Thursday, December 31, 2015

BTMG's WORST TEN OF 2015

Cutting directly to the chase, these are the ten most wasteful times I spent in a theater this past year (apologies to my family for my 2+ hour absences during these)… 

Other flicks may have disappointed, but these flat out disgusted.

10. Spectre
Bland, James Bland.  A lazily substance-free and uncreative double uh-oh downer of missed opportunities.  I don’t have a laser or magnet in my watch but I kept checking it anyway…

9. Jupiter Ascending
The Wachowski siblings deliver a chaotically confusing, vividly convoluted and boldly uninteresting tale of deep space royalty stock market speculation, toilet scrubbing queens incarnate and dog-men do-gooders with jogger-motion jet boots.  Yes, it’s as bad as it sounds.

8. Hot Tub Time Machine 2
An obnoxious, directionless, meanderingly disjointed, alcohol-fueled, bong water-logged time travel flick.  A script?  Where they’re going they don’t need scripts.

7. Rock the Kasbah
A ham-fisted, forced and unfocused fish-out-of-water-and-in-Afghanistan cultural clash of politics, religion and reality show glitz is a Middle East mess.  I love Bill Murray, but his shlubbish shtick used here – a desperate move to liven up the proceedings – is embarrassing.

6. Fifty Shades of Grey
Fifty Shades of Oy Vey.  Audiences looking for sexy intrigue will get the shaft when this flick dangles its lifelessly limp, sub-soap-opera-level, poorly written, lazily plotted jewels in their face.

5. Fantastic Four
This cosmically clunky and laboriously lunk-headed attempt to ride the outer rim coattails of the Marvel Universe is a dull, dreary and virtually action-free affair.  So bad, in fact, my 8-year old labeled it the worst movie he’s ever seen.  Ouch.  It truly is a fantastic bore.

4. Point Break
Completely missing the urgency, chemistry, soul and spirit of the 2001 Reeves/Swayze cheesball classic, this uncalled for remake is a dead fish, X-Games thriller that barrel rolls and wipes out every time someone opens their damn mouth.

3. Hot Pursuit
Reece Witherspoon and Sophia Vergara have zero chemistry in this shrillingly lazy and downright forgettable Thelma and Louise semi-knockoff. The title say’s Hot Pursuit, but it’s a hot something else altogether.

2. Blackhat
This digital age thriller is decidedly short on thrills.  Blackhat is a narratively anorexic and coaxialy confusing dud.  Thinly scripted, lazily acted and poorly executed – Chris Hemsworth may shine as the Avenger’s God of Thunder, but here he’s reduced to a mighty bore.

1. The Boy Next Door
J-Lo’s stale cookies crumble in this formulaically manufactured, awkwardly familiar, ridiculously scripted, poorly acted and horrendously directed pseudo-stalker wannabe.  It’s a bottom-of-the-barrel, basement-dwelling, barely-legal, reverse Fatal Attraction bomb.


2 comments:

Lolo said...

Excellent list, though we disagree on Spectre. The Boy Next Door was our #1 worst all year until The Gallows. We just saw Point Break tonight, and though it'll be the worst film of December for us, it won't make the top 15 worst films of last year. Great, thorough list!

BRTaibl said...

Thx, Lolo! Luckily, I missed The Gallows. ...and the whole Spectre thing just never sat well with me. I've never been so un-engaged during a Bond film. Admittedly, I've had many tell me I'm wrong on that one. Happy New Year!