Every year brings hundreds of bad movies. I avoid most of them, but every once in a while I’m particularly curious as to why they’re considered failures as such. Some are so mediocre, merely existing as a sort of cash-grabber, that they don’t rise above cynical entertainments; others, transcend badness as to rise to a nirvana of “what-were-they-thinking” awfulness.
Here’s my top 10 worst movies of 2012:
#10: American Reunion
Some films want to cash-in from nostalgia (see “Indy 4”) but they at least have to justify their existence from beyond just bringing back beloved characters. “American Reunion” doesn’t offer a convincing argument for a reunion making the whole movie utterly pointless. Plus, their ages strips them from the absurd oversexed shenanigans that worked before. It feels kinda creepy and it’s not funny anymore.
#9: Lawless
This movie had every chance of being a good movie, hell even a great one. But a dopey script, a wasted cast (that includes a Tom Hardy that seems to bark half his lines and hardly give a shit) and an unsure direction turns it into a tedious and uninvolving slog. It’s as if everyone was merely invited to a depression-era themed party. A big disappointment.
#8: Twixt
“Twixt” is baffling. It’s an attempt from Francis Ford Coppola to jump on the 3D bandwagon with a strange story of a writer investigating a murder on a small town. Dream sequences are adrift in a pointless storyline and the 3D scenes (that actually invite you, in-movie, to put your glasses on) are laughable and completely unnecessary. This is one of those “what-were-they-thinking” pictures.
#7: To Rome With Love
“Midnight in Paris” was one of my favorite movies of last year but Allen’s “To Rome With Love” seems to find it hard to find a reason to exist beyond giving Allen and his cast a nice holiday in Italy. It’s a depressing and unfunny farce with obnoxious characters (several stories are presented, none are interesting). I respect Allen for writing and directing a movie every year, but this one should’ve stayed on his drawer.
#6: The Bourne Legacy
I’m a fan of the Bourne trilogy. They’re exciting action movies with enough political intrigue to keep us entertained but what really made them work was the poignancy of Matt Damon’s character. “The Bourne Legacy” reminds us how Damon and director Paul Greengrass were essential to their success. This one lacks a heartbeat, introducing dumb characters, drawn-out and pointless scenes and barely any action. Another one of 2012’s big disappointments.
#5: Battleship
“Battleship” is loud and dumb and long and ridiculous. It takes its inspiration from “Transformers” but failed to even generate interest within its core audience (which I assume are pubescent boys obsessed with robots, girls and explosions). Some scenes made me laugh but on the whole I must say I was depressed as to see what Hollywood does with a big budget. Yeah, the effects are good but where’s the script?
#4: The Moth Diaries
I expect the story of this movie to sit comfortably on the shelves of “teenage supernatural fiction” in countless bookstores. As men we could fantasize about the possibilities of a story about attractive girls in a boarding school but instead we get soap opera material that might appeal to the Twilight crowd. A shame, coming from Mary Harron.
#3: Rec 3 Genesis
I love the first “Rec” movie, liked the second one and expected to enjoy this so-called prequel. But, we get the rug pulled under our noses since this bears no resemblance to the others in the series. It tries to be funny but it isn’t, it tries to be poignant but no character is fully developed. It stops trying to be scary. In other words, it’s a big slap in the face to Rec fans. Hopefully the next installment will fix the rancid taste left by this one.
#2: Red Tails
George Lucas wanted to make this movie for a long time but he should’ve waited a lot longer. It’s a historical epic drama that looks and sounds like a videogame with a cast lacking conviction and a terrible direction. Swap any one of the planes for X-Wings and one could easily imagine it taking place in Naboo. As adventure films go, this is a really bad one.
#1: Post Tenebras Lux
I’ve written a lot about this movie and if I have to say something positive about it it’s that it is never boring. It might be laughably misguided, thematically opaque and narcissistic to its core but it’s never dull. I’m afraid people pass anything as art these days, which is comforting for the lazy but not so comforting to the artists. This movie might make it to a museum one day where a bunch of people will contemplate it and find its emptiness deep and poignant. Maybe.
