Despite a surfeit of bloated, fatuous Hollywood blockbusters like The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and a fourth (!) Transformers film, it’s been a pretty damn good year at the movies. There was Richard Linklater’s 12-years-in-the-making masterpiece Boyhood, the scariest movie in a decade in the Aussie horror flick The Babadook, and the riveting, fly-on-the-wall documentary Citizenfour, which chronicled the plight of Edward Snowden. But there were also lots of stinkers. These movies are the ones that made you downright furious that you wasted your hard-earned money on such a terrible piece of shit. Without further ado, here are the worst films of the year.
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Elizabeth Banks is a very likable actress. From her turn as a randy camp counselor in Wet Hot American Summer to the drag queen-ish master of ceremonies in the Hunger Games films, she almost always brings her A-game. So it was sad to see her talents wasted on this asinine tale of a woman who, after a one-night stand, must endure an odyssey across L.A. to make it to the biggest job interview of her career. The jokes are lame, the racial stereotypes downright offensive, and the level of misogyny on display here is a total head-scratcher. Throughout her journey, a disheveled Banks is, at one point or another, mistaken for being a hooker, stripper, criminal, and—yes—a “crack whore.” A shameful film, indeed.
Focus Features
The Monuments Men means well. It’s a handsome, star-studded historical epic boasting the likes of George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, and Jean Dujardin as a group of Allied soldiers tasked with saving and preserving priceless pieces of art stolen by Hitler and the Nazis during World War II. It even features the wonderful Cate Blanchett as a double agent. And Clooney has exhibited some serious chops in the director’s seat, like his gonzo Chuck Barris biopic Confessions of a Dangerous Mind or his ode to journalist integrity, Good Night, and Good Luck. But for all its fancy trappings, this WWII flick is one of the sappiest movies of the year; a film so aware of its nobility that it becomes awfully cloying, and the voiceover narration will have you chuckling in disbelief.
Claudette Barius/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
I’m honestly not sure who keeps hiring Renny Harlin to direct films. While I do have a soft spot for The Long Kiss Goodnight, an outrageous flick featuring a bleached-blond Geena Davis as a deadly assassin and Samuel L. Jackson as her fun sidekick, the guy’s never directed a legitimately good movie. And this one stars Kellan Lutz, that dude who grunted a lot in Twilight and looks like Matt Damon’s slower, bodybuilding brother, as Hercules. It’s an ugly-looking, dull film, packed with mediocre performances and little semblance of a story. I’m not sure who green-lit this dreck, but he or she isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.
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I must confess, this is the only film on this list I haven’t seen—out of principle. But it currently holds the distinction of being the lowest-rated movie in IMDB history, so felt obligated to include this surefire piece of shit.
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Each successive installment in Michael Bay’s orgy of twisted metal and wrecked sports cars is worse than the last. And if you thought the franchise would improve one iota by swapping Shia LaBeouf’s wisecrackin’ nerd for Mark Wahlberg as an overprotective dad, well, you were very wrong. The action scenes in all these movies are the same monotonous junk, and this fourth installment in the Transformers franchise is nothing more than a shameless cash-grab packed with more product placement and cross-promotional opportunities than a year in the life of Paris Hilton. Bay needs to stick to buddy action flicks, and Wahlberg, well, anything else.
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When the best part about your movie is a brief cameo by Nicki Minaj as a sassy secretary, you know it’s got serious problems. Leslie Mann stars as a seemingly happy housewife who discovers that her flashy husband, played by Game of Thrones’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, is having an affair with Cameron Diaz. And then Kate Upton. So, the three women band together to get revenge on the scumbag. But The First Wives Club this is not. It’s basically several stupid comedy gags strewn together (a Great Dane crapping on a carpet, slipping him hormones that make him grow breasts), and the writing is so lame you end up feeling bad for talented comediennes Mann and Diaz, who deserve far better material than this.
Barry Wetcher/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
It wasn’t a great year professionally for Cameron Diaz. Yes, the aforementioned Other Woman did good business, grossing nearly $200 million worldwide, but it was awful. This “comedy,” however, was even worse. The premise is simple enough: A married couple (Jason Segel, Diaz) hope to inject some spice in their relationship so they make a sex tape, but then, they accidentally upload it to their iCloud and put it on iPads that they distribute to friends as gifts. So, throughout the course of the evening, they must reclaim all their presents before anyone sees their raunchy sexcapade. Segel and Diaz had fine chemistry in the otherwise lame Bad Teacher, but here, they’re failed by the script which, with the exception of a cocaine-snorting Rob Lowe, is entirely devoid of humor.
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There’s a great filmmaker, Paul Thomas Anderson, and then there’s a pretty bad one, Paul W.S. Anderson. This CG-loaded flick is by the latter. And, with the exception of a few cool explosions—in the form of Kiefer Sutherland as its villain—there’s nothing noteworthy here. The dialogue is clichéd and the film’s bleached look is off-putting. When I spoke to True Detective filmmaker Cary Fukunaga earlier this year, he couldn’t stop discussing how irate the film made him, including its unrealistic volcano eruption.
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This romantic comedy stars the usually-likable actors Zac Efron, Miles Teller, and Michael B. Jordan as a trio of d-bags with commitment issues. But the scenarios are totally preposterous and lack any sort of credibility. In one sequence, for instance, Efron’s character wears a prosthetic penis to a fancy costume party thrown by the parents of a girl he’s crushing on (he thought it was a Halloween party). And guess what? The parents adore him for his risk-taking sense of humor. No.
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Despite the presence of ace character actors like Bill Nighy and Miranda Otto, Aaron Eckhart’s performance as Frankenstein makes Robert De Niro’s look like Olivier by comparison. This meandering bore of a film is chock-a-block full of pointless action and a nonexistent screenplay. Do yourself a favor and hold out for next year’s Victor Frankenstein, starring James McAvoy as Frankenstein and Daniel Radcliffe as Igor.
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This sappy flick makes Nicholas Sparks look like Shakespeare. The rich girl. The guy from the other side of the tracks. Disapproving parents. Guess what happens? Yes, imagine every tragic cliché packed into one horrible drama and you have Endless Love. It doesn’t help matters that the lead, Alex Pettyfer, is as wooden as a cigar store Indian.
Universal Studios
You’d think this Nicolas Cage-starring adaptation of Tim LaHaye’s uber-Christian rapture books would at least have that “so bad it’s good” thing going for it. Nope. It’s just an awful, humorless, witless drag. Cage must be heavily in debt or something, because that’s the only possible explanation for his choices of late.
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A Million Ways to Die in the West is Seth MacFarlane’s attempt at writing, directing, and starring in the next Blazing Saddles. But, aside from a delightfully nasty Neil Patrick Harris, this comedy is a total dud. Virtually none of the jokes land, and MacFarlane, though immensely talented as a writer (see: Family Guy, Ted), isn’t up to the task of carrying this rickety wagon on his shoulders, lacking the requisite leading man magnetism.
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You will NEVER look at Will Smith the same way again.
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