10. The Hangover Part III
Warner Bros.
Alcohol poisoning can be deadly and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.
But something needs to put this franchise, which in its first
installment was raw and disgusting and also totally hilarious, out of
its nasty, self-loathing misery. So, drink up, boys.
9. Oz the Great and Powerful
Disney
A prequel that never should have seen the light of day features the
arrival of Oz (James Franco) in the land of yellow brick roads and
presents the story behind the wicked witch becoming both wicked and
green. (Hint: he’s just not that into her.) Michelle Williams and Rachel
Weisz dress up the production a bit but the movie looks tawdry and
every line has, uh, a tin quality to it. You can’t fault director Sam
Raimi for having the courage — oh God, stop me — to take on one of the
most classic movies of all time, but this
Oz lacks heart. Wait,
just one more; it was truly brainless to cast both smirking Franco and
dramatically untested Mila Kunis, who seems more lost and disoriented in
this production than poor old Dorothy after a spin in a tornado. Can we
all go back to our annual viewing of the brilliant original, please?
8. The Counselor
Twentieth Century Fox
Look, were there movies of less cinematic value released this year?
Certainly. But was there a movie that both raised and dashed
expectations more impressively than Ridley Scott’s film of Cormac
McCarthy’s first original — but really unoriginal —screenplay? No.
Here’s who couldn’t save this movie from its portentous, foolish self:
Javier Bardem,
Brad Pitt, Penelope Cruz and Michael Fassbender — all playing doomed characters we won’t remember in another six months. What
will linger is the unfortunately indelible image of Cameron Diaz doing splits on a car’s windshield.
7. The Big Wedding
Lionsgate
You may be thinking, how bad can a movie about a wedding be, what
with the celebration of love and all? Unbearably offensive if it’s the
nuptials of Alejandro (Ben Barnes) and Missy (Amanda Seyfried), which
are attended and fussed over by a series of gross stereotypes. There are
the senior citizens (
Susan Sarandon,
Diane Keaton,
Robert DeNiro) utterly defined by the fact that they’re still horny
(nothing wrong with that, if only the vulgar screenplay didn’t patronize
them so), a pair of weird prudes (Alejandro’s South American birth
mother and his still-virginal 30-something brother), exotic seductresses
(Latin, of course), a purportedly barren leaner-inner (Katherine Heigl)
and bigots (the bride’s parents). Gratuitous and in the end, grossly
sentimental: it’s a marriage made in hell.
6. Only God Forgives
Radius-TWC
The maiming and/or killing in director Nicholas Winding Refn’s arty,
sleazy film plays out like a really slow, bloody game of revenge tag.
The first to go is a 16-year-old prostitute in Bangkok. Then her father
kills her American rapist/killer and so on. It’s all swinging swords and
bursting arteries, save the occasional glimpse of Ryan Gosling
wandering through a red room or watching a beautiful woman masturbate.
The visuals are aggressive — from the camera’s examination of fresh
entrails to the lush beauty of the dark urban night — but the story is
inert and the dialogue plays like a parody of
Blue Velvet. But Kristin Scott Thomas, playing Gosling’s vicious mother, deserves a nod for almost being the film’s lone saving grace.
5. RIPD
Universal
Dead guys Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges return to earth as members
of the Rest in Peace Department, hunting foul-looking rogue spirits in
an action movie likely to thrill only make-up artists. There’s a little
bit of
Ghostbusters to the story, too much
Ghost and a ton
of computer-generated billowing clouds and beams of light from on high.
Bridges can usually be depended upon to elevate anything and
everything, but his grating Western sheriff type, a
Lonesome Dove-style
character gone way over the top, becomes tedious within a minute of his
first appearance. This one was practically the death of me.
4. After Earth
Columbia
Two Smiths — Will and Jaden — co-star as a father-son pair locked in
the classic love-hate battle that pits the domineering leader against
resentful youth. That the settings are intergalactic, the time frame
post-apocalyptic, and the space-suits flattering does nothing to elevate
the dynamic beyond the tedium of everyday dinner table squabbles most
of us have witnessed or participated in. With a story as thin as a minor
episode of
Star Trek — cross the dangerous tundra to pick up
that thing we need so we can get home again — there is ample time to
ponder such matters as why family features so many different regional
accents and where Jaden Smith falls on the annoying-petulant-space-boy
spectrum. (Perilously close to the Jake Lloyd end.) As for director M.
Night Shyamalan: who knew that one day,
The Village would seem like a career highpoint?
3. The Host
Universal
An adaptation of a Stephenie Meyers novel — the words that strikes
fear into the heart of film critics everywhere. But at least this is
just a one-off; no sequel looms and the dismal box-office should be the
final stake in its heart. No vampires either, as the setting is the
future, where Diane Kruger plays a bossy alien with eyes with a chilly
glint, like the sparkle in toothpaste ads. She and her pals are taking
over human bodies, including that of a teenager named Melanie (Saoirse
Ronan). But Melanie, and her love for her boyfriend, is so strong that
the alien can’t control the person inside. So they have long, chirpy,
internal debates about it. For context: It’s like a dumber Bella talking
to dumbest Bella. You will never feel worse for an actress (not even
Cameron Diaz) than you will for poor Ronan, who not long ago was a very
young Oscar nominee.
2. Salinger
The Weinstein Co.
The accompanying score alone could have landed this unnecessary documentary about the reclusive author of
Catcher in the Rye
on this list. Incessant, obtrusive and hysterical in tone, it soars to
what feels like a hundred alleged dramatic peaks that are, in reality,
minor bits of trivia. Then there’s the drooling adulation from minor
characters who had no connection to Salinger. “What I have here is J. D.
Salinger’s yearbook from the Valley Forge Military Academy,” salivates
rare-book seller Harvey Jason. “It’s an extraordinary item.” Really? It
looks like another old yearbook to me. The “recreations” of the writer,
sitting on an empty stage, typing, smoking and ruminating are absurd.
What’s new in this film that promised such startling revelations?
Precious little. What emerges? A portrait of the writer as a
controlling, predatory creep and a feeling that the filmmaker may missed
his calling in reality television.
1. Grown Ups 2
Columbia
There is no plot. I don’t mean there isn’t
much of a plot. I mean there is
no plot.
Just four repulsive guys (Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade and
Kevin James) wandering around their hometown confronting the big themes
of life: Urination, Defecation, Drooling, Bad Things Happening to Their
Scrotums. Misogynistic, homophobic and sloppy,
Grown Ups 2 is
essentially a walk down a junior-high school hallway, except for the
presence of various lovely women (Salma Hayek, Maya Rudolph, Maria
Bello) who we’re expected to believe actually married these guys. There
are people who will argue that
12 Years a Slave is the most depressing movie of the year. Enduring
Grown Ups 2 threw me into a much deeper funk.