American Ultra (2015)

Often we are given films that try to blur the lines of traditional genres, which, to be fair, is not an easy thing to do. Very few films have ever truly had success with this, that weren't just spoofs of the genres, or specific films. "American Ultra" is the latest movie to attempt this. Writer Max Landis ("Chronicle") strives to mix stoner comedy with hyper-violent action flick, and director Nima Nourizadeh ("Project X") never fully achieves this balance.

The first twenty minutes, before the gun fights and explosions, never quite elicits laughs. Instead, we are treated to weighty exposition about the relationship of our two protagonists: Mike (played by Jesse Eisenberg), a burnout stoner who works at a convenience store in West Virginia, and Phoebe, his inexplicably dedicated girlfriend of five years (Kristen Stewart). Mike is unable to leave his sleepy little town, because he gets panic attacks every time he tries, and the film opens with him ruining a trip to Hawaii, in which he was going to propose. This leads to a lot of apologizing, and a metaphor about a car crashing into a tree that makes Mike ponder if his roots are holding his love back.

We then learn he is a CIA experiment gone wrong, and is now going to be disposed of by a middle-manager, for some silly reason involving his promotion, played by Topher Grace. His only hope for survival is to be "activated" by his personal Dr. Frankenstein (Connie Britton), which sets him off into a violent spiral of self-preservation in the face of trained super-soldiers like himself. The action sequences that spawn from this are often clumsily edited, and shy away from serious gore or bone-crunching hits that robs it of being the Tarantino-esque action film hiding in the script.

Despite its failings at finding a genre, and its awkward tonal shifts, there are a lot of things that work in this film. Eisenberg and Stewart are vibrant and likable, and boast an impressive amount of chemistry with each other. Their shared screen time keeps you somewhat invested in the story, and makes you root for them to succeed, both in survival and love. Topher Grace is excellent as the sniveling one-note CIA villain, who is given a great couple of one-liners, and Walton Goggins, as Grace's lapdog assassin, is wonderfully madcap. Much of the stylized cinematography, from "Zombieland" DP, Michael Bonvillain, is very pleasing to look at.

I feel that in the hands of a more capable director, this could have been something special. As it stands, it is just a little more than okay.

Grade: C+
Easter Egg: No
3D: N/A

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Topher Grace
Director: Nima Nourizadeh
Writer: Max Landis
RT: 95 min
Rating: Rated R for strong bloody violence, language throughout, drug use and some sexual content

Two Sentences:

Big Game: Not as off the wall as I was hoping, but it was still a lot of madcap fun. The plot is mostly sparse, and the characters aren't very deep, but the silliness of the action keeps it driving to the end.

Grade: B-

Cop Car: Jon Watts has made one of the most dark and entertaining films of the year. Kevin Bacon is on top of his game, while his foils (two young boys played by Hays Wellford and James Freedson-Jackson) are a complete joy to watch.

Grade: A

Episode 00 - Crying UNCLE

http://manofconstanthatred.podbean.com/e/00-crying-uncle/

Have you ever wondered what I think about Pete's Dragon, The Land Before Time sequels, and the Masters of the Universe cartoon? Tune in to my new podcast! Also, my thoughts on "The Man From UNCLE".

Fantastic Four (2015)

Flame Off

I feel like this movie is going to take entirely more flack than it deserves. Yes. It is a mess. Yes. It does feel like two different movies that were thrown together at the last minute. Yes. The writing is bad, and the story amounts to big heap of nothing. That being said, there are far worse films that have been released in this genre (cough. cough. "The Amazing Spider-Man 2") that have set it back far worse than this movie will. If anything, Fox's reboot of "Fantastic Four" just (sort of) exists. "Fantastic Four" is roughly half of a movie. It is too short, and ends before any actual plot, or character development, has a chance to unfurl. It is a film stuck in neutral, trying to eek out an existence from what producers assume people want from comic book movies.

The excellent cast is wasted with characters who are all too singular in purpose, and lack any real depth, or emotion. It is hard to say that any of them gave a decent performance, because their characters look bored and mopey throughout the entirety of the run time. The action sequences were bland to the point of nearly putting the audience too sleep, and the film is so murky looking that you can't even find joy in the visual quality. There were a few giggles in the first thirty minutes or so, but you hit a transportation device building montage, and the whole project begins to sink.

About an hour into the movie they reach "Planet Zero", an alternate dimension... or planet... or something, and it goes from a somewhat intriguing idea to capture the adventurous nature of Jules Verne to... 80's style David Cronenberg? Except, like "The Fly", or "Videodrome", it lacks any substance, or social commentary. Then it just devolves into another convoluted plot about an evil Military Industrial Complex trying to use the team to fight foreign enemies. What we really have here is the downside of movies being made by committee. Everybody wants a slice of what Marvel has, and fanboys are clamoring for it, but nobody else has cracked the code quite yet. I guess we'll see what DC has to offer soon enough.

It was hard to watch this movie. It is hard to see one of the greatest group dynamics in comics get mistreated time and again on screen. This makes four bad movies based on one comic book property. This one, however, lacks the fun of the 2005 film, and the ambition of the 1994 original. That's right. This film had less ambition than the never-released catastrophe made the king-of-schlock, Roger Corman. We're talking about the man who made a film in less than two days. ON A DARE. Congrats Fox, that is the guy you had to do better than, and you failed. Miserably.

AND WHY WAS KATE MARA'S RESHOOT WIG SO INEXPLICABLY AWFUL?!

Grade: D
3D: N/A
Easter Egg: I left before the credits ended.

Starring: Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan
Director: Josh Trank (Sort of)
Writer(s): Simon Kinberg & Jeremy Slater and Josh Trank
RT: 100 min
Rating: PG-13 for sci-fi action violence, and language

Cinderella (2015)

To be completely honest, there is nothing stunningly wrong with Disney's newest adaptation of the Grimm's Fairy Tale, "Cinderella". It is beautifully shot, and the costumes and sets are marvelous. Cate Blanchett is absolutely wonderful as the Stepmother, and "Downton Abbey's" Lily James is easy to fall in love with as the title character. It just falls flat in so many places that it fails to capture the magic of the 1950 animated classic. Though Chris Weitz's manages to fill in some of the plot holes in the story, it flushes some of the characters (mostly the step sisters) out in dreadful and unfunny ways. The entire subplot with the always fantastic Stellan Skarsgard feels silly and forced, and drags the film down in many scenes. All in all, it does little to add to the mythology, but it is an easily digestible piece of cinema.

Grade: B-
3D: N/A
Easter Egg: No

Starring: Cate Blanchett, Lily James, Richard Madden
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Writer(s): Chris Weitz
RT: 105 min
Rating: PG for mild thematic elements

The Last Five Years (2015)

Small, intimate, and beautiful are the words I could best use to describe Robert Lagranvenese's adaptation of Jason Robert Brown's stage musical. Sure, it hits a few narrative problems near the end, but the heartfelt music, and the power house performances from the film's leads, Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan, almost make those snags seem completely insignificant. Watching these two characters move counter-sequentially (I may have made up a new word!) through the ups and downs of their relationship is utterly fascinating. Steven Meizler's camera floats around them, giving the film a captivating fly on wall feel that you don't normally get with movie musicals. The highest praise I feel anyone could can give to a film is the desire to want to watch again the moment it was over. And even if I didn't want to, which I did, I could at least listen to Anna Kendrick break my heart with "Still Hurting" for hours.

Grade: A-
3D: N/A
Easter Egg: No

Starring: Anna Kendrick, Jeremy Jordan
Director: Robert Lagranvenese
Writer(s): Robert Lagranvenese - Book and Lyric: Jason Robert Brown
RT: 94 min
Rating: PG-13 for sexual material, brief strong language and a drug image

Two Sentences:

What We Do in the Shadows (2014): This New Zealand made mockumentary about a group of centuries old vampires living in a flat together boasts a slew of hysterical performances, and an unbelievably strong script. The humour is fresh, the timing is perfect, and characters are a ton of fun to get to know through all of minor trials and tribulations that vampires must put up with in the modern world.

Grade: A

'71 (2014)

A British soldier gets left behind enemy lines in Belfast, Ireland, and ends up running from the IRA. Jack O'Connell follows up a grand performance in "Unbroken" with a captivating portrayal of a young man on the run for his life. Director Yann Demange, on his first feature film, manages to build proper tension in multiple chase scene, and isn't shy about showing the brutal impact of senseless violence. The script, by Gregory Burke (also his first feature), is sparse and visceral; leaving dialogue to a minimum to focus on a cerebral chase through the streets of Ireland. This is not a film to miss.

Grade: A
3D: N/A
Easter Egg: No

Starring: Jack O'Connell, Sam Reid, Sean Harris
Director: Yann Demange
Writer(s): Gregory Burke
RT: 99 min
Rating: R for strong violence, disturbing images, and language throughout

Two Sentences:

Against the Sun (2015): A Navy pilot, his bombardier, and his radioman get lost in the Pacific, and end up battling the elements in order to survive. The three men (Garret Dillahunt, Tom Felton, and Jake Abel) play their parts especially well, and despite a horrendous score (at one point sharks appear and some riff on the Jaws theme plays), this is a beautiful, uplifting film that tugs at the heart strings in certain scenes.

Grade: B

Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)

Naked Ambitions

I want to start by saying that the problems I had with "Fifty Shades of Grey" do not lie within the subject matter. I am not offended by the concept of BDSM. Whatever two consenting adults do in their free time is their concern. In fact, the far superior 2002 film, "Secretary", handled this subject in an absolutely fascinating way. No, the problems stem from the monotonous script, and its horrifically wooden dialogue that emotionlessly drops from the mouths of the actors. The repetitious nature of most of it could have been used as punishment in a later scene of the film.

The two leads are bland, and hold no similarities to actual people. Aside from their sexual habits, I can't point to one quality in either of them that is remotely interesting. He's rich and knows how to fly a helicopter? She likes books? Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) displays controlling and stalkerish tendencies early on, the kind that are treated as childish and dangerous in last month's Jennifer Lopez stinker, "The Boy Next Door", which doesn't endear you to him,. Though after entering into the relationship with Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson), the controlling aspect at least makes some sense.

Steele is a self-proclaimed romantic, with no personality, who spends the entire film just trying to hash out her feelings about Grey's lifestyle. There is almost not a single line from her character that doesn't pertain to Grey. She's a college student who is only seen doing college things twice in the movie, and one involves graduating. We are forced to believe she is intelligent, but she makes one terrible decision after another. Like the terrible decision I made by sitting through this entire movie. At least it was shot well.

Grade: D
3D: N/A
Easter Egg: I left before the credits ended.

Starring: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Jennifer Ehle
Director: Sam Taylor-Johnson
Writer(s): Kelly Marcel - Novel: E.L. James
RT: 125 min
Rating: R for strong sexual content including dialogue, some unusual behavior and graphic nudity, and for language

Two Sentences:

Song One (2014): Anne Hathaway plays woman comes home from charity work abroad to be with her mother after her brother is hit by a car, and wind up in a relationship with his favorite artist. This is a well acted, well written indie, that packs a lot of heart and emotion into its short run time.

Grade: B+

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015)

There is a lot about the new "SpongeBob Squarepants" movie that is worth watching. The writing is often humorous, though a little thin at times, and the story is simple, but interesting, despite some wandering to make certain elements fit. It boasts a fun voice cast, including Matt Berry from great British shows like "The IT Crowd". The single most fun thing the movie introduced was Antonio Banderas as a pirate named Burger Beard, who steals a burger formula from Mr. Krabs (SpongeBob's boss), and plunges the underwater community of Bikini Bottom into complete chaos. He is having so much fun chewing scenery, that it is almost infectious.

However, it is almost instantly forgettable. Walking out of the film you will have trouble remembering most of what you have seen. Especially since the live action/CGI scenes that all of the promotions lean on take up roughly 10 minutes of the last part of film, and all of the jokes were in the trailers. And did they really need to be superheroes? Really? The biggest problem with the film though, as with the show, and the first movie, is that its protagonist, and his best friend, are so incredibly annoying. It is truly unbearable. There are a few meta jokes that play on this thought, but they aren't enough to curb how badly you just want these two to shut up.

Grade: C

3D: It makes use in the eye-popping way, but doesn't enhance the enjoyment.

Easter Egg: Yes. 

Starring: Antonio Banderas, Tom Kenny, Clancy Brown

Director: Paul Tibbitt

Writers: Glen Berger & Jonathan Aibel - Story: Stephen Hillenburg (also Creator) & Paul Tibbitt

RT: 93 min

Rating: PG for mild action and rude humor

Two Sentences:

The Loft (2014): 5 friends share an apartment for their extra-marital hook-ups, and find one of the women they have slept with dead, in this bland, poorly written thriller. A few excellent performances, and Nicolas Karakatsanis' excellent cinematography keep this film from completely dying from the first frame.

Grade: D+

Jupiter Ascending (2015)

There are so many things that are great about The Wachowskis' newest film, "Jupiter Ascending", that it is hard to be mad about its faults. Production designer Hugh Bateup created beautiful sets, and Kym Barrett's costumes are gloriously stunning. The score, by Academy Award winner Michael Giacchino ("Up"), is operatic, and swells magnificently during the well staged action sequences that John Toll, the movie's cinematographer, has captured glamorously. He shoots Chicago so elegantly, that it will make you fall in love with the city if you aren't already. Many of the performances are even fairly top notch (especially Mila Kunis and Eddie Redmayne).

The concept and the story are even intriguing, and should have been a thrilling from start to finish; however, much of the action is broken up by what feels like hours of expository dialogue. The Wachowskis could have had a far more interesting film on their hands had they not bogged the script down with such a heavy-handed attempt at Shakespearean soap opera. They also tried to hard to build such an expansive universe in such a short amount of time. Most of the ever-widening cast of characters get so little screen time, it is hard to build up any emotion toward them, and we spend entirely too much time watching Mila Kunis falling off of buildings. This film could have either dealt with 20 less characters, or an extra 30-45 minutes.

Grade: C+
3D: It adds some depth to a few scenes, but isn't necessary.
Easter Egg: No

Starring: Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Sean Bean
Director: The Wachowskis
Writer(s): The Wackowskis
RT: 127 min
Rating: PG-13 for some violence, sequences of sci-fi action, some suggestive content and partial nudity

Two Sentences:

The Boy Next Door (2015): A boring, lifeless stalker drama chocked full of bland performances and hammy dialogue. All I did through the film was think of Mark Wahlberg's first starring role in the 1996 clunker, "Fear".

Grade: D-

Pass or Fail: Time Enough at Last

Welcome back to one of my defunct columns. In this column I look at two trailers, with one thing in common, and based just off of my initial reaction, I judge whether or not I think the movie is going to be any good. Today on "Pass or Fail" we will look at a pair of time travel films coming out in 2015. One is found footage action flick, and the other is a dopey comedy.

Pass: Project Almanac (January 30th)

I waited for this to get released all of last year under the title "Welcome to Yesterday", and I never got it. So, I waited. And waited. And now the studio is finally giving it to us! I realize that it is a found footage film, and it was produced by Michael Bay, but bad ideas be damned, this looks like a lot of fun. A group of college age kids stumble upon the secret of time travel, and begin to cause waves in the space/time continuum. This just looks like a lot of fun.

Fail: Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (February 20th)

Why must we be tortured with this lame-brained sequel to a lame-brained movie. A movie that looks so bad that John Cusack bailed on it, and was replaced with Adam Scott. Have you seen some of the crap that Cusack has been in lately? So, the crew from the first film is back, and they have turned the tub back on to stop Rob Corddry's character from getting murdered. Their are so many things in this trailer that made me roll my eyes. I can't assume that there won't be more of those moments in the film itself. Except with a lot more f-bombs.

Extra Pass: Time Crash

Is there any other time traveler more exciting than The Doctor? Probably not. He has been around for over 50 years, and he has been played by more than a dozen actors. Here is a special short made for an annual children's benefit, held in England, starring two Doctors.

2015: My 15 Must-See Movies!

Another year, another round of movies I can't help but want to see. This year has so many films that I'm incredibly excited to see that I couldn't find a way to count them down properly, so I decided to just go ahead and list them based on their chronological release dates.

Jupiter Ascending (February 6th)

I'm a little sad to see this get a February release, because it looks more like a summer blockbuster, and the Wachowskis have a pretty decent track record outside of the two "The Matrix" sequels. This tale of a woman thrust into the middle of outer space politics, because of her destiny to become Queen of the universe, looks thrilling and fun in all of the right ways. Mila Kunis hasn't let me down on screen yet, and Channing Tatum has been growing on me as of late. He is certainly achieving the leading man status that he has earned.

Maps to the Stars (February 27th)

What is not to love about David Cronenberg? He is a dynamic director that makes jarring films about obsession and depravity unlike anyone else. He manages to craft strikingly visual stories with perfect performances from his casts. Julianne Moore has already scored a Golden Globe nod for her performance, and though that doesn't mean everything, it at least means something. I'm absolutely giddy.

Chappie (March 6th)

Neill Blomkamp has made two very excellent films so far, and this looks like it could be another very excellent film. Dev Patel creates an army of law enforcement robots, and when falls into the hands of a couple criminals, he becomes the child in a bizarre family unit as he becomes more sentient. The trailers have been spectacular, and when I see them paired onto just about every movie I have seen so far this year, I become more and more anxious. March 6th isn't coming soon enough!

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (March 6th)

Go ahead. Laugh. The first was so damn charming, that I am willing to get my hopes up entirely too high for the second go around. I also love that I have two Dev Patel films on this list, and they are both coming out on the same day. Look at him Bollywood dancing his way straight into your heart, you cynical cretin. All of the gang is back, the characters still living at least, and they seem to be in great spirits, and Richard Gere is being added to the mix. And, oh, is romance budding for Dame Judi Dench and Bill Nighy in this installment? I'm absolutely giddy (but in a different way from the Cronenberg movie)!

Furious 7 (April 3rd)

So, am I the only who thinks that the "Fast and Furious" franchise has gotten really fun in the last few movies? The first was "meh", the next two were plain awful, and four through six have been gravity defying thrill rides with phenomenal climactic action sequences. I will admit that I am mostly putting this on the list to see how they handle the death of the star of five of the six films. Though, adding Jason Statham, Kurt Russell, and Djimon Hounsou to the already terrific ensemble doesn't hurt either.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (May 1st)

In 2014, Marvel produced the two best films in their cinematic canon, and Joss Whedon is bringing the darkness with this sequel. I know, I know. I said the same thing about "Iron Man 3" a couple of years ago, and we ended up with that annoying kid for comic relief, but we are talking about Joss Whedon here. This man will kill any character at any time, because screw your emotions. The cast has grown in great ways: James Spader as Ultron (pictured above), Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch, Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Quicksilver, and Paul Bettany comes out of the computer to play Vision. I'm absolutely giddy (but, again, in a completely different way from the other two)!

Mad Max: Fury Road (May 15th)

I'm not even going to write a paragraph. If you can't understand my excitement after watching this bat-shit crazy trailer, then you have no pulse.

Tomorrowland (May 22nd)

Brad Bird! He is finally following up "Mission: Impossible 4", and the teaser for it looks fantastic. We are talking about the man who gave us "The Iron Giant" and "The Incredibles"! These are two of the greatest family films I have had the pleasure of seeing in the theatres. His films are emotional roller coasters that gain vast critical praise, and deservedly so.

Jurassic World (June 12th)

There is something about wanting to see this movie that confuses me. The teaser was fun, but not great, and the story sounds a little on the, "Didn't we already see this in JP3?" side. On the plus side: Chris Pratt is becoming a welcome addition to everything (is awesome!). I will place this on the "Must-see" out of complete morbid curiosity, a 22 year devotion to the brand, and DINOSAURS! Jeezy Creezy, people! There are dinosaurs in this movie! And speaking of dinosaur movies...

Inside Out (June 19th) / The Good Dinosaur (November 27th)

Two Pixar films this year? Yes, please! "Inside Out" is a story of the emotional center of the brain of a preteen girl, and "The Good Dinosaur" is the troubled production that we didn't get last year because John Lasseter replaced director Bob Peterson ("Up") with Peter Sohn ("Partly Cloudy"). Far be it from me to start suggesting that Pixar takes a cue from its Disney sister company, Marvel, and start releasing two films every year, but if both of these films are astoundingly great, I think they should at least consider it. Speaking of Marvel...

Ant-Man (July 17th)

I am going to be honest. The first trailer for this movie is a little underwhelming, and the fact that one of my favorite film makers, Edgar Wright, was forced from the project, doesn't make me feel at ease. With that being said, Ant-Man is such a fun character to explore, that I hope this film is as much fun as some of the other Marvel titles that have been coming out as of late. Director Peyton Reed ("Down With Love") has a solid cast in place, and the writers, Adam McKay and Paul Rudd, were said to have only tweaked Wright's script. I guess we'll see.

Untitled Cold War Spy Thriller (October 16th)

Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks are doing another movie together. Spielberg's last three films made it onto my favorite films lists in the years they were released. Alan Alda and Amy Ryan are also in the cast, but it is the inclusion of Billy Magnussen that has put a little sunshine into my day. His performance in "Into the Woods" was so good, that I'm excited to see what he is capable of in a more serious role. It was also co-written by the Coen Brothers. They have two screenwriting Oscars! I half hope that "Untitled Cold War Spy Thriller" is the actual title of this movie, because it is such a wonderfully goofy title.

Spectre (November 6th)

Does everybody else remember how great "Skyfall" was? If not, you should really look into, because that movie was balls-to-the-wall amazing! And in case you were wondering, here it is on my favorite films of 2012. Sam Mendes is back at the helm, Daniel Craig is back as Bond, and John Logan is writing it again! Mendes has seen fit to add two-time Academy Award winner, Christoph Waltz, as the film's big baddie, and Dave Bautista (fresh off "Guardians of the Galaxy") have been been added to the cast, along with Monica Bellucci as the new Bond Girl.

The Hateful Eight (November 13th)

Quentin Tarantino, at one point, pulled this film from his slate, because it leaked online. Now it is back in existence, and features QT regulars like Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth, Zoe Bell, and Michael Madsen, and a host of other great actors including Kurt Russell, Walton Goggins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Channing Tatum. The plot sounds interesting: a group of assassins get stuck in a blizzard, and begin turning on each other. If anyone can make something that simple interesting, it would be Tarantino. And it has a title that is right up my alley. This may be one of the best of the year. I hope.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (December 18th)

Ok. I know I said I couldn't count them down properly, but how could this not be the number one on my list. It's "Star Wars"! Please save all the prequel hate. It's directed by J.J. Abrams! Please save all of your lens flare hate. It has the original cast back! IT WAS CO-WRITTEN BY LAWRENCE KASDAN!!! I'm flying really close to a dangerous form of optimism with this movie, and I couldn't care less. IT'S "STAR WARS"!!!

What did I miss? What are you excited to see that I didn't put on here? What aren't you excited to see that made it?

Mortdecai (2015)

"Mort"-ifying

Whenever I watch a Johnny Depp movie these days, I am instantly reminded of the Don Coscarelli horror movie, "Bubba Ho-Tep". I continuously think that he was replaced by a look-alike after his smashing success with the first "Pirates of the Caribbean", then he died, and some half-wit doofus is taking whatever role is tossed at him. With his latest stinker, "Mortdecai", in which he plays a bumbling art dealer looking for a missing masterpiece, Johnny's look-alike has found his bottom. This is a daftly unfunny film that is masquerading as clever, but hides behind a few bad running gags, and stale sex jokes, to try to illicit laughs. Any talent in this film, such as Ewan McGregor and Jeff Goldblum, are completely wasted, and the story never gains enough intrigue to be a decent mystery or heist flick. Paul Bettany gives the most earnest performance, but the material is too far below him for his character to be endearing. The only reason, it seems, that this film even got made was because Depp's name is in the producing credits. Good job, Sebastian Haff.

Grade: F
3D: N/A
Easter Egg: No

Starring: Johnny Depp (sort of?), Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Bettany
Director: David Koepp
Writer(s): Eric Aronson - Novel: Kyril Bonfiglioli
RT: 107 min
Rating: Rated R for some language and sexual material

2014: My 20 Most Hated Films

This is imcomplete, and I apologize for that.

20. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (21%)

I honestly thought this wouldn't make it onto my "Most Hated" list this year. It was pretty awful, but it could have been worse, I guess... maybe... I don't know. The biggest problem of this reboot wasn't just the rewriting of the genesis of the Turtles, but how utterly stupid you had to be to not find holes in every detail about it. The design of the heroes was poorly thought out, and Splinter was downright creepy, but it was Shredder who got the worst of the redesign. Johnathan Liebsman turned him into one of Michael Bay's Transformers, and made him a toadie to William Fichtner's evil CEO. Why?

Most Embarrassing Moment: Every detail about the Turtles' back story.

19.God's Not Dead (17%)

I often wonder, when a film has this little basis in the real world, if people know they are making a terrible film. Every one of the countless plot lines in this garbage college drama feel completely disingenuous, and seemed to do as little fact checking as they could get by with. Or none. The running theme of Christian persecution is entirely laughable, because the mustache twirling villains of this piece have so little shading to their characters that they don't act like actual people. It is funny that what other people see as trying to be part of the American dream, is what some Christians see as persecution.

18. Winter's Tale (13%)

This is such a misguided attempt at a romance with some sort of mystical flare. Colin Farrell is a thief who falls in love with a dying rich girl he tries to rob, and he is on the run from a gangster, played by Russell Crowe, who is a demon. a literal demon. The romance blossoms as the demons begin to descend upon them. The story begins to fall further and further into the sewers (also a little literal) when the young woman dies, and Farrell's thief is thrust into the future for reasons I don't remember, and the convoluted writing just continues to grate on the audience's nerves.

17. Dracula Untold (22%)

What a pile of farts.

16. Ouija (7%)

And another pile of farts.

15. The Pyramid (6%)

More horror farts.

14. Sex Tape (17%)

Why is this the second project that Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz have done together, and the second one that was just absolute garbage? This time the two play a married couple who decide to make a sex tape (video file?) together (in case you missed the title), and it ends up released over all of the Apple devices that they have given out to all of their friends and family. Now the two are in boring race to erase the video before everyone they know sees them getting nasty with each other. The two have so little chemistry together that they feel believable, and situations they get themselves in to become increasingly preposterous. To the point that it comes off as stretching for at least a couple of laughs. Laughs that never manifest.

Most Embarrassing Moment: A family B&E turns into a lecture from YouPorn owner Jack Black.

13. Back in the Day (0%)

Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor from "Smallville") wrote/directed/starred in this misguided big-fish-revisits-his-old-small-pond comedy. Playing an actor, living in California, who comes home to his twenty year high school reunion in order to win back his first love. With ill-timed, and very badly written, poop jokes and characters who aren't at all interesting, played by actors who seem to just be phoning it in. The plot plays much like a dumbed down version of the already less-than-stellar "American Reunion", except you don't have the benefit of already knowing the characters over three previous films.

Most Embarrassing Moment: Harland Williams teaches his son how to fart in his hand, and throw it at people. Not as funny as it sounds...

12. Pompeii (29%)

Paul W.S. Anderson makes a lot of awful movies. Sometimes they are really fun bad movies, and sometimes they are "Pompeii". This is a CG spectacle so bad, and so cartoony, that it is a wonder that anybody thought this would be a good idea. It takes a very Roland Emmerich/Michael Bay disaster film approach to a story that, with some major rewrites, could have been really interesting. Instead, just like James Cameron's "Titanic", it follows a pair of fictional lovers (played by Kit Harrinton and Emily Browning) that manage to survive right up until the very end of the tragedy, and it is never (at any point) interesting to watch them. Their romance is rushed, and the script relies entirely too much on the special effects to convey the plot, instead of focusing on anything substantial. We are given a convenient villain in Kiefer Sutherland's senator, who is over-the-top slimey in order to make you really hate him, but he is a mustache-twirl shy of being Snidley Whiplash. I would have preferred if would have tied someone to some train tracks. Preferably, Paul W.S. Anderson.

Most Embarrassing Moment: Kit Harrington's character wastes time to explain why he hates an already detained Kiefer Sutherland, instead of fleeing the city.

11. 300: Rise of an Empire (42%)

Frank Miller had two dud sequels come out this year, and this one was so limply put together that it hardly registers as an action movie.

Most Embarrassing Moment: Pick any poor shot battle scene.

10. Nurse 3D (69%)

This film wants to be a cult classic so bad, you can see the not-give-a-shit all over the screen. Paz de la Huerta stars as a nurse who stalks cheating husbands and kills them; a concept which is bizarre enough, but is pretty much the B-story of this movie. The main focus of the film revolves around her lusting after her trainee, played by "30 Rock's" Katrina Bowden, who spurns her advances because she is engaged to "High School Musical's" Corbin Bleu. Not a single performance in this movie is above par, and de la Huerta's performance was so bad, that this may be her career killer. The script is filled with goofy, overtly sexual dialogue, and the 3D effects are the kind of schlock that made the technique such a throw-away for so long. People are going to enjoy this film ironically, but that doesn't make it worth a better spot in this list.

Most Embarrassing Moment: Have you ever seen Paz de la Huerta try to act?

9. Left Behind (2%)

A friend of mine said of this film, "If Nicolas Cage is the sanest character of your movie, you know you're in trouble." Sure enough, Vic Armstrong's remake of the Kirk Cameron film (from fourteen years ago) was in dire need of a complete overhaul. The acting was stale from the top down, and the dialogue was so toxic that the words died upon any utterance.

Most Embarrassing Moment: The complete waste of Lea Thompson. She deserves so much better...

8. Transformers: Age of Extinction (17%)

I'm beginning to think I don't even need to watch Michael Bay movies to review them anymore. A lot of bad acting, too much CGI, dialogue that sounds like it was written by a group of third graders trying to sound tough. Every single film he makes just feels like a complete affront to film making as a whole. There is nothing in this film that is salvageable, or worthy of praise. It is one bad scene after another, with terribly shot action sequences, and an over use of slow motion in shots where it barely makes sense. The "good guys" are just as callous and mean as the "bad guys", and not in the fun anti-hero sort of way. By the time they got to the poorly designed Dinobots (over two hours into the movie), it is hard to muster up any emotion toward them. This is a marathon of a movie trying to be cool, and only coming off as a pale imitator of the other horrible films before it.

Most Embarrassing Moment: The creepy incest overtones of Mark Wahlberg's relationship with his daughter.

7. Tusk (39%)

Kevin Smith, where have you gone? Why was this movie made? You unleashed upon us the story of a man who kidnaps a shock-jock podcaster, and turns him into Walrus, and it is a clunky, joyless mess of a movie that fails at any sort of genre it seems to be striving for. Horror? There is never any tension to make the audience uneasy. Cult classic? It feels to intentionally bad to ever contain a moment of even ironic enjoyment. Parody? It never yields any decent laughs to be a sufficient spoof of "The Human Centipede". Every actor seems to be phoning in performances, except Justin Long, who is trying way too hard to be over-the-top. Skip this one, and revisit "Clerks" or "Dogma" again.

Most Embarrassing Moment: So hard to choose from the film itself, but the podcast this film was born from playing over the credits was pretty bad.

6. Dumb and Dumber To (28%)

Twenty years is how long it took to think of this sequel. In that 20 years, and a fistful of other films (a couple of them great), you would think the Farrelly Brothers could have thought up some different jokes to put in the script. Instead, they thought rehashing every single gag from the first movie would be the best way to welcome back their fans. Let's see the check list: Blind kid with dead pets? Check. Most annoying sound in the world? Check. Road trip with a person who is trying to kill them? Check. Showing up at their destination, and wearing a goofy outfit to try to fit in? Check! On top of all of this, they put a bunch of photos from the first movie over the credits to remind you of a much better film. I never thought I would long to watch the mismanaged prequel, "Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd". Thank you for that, Farrellys...

Most Embarrassing Moment: Harry visits his parents, who are Asian, and doesn't realize he is adopted.

5. A Haunted House 2 (8%)

The Wayans Brothers have made some truly awful films ("White Chicks", "Scary Movie 2"), but this one most likely claims the prize as the worst film ever made by a Wayans. Marlon Wayans assumes he is being funny, and edgy, by joking about race and sex, but most of it feels like tired rehashes of jokes made by much funnier comedians and film makers throughout the last 40-50 years. There is a scene in which Wayans has sex, in multiple positions, with the doll from "The Conjuring". This goes on for at least five minutes. If this isn't bad enough, that scene sets up a story line for the rest of the movie. If that sounds awful to you, you are in for this kind of comedy for a rousing 86 minutes.

Most Embarrassing Moment: They loved killing the dog so much in the first one, that they did it twice in this one

4. Best Night Ever (0%)

Last year, Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg managed to get a film into my 20 Most Hated List with "The Starving Games" (#12). This year they somehow made an even worse film by scraping the parody model they are known for, and creating an "original" film. This is the sad product of two men who have spent their entire careers making films based off of the work of other people, and it shows in this laughless found footage mash-up of "Bridesmaids" and "The Hangover". The performances are grating, the cinematography takes found footage to its absolute lowest, and the dialogue is forced and strained. I sure hope the title was meant to be ironic, because watching this made for a perfectly awful night.

Most Embarrassing Moment: The lack of a single likable character.

3. The Devil's Due (21%)

I'm willing to admit a bias against "found footage" films, but when crap like this continues to get released, it is hard to figure out why they keep getting realeased (aside from monetary reasons). Lindsay Devlin's script offers so few scares that this could hardly even be considered a horror film, and the direction is so bad, that any impending scare is telegraphed so far in advanced that when it happens, you had imagined something far more terrifying. Zach Gilford is quickly burning up his "Friday Night Lights" good will with me. I hope he finds a good vehicle soon, because I like him too much to not like him.

Most Embarrassing Moment: The last scene of the film sets up for a sequel I hope nobody is interested in seeing.

2. Vampire Academy (11%)

Everybody is trying so hard to make the next "Twilight", and just like "Twilight", they keep making bland, safe, boring supernatural teen romance films. In this latest attempt, a young girl named Rose (Zoey Deutch) is the chosen guardian of an undead princess (Lucy Fry), and they go to a special school together (like Hogwarts, but in Montana), where they deal with vampire bullying. "Vampire Academy" hits every cliche on the way down: best friends turning on each other, the person who seems to be most on the protagonist's side turning out to be the baddest of them all, the public revenge on the high school bully. Duetch and Fry are so dreadful together, and separately, that they make this movie almost impossible to watch. How this film was written by the man who wrote "Heathers", and directed by the man who directed "Mean Girls", the two best girls in high school films I have had the pleasure of seeing, and wound up this bad, I will never know.

Most Embarrassing Moment: Every time Rose's vision links with the princess', and she thinks out loud.

1. The Legend of Hercules (3%)

Everything that Renny Harlin does is a new reason to run from the theatre screaming in terror (there are exceptions). This year he brought us a comically horrible movie based off of none other than Greek demi-god, Hercules. His actors were stiff, his script was tacky, and his cinematography was poor, to say the least. Poorly made action sequences and special effects make every second worse than the last, and the bad attempt at an emotional ending had me out of the auditorium before the credits even started. There really isn't anything salvageable in this movie. At all.

Most Embarrassing Moment: Kellan Lutz's expressionless face.

0. Saving Christmas

I was hoping to see Kirk Cameron's "Saving Christmas", but I had to drive about an hour to see it, and that seemed a little excessive. So, we'll give it an honorary spot until I actually see it.

Strange Magic (2015)

Lucasfilm, and Industrial Light and Magic, should be really proud with how nice their first film under the Disney banner looks. It is jaw-droppingly well animated, and extremely easy on the eyes. Unfortunately, that is the only thing the movie has in its favor. Having to listen to this movie is extremely taxing. The dialogue is rushed, and sounds more like a first draft that never got properly fleshed out. Instead of adding any decent expository dialogue, they film makers added a bunch of horrible jukebox versions of popular songs that somewhat match what is happening in the story. The voice cast never quite gels, and each new addition doesn't match anyone who came before it, so you don't get a good sense of the world. Not to mention the villain is introduced with a song that literally says, "I am evil" at least 5 times. That is just lazy. This whole film is lazy.

Grade: D-
3D: N/A
Easter Egg: No

Starring: Alan Cumming, Evan Rachel Wood, Elijah Kelley
Director: Gary Rydstrom
Writer(s): David Berenbaum, Irene Mecchi & Gary Rydstrom - Story: George Lucas
RT: 99 min
Rating: PG for some action and scary images

Paddington (2014)

"Bear"-able Lightness of Being

When I walked out of Paul King's big screen adaptation of the children's book, "Paddington", I only had one word floating in my head: magical! King wrote and directed a marvelous tale about misfits, family, and that wondrous place we call home. From its first scene, a mock 1940's news reel of a British explorer's trip to the Peruvian Jungle, to its heart-melting conclusion, it maintains a light humor with a few gut-busting laughs, and some great physical gags. The story does become a but formulaic, but it tends to rise above it with great writing, and even greater heart. 

Sally Hawkins and Hugh Bonneville are pure joy as the parents of the Brown family, a family who takes Paddington in. Bonneville is excellently authoritative, and Sally Hawkins is sweet and fun-loving without being over-bearing or annoying. Peter Capaldi is a lot fun as the snooping neighbor, and Nicole Kidman does a serviceable job as the taxidermist trying to catch our hero, to add to her collection. The film is anchored perfectly by the animated bear, voiced by Ben Whishaw (Q from "Skyfall"), who is lovable and naive, and just too adorable for words. This movie has some stumbles, but King's excellent artistic choices, and sharp humor, more than make up for anything slightly worth mentioning.

Grade: A-

3D: N/A

Easter Egg: No

Starring: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins

Director: Paul King

Writer(s): Paul King (also Screen Story with Hamish McColl) - Character: Michael Bond

RT: 95 min

Rating: PG for mild action and rude humor

Blackhat (2015)

Complete Hacks

A tepid thriller is always difficult to watch. Especially when every decisions made by the protagonists are the absolute dumbest decisions any character can make in a movie. Being able to out think people who are supposed to be intelligent characters is taxing. So is groaning at every convenient twist and turn that Michael Mann threw in to get from one snoozer of a plot point to the next. Unfortunately, none of the performances from the actors were spectacular enough to make up for the poor script, but all of them were adequate enough to at least make them believable as human beings. Really stupid human beings. An excellent score by Atticus and Leo Ross, and Stuart Dryburgh's beautiful cinematography are about the only things worth the price of admission.

Grade: D

3D: N/A

Easter Egg: No

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Viola Davis, Leehom Wang

Director: Michael Mann

Writer(s): Morgan David Foehl

RT: 133 min
Rating: R for violence and some language

Taken 3 (2015)

Nap "Taken"

When this blog started, it must have seemed like Liam Neeson was a god. Well, to prove that even gods make mistakes, he went ahead an signed on to make "Taken 3" (or "Tak-three-n", I guess). I realize the first two aren't exactly "The Godfather", but the first one was a hell of a lot of fun, and the second (Two-aken?) was at least passable. This installment just lays a little flat, and never manages to gain any real tension (and they kill Famke Janssen in the beginning of the movie, which sucks). Olivier Megaton shoots action sequences too fast for the audience to register what is happen, thus killing any excitement for the outcome. He also never makes the lives of our main characters really hang in the balance, so you never feel any dread for them. The only well-rounded individuals (and half decent performances) among these characters are Liam Neeson and Forest Whitaker (playing a wise detective on the hunt for Neeson). The rest of them fit into two categories: this person might as well be dead already, or you remember this person from the other films. "Blah" is about the strongest emotion I pulled from this movie.

Grade: D
3D: N/A
Easter Egg: None

Starring: Liam Neeson, Forest Whitaker, Maggie Grace
Director: Olivier Megaton
Writer(s): Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen
RT: 109 min
Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and for brief strong language

Two Sentences:

Son of a Gun (2014): This is a fairly decent heist film that happens to fit many cliches as it chugs along. A great performance from Ewan McGregor keeps it being entirely forgettable, but, in the end, it will just be thrown on to the January heap of "that could have been worse" films.

Grade: C

The Wedding Ringer

"Ring"ing in the New Year

Three opening weekends into the new year, and we already have a film that is going to be hard to top for "Dud of the Year". Jeremy Garelick directed and co-wrote (with Jay Lavender) a torturous comedy about a loner (Josh Gad) who needs a best man and groomsmen for his wedding, so he turns to a best-man-for-hire (Kevin Hart) to handle this for him. Once you get over how awful that premise is, you are then bombarded with scene after scene of lame homophobic and fat jokes, and bad set-ups that are a series of disconnected ideas thrown together haphazardly. It is not a good sign in any movie when a Joe Namath cameo is the most humorous thing that happens.

At no point do you come to care enough about Gad's character, or his relationship, to want to know whether or not his wedding goes well. Garelick gives you such a horrendous introduction to him at the top of the movie, and finds a dozen ways to make him pathetic, but never sympathetic. As the eponymous character, Kevin Hart does his normal fast talking, scheme hatching Kevin Hart bit. It's fine that he has found a niche in cinema, but as we found out with last January's "Ride Along", this character isn't enough to sustain a leading role. When you get him bit characters, and cameos, like Chris Rock's "Top Five", you get some honest laughs from him. The rest of the ensemble doesn't get much better, and too many wacky people are introduced too fast to find any decent characters among the bunch. After a while they have heaped so many zany characters on you, that it begins to feel like overkill when they give even more. Do yourself a huge favor, and skip this one.

Grade: F
3D: N/A
Easter Egg: None

Starring: Josh Gad, Kevin Hart, Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting
Director: Jeremy Garelick
Writer(s): Jeremy Garelick & Jay Lavender
RT: 101 min
Rating: R for crude and sexual content, language throughout, some drug use and brief graphic nudity.