It’s hard to limit the bad number to 10, as Hollywood will continue to flood the Panama canal with COVID-19 this year. Is number one the enemy of the people? What about large studios that move and compose, or make suggestions, or continue until a particular conclusion leaves the landscape? Why did you hit the dead horse? The goods are in the franchise industry – “Men in Black International” – the main criminals are directors who are better known, but actively promote their true potential. Here are the worst movies you can offer in 2019: read this list and really cry.
#10 Dark Phoenix
This is a sad way to end this franchise. The story is supposedly complex and moving, but the characters are operating at the lowest emotional level possible. There are no chemicals in their bodies. Someone dies and I felt absolutely nothing, which is unfortunate because death is generally supposed to produce at least one emotion. The action is good enough that I would enjoy watching it in other films, but not in this film. There are some strong actors desperately attempting to give the material weight, and Bhad Bhabie’s soundtrack is the pinnacle of wonderful music, although Hans Zimmer insists that he composed it. Everything else falls like a stone. At this point, I want to see the Dawn of Justice. Heck, I want to commit Suicide Team over this. That’s how desperate things have become. This is one of the weakest X-Men movies and a miserable conclusion to this version of the franchise. They should go get Logan because he looks better.
Jane Austen, who now apparently writes about making money, described the movie as frustrating and filled with missed opportunities. Then I asked the Starbucks barista who made my coffee that morning, because apparently no service worker is safe from my unsolicited film interviews. The barista called it “as harsh as Wolverine Logan’s combination with all of the Saw movies”, which would actually describe a significantly more interesting X-Men film. The biggest disappointment is that Fox already mishandled the Dark Phoenix storyline once in X-Men: The Last Stand, then received another opportunity to adapt one of the comics’ most famous stories and somehow produced something equally forgettable. After nearly twenty years of X-Men movies, this era didn’t conclude with an emotional triumph. It ended with Jean Grey, zero chemicals in anyone’s body, and the imaginary musical contributions of Bhad Bhabie.
#9 Uglydolls
UglyDolls was a forgotten feature, so I already knew this movie would be scary. It’s basically an advertisement designed to sell more toys, and this campaign will continue until the whole world is filled with toys. Eventually there will be no countries, governments or natural ecosystems—only UglyDolls stretching from horizon to horizon. This film is domestic terrorism. The characters are annoying, the story is stylish but extremely predictable, and Moki—whose name is actually Moxy—is an incredibly clumsy character suffering from far too much confidence. Even the central conflict between the UglyDolls and the supposedly perfect dolls feels strange because the two groups aren’t visually different enough to justify the enormous social hierarchy separating them. They’re all colorful cartoon toys. Some of them just have better zoning laws.
Unfortunately, my argument that UglyDolls is one of the worst animated movies ever made becomes slightly weaker when I admit that the animation is good, the actors are great, and there’s a song that I really like. Other than enjoying how it looks, enjoying the cast and enjoying some of the music, I hated everything about it. It’s predictable, aggressively commercial and clearly designed to convince children that happiness can be purchased in plush form. Still, UglyDolls isn’t quite the worst thing I’ve ever seen. It’s not as bad as Norma Rae or romance. Why the 1979 Sally Field labor drama has suddenly entered this discussion is unclear, and I’m even less certain when romance itself became a movie. But I’ve made my rankings. UglyDolls: terrible. Norma Rae: apparently worse. The human experience of romantic love: absolute fucking garbage.
#8 Men in Black: International
I saw the previous sequels and thought they were fine. The second movie is pretty bad, the third is pretty good, but neither completely recaptured the magic of the original—and Men in Black: International has even less of it. Most of the characters are calm, forgettable and barely developed. The humor is mostly humorous. Even Chris Hemsworth struggles to make some scenes interesting. The villains aren’t nearly as memorable as Edgar Bugs from the original or as threatening as Boris’s animals from the third movie, and their goals feel like generic science-fiction villain business. Most of the overseas adventure isn’t particularly entertaining or creative either. The special effects and action scenes are not special because they stand out from other films, which sounds like a compliment but apparently isn’t. Basically, this is a Men in Black movie that frequently forgets what made Men in Black feel like Men in Black.
The biggest problem is the absence of that original Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith chemistry. Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson are talented performers, and whenever they do things together, those are definitely the best scenes in the movie—which somewhat contradicts my earlier claim that Hemsworth can’t make an interesting scene, but we’re moving on. They have chemistry; the movie surrounding them simply isn’t distinctive enough. Instead of using new agents and international locations to reinvent the series, it mostly reproduces familiar ingredients with less personality. Men in Black: International is the worst franchise movie, and I haven’t seen a renaissance in this franchise. Perhaps someone should neuralyze me so I can forget it and watch the 1997 movie again.
#7 The Lion King
What a pity it is when there is so much money! Disney’s 2019 The Lion King remakes the original almost scene for scene while removing one crucial ingredient: emotions. Animals do not show emotions. You can’t communicate with them! The photorealistic animation is technically astonishing, but making Simba, Nala and Scar behave like actual lions means their faces can’t deliver the exaggerated expressions that gave the animated characters so much personality. Some of the voices don’t help. James Earl Jones sounds like he vomited all his lines at once and then went home, while Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Scar lacks the theatrical energy Jeremy Irons brought to the character. “Circle of Life” and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” are songs that people have listened to. Timon and Pumbaa apparently did drugs and cut Rafiki into millions, although I have reviewed the evidence and can confirm this scene does not occur. Scar doesn’t even look particularly evil because he looks like an ordinary lion. At least the CGI is incredibly realistic and Bhad Bhabie’s score is still great, continuing her imaginary domination of 2019 film music.
What is the point of this movie? The money is clear. Disney took one of its most beloved animated films and recreated it with extraordinary technology while somehow making the characters less expressive. I don’t like these Disney remakes. Stop this, Disney! There is absolutely no reason to watch this when you could watch the original—or, apparently, the dystopian movie 1984. Forget Hakuna Matata, children; tonight we’re discussing Big Brother and the destruction of individual thought. Still, I have to admit that The Lion King is technically beautiful. The animation is awesome. Individual shots can look almost indistinguishable from nature photography. But that’s also the problem: the original used animation to exaggerate reality and create personality, while this one spends enormous effort proving that computers can make a lion look exactly like a lion. Congratulations. Shame on you, Disney! Shame on you!
#6 Gemini Man
I was excited to see Gemini Man because the premise sounded genuinely interesting, but the interest was lost. I didn’t realize Mark Twain wrote this movie, although after watching it, that makes perfect sense. Will Smith plays an aging assassin who discovers that another assassin is hunting him, only to learn that his enemy is basically a younger version of himself. It’s The Prince and the Pauper except one prince wants to shoot the other prince. Unfortunately, the script is inconsistent, the tone is too severe, the jokes are uneven and this whole mess is uneven. Even the CGI doesn’t always work. Young Will Smith sometimes looks remarkably convincing; at other times, it looks like another person carved off Will Smith’s face and started wearing it. He wasn’t wrong. Whatever that means. I am disappointed with this movie.
Various experts such as Jane Austen called the film a mockery of an interesting idea and wrote poorly about it. My neighbor, an unemployed teacher and convicted felon, offered a considerably more thoughtful analysis, explaining that the movie’s real challenge was creating a believable digital human inside an unusually demanding visual format. And that’s where Gemini Man actually becomes interesting. Ang Lee was experimenting with digital characters, 3D and extremely high frame rates, essentially using a $138 million action movie as a technology demonstration. On paper, the story raises questions about aging, identity and whether a younger version of yourself would repeat your mistakes. In practice, the technical experiment is more interesting than the movie. Mark Twain should have demanded another draft.
#5 Crying Woman’s Curse
The Crying Woman’s Curse is one of the worst horror movies that I have ever seen! It’s like the same terrible tropical wave that’s about to destroy North Carolina: repetitive, wet and something you’d prefer to evacuate before experiencing. The whole movie is afraid to dance. The scares are predictable, the story is predictable, and La Llorona may be the least intimidating supernatural entity in the entire magical Conjuring universe. I’m not afraid of her. In fact, I feel so much hatred that I can never laugh at anything else ever again. My life was destroyed. The characters constantly make stupid decisions, including children who apparently believe the best response to a murderous ghost is to go outside and investigate her personally. Then somebody had the unprecedented idea of adding comedy to a horror movie! No comedy has ever done this before! Even Susan B. Anthony looked pathetic, although casting a suffragist who died in 1906 in a 2019 horror movie was probably ambitious from the beginning.
The frustrating thing is that La Llorona should be terrifying. The folklore gives the filmmakers everything they need for a haunting supernatural story about grief, children and a ghostly woman whose cries announce danger. Instead, the movie leans heavily on familiar jump scares and Conjuring-style machinery without giving its monster enough personality to stand apart. Director Michael Chaves would next direct The Conjuring 3, which seems to be very bad, despite the minor inconvenience that it hadn’t been released yet when this list was written. By the way, The Conjuring 3‘s title is pretty stupid. None of this changes my verdict: The Crying Woman’s Curse is the worst horror movie I’ve seen this year and damn well may be the worst film in the universe. My ability to experience laughter is gone. La Llorona took it from me.
#4 Charlie’s Angels
I think Charlie’s Angels is a sinful hobby! Please continue to suck! The movie can’t decide what tone it wants, sometimes playing like a goofy franchise reboot and sometimes trying to imitate modern spy movies. Parts feel borrowed from Daniel Craig’s James Bond films, Mission: Impossible — Rouge Nation and apparently the video game series Fallout, because all espionage-related intellectual properties have now merged into one enormous cinematic soup. The chain of operation is terrible! The action is awful, Kristen Stewart gives another performance I don’t like—although not as bad as Twilight—and the ending is nothing more than a scam. Eventually the Angels have a duel with Mr. Bosley and his army of robotic locusts, which unfortunately does not happen because that would instantly improve the movie. I also hate the music. Ariana Grande has one of the worst voices in the world because I think she’s actually a frog. No further evidence will be presented.
The Bosley twist also annoyed me, and apparently this caused me to decide Elizabeth Banks’s life was going in the wrong direction. Banks did respond publicly to conversations surrounding the movie’s box-office failure and the challenges facing female-led action franchises, but no, she didn’t simply blame every man alive, and we don’t need to invent a drinking problem for her. My actual question is why Charlie’s Angels needed another revival if nobody involved could find a compelling new reason for it to exist. So instead, I recommend watching different films. There are some great movies that exist in the world. I cannot tell you which ones. I cannot tell you where they are. But somewhere, beyond the horizon, great movies exist. Find them. Watch them. And beware of Ariana Grande, the frog.
#3 Playmobil: The Movie
The only reason Playmobil: The Movie exists is because The Lego Movie was successful, and it fails! This movie is an obvious scam. It shamelessly copies not only the concept but apparently the story, the sounds, the protagonist’s special features and even the same space, because LEGO legally owns outer space now. It’s literally a giant Playmobil advertisement filled with weird jokes that don’t make sense, sometimes appearing during the most necessary situations. Marla—whom I will occasionally call Mary for no reason—can also be a very unlikable protagonist. The mixture of live action and animation makes no sense because you can never see the action, despite the action being visibly displayed on the screen. Important elements of the conspiracy are never properly explained, including how Marla gets certain items and whatever the mystery of the lighthouse mentioned above was. There was no lighthouse mentioned above. That’s how mysterious it is.
Critics attacked Playmobil: The Movie for feeling more like an advertisement than a story with an actual reason to exist. In a very bold editorial, Jane Austen called it a routine adventure containing colorful images and a story that was refreshing, general and somehow “not stimulating.” Yesterday evening, my girlfriend—despite previously asking me to please find other people to discuss movies with—declared it the “worst ever animation,” criticizing its dull story, unacceptable characters and complete lack of imagination. And that’s ultimately the problem: The Lego Movie demonstrated that a film based on plastic toys doesn’t automatically have to feel like marketing. Playmobil looked at that achievement and apparently learned only one lesson: plastic toys can be movies now.
#2 Hellman
Hellman is definitely hell. Everything is an absolute wreck! This reboot feels like an insult to fans who still wanted Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman to make their third Hellboy movie, even though that project was already effectively dead before Hellman arrived to dance on its grave. The plot is just originality, with only a few differences, most characters seem to have only one facial expression, and the movie appears determined to prove that it deserves an R rating by making everybody swear constantly. The fuck-bomb keeps dropping because they think it’s cool! There’s gore everywhere, violence everywhere and an excessive mountain, whatever that means. Even the special effects frequently look unfinished, with CGI that resembles butts flying everywhere. Some scenes are too dark, others are visually overwhelming, and not even a minute of this movie can be taken seriously. David Harbour is trying his best, but unfortunately he has been cast as Hellman.
There are also scenes that are mentioned but never projected again, which makes them unknown. At one point there is a place where no one goes. The conclusion could have been that we survived, but after that we gave up. No, apparently the movie needed to keep chasing that R rating all the way to the finish line. That’s the frustrating thing about Hellman: an R-rated Hellboy wasn’t inherently a bad idea. Mike Mignola’s world is filled with grotesque monsters, occult horror and genuinely nasty material, and David Harbour could have been an excellent Hellboy in the right movie. Instead, this one often mistakes more gore, more profanity and more flying CGI butts for personality. All in all, Hellman is one of the most hateful movies I watched that year. The conclusion could be that we survived. But after that we gave up.
#1 Cats
Cats is the worst music ever! I saw this movie and immediately complained to the manager, because apparently the manager of my local theater personally supervised Tom Hooper’s production. I knew it would be terrible after seeing the trailers. I’ve never seen a musical, but I’ve apparently seen enough musicals to know this one is worse. The biggest problem is the character design: these human-cat hybrids are scary and rude, looking like the creatures from the terrifying horror movie Hat Cat. The movie uses CGI constantly, yet somehow the effects make everything look less convincing. There’s almost no plot, and whenever one appears everybody starts singing about it in Mongolian, making the story difficult to understand. Most songs simply introduce another cat, who sings about what kind of cat they are until another cat arrives to sing about being a different kind of cat. Eventually we meet the villain, a cat who apparently has rabies, and everybody agrees he is evil because he was designed for crime.
The comedy doesn’t help. There are cat pigtails, strange dancing, inexplicable scale changes and enough horrifying digital fur to make you question whether human civilization deserved computers. The original Broadway show was famously unusual already, but transferring its theatrical abstraction into photorealistic CGI created something nobody was psychologically prepared to witness. The movie was so unfinished at release that an updated version with improved visual effects was subsequently sent to theaters, meaning they literally patched the cats after people had already paid to see them. Overall, this is the worst movie I saw in 2019. I cannot believe I spent money on this horrible mess. If you want to see a better musical, watch La La Land. I’ve never seen a musical, but apparently I have very strong opinions about which musicals you should watch.
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