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| Artwork by Olivia Steva |
Last week, I told you my best films of 2015, now it's time for the other list. Just a word before we get started, there's no solid metric for what ends up here. Just being a bad movie isn't enough to get on this list As an example, Adam Sandler's The Ridiculous 6 launched on Netflix a couple weeks ago, and it's absolutely terrible, but by Sandler's standards it's merely below average. Nobody was heartbroken by it sucking, everyone expected it to suck, therefore it's sucking doesn't matter. No, to be on here, you have to be a disappointment, or otherwise good resources have to be wasted, or it has to offend me on some level.
Dishonorable Mentions
- Aloha: This was just a bizarre failure. Such a skilled director, so many good actors, such a potentially fascinating screenplay, all either seemingly half-asleep, horribly miscast, and damaged and half-formed as though someone spilled coffee on the master while the ink was still drying.
- Avengers: Age of Ultron: It's not that it's bad, it isn't, but the first Avengers was just so good, a complete redefinition of its genre, that anything less than a masterpiece of a follow-up was going to be a disappointment, and Age of Ultron is far from a masterpiece. That, and it looks like Marvel Studios' infamously grueling production schedules have broken Joss Whedon to the point that he's all but retired. That's a crying shame.
- Chappie: Congratulations, Neill Blomkamp, you made something that isn't completely terrible. Now I just wish you'd make something that's actually good, I want to like you. Maybe if you became a music video director, you already cast a couple of big-shot rappers from your home country as main characters in this, you'd be really good at it.
- Hot Pursuit: Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara have excellent chemistry, and given the chance they could make a very good comic duo, but first they need to be paired with a good director and a good screenplay.
- Jurassic World: Once again, it's not that this is that bad, it's what this represents. What is little more than a 200 million dollar B-movie became the highest grossing film of the year, (but probably not for much longer) combined with an Independence Day sequel and a theatrical Power Rangers movie both arriving in the next couple of years, the 90s Nostalgia Wave has come crashing onto the shore of the culture. God help us all.
- Straight Outta Compton: I told you it would be here too. I really wanted to like it, if it ended after the about the first hour you'd have a great short film. Hell, edit it down the the money shots and set it to a medley of the album its named after and you'd have an all-time great music video, but as a movie it slowly devolves into boiler plate Oscar bait. What a letdown.
The Archivis' Top Ten Worst Movies of 2015
#10) Jupiter Ascending Directed and Written by Andy and Lana Wachowski
In a parallel universe, the Wachowskis lived up to The Matrix and became some of the best action directors of all time. In this universe, they lost the magic long ago and now I'm ready to throw them in the same boat as Neill Blomkamp and Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu. They remain top-tier technicians, but it has quickly become apparent that there is little to no substance behind the spectacle, and they're one more bad film away from me calling them straight-up hacks. Jupiter Ascending still looks beautiful, but all the spectacle in the world can't distract from hokey acting and a screenplay that occasionally feels like The Matrix with all the proper nouns switched out.
#9) Tomorrowland Directed by Brad Bird, Written by Brad Bird and Damon Lindelof
I really didn't want to put this on here. I like Brad Bird for the most part. I like the refreshingly positive message of hope and optimism and the endless possibilities of science that Tomorrowland wants to be about. I like visualizing that more optimistic future through the lense of old-school raygun Gothic sci-fi, the last period where we truly thought that science could save the world, and if Brad Bird had expressed all this in an editorial or a TED Talk, I'd totally back him up. But in movie form Tomorrowland is so ham-fisted and poorly executed that I can't excuse it for good intentions. It comes across less as "Back in my day the future was amazing, what happened to us?" and more like "If you don't share my aesthetic obsession with vintage pulp sci-fi, you are directly contributing to the end of the world!"
#8) The Man From UNCLE Directed by Guy Ritchie, Written by Guy Rtichie and Lionel Wigram
For whatever reason, we got a surprising number of spy movies this year. We had a way too self-serious spy movie, two funny spy movies, and then we had this. This was just dull, shallow, vacant-eyed. It's no better than that Jack Ryan movie from last year. It plays out like a bad James Bond knock-off from the 60s, only it's 2015 so it's even more boring because we've seen all this a million times since. Being a period piece almost forces it to be at least somewhat visually interesting, but otherwise it is a complete snooze.
#7) Minions Directed by Kyle Balda and Pierre Coffin, Written by Brian Lynch
This summer, Minionmania reached what is hopefully its apex in the only way it could; the little yellow monsters got a big, heavily marketed movie of their very own. The posters were everywhere, as were the trailers. Facebook was flooded with memes. We simply could not find a way to escape these things. Which wouldn't matter if the movie was alright, but Minions misses the main thing that made them appealing enough to build a media empire on. They're only funny as a distraction from the main characters, when you make them the focus of a feature, there isn't enough substance to carry a movie. Da-ba-dee, da-ba-dae. Da-ba-dee, dab-a-dae, please o' please let this craze die.
#6) The Visit Directed and Written by M. Night Shyamalan
Once upon a time, M. Night Shyamalan was positioned to become the next great American auteur. That, didn't happen, but for a while he had an entirely different kind of notoriety as the filmmaker that everyone agreed was cool to hate, The Happening is still some of the best accidental comedy ever put to film. But with The Visit, Shyamalan has finally managed to wear out his welcome. It's too obvious and on-the-nose to work as a straight horror film, it's too self-serious and meditative to work as self-parody, at one point one of the main characters literally flips off the audience. M. Night, whatever you needed to get out of your system with the last seven or eight films, I hope you got it all out, because I half-expected you to walk onscreen during the credits and shout "Screw all y'all haters! Imma do it how I want!"
#5) Spectre Directed by Sam Mendes, Written by John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Jez Butterworth
I want to like the Craig era James Bond movies, Daniel Craig is great in the part, but Spectre isn't only easily the worst Bond movie since Die Another Day, it's confirmed something that I've been suspecting for a while; that James Bond itself has become obsolete in the Marvel Age of blockbuster film making. The point of the James Bond movies has always been to follow the exploits of a guy who's only job is to say cool things while doing cool things in the most over-the-top manner possible. That's virtually every action movie now. We don't need James Bond for that anymore, and by now it's just going through the motions and hoping that we still respond to it.
#4) The Divergent Series: Insurgent Directed by Robert Schwentke, Written by Brian Duffield, Akiva Goldsman, and Mark Bomback
This was the year that YA dystopia films finally reached critical mass. With the saga of The Hunger Games flickering out like a candle starved of oxygen, the forest fire of imitators will soon start running out of fuel. But until that happens we'll still have to deal with the lingering scent of burning wood. As long as there are insecure teenagers, there will be power fantasies that shamelessly pander to them, but the Divergent movies are the most insultingly, cynically calculated of the bunch. If Logan's Run is a genuine Parisian cafe and The Hunger Games is a Starbucks, then the Divergent series is cheap airline coffee that barely gets the job done, smells of spent gunpowder, and tastes of pencil shavings and ash.
#3) Fant4stic Directed by Josh Trank, Written by Josh Trank, Simon Kinberg, and Jeremy Slater
We've been spoiled by the ascendancy of Marvel Studios, so much so that we've all but forgotten just how bad superhero movies can get. Fortunately, 20th Century Fox and Josh Trank are more than happy to remind us with another shoestring budgeted quick cash-in made to hold onto the IP so nobody else can touch it in the spirit of the Roger Corman movie. Actually, even that might be too nice, the Roger Corman movie is terrible, but it at least captures some of the energy and enthusiasm of the comics, Fant4stic on the other hand is dull, dreary, and grim. Of all the high-profile superhero films to rip off, why would you pick something as reviled as Man of Steel?
#2) Pixels Directed by Chris Columbus, Written by Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling
As Nineties Nostalgia begins to rear its ugly head, Eighties Nostalgia had its last breath this year, and there is no end to that trend that would fit better than this movie. Pixels is the nadir of lazy, nostalgia driven cash-ins from the disaster artists at Happy Madison that tries to appeal to everyone and in doing so appeals to no one. Kids today aren't going to care about the Atari era miasma it marinates itself in, and nostalgic adults that do care about it will be insulted by just how little Pixels cares about its subject matter. There's a critic for the Dallas Morning News who, when reviewing Pixels, said that the studio had tired to ban him from seeing Adam Sandler movies for review because he wasn't very nice to them. He said that it was "the nicest gift anyone has ever given me."
Before we get to number one, I need to make something clear, everything else on this list has at least some redeeming value. Jupiter Ascending's baroque pulp sci-fi looks gorgeous, The Visit is occasionally unintentionally hilarious, The Man From UNCLE is a fascinating case study in just how generic a movie can be, even the Divergent movies are a great example of what not to do when ripping off a successful franchise, but...
#1) Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 Directed by Andy Fickman, Written by Kevin James and Nick Bakay
...on the other hand, has no redeeming values. The director is barely there, the acting is atrocious, the script is an unfunny joke that feels like it would have been great as an SNL bit but simply cannot sustain a feature film. It is shot badly, edited blandly, and so bone-headedly dull and slow that I almost thought it was a practical joke on the part of the film makers. There's a reason that there aren't any so-bad-it's-good comedies; bad drama, action, horror, virtually every other genre can be amazing when they go wrong, you can't peel your eyes away from the insanity that unfolds. But the whole point of comedy is to do all that on purpose, so when it fails, it's just awkward and sad.
Have a nice day.
Greg.B
In a parallel universe, the Wachowskis lived up to The Matrix and became some of the best action directors of all time. In this universe, they lost the magic long ago and now I'm ready to throw them in the same boat as Neill Blomkamp and Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu. They remain top-tier technicians, but it has quickly become apparent that there is little to no substance behind the spectacle, and they're one more bad film away from me calling them straight-up hacks. Jupiter Ascending still looks beautiful, but all the spectacle in the world can't distract from hokey acting and a screenplay that occasionally feels like The Matrix with all the proper nouns switched out.
#9) Tomorrowland Directed by Brad Bird, Written by Brad Bird and Damon Lindelof
I really didn't want to put this on here. I like Brad Bird for the most part. I like the refreshingly positive message of hope and optimism and the endless possibilities of science that Tomorrowland wants to be about. I like visualizing that more optimistic future through the lense of old-school raygun Gothic sci-fi, the last period where we truly thought that science could save the world, and if Brad Bird had expressed all this in an editorial or a TED Talk, I'd totally back him up. But in movie form Tomorrowland is so ham-fisted and poorly executed that I can't excuse it for good intentions. It comes across less as "Back in my day the future was amazing, what happened to us?" and more like "If you don't share my aesthetic obsession with vintage pulp sci-fi, you are directly contributing to the end of the world!"
#8) The Man From UNCLE Directed by Guy Ritchie, Written by Guy Rtichie and Lionel Wigram
For whatever reason, we got a surprising number of spy movies this year. We had a way too self-serious spy movie, two funny spy movies, and then we had this. This was just dull, shallow, vacant-eyed. It's no better than that Jack Ryan movie from last year. It plays out like a bad James Bond knock-off from the 60s, only it's 2015 so it's even more boring because we've seen all this a million times since. Being a period piece almost forces it to be at least somewhat visually interesting, but otherwise it is a complete snooze.
#7) Minions Directed by Kyle Balda and Pierre Coffin, Written by Brian Lynch
This summer, Minionmania reached what is hopefully its apex in the only way it could; the little yellow monsters got a big, heavily marketed movie of their very own. The posters were everywhere, as were the trailers. Facebook was flooded with memes. We simply could not find a way to escape these things. Which wouldn't matter if the movie was alright, but Minions misses the main thing that made them appealing enough to build a media empire on. They're only funny as a distraction from the main characters, when you make them the focus of a feature, there isn't enough substance to carry a movie. Da-ba-dee, da-ba-dae. Da-ba-dee, dab-a-dae, please o' please let this craze die.
#6) The Visit Directed and Written by M. Night Shyamalan
Once upon a time, M. Night Shyamalan was positioned to become the next great American auteur. That, didn't happen, but for a while he had an entirely different kind of notoriety as the filmmaker that everyone agreed was cool to hate, The Happening is still some of the best accidental comedy ever put to film. But with The Visit, Shyamalan has finally managed to wear out his welcome. It's too obvious and on-the-nose to work as a straight horror film, it's too self-serious and meditative to work as self-parody, at one point one of the main characters literally flips off the audience. M. Night, whatever you needed to get out of your system with the last seven or eight films, I hope you got it all out, because I half-expected you to walk onscreen during the credits and shout "Screw all y'all haters! Imma do it how I want!"
#5) Spectre Directed by Sam Mendes, Written by John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Jez Butterworth
I want to like the Craig era James Bond movies, Daniel Craig is great in the part, but Spectre isn't only easily the worst Bond movie since Die Another Day, it's confirmed something that I've been suspecting for a while; that James Bond itself has become obsolete in the Marvel Age of blockbuster film making. The point of the James Bond movies has always been to follow the exploits of a guy who's only job is to say cool things while doing cool things in the most over-the-top manner possible. That's virtually every action movie now. We don't need James Bond for that anymore, and by now it's just going through the motions and hoping that we still respond to it.
#4) The Divergent Series: Insurgent Directed by Robert Schwentke, Written by Brian Duffield, Akiva Goldsman, and Mark Bomback
This was the year that YA dystopia films finally reached critical mass. With the saga of The Hunger Games flickering out like a candle starved of oxygen, the forest fire of imitators will soon start running out of fuel. But until that happens we'll still have to deal with the lingering scent of burning wood. As long as there are insecure teenagers, there will be power fantasies that shamelessly pander to them, but the Divergent movies are the most insultingly, cynically calculated of the bunch. If Logan's Run is a genuine Parisian cafe and The Hunger Games is a Starbucks, then the Divergent series is cheap airline coffee that barely gets the job done, smells of spent gunpowder, and tastes of pencil shavings and ash.
#3) Fant4stic Directed by Josh Trank, Written by Josh Trank, Simon Kinberg, and Jeremy Slater
We've been spoiled by the ascendancy of Marvel Studios, so much so that we've all but forgotten just how bad superhero movies can get. Fortunately, 20th Century Fox and Josh Trank are more than happy to remind us with another shoestring budgeted quick cash-in made to hold onto the IP so nobody else can touch it in the spirit of the Roger Corman movie. Actually, even that might be too nice, the Roger Corman movie is terrible, but it at least captures some of the energy and enthusiasm of the comics, Fant4stic on the other hand is dull, dreary, and grim. Of all the high-profile superhero films to rip off, why would you pick something as reviled as Man of Steel?
#2) Pixels Directed by Chris Columbus, Written by Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling
As Nineties Nostalgia begins to rear its ugly head, Eighties Nostalgia had its last breath this year, and there is no end to that trend that would fit better than this movie. Pixels is the nadir of lazy, nostalgia driven cash-ins from the disaster artists at Happy Madison that tries to appeal to everyone and in doing so appeals to no one. Kids today aren't going to care about the Atari era miasma it marinates itself in, and nostalgic adults that do care about it will be insulted by just how little Pixels cares about its subject matter. There's a critic for the Dallas Morning News who, when reviewing Pixels, said that the studio had tired to ban him from seeing Adam Sandler movies for review because he wasn't very nice to them. He said that it was "the nicest gift anyone has ever given me."
Before we get to number one, I need to make something clear, everything else on this list has at least some redeeming value. Jupiter Ascending's baroque pulp sci-fi looks gorgeous, The Visit is occasionally unintentionally hilarious, The Man From UNCLE is a fascinating case study in just how generic a movie can be, even the Divergent movies are a great example of what not to do when ripping off a successful franchise, but...
#1) Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 Directed by Andy Fickman, Written by Kevin James and Nick Bakay
...on the other hand, has no redeeming values. The director is barely there, the acting is atrocious, the script is an unfunny joke that feels like it would have been great as an SNL bit but simply cannot sustain a feature film. It is shot badly, edited blandly, and so bone-headedly dull and slow that I almost thought it was a practical joke on the part of the film makers. There's a reason that there aren't any so-bad-it's-good comedies; bad drama, action, horror, virtually every other genre can be amazing when they go wrong, you can't peel your eyes away from the insanity that unfolds. But the whole point of comedy is to do all that on purpose, so when it fails, it's just awkward and sad.
Have a nice day.
Greg.B
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