It’s been a while since my last post, I apologize. The video-game Dragon Age: Inquisition has been taking up a lot of my time lately. But I digress. 2014 was a phenomenal year for movies. You can check out Part 1 of my Year In Review article here for my list of films that I thought were the best the year had to offer. Now, my solemn duty is to inform you of the worst films of 2014. These are the movies that made it painful to be a movie enthusiast. While it is true that 2014 was great for movies, it also had its fair share of stinkers. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed some of these movies, and some of them aren’t necessarily BAD per se, but they were just not good enough. So, in addition to the worst of the worst, I’m also going to to list the crushing disappointments of the year. I’m not going to post the trailers for these films, because they aren’t good enough to warrant that. If you want to the trailers, you’ll have to check out my reviews. Lets get this show on the road, shall we? Oh, and these are in no particular order of stinkiness.
I, Frankenstein
Oh, boy. I haven’t reviewed this one, but I have seen it. This film was from the producers of the Underworld franchise. It’s a different take on the Frankenstein monster, but the filmmakers forgot to make it fun. I generally find Aaron Eckhardt to be a reliable and phenomenal actor, but his turn as Adam is not particularly good. I find it interesting that they would make the Frankenstein monster a hero in this film, and in the hands of better filmmakers it could have worked. The story is ridiculously stupid: Demons vs Gargoyles? The Gargoyles are the good guys. It’s unbelievably tepid. I can get behind a good CGI-fest, but I, Frankenstein uses it to a ludicrous degree. Honestly, it’s not really good CG, either. The whole package is just totally under-cooked. I don’t think it would have been as bad if it didn’t take itself so seriously. Seriously, there’s nary a joke or light-hearted moment in the film. It’s dreadfully serious for a kind of film that just screams for over-the-top humor. This just isn’t a particularly compelling movie in any aspect.
RoboCop
I’m of two minds about this one. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad movie at all. It really isn’t. It has a lot of interesting ideas and some really creative casting, including Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, and Jackie Earle Haley. I might get flack for this, but I thought the new suit was surprisingly cool. It was slick and it allowed the actor to really move. They also brought in the ED-209’s. It’s a slickly produced remake, and therein lies my major problem with it. It’s too slick. The original Paul Verhoeven film was gritty, bloody and brutal. It deserved its R-rating. The new film was rated PG-13 and had none of the bite or personality that made the original RoboCop so unique. I grew up watching the original film, so I guess I was biased from the start. Peter Weller’s performance as RoboCop was iconic and extraordinarily memorable. Joel Kinnaman? Not so much. It’s not a horrible movie, but there’s nothing here that people will remember except for Sam Jackson’s hairdo. That was epic.
Transformers: Age of Extinction
I’ll be honest: I like Michael Bay’s Transformers films. I really do. His first one was extraordinarily awesome. Nobody had really seen special effects used to that extent. What’s more, Bay brought in Peter Cullen to play Optimus Prime. How could you go wrong? Revenge of the Fallen? That was not a good movie, and an even worse sequel. Dark of the Moon was a step in the right direction and had some of the most awesome destruction sequences I’ve ever seen. That’s what Michael Bay’s good at: Blowing stuff up. When it comes to actually telling a worthwhile story? He doesn’t quite get it. Age of Extinction is the latest entry into the franchise and it is both the best and worst of the bunch. It’s the best because it jettisons Shia LeBeouf and Megan Fox and the terrible humor of the previous film. It also has some of the best visual effects I’ve ever seen. It’s also loaded with action. Also: Dinobots. Here’s why it’s the worst: There’s too much emphasis on the human characters. This is a problem that the other movies had. The Dinobots weren’t in it enough. They only really showed up towards the end of the film, which also leads to the biggest problem of the movie: It’s too long. I love action-packed movies, but Age of Extinction runs nearly three hours long and is filled to the brim with big explosions, gun-fire and general mayhem. It doesn’t give you enough time to breathe. It’s all flash and no substance.
Pompeii
I love gladiator movies. I love disaster movies. What happens when you combine the two? Pompeii is what you get. It’s essentially two movies in one, but it’s not particularly good at either. Paul W.S. Anderson clearly wanted to do a gladiator-style film, but it doesn’t have the grit or the originality of other films in the genre. So, he props it up with a volcanic eruption which is the main reason to watch the movie. When Mount Vesuvius erupts, it is spectacular. The effects in the film are pretty decent. The acting? Oh, dear. While most of the acting is serviceable, Keifer Sutherland is just….HORRIBLE. I don’t know how or why he got a part in this movie. As I’ve stated in the review, his filmography doesn’t give him the chops to play an evil Roman senator. I think Sutherland is a fantastic actor, but his performance in Pompeii is an epic failure. Everybody who has seen this movie has come to the same conclusion about Keifer Sutherland’s performance as I did. Come for the volcanic eruption, stay for Sutherland’s terrible performance. It’s hilarious.
The Legend of Hercules
And here we are: The worst movie I have seen in 2014. There were two movies about Hercules released in 2014: This one and Dwayne Johnson’s film. I can tell you which one is better. Johnson actually made a convincing Hercules, and that movie played with the idea that Hercules may or may not have been the son of a god. It makes for a far more interesting dynamic between the characters. The Legend of Hercules fails in every single category. Kellan Lutz was simply the wrong choice for Hercules, he really was. He doesn’t have the body or the acting chops for a role like this. Scott Adkins is horrifically over-the-top as the main villain. The visual effects are terrible and the story is just plain laughable. Of the two movies about Hercules, stay away from this one. It’s dreadful in every way.
Brick Mansions
This is a remake of the awesome French action-thriller District B13. B13 was awesome because it featured parkour founder David Belle doing what he does best without wires and without stunt doubles. It was a unique action flick that didn’t overstay its welcome. Brick Mansions is nearly a shot-for-shot remake of the film with elements of Ultimatum thrown into the mix. David Belle plays the same character, while Paul Walker plays the cop. This was a completely unnecessary re-make. Everything about it is a re-hash of a better film. What’s worse is that Brick Mansions was Paul Walker’s last fully completed film before he died. I’m disappointed because they really could have done something with it, but they chose not to. Walker’s performance was the best thing about the film. Some of the action sequences were pretty decent, but nowhere near as awesome as District B13. Watch that one instead.
Yeah, 2014’s seen some pretty bad movies. I will fully admit, that I still enjoyed some of these, but the problems these movies had kept them from being memorable in the right way. These were not good movies in my opinion. But now, we come to my biggest disappointment of the year:
The Protector 2(Tom Yum Goong 2)
When Tony Jaa broke onto the seen almost a decade ago in a little martial arts flick called Ong-Bak, he was billed as the next Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. The action in that film was brutal and intense. It also featured some of the coolest stunt-work I’ve ever seen. Tony Jaa did stuff that I never saw Jackie Chan do. Tony Jaa followed up Ong-Bak with Tom Yum Goong a.k.a The Protector. The movie took the best elements of Ong-Bak and dialed up the action and stunts to a hundred. It was a non-stop action extravaganza. No wires, no visual effects. So, Jaa started work on prequels to Ong-Bak. While the second movie dialed back the stunts a bit, the fight scenes were second-to-none. But the film ended on a cliff-hanger. The next film was a disaster. Instead of Tony Jaa’s character going hog-wild on his enemies, he spent most of the film training. It was slow and boring. After the film’s dismal failure at the box office, Tony Jaa disappeared from the film scene for a while. When it was announced that Tony Jaa would be coming back with a sequel to The Protector, everybody was excited. Sadly, The Protector 2 was a mess. Some of the action scenes in this film were actually pretty good. However, the constant and obvious use of green-screens really took you out of the movie. It was designed with 3D in mind, and it failed. The film brought in fellow martial arts actor, JeeJa Yanin and newcomer Marrese Crump. Crump was spectacular. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see Tony Jaa do his usual wireless stunt-work. During some of the action scenes, it is inescapably clear that wires were used. Combine that with some of the most horrendous CG I’ve ever seen in a movie and we end up with a movie that fails on nearly every level. For me, it’s a crushing disappointment, because this could have been the comeback movie that Tony Jaa needed. That being said, Jaa will be seen in the new Fast and Furious film as well as Skin Trade and SPL II. All three films are slated for release this year, and judging from Skin Trade’s trailer, this one could be Tony Jaa’s big break. I’m hoping.
So there you have it: The worst movies of 2014 and my biggest disappointment. Here’s hoping 2015 will feature less crap and more gold. I’m looking forward to the films that are coming out this year. Bring it on.