The Worst Films of 2015

​Well, I know this is the one you come for. I do too: "worst of" lists are always way more fun to read/watch than "best of" lists. I get it. However that doesn't mean I like making them. Cause I sure don't. Alright well let's just get this over with. Wait, where's my beer? I need some alcohol hang on.......I know you can't see it, but I seriously just went and grabbed a beer. Don't believe me? Look!

That's the beer I just went and poured myself. Easy IPA from Firestone Walker, even though I know you weren't wondering. I just felt like telling you because right now I am absolutely stalling for time because I don't want to talk about these films. Alright alright I'll talk about them! Just remember: that beer is gonna be the best thing for me over the course of the next hour.....

(Dis)Honorable Mention: Serena

So how does a straight-to-streaming/DVD movie staring two of Hollywood's biggest names happen? By being absolutely hilariously terrible. The best part about this film is watching Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper slowly realize how awful this thing is and thus take their roles less and less seriously as it goes on. For example at the start of the film, Bradley Cooper has this weird southern "old timey" accent, but by the end of the film, it's gone! WHOA! That should've been a story arc: the case of Bradley Cooper's vanishing accent! Well, this film could've very well been higher, but nobody saw it! You probably would've scrolled passed had I not included a picture of Jennifer Lawrence/Bradley Cooper together. After all how can anything staring the two of them be bad, right?

On another note, can I just say that director Susanne Bier kind of pisses me off? In the trailer for this film she says, "Academy Award Winner" Susanne Bier. I searched her IMDB page and couldn't find mention of this supposed Academy Award. Was she perhaps a sound mixer or something and won an award back in the day for it? NO. She directed a film in 2011 that won Best Foreign Language film, and now she totes that around NO! You're entire crew did that. If you want to properly sell that, you say "Director of the movie that won Best Foreign Language film." You don't take credit for the entire project yourself. Bad Susanne Bier. No.

(Dis)Honorable Mention: The Gunman

This film is being mentioned mostly because of who's in it. Sean Penn has two Oscars and his role of Harvey Milk is, in my opinion, one of the best performances of the 2000s. Javier Bardem, Ray Winstone, Mark Rylance, and FREAKING Idris Elba round out this seemingly strong supporting cast. However here, they're just awful. And this is from the director of the original Taken too! You know, the good Taken. (I didn't even bother watching Taken 3 so you won't see it on this list) But this film is just a joke of an action movie. Somehow these wonderfully charismatic actors are..... well.... not.... charismatic here. This isn't even good by stupid action movie standards. Just let this stay on your Netflix queue forever man. You'll be happy you did.

10) Mortdecai

I'm not gonna lie: this one might be the only film on this list that I love to hate. This is a film that you watch after a lot of drinks and laugh at. Yes Johnny Depp has played this character entirely too often. Yes he's not funny here. But after a few drinks and with company? It's a blast to hate it. And it has a strong supporting cast too! Sure everyone but Gwyneth Paltrow is dreadful, with Olivia Munn particularly disappointing because the film has no idea what to do with her other than ogle like a 12 year old over how hot she is, but it's still a "so bad it's good" kind of bad. It's also the only one of those I put on this list, so let's get to the ranting, shall we?

9) Paranormal Activity: THe Ghost Dimension

How? How is this franchise still a thing? Paranormal Activity fell into the classic horror movie trap: the original was successful and was a NEW IDEA in the horror genre and made a lot of money, so we have to crank out 8 more of them! This series is FINALLY taking a break after this stupid, lazy excuse of a horror film, but I'm sure in 5 or 10 years we'll get another one when the distributor thinks they'll make some money again. GAH! What's sad is the fact that the first 2 films in this franchise were SO GOOD. Paranormal Activity 2 made some significant advances in the franchise and introduced one of the first uses of the "rotating camera" scare, something which It Follows used to perfection this past year. But since then these films have gotten lazier and lazier, reducing themselves to nothing but pop scares. If you're into horror films like I am, for the love of God go see It Follows and NOT Paranormal Activity 16.

8) Jupiter Ascending

LETS YELL SOME and now let's whisper. I am channeling my inner Eddie Redmayne right now. Bring her to me. I WILL FIND HER.

You know, I think I love to hate this movie too. Because it is hilariously awful. This film is impossible to defend, and it was a major disappointment given who created it, (the Wachowskis) but Eddie Redmayne going absolutely freaking nuts saved it from being higher on this list. But then you realize that this travesty is way too long, filled with way too much exposition, and filled with way too much damsel-in-distress from its supposed female lead to be truly enjoyable. It's a big stupid sci-fi film, but it's trying way too hard to be more. Thank GOD for Eddie Redmayne. Never thought I'd be saying that honestly....

7) Zipper

Ok so this film probably shouldn't be on this list at all because absolutely no one saw it and it doesn't have a backstory like Serena does, but I LOVE PATRICK WILSON, OK? HE'S SO FREAKING CHARMING AND CHARISMATIC I MEAN LOOK AT THAT PICTURE. LOOK AT THAT SMILE. LOOK AT THAT LEG CROSS. HOW CAN YOU NOT FIND THAT SEXY AS HELL? So I'm gonna talk about Zipper because this movie sucked! A terrible attempt to show a politician's attempt to deal with an addiction to sex while in office, Zipper starts out with the potential to be a House of Cards-like political drama, but then it throws it all away as it HAS to have this stupid, overbearing message about corruption in politics over your head like it's a dead pig. You KNOW that after a man is exposed for cheating on his wife with prostitutes, and is exposed through irrefutable video evidence of this fact, his political career is done. We all KNOW that. He wouldn't be "noticed" by a higher member of his party then 6 months later be running for AND WIN a seat in the US Senate! Seriously? As a result this film either has a really cynical view of today's world, or it's just trying to make a very lazy statement about politics today. The acting sucks here too. Even Patrick Wilson. Patrick freaking Wilson! Even he is bad here. And Lena Headey is totally forgettable, Ray Winstone and Richard Dreyfuss are in this film for so short a time that if you blink you might miss them. The director, Mora Stephens, has had a rough start to her directing career, as none of her films have done very well, but someone somewhere believes in her because with each film she directs her profile increases. Good for her! I hope she manages to make a good film soon. But it's certainly not here. Please be your old, charismatic self again Patrick Wilson.....

6) 50 Shades of Grey

Ya. Remember when I struggled through this film for you? Well, here's my review if you wanna relive my misery. This is one thing I want to try and improve on this year: I need to get out and see more crappy films and actually review them. I started that last year with 50 Shades, but I struggled through this one so much that I really didn't do it again. But, as you can see, I was not as low on this film as others were. Sure, it sucked. Don't get me wrong I am by no means saying it was a decent film when I say I'm not as low on it, I just mean I didn't hate it as much as others did. Why? Because I knew what I was in for going in. I knew that this was going to be bad. But, in a film like this, I really wish they had just gone for it. The filmmakers try and saddle this line between decency and bat-s**t crazy, but I really wish they had just gone full crazy! But see? The fact that I was wishing for that meant I was at least paying attention during the film. And there's no doubt Dakota Johnson is doing her bestest here, but, like another young adult novel film that's gonna show up later on this list, she just can't bring along her stone-age hunk of a male counterpart along for the ride. Jamie Dornan is God-awful as Christian Grey. He is SO BAD. I would've love to see what a Charlie Hunnam Christian Grey would've been like, but of course we'll never know. But just the fact that I care enough to think of what could've been is why this film is not higher on the list. Now, I stop caring about what could've been. Why? Because it's time to talk about another young adult film that's even worse than this.

5) Insurgent

 Yup. Bet this one took you by surprise a bit. Why is this here and not on my biggest disappointments of 2015? Because this film signifies EVERYTHING that is wrong with the young adult genre: it's heavy handed, it tries to immerse you in a s**tty world makes no sense and that is the same as every other post-apocalyptic world in this genre, it stars a lead that is "special" because, well, because they are, and there's always one high-profile actor (or actress, in Kate Winslet's case.... course now Naomi Watts and freaking Jeff Daniels have joined the team....) that's embarrassing themselves by being in it. All the "fun" parts of the first movie are gone here, and we get this stupid investigation into a world that we don't care about, which ultimately left me struggling to find any entertainment in this film whatsoever. M83 didn't even make an appearance this time around, as his song while the characters ziplined through the Chicago skyline was EASILY the best part of the original. And of course all the problems of the first are still here, most notably the fact that Theo James has just about as much charisma here as Jamie Dornan has in 50 Shades. Pretty much the only saving grace in here is Miles Teller not giving a crap about anything that's going on. But ultimately, Insurgent is a crappy young adult film that's trying so hard to be so much more than it actually is. God make it stop make it stop....

4) Get Hard

I initially had something like 9 comedies on this list. I narrowed it down to 3, but that means 3 of the bottom 4 films on this list are comedies. That's not good! Well, we start with Get Hard. Kevin Hart is one of the funniest people alive. But why does he keep picking terrible movies to try and show off his acting prowess? Actually, why does he pick films where the film crew has no idea how to let him even be himself? I mean this film has one legitimately good/funny scene, and it's the one scene where the filmmakers clearly just let Kevin Hart be Kevin Hart. (It's the scene we kinda see in the trailers where Hart is impersonating multiple different types of people at once-I'll spoil it because dear God don't see this film) And Will Ferrell.... it's been quite some time since I've found Will Ferrell to be truly funny in a movie. Well, ok. I thought he was pretty funny in The Lego Movie, but he definitely did not carry that movie or anything. The last time I thought he did that was in 2010's The Other Guys. He's been on some kind of cold streak recently, and I think he could really benefit from settling down and taking a bit of a break from Hollywood. Maybe focus on stand-up and find his rhythm again, because he's just not funny right now. There. I said it. He's not! And of course this film is absolutely dreadful from a technical standpoint, so when you have no laughs and no technical side to your film whatsoever, you have a pretty awful movie. But don't worry! It's only gonna get worse.

3) Hot Pursuit

Reese Witherspoon. Why. How the hell do you follow up Wild, a performance which I said was my second favorite of 2014 in my actor awards, (which you can revisit here) and an overall year which had me calling you the feel-good comeback story of the year, to THIS? HOW CAN YOU BE PROUD OF THIS MOVIE? You can't. You simply cannot be proud of this. It's impossible. Reese Whitherspoon and Sofia Vergara had more chemistry during their press tour for this film than they did in the film itself. It's embarrassing how awkward these two are on screen together. Not to mention the part where this film is weirdly sexist? Ya, I know. Somehow this film finds a way to be sexist against women when its two leads are female. Bravo on that one! There is literally nothing funny about this film. Not one laugh. Honestly, this movie makes you question why your wasting your time watching it during the film. Coming in at 87 minutes, it's 86 minutes too long, and has absolutely no redeeming qualities to it. The only reason its not number 1 on my list is because there are somehow 2 worse films than it on this list. Gosh where's my beer?

2) Fant4stic

F*****************************************************************ck this movie. It was on my biggest disappointments list as well (which you can find here) but this film just ended up being a complete disaster. I still don't understand how a film can be this bad when it stars Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, and Kate Mara. How can you be this bad? It's action scenes are hilariously corny and unbelievable, the effects are on the same level as the first freaking Fantastic Four (you know, the one that came out back in 2005) and it once again SOMEHOW screws up Doctor Doom. Stop it, Fox! Just let this franchise die and go back into the hands of Marvel. See Fantastic Four is a lot like Aquaman: nobody cares about them. Despite being Marvel's first family. This comic series tried so hard to be like Justice League and Avengers, but it's always failed so miserably despite a fantastic villain. I mean, how lazy can you be to be called Fantastic Four and have your supposed leader be called Mr. Fantastic? (Even though Teller is never once referred to as Mr. Fantastic) Could you imagine if the Avengers Were called "America's Finest" or something with Captain America their leader? It's just poor writing, and I think even in the hands of Marvel this series doesn't stand a chance unless it's immediately brought into the MCU and they're only used as supporting characters in the overall story. But for now, Fant4stic serves as a "shining" example of corporate-directed film making at its worst.





Shame on you, Miles Teller. You had such a great 2014 WHY DID YOU SCREW UP 2015! Seriously, the difference between Teller's 2014 and 2015 is like Jekyll and Hyde. Maybe it's a pattern and that means that in 2016 he'll be really good again? I sure hope so. But, of course The Divergent Series still exists so I'm not holding my breath too much. You can do better, man!

Alright ready for my worst film of 2015? Well, here we go.....

1) Paul BLart: Mall Cop 2

Let's be honest: I'm using this film as a scapegoat to rip on (again, I might add) Happy Madison Productions. Can you say f**k Adam Sandler? Because this film might as well have stared him. It is, like literally every other Happy Madison film, condescending to the audience watching it. This film, as usual, is essentially a vacation for everyone involved. This time around, it's to the Wynn in Las Vegas! Woot woot! And of course there's tons of product placement all throughout the film and there's even a super awkward cameo from Steve Wynn himself at the end of the film as this movie tries so hard to be a 94 minute add for the Wynn casino. It's lead is a terrible human being who, despite being an awful person on screen, gets the girl in the end because of course he does, and he's played in the most lazy, I-don't-give-a-f**k way by Kevin James, who of course is squarely in the posse of Adam Sandler. There are absolutely no jokes in this whatsoever, and it's almost to the point where you find yourself sitting there wondering if there were even attempts at making a joke throughout most of this movie. I couldn't even finish it! I could not finish this movie, that's how bad it was. It is more than worthy of my worst film of 2015 "award" which means of the 3 years I've done this, 2 of the 3 years a Happy Madison film was my worst movie of that year. Shame on you, Adam Sandler. Shame on you. Just stop it.

But I'm not done! The other reason I made this my worst movie of 2015 is to further yell at Adam Sanler. I know, I haven't done that enough already. But I'm gonna address him directly! Ready? You are a terrible person, man. Your films are garbage, and you look on your audience with such disdain as you laugh your way to the bank. You give yourself absurd salaries for your films, and you use them as an excuse to go on vacation somewhere. You are the embodiment of what's wrong with the upper class in this country. You at least spent some of your budget on visual effects in Pixels which is the only reason why Paul Blart is at the top of the list instead of Pixels, but most of all.....you're just. Not. Funny. Pixels was no exception to this not-funny rule. And don't even get me started on The Ridiculous 6! And it's already the most watched film on Netflix...... how, America? This guy has one, maybe two funny movies in his entire CAREER. That's it! And he's still able to make these lazy-ass films that distributors overpay for because they somehow still make money. We all should be ashamed of ourselves for allowing this to happen. And as long as it does, I will keep bringing it up every year. Least he's in a 6 film deal on Netflix so we don't have to worry about him reaching the big screen for a while. We just get to hear about his films being the most watched movies on Netflix. Which isn't a whole lot better....

I'm done. Where's my sunset? I need to ride off into it because I am so done with this list. Now we at least will brighten the mood a lot with the best films and best performances, but I need a breather first. Thank God for this beer. Anyway, I'll see y'all next time here on Enter the Movies. Yay..........
​

Image Credits
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lifesite/50shadesmovie.png (50 Shades)
http://www.ew.com/sites/default/files/i/2015/08/06/fantastic-four_0.jpg (Fan4stic)
https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/serena-jennifer-lawrence-bradley-cooper-image.jpg (Serena)
https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/the-gunman-sean-penn.jpg (The Gunman)
http://i0.wp.com/www.heyuguys.com/images/2015/01/mortdecai_612x381.jpg (Mortdecai)
http://cdn.idigitaltimes.com/sites/idigitaltimes.com/files/2015/10/23/paranormal-activity-ghost-dimension-1.jpg (Paranormal Activity)
http://minnesotaconnected.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/jupiter-ascending-movie-review.jpg (Jupiter Ascending)
​http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/c0be086ce83238824d386f42e416d0dac4fa9134/c=65-0-597-400&r=x404&c=534x401/local/-/media/2015/08/26/Phoenix/Phoenix/635762089823820067-zipper1.jpg (Zipper)
http://www.ew.com/sites/default/files/i/%5Bcurrent-date%3Acustom%3AY%5D/%5Bcurrent-date%3Acustom%3Am%5D/%5Bcurrent-date%3Acustom%3Ad%5D/01-fifty-shades-of-grey.jpg (50 Shades)
http://www.metro.us/_internal/gxml!0/r0dc21o2f3vste5s7ezej9x3a10rp3w$afbugwaertqfepqiubv1vzo5orolsjq/get-hard-low-res.jpeg (Get Hard)
http://i2.wp.com/pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/hotpursuitnew.jpg (Hot Pursuit)
http://assets.rollingstone.com/assets/2015/moviereview/insurgent-20150319/189013/medium_rect/1426624361/720x405-I_D067_37097_R.JPG (Insurgent)
​http://www.flickeringmyth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/paul_blart_mall_cop.jpg (Paul Blart Mall Cop 2)