I hated it because it’s a flogging of its own fanbase…which I’m not even apart of! We are five movies into this saga and they’re still regurgitating the same storyline. They make some baffling decisions that almost make its predecessors feel pointless and if I’m angry at some of the creative choices here, what would the actual fans feel? The CGI sucks too.
2) King Arthur: Legend of the Sword– The only reason this evaded the formal #1 spot is that even though it’s pretty terrible, it’s…at least fascinatingly terrible? You can tell that this is a Guy Ritchie movie based on its hyperactive style, so expect a lot of his usual musical cues, editing transitions, hyperactive camerawork and stylized dialogue, but none of it works here. In fact, the more Guy Ritchie’isms to appear in a scene, the worse it got, which is strange because these are also the only moments where you can see the effort. The most extreme example is when Arthur is relating a previous event to the guy who plays Roose Bolton in “Game of Thrones“. The scene is supposed to be quirky and cool, but it ends up being really annoying, even though I can’t pinpoint why. Maybe the editor is to blame, or perhaps the “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” way of storytelling just doesn’t work in this kind of period piece…or maybe the writing was just shit and the attempts to make this inane dialogue sound cool only drew more attention to the smell. Or maybe it’s all of the above, but either way, my eyes were rolling.
The action is over-the-top, to the point where wielding Excalibur gives you super human abilities. I don’t mind this idea, but the visual style is too dreary and bleak for such an absurd concept. Arthur becoming the Flash could work, but only in a campier, sillier, colorful movie. I also felt like this movie was 30 minutes too short, as a lot of information seems missing- I wasn’t always sure who was supposed to be who or what their relationship with a character was supposed to be. Some storythreads are introduced, but are closed before anything can be done with them. There are abrupt jumps through time and some exposition is rushed so quickly that you might be confused as to what is happening. Sometimes you need to know more about the source material (such as with the lady in the lake), but it also changes so much about the source material that you will be confused anyway. Yet for a film that feels like a lot was cut out, “King Arthur” also feels like it’s 30 minutes too long. I got bored after awhile. So yeah, I’d say it’s a failure, but at least it’s an interesting failure. I enjoyed peeing on it, if anything.
1) CHiPS– Is “Chips” the worst movie of 2017? I don’t know, but it is the only movie on this list that I actually had forgotten I had seen and that must count for something. “Chips” is not funny, yet like most bad comedies, it also doesn’t know when to end the joke. Dax Shepard’s character is so irritating during the first half because he keeps disrupting the plot with his stupidity, so I found myself not caring that his life is in shambles…yet the whole ‘his life is in shambles’ subplot also functions as a wet blanket on the allegedly comedic tone, so you almost have to care because it’s making the film worse! He does gradually get more tolerable, but this is one of those movies that will sacrifice continuity for the sake of a gag. Sometimes the protagonists will be competent, but other times they will be inept because the comedy demands it of them! The plot is just sort of..forgotten, leaving plenty of loose ends…or maybe they were tied, but the close-ups of cat assholes distracted me from the information I needed to know. For some stupid reason, the filmmakers tried to humanize the villains, emphasizing their surprisingly touching relationships with each-other…in a f@cking bloody comedy, where their deaths are cartoonish and funny.! At times, the villains seemed more concerned about the well being of civilians than the heroes were, which could’ve been amusing, except this is never packaged as any kind of joke! It’s shitty, inconsistent writing! There are a lot of motorcycle chases and they go on for too long, slowing down an already choppy pace. The R-rating was completely unnecessary, as the graphic violence and nudity added very little to the comedy and at times even took away from it. “Chips” is the kind of movie that fails because it just keeps getting in its own way. I think the filmmakers were trying, but they just didn’t know what they were doing.
So yeah, I saw some movies that I really disliked, but still need to see “Baywatch“, “The Snowman“, “Geosto- Oh f@ck me, I don’t need to see those movies at all! I’m f@cking retired and I have been spending my reviewtirement watching…”Jaws in Japan“…and “Shark Exorcist”, which is about a demonic shark that possesses the people it eat- Okay, can I watch “Geostorm” now?