Friday, January 2, 2015

Best of the Rest: The Top 5 Worst Movies of 2014




Hello everyone and a happy (late) new year! 

2014 was an overall solid year for movies in general, I would even argue that it was the best cinematic year we’ve had so far this decade.  Multiple great directors released great new films this year, and a few new talents revealed themselves (or rather, re-established themselves.) even the coming Oscars is less predictable then the Oscars usually are simply because there are so many great movies that are totally worthy of best picture that it’s insane.

But alas.  Here at Atchley-O-Saurus movies the time has not yet come to celebrate all of the great things that came about this cinematic year.  No, today the wanton bile cravings of the internet have dictated that I must re-live all of the most unpleasant cinematic experiences I’ve had over the past year.  That’s right folks, it’s time to look at the Top 5 Worst Movies of 2014; a few disclaimers, and then we’ll begin.

Disclaimer One:  This is all my opinion.

Disclaimer Two:  If I didn’t see a movie, then it doesn’t make it on here.  I’ve seen almost one-hundred theatrical releases, and that’s not even close to everything.  If you saw something particularly awful feel free to comment or email me about it.

Disclaimer Three:  There are no more disclaimers.  Now on to the list!

#5.  The Amazing Spider-Man 2





The Amazing Spider-Man 1 was by no means a masterpiece, but it looks like Citizen Kane compared to its sequel.  Clearly directors and writers collectively stopped caring about half way through their respective jobs, because this one of the laziest super-hero flicks I have seen in a long time.

The characters don’t make any sense, the plot doesn’t make any sense, and worst of all: the movie never gets you to care enough about these characters to give a flying flip. When the movie ended I just sat there in the theater baffled about how many things they just didn’t bother to do story-wise.  The Amazing Spider-Man 2 isn’t the interesting kind of bad; the only interesting thing about it is how a studio could spend over a hundred-million dollars on a flick and care so little about the end product.

#4.  Sabotage





Arnold Schwarzenegger has been trying to rejuvenate his career as of late.  He started with The Last Stand which I thought was . . . one of the best straight-up action movies in recent memory.

Then he starred in Escape Plan which was totally . . . a pretty fun piece of 80’s-style entertainment.

The point I’m trying to make here is that I had high hopes for Sabotage, Schwarzenegger had been sufficiently entertaining me to this point.  Yet my high hopes were dashed by bizarre direction from the usually talented David Ayer, who has created his career worst with this Schwarzenegger vehicle.

The films plot is wandering, monotonous and pointless, the violence is unnecessarily harsh and there is no real protagonist or antagonist to be seen.  The ending is supposed to be a gasp-inducing twist, but the filmmakers are lucky if they get even a fart out of their audience.  You’ll notice that almost all of the movies on this list are action-oriented, but out of all of them Sabotage understands least what being an action movie means.

#3.  The Other Woman





The Other Woman takes an admittedly interesting premise and somehow transforms it into one of the most unbearably painful chick-flicks I’ve ever seen.  I actually don’t usually mind romance movies to much, but this was just terrible.

I’m not even sure I can properly describe to you the way this movie fails as a story, as a film and even as a cruddy piece of wish-fulfillment.  I know that I’m not the demographic for this flick, but frankly I don’t care, women out on a girls-night should get the same level of quality as the people in the next theater watching Captain America 2.

These characters are not likable.  This plot is nonsensical.  If you learn anything from this list let it be that a movie without a flowing plot and follow able characters is barely a film at all:  It’s a ninety minute torture device.  The Other Woman may not quite be the worst movie I saw this year, but it is by far the one that ticked me of the most.

#2.  The Legend of Hercules

 




 In the risk of sounding like a broken record; this movie is nonsensical and boring.  This was the first movie I saw in 2014, and it disappointed in a big way.  The Legend of Hercules was probably a quick production made with the attempt to profit off of an upcoming big studio piece (namely the Dwayne Johnson vehicle that came out a few months later,) and it feels just as dull and lazy as that implies.

The way the movie is written, it is supposed to be the “true story” of the legend behind the character Hercules, and the unfortunate result is that it doesn’t actually feel like a Hercules movie.  Not only is it not at all entertaining, but it also fails to live up to its basic premise.  Out of all the Hercules movies I’ve seen, this is definitely the worst.

#1.  Transformers:  Age of Extinction





You are reading the words of a card carrying Bay-Transformers hater, and even I had some hope for the fourth entry in the series.  New protagonist?  Dinobots?  Stanley Tucci?  Enough of the evidence told audiences that Bays fourth Transformers flick might be worth checking out; but those same audiences were lead astray.

Even through all of that cautious optimism I think in the back of my head I knew that this movie would be somewhat terrible, but I had no Idea what I had gotten into.

Transformers 4 is by far the worst movie I saw all year.  The movie not only submits its audience to a barrage of pointless annoying garbage, it does so for over three hours!  I have not seen a movie that so accurately duplicate emotional trauma sense . . . well, sense the other Transformers movies!

This movie was not only difficult to watch, it was kind of painful to watch in its entirety.  There is no part of me that thinks its okay that an action movie about giant robots is harder to watch then Salo or Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.  I sincerely hope that they do not make another one.

Thanks for reading!  If you have your own list you want to share, feel free to comment or email me at atchleyosaurus@gmail.com.  Check back in the coming weeks for more fun movie stuff, and my Top 5 Best Movies of 2014!

No comments:

Post a Comment