Top Ten Worst Films of 2012
Finding films to put on a worst-of list actually proved to be harder than I originally thought, mainly because there were so many good movies that came out this year. Nevertheless, some filth did manage to slip through the cracks so here are my Top Ten Worst Films of 2012.
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- DirectorJamie BradshawAleksandr DuleraynStarsEd StoppardLeelee SobieskiJeffrey TamborIn future Moscow, where corporate brands have created a disillusioned population, one man's effort to unlock the truth behind the conspiracy will lead to an epic battle with hidden forces that control the world.Here is a 'satirical' film made by people who have no idea how to satirize something or perhaps what a satire even is. This is a movie just a bloated, self-important, and jaw-droppingly abysmal as Southland Tales, only without the feeling that at least the director/writer was enjoying himself in his own little world. Satires of corporations and their influence on the public may be timeless, but in the future one might hope for people who make the films to actually know what they are talking about. This is one of those movies that pits one lone hero amidst a gigantic corporate conspiracy against the helpless citizens of the world. And what is this big conspiracy? Launching an ad campaign that claims 'fat' is the new 'beautiful'. I'm not kidding. This film actually claims that fat people are nothing more than tools of corporations and that their existence is something to be despised and feared. It's such an ugly, mean-spirited message that there hardly seems to be any reason to watch the rest of the film. Why sit through something that flat out tells you it's prejudiced? This insulting premise gives us an incredibly murky plot involving superpowers that let people see corporate influence as monsters, long quasi-philosophical talks about the influence of media, fat women being shot as if they were a sign of the apocalypse, the works. There is nothing redeeming about this film. Everything from the acting to the directing to the writing and even the way the film is shot is terrible, but what really sinks it is how pretentious and self-important it thinks it is, as if it had something truly revolutionary to say. It doesn't and seeing it will give you a bad taste in your mouth that will last for days.
- DirectorBill CondonStarsKristen StewartRobert PattinsonTaylor LautnerAfter the birth of Renesmee/Nessie, the Cullens gather other vampire clans in order to protect the child from a false allegation that puts the family in front of the Volturi.I know how hip it is to bash the Twilight films, but it's not like they haven't earned it. This film claims to be the most entertaining Twilight film yet and, while that is true, it almost ends up working against it. It's far too late for the series to suddenly start trying to have fun with the misogynistic, creepy, stalkerish behavior that it approves of. We've already pointed it out. We've been making these jokes for years. Trying it with the very last movie only shows just how late to the party they are. In this pointless second half of a film that frankly should have only been one, we are promised a grand fight sequence, one not originally in the book. And it ends up being an astonishingly well-made battle sequence; well-made for Twilight, I mean, since they apparently can't spend their enormous sums of money they made on the previous films for anything better than Photoshop-level CGI (including a CGI baby, which may end up being the most pointless use of CGI in history). There is an amazing level of violence, tension, and creativity put into the battle and I actually, for the first time in five films, found myself engaged. But just when it looked like they were going for the creative and risky route of doing something different...they ruin it with a twist that serves as nothing more than a middle finger to the audience. It is a twist that almost never works and never serves as anything more than a cop-out when the filmmakers are too scared to go the creative route. The twist negates everything about the battle and left me feeling personally offended. And Taylor Lautner may have had the worst performance trophy for the last film, but Kristen Stewart steals it right back in this film. She is so awful I kept waiting for her acting coach to come on-screen and smack her. The only good to come out of this is that the series is dead and a year from now, with a little bit of luck, we will have all forgotten it.
- DirectorMcGStarsReese WitherspoonChris PineTom HardyC.I.A. operatives wage an epic battle on each other when they discover they are dating the same woman.Do you find stalking funny? No? Then you probably will hate this film. 'Contrived' is about the only word I can think of to describe this film. How else do you describe a premise where Reese Witherspoon is not able to find a date and ends up dating two CIA agents who happen to be best friends? The observant movie-goers will recognize a lot of this film as being borrowed from True Lies and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, although it takes out the fun, wit, and excitement and gives us a product with all the substance and nutritional value of processed cheese. McG, the director who famously botched the attempt to get the Terminator series back off the ground, is very much in favor of giving us films that might as well come from a fast-food restaurant: substanceless, bland, emotionally-dead products that play more like commercials than films. It's not funny to watch two morons use a woman as the trophy in their game of one-upsmanship. It's not progressive that a female character dates two men at once without telling them. And it's not possible to buy poor Tom Hardy, who tries his best, as the straight 'nice guy' when it's plain he could clobber Chris Pine into a pulp if he wanted. This is a depressing film and even more depressing is how badly it insults both its characters and the audience.
- DirectorRidley ScottStarsNoomi RapaceLogan Marshall-GreenMichael FassbenderFollowing clues to the origin of mankind, a team finds a structure on a distant moon, but they soon realize they are not alone.I was so ready to like this movie so you can imagine how astounded I was by just how furious it made me. Ridley Scott has been really hit-and-miss with his films for the last decade and he really needs to sit down and get him head straight because Prometheus is just flat-out unacceptable. I refuse to accept that a director of Scott's talent could have looked at this script and thought it was finished. This may very well be the worst script of the year, filled to the brim with plot holes, inconsistent character motivations, cardboard cut-outs instead of characters, and laughable attempts at building symbolism and themes. The idea that humans could have been created by alien gods is a unique one, if not wholly original, but the film handles it so poorly that it tips its entire hand in the first sequence and leaves very little else to be curious about. The visuals are impressive and the actors are very good for the most part (except for an unwelcome Guy Pierce), but they are all in service of a story so bad and a plot so lazily put together than it almost doesn't matter. The ham-fisted attempts to tie this film to the Alien mythos may as well have been left out, since all it does it remind us of the good Alien films. Easily the biggest disappointment of the year, it also serves as an example of how great ambition can topple when it is poorly made from the story up. What a waste.
- DirectorSean AndersStarsAdam SandlerAndy SambergLeighton MeesterWhile in his teens, Donny fathered a son, Todd, and raised him as a single parent until Todd's 18th birthday. Now Donny resurfaces just before Todd's wedding after years apart, sending the groom-to-be's world crashing down.I want to sit down with Adam Sandler and ask him what we as a species did to make him hate us so much. How did we offend him? How can we fix it? Not content to give us three awful movies last year, he hits us with another one almost out of the gate with the promise of more to come. Sandler's always been known for playing loud, obnoxious characters and while I have never been amused by him, I know many who have. Even for them, this film will push it too far. I can't think of a single thing about the character he plays that it redeemable. I would even stretch that description to the film itself. How do you defend a film that starts with a teacher having sex with her student and the court ordering him to take care of it? What universe does this film take place in where this is at all believable behavior? Even looking past that, the jokes don't work and fall flat, even when they are trying to get shock laughs by being outright offensive, and the actors around Sandler could not look more uncomfortable to be around him. And really, how can one feel comfortable around this guy anymore?
- DirectorPeter BergStarsAlexander SkarsgårdBrooklyn DeckerLiam NeesonA fleet of ships is forced to do battle with an armada of unknown origins in order to discover and thwart their destructive goals.I can't think of a single person who thought this idea would work. Michael Bay has spent the last five years proving that big-budget summer blockbusters based on toys can't work so what is a director like Peter Berg doing? He's got quite a bit of talent and an idea for making films. Watching him trying to make a stupid action blockbuster is almost depressing and one wonders what other filmmakers will be forced to be worse to get a job. There's almost no point in talking about it. Every single problem you think it might have, it does. The acting is abysmal, the plot is unfocused (assuming that the flimsy sticks the action sequences are propped up with counts as a plot), the effects aren't impressive, the action is routine, and the title of the film plainly serves as a desperate attempt to grab as much money on brand-recognition as possible. There are interesting ideas popping up here and there and I would like to think something could be salvaged from this wreck, but I keep thinking about the ending of this film (which I won't spoil) and my hopes are whisked away like magic.
- DirectorGabriele MuccinoStarsGerard ButlerJessica BielDennis QuaidA former sports star who's fallen on hard times starts coaching his son's football team as a way to get his life together. His attempts to become an adult are met with challenges from the attractive football moms who pursue him at every turn.Gerard Butler really has no luck when he isn't beating the fudge out of people. In a year where he gave a brilliant performance in the fantastic Coriolanus, he also reminded us why putting him in 'modern day' films doesn't work. It didn't work in The Ugly Truth, it didn't work in P.S. I Love You, it didn't work in The Bounty Hunter, and it didn't work here. To be fair, it's not all his fault; the movies are just terrible from the concept up. But it's a curse he needs to break, especially since he ends up giving one of the only decent performances in the film. On the surface, this film seems like just another feel-good, second-chance film about a former star trying to get his life in order by coaching his son's soccer team. But it shoots itself in the foot by making a startlingly sexist turn once the soccer moms, all attractive and single, start chasing after him. Every cliche you can think of makes an appearance: struggling against temptation, the falling-out with a loved one, the heartfelt speech, the last-minute triumph. It's all so rote and joyless it makes the uncomfortable nature of the premise even worse until it becomes truly grotesque.
- DirectorHenry JoostAriel SchulmanStarsStephen DunhamKatie FeatherstonMatt ShivelyIt has been five years since the disappearance of Katie and Hunter, and a suburban family witness strange events in their neighborhood when a woman and a mysterious child move in.I'm actually a fan of the first three Paranormal Activity movies. Yes, they have their flaws and goofy moments, but the illusion of reality maintains throughout and I can buy why the people are filming what they are filming. Not so here. Even people with the simplest understanding of technology will point out the plot holes in the film: why does the main character keep her skype video on all night? If her boyfriend is taping everything that happens during the night, why is his computer not crashing with the size of the video folders? Even the basic filming set-up is weak and constantly draws attention to how artificial it is: at one point, the main character runs into a hostile house with her phone out, recording everything for no reason other than it needs to be in the movie. The characters are all so stupid you wonder how they can make breakfast when they can't figure out that the little boy who stands perfectly still and talks to the wall might have something wrong with him. And the 'twist' in the film is so stupid and implausible that it erases all good-will brought on by the previous films, serving as nothing more than a transparent ploy to get one last film out of this premise.
- DirectorSimon WestStarsSylvester StalloneLiam HemsworthRandy CoutureMr. Church reunites the Expendables for what should be an easy paycheck, but when one of their men is murdered on the job, their quest for revenge puts them deep in enemy territory and up against an unexpected threat.Another example of a film that refuses to just let loose and have fun. The first film may have been technically worse, but at least it had a consistent flow. This film is so choppy, so poorly paced, and so lazily thrown-together it feels more like something teenagers would make in celebration of their favorite action heroes. It's not enough to just get these guys on-screen; seeing them with guns does not automatically equal cool, especially since they require the help of an editing team to kill bad guys as they can't be bothered to do it in the same frame (they also can't seem to take more than five steps without the help of edits). These films truly could be awesome and enjoyable, if no less stupid, if the people working on them stopped trying to convince themselves that they are paying tribute to good movies. Stallone and Schwartzenegger's action films (with few exceptions) were almost all bad, but endearingly so. Instead of going balls-out and having fun with the possibilities that the premise offers, the makers play it safe and end up making a stupid, lame action film that will get lost in the shuffle with all the others.
- DirectorTimur BekmambetovStarsBenjamin WalkerRufus SewellDominic CooperAbraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, discovers vampires are planning to take over the United States. He makes it his mission to eliminate them.Just the title alone makes this movie sound stupid, but at least enjoyable. If only the makers of the film had bothered to try enjoying what they were doing. Much like last year's Cowboys and Aliens, this film makes the mistake of believing that it is some new and daring approach to try to play a silly premise like this straight, when all it really does is suck the enjoyment out and make the film a bore. From what research I have done, the movie deviates a lot from the book but that should not matter. A film needs to stand up on its own merits and this film cannot. It is a prime example of style over substance. I have never been a fan of Timur Bekmambetov's style of directing and all the worst aspects are still present: the dull and muted palette, the poorly edited action, the lack of any human touch whatsoever. Even the action sequences end up with the short stick, being so poorly edited and shot that their short durations often come and go before you realize what is happening. And all played with a deadly serious tone as if this was truly high brow stuff. To borrow an overused line: "Why so serious?"