By John H. Foote
Why do an intro? These are the ten worst films I screened this year, I am sure there are others, I am sure I could do a list of runners up numbering very high. But I won’t because, at the end of the day, 2019 was a good year at the movies. I get very angry when I hear someone complain about the movies. Have they seen nearly three hundred or more? How would they possibly know?
Well, they don’t, plain and simple.
While there are a lot more lousy movies than good to great ones, there are also more failures among the worst films, so they sink without a trace. The good ones hang on, the great ones win awards.
These ones just embarrass their creators.
This time from starting with the absolute stinker of the year and moving down in order of dreadful.
10. SERENITY
Anne Hathaway had a horrible year. Continued at number eight… First this mess with Matthew McConaughey in which, you got it, they get all hot and bothered. No one cared…no one.
9. MEN IN BLACK: INTERNATIONAL
Clearly Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are missed in a huge way. Not even the aliens are fun this time. Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson, look confused. Terrible.
8. THE HUSTLE
Continuing from number ten, this unfunny comedy with Rebel Wilson in which Wilson was far more fun to watch.
7. THE FANATIC
John Travolta as an obsessed fan could have been interesting because the guy can act. Not here…just brutal. No story, no direction, whole lot of nothing.
6. CATS
Quick grab the kitty litter…too late, it’s out. Painful, just wretched, like a hairball hurled on a new suede couch. No, I was right the first time, pure feline excrement. Yuck.
5. LADY AND THE TRAMP
Another “live-action” remake that is really a CGI created film, the animals anyway, this awful remake of the 1955 classic is beyond banal, far beyond silly. Enduring it was like root canal minus pain freezing. Another example of Disney greed. Obscene.
4. X MEN: DARK PHOENIX
Mercifully, the end of a franchise. Rest In Peace. Jessica Chastain? What were you thinking? Dreadful effects but nothing is quite as bad as the story, and the Acting.
3. RAMBO: LAST BLOOD
Rambo might be fighting in a seniors’ home before long, wheeling down the hall as bedpans hurl past him. And he, ever resourceful, uses catheters and enemas as weapons. But not yet. Retired along the Mexican border, never boding well, the killing machine is drawn back in by cartels. Stallone looks impressive, but pushing seventy-five…seriously? Just ridiculous.
2. GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS
yes, I laughed out loud when the monsters bowed down to the big green lizard with the potbelly. Bowed down. It was not the first nor last time I so hard laughed during the film. Millie Bobby Brown, the girl from Stranger Things, a genuine talent might want to have a word with her agents if this is the best they can come up with. Just a stupid movie on every level. And the big green guy is getting a pot belly….just sayin’.
1. MALEFICENT: MISTRESS OF EVIL
Made for no other purpose than to make money, this no reason for existing sequel looks like a video game on the big screen. There are so many moments of CGI, the humanity has been drained from every frame of film, from every pore of skin on the actors. Angelina Jolie must have been given a single direction… ”glower”. Either that or they held her paycheque up to her as her motivation. Just a horror show of filmmaking. No better example of Disney’s obscene greed than this. Quality has stopped mattering to them.
John H. Foote is a well-recognized Canadian film critic/historian who has been an active critic for 30 years. His deep love for the movies began at a very young age. He began his career as co-host of the popular TV show Reel to Real where he remained for nine years. While on TV he began dabbling in education, eventually ascending to Director of the Toronto Film School, where he also taught film history. After leaving the college to care for his wife, he returned to teaching at Humber College where he taught both Film History and Method Acting Theory. John has written two books: “Clint Eastwood – Evolution of a Filmmaker” and the upcoming “Spielberg – American Film Visionary”. He is currently working on two books, one about the films of the seventies and another on the films of Martin Scorsese. Through his career he has worked in TV, radio, print and the web. John has interviewed everyone in the industry (more than 300 interviews) except Jack Nicholson, he says sadly. Highlights include Martin Scorsese, Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep Robert Duvall, Jane Fonda, Francis Ford Coppola and Kathryn Bigelow.
