Tag: 0 out of 4

Cinderella’s Revenge was watched early from a screener. It is being released on April 26th, 2024. You can see an interview I had with the lead actress Lauren Staerck, here.

What if Cinderella (Lauren Staerck) decided to go and like, kill? You know, get some revenge? Revenge against her step-sisters (Beatrice Fletcher, Megan Purvis) and step-mother (Stephanie Lodge). Ideally, she should have a good reason to go on a murder spree. Something bigger than chores and not getting to go to parties.

So in this story, Cinderlla’s father was murdered! And the step-mother was involved in the process. Now, pretend the rest of the story is the same for a bit. Except, when we get to the ball and fairy godmother (Natasha Henstridge) scene, Cinderella still gets a dress and a carriage. But instead of a regular dress, the fairy godmother brings in people like Tom Ford from the future, to design it. Not played by real Tom Ford, no. And what about her carriage? Well, its an electric vehicle, driven by Elon Musk of course. Because, and I quote, “Whenever you need a stylish mode of transportation that’s good for the environment, he’s your man.”

What?? Of course it should be noted that there are no cars in this time period, so, its certainly magic. But…also what?

Anyways, eventually, the prince ball scene happens, the step sisters foot cuttings happen, but it isn’t enough and they want to stop Cinderella. So eventually she gets like, a magical mask that lets her kill people to get revenge. Yep.

Also starring Darrell Griggs, Mike Kelson, and Ricardo Freitas.

The makeup women had at that time period was something else. Okay, title alone, this seemed like one of those movies I never really normally waste my time with. Very low budget horror films, that are easy to make and churn out. I do my best to ignore them, I do. But this one I felt like doing the interview, and still giving the movie a try. But honestly, I should also trust my gut more. I have so much of it.

The best part of the movie was the intro, but it inexplicably was just like a lyrics video to the song Cinderella Snapped by Jax. Like, literally, it was graphics and words on the screen, doing the first verse and chorus. And then when Cinderella Snapped happened at the end of the chorus, Cinderella’s Revenge popped onto the screen. Does that mean we have a big pop-rock soundtrack for the film? No, that was the only one. And that started the film, so it was all downhill from there.

First, it is so absurd of them to still do the entire Cinderella plot line, but then put a little bit before hand to make it different, and still have the last third of the film or more to be the “oh yeah, this is a horror film so we need killing” part of it. Why wasn’t it better incorporated into the whole film and normal story? I couldn’t say.

This film randomly has two sex scenes as well, I guess, for the small chance that would help get viewers.

But really what kills me, as you may have guessed already, is the weird fairy godmother, future people nonsense of it. It wasn’t funny to have these people in it. It was down right uncomfortable to even have anyone worshipping Elon Musk at this point. All of this made the film just feel like…well, a joke. And maybe they were going for comedic parts of this horror overall. Or some “hah we are so silly” moments. But turning Cinderella into a horror film shouldn’t actually be that difficult. You can tell the normal story, with a lot added into it to creepify it. But in this movie, it was like the normal story was just that, normal. They tagged on the silly fairy stuff. And then before and after the story some murder.

It reminds me of how uncomfortable I felt reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Badly mashed together concepts that would both be better suited on their own.

I’d say I don’t recommend the movie, but, I can’t imagine anyone finds this on their own anyways.

0 out of 4.

(dis)HONORABLE MENTIONS:
A lot of these had the potential to go the shitty distance, but they weren’t picked overall. This list includes: Skinamarink, Renfield, Vacation Friends 2, About My Father. It also definitely includes the Disney short, Once Upon This Studio.

And in terms of random documentaries, I could have included: Cocaine Bear: The True Story, Rob Schneider: Woke Up In America, and Take A Chance. Yes, I put a stand up special in there. Rob Schneider has passed the deep end.

15) Good Burger 2Why is it on the list? Good Burger 2 is another sequel, decades after the original, that only tries to re-use the same jokes from the original and fail to live up to anything like its predecessor. Besides the recycled material, and worst plot, Kel Mitchell has to show he does NOT have it like he used to. He has not been acting, he has been out of the game, and it is painful when the Ed character is on the screen. As one of the main two characters, he is on the screen a lot.

Worst moment? The Ed Robot ending.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Attempt At Nostalgia Cash-Grab of 2023!

14) Ruby Gillman, Teenage KrakenWhy is it on the list? It is wild how one animation studio can be consistently so inconsistent. Dreamworks has forever been plagued with both terrible movies, and pretty damn good movies. The good ones just happen to be in the Shrek, Panda, and Dragon universes, and basically everything else falls short. This Kraken movie, with an uncomfortable animation style, came out just six months after Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and feels like something made for TV. It seems to only exist to attack The Little Mermaid, which had a 2023 live action release, and never feels more than a petty rushed hack job.

Worst moment? When the film feels like a weird combination of Luca and Turning Red from the last few years.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Jab At Disney Film of 2023!

13) Dog GoneWhy is it on the list? Almost every year we get some movie about having a dog, that caters to the same specific group of people. Over half of the time, the pet dies and some people cry. But every once in awhile, you just get a basic pet missing movie. And unfortunately for this one, the fact that the dog is missing is entirely the fault of the shitty owner, who we have to watch make plenty of bad decisions throughout the film. Some people maybe just shouldn’t be pet owners. This one amps up the melodramatic moments though, deciding to make both the dog, and the owner, sick. Hooray!

Worst moment? Getting the local media in on the missing dog search.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Dog Movie of 2023. (This beat out of Strays for me!)

12) Mafia MammaWhy is it on the list? Do they make good movies about the mafia anymore? Honestly, I feel like I can’t think of any. They peaked in the 80’s and 90’s and just said it was good enough. Mafia Mamma reminds me of the very bad The Family film a decade ago, but the thing is, I actually remember The Family. Or at least parts of it. I watched Mafia Mamma months ago and its all already gone from my head already. This was not Toni Collette wanting to make a good movie, but just wanting to make a paycheck.

Worst moment? I’m sorry, I don’t remember a single scene from this movie.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Mafia Movie of 2023!

11) Expend4blesWhy is it on the list? Look, no one is going to say the first 3 Expendable films are solid cinema. Not at all! I thought they were all already average to bad. But amazingly, this one decides to go and be even worse. This has the worst action, and worst cast list, out of any one of the series. I am here to watch a bunch of action stars together, and this one just decides to give a couple of them, with a lot of filler. Add to that, the terrible plot, terrible death fake outs, and just… bad all around aesthetic, it is actually a disgrace they ruined the already mid name of the franchise.

Worst moment? There was a fight scene between Fox and Statham, meant to be a sexy flirt couple fight. That one takes the case.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Action Film of 2023!

10) Baby Shark’s Big Movie
Why is it on the list? Look, I didn’t even know there was a TV show based on a song that got really popular. And it is likely for preschool aged kids, because my own kid in elementary school definitely did not want to watch it. But weirdly enough about this movie, is that it ended up having a similar plot to Trolls 3, but worse, with worse music. Another strange aspect is that K-pop band ENHYPHEN plays fish versions of themselves, but I didn’t even know that until the end, because I had no clue that it was a real band. I just assumed it was some parody of other bands. That I guess was the biggest stars they could find.

Worst moment? The Stariana song that was seemingly on repeat throughout the movie.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Musical and Worst Tiny Shark Movie of 2023!

9) Meg 2: The TrenchWhy is it on the list? The first Meg movie wasn’t a great movie. It was a silly giant shark action film. It was unbelievable, but it had some level of entertainment. The Meg 2 decides to make the sharks an after thought, with the majority of the film being a corporate conspiracy movie instead, until the very end. And to think this one had Ben Wheatley behind it for directing purposes, and most of his films have been passable, if not great before this.

Worst moment? Literally everything about corporate conspiracies and sabotage.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Big Shark Movie of 2023!

8) Fool’s ParadiseWhy is it on the list?I can be one of the people who is excited to see Charlie Day do things and succeed right? I want him to branch out, outside of IASIP. I liked him as the scientist in Pacific Rim. I liked him in that rom-com recently. But he has a lot more misses, and his first directed film is just so oddly placed. I cannot tell who this movie was for. He forgot to make the film entertaining, and it just felt like an incredible slog to get through.

Worst moment? When Day’s character doesn’t speak.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Directorial Debut From a Well Established Actor of 2023.

7) GhostedWhy is it on the list?  This couple has about as much on screen chemistry as a fish and sand. Evans and de Armas act like they have never met another person before. It has so much generic action, with a dull plot, and everything about it is dull. The fact that it was directed by Dexter Fletcher, who gave us Sunshine on Leith, Eddie the Eagle, and Rocketman is just astounding.

Worst moment? Honestly, any time we see the two on screen together, I slightly doubt it. I bet the whole thing was filmed separately. That is the only way to explain why it came across so flat.

Any Worst Awards? Worst on screen chemistry and worst Action Romance film of 2023.

6) Buddy Games: Spring AwakeningWhy is it on the list? Buddy Games, when it came out, was a pretty bad film. I didn’t dislike the cast overall, but the execution was something dreadful. It ended up being my 10th worst film of 2020. For some reason, a sequel was made, also straight to DVD, with the same cast returning, for more shenanigans and more made up rules for whatever these games end up being. Josh Duhamel is the director of these films, and it must be the strangest, weirdest, passion project of his. I don’t get it.

Worst moment? The actual events of this film have been mostly blocked from my mind.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Sports Movie Sequel of 2023.

5) Sound of FreedomWhy is it on the list? You have probably heard of this movie. It is about a true story of CHILD TRAFFICKING. So therefore you need to watch it or else you are a pedophile, idk. It involves a group of people, who went to South America, to free kids from child trafficking. And this is about them doing just that with a couple of groups. Now, of course, the events of this film are greatly dramatized. The ages of the kids shown are almost never that young. And the real fact that by going to these places and pretending to be buyers, and needing so many kids and so young, they created more child trafficking because the bad people needed go steal more kids.

Anyways. No one wants child trafficking, but a movie making the real events seem more sinister and lie about what the heroes did, and giving money to the makers of this movie, does nothing to stop child trafficking.

Worst moment? After freeing the first big group of kids (which only existed because of their demand for this many kids), the therapists with them on the capture site, had them sitting and clapping their hands to roughly the “We Will Rock You” beat. And that was it, that was the activity. And somehow, the main character looked on the group, and asked another if he heard it, “That is the Sound of Freedom…”

Any Worst Awards? Worst film based on some Q-anon stories and people of the year.

4) 80 For BradyWhy is it on the list? I honestly don’t know who this movie was made for, or who it was meant to appeal to? Based on a true story of…women who are old and like Tom Brady and watch football together. So they filled it with a lot of actresses who have tons of awards between them. To talk about old ladies going to the Super Bowl, against all the odds? And hell, during the super bowl, shenanigans occur, tickets are lost, and hell, they actually end up effecting the game that leads to Tom Brady winning a super bowl. But like, this is set in the real world? In a real super bowl championship, with a score that for sure happened?

What is the… goal of the film is really the question I have to ask myself?

Worst moment? At one point, some characters are on drugs. Oh golly, old women getting high.

Any Worst Awards? Worst “Simpsons Did It” film, Worst Ensemble of talented actors, and Second Worst Sports film of 2023.

3) Lady BallersWhy is it on the list? Well, let’s take a movie where the coach, a washed up and broken man, decided to grab his successful team from many years prior, and have them wear wigs to be women and win that championship instead. No, this is not a 90’s movie. This is a movie attacking the woke culture of the liberals of course. Honestly, finding this to randomly watch, I did NOT know it was The Daily Wire film, which is set out to destroy the woke Hollywood. The first idea of this was to make a documentary, but it turns out they couldn’t just get guys to say they are women and join a women’s team. You know, because there are rules, it takes times, it requires usually a lot of hormone therapy, before any of this is allowed.

So of course, they instead ignored that, made the movie as if any of this was doable, and clapped their hands on their backs happy to say they really got those liberals with this one. No one should watch this anti-trans film, and honestly, if I knew about it ahead of time, I would have given it the hard pass.

Worst moment? There was an upper elementary school aged kid used by her father, the coach, to teach the team what is acceptable on their transition. That one for sure because of the way they presented the information.

Any Worst Awards? Worst satire(?), worst comedy, and worst sports film of 2023.

2) Paw Patrol: The Mighty MovieWhy is it on the list? The first Paw Patrol movie was rough. It was pro-Cop, even in areas of that they had no jurisdiction in, and just confusing overall. So what happens with the sequel? All of the characters get SUPER POWERS. And now they are super heroes, with somehow more super vehicles than before. That is fine, if not unnecessary.

But why is it bad? Well, their focus on this movie is on one of the two lady puppies. Who loses her powers, and then immediately gets abandoned by the team and told she cannot help anymore. Even though they aren’t doing much more than what they did before. Now she is useless to them without powers? Add to that the other lady dog, introduced in the first movie, who never got powers for most of the film either, and not just was sidelined, but forced to watch even younger puppies (since they are all puppies?). This film gets to be pro-cop, while also anti-women simultaneously. Can’t make this stuff up.

Worst moment? Literally any time there was a junior Paw Patrol group, who apparently were taken from their families and now lived with them, to be watched by other baby dogs?

Any Worst Awards? Worst sequel, worst animated film, worst coproganda, and worst misogynist film of 2023.

1) BezosWhy is it on the list? Look, when 2023 started, I didn’t know I’d get to have a BioPic about the founder of Amazon so early in the year. Because who wanted this? No one asked for this. I did sort of expect it to be this dreadful. Watching a rich and successful man, get hundreds of thousands of dollars from his parents, and dreaming of starting a company just to fight book sellers. Hell, this has Kevin Sorbo as the CEO of Barnes and Noble, so you can judge the whole film solely on that. But Jeff is shown as a determined, kind, slightly smug individual, who clearly isn’t working well with his wife, and just wants to make money more than anything, even when he exploits the time of his early workers.

But this is like, a praise film at the same time. The funniest part is that this is based on a biography about Bezos officially. It is in the Zero To Hero series, which, if you can see on this link to amazon itself, is a book for children.

Worst moment? The eventual reveal of his company name of Amazon.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Biopic, Worst Movie based on a Children’s Book, Worst Drama, and Worst Film of 2023.

Thanks for reading! If you disagree with part of this list, let me know. If there is something I missed, let me know.

And as always, I accept hate mail via the post office, email, or tweets.

Marry Little Batman was watched early as a screener. It comes out on Prime Video on Friday, December 8th!

Batman! Nununununununununun. I did not count if I put the right amount there, nor do I care.

This Christmas Batman movie is set in a Gotham where…Batman had finished the job! Like, the crime is all gone. Woo. So Batman (Luke Wilson) has been more settled down, and has a son, Damien (Yonas Kibreab). Mother? No idea, I don’t think it is brought up. Maybe it was a mitosis thing.

Either way, Damien is super young and likes to play, but generally in a mansion only has his dad and an Alfred (James Cromwell). There are toys, gadgets, and bat caves. Oh yeah, he knows about Batman.

Anyways, long story short, around Christmas, Batman gets in a jam, appears to be missing or dead, so Damien thinks he needs to done the costume before all of these villains come out and steal Christmas, or whatever.

Also starring Brian George, Dolph Adomian, Therese McLaughlin, and David Hornsby as the Joker.

Why does Alfred look like the world’s wrinkliest long penis? From the very first frames, it became incredibly clear that this is not a movie for me.

Style wise is the first indicator. The animation style was absolutely gross in my mind. Not because of a penis joke I made above, but the style instead just felt like, I am not sure, an early 2000s Cartoon Network show? Something that is super quick and easy? I don’t think animation needs to break the bank every film with futuristic drawing technology, classic is fine, but this isn’t even something appealing to me. It feels like a television show, in the worst way, but goes on for 90 minutes.

The next glaring category was the voice acting. I am not some purist that thinks a certain voice actor is the best actor for the job and should keep doing it. Changing people up is great. (Unless it’s Mario, then they should get an impersonator). But almost no voice really hit for me. Sure, Kibreab as the kid? Fine. Wilson is a great actor, but he never felt like Batman to me this whole film. Just felt like a silly dad. The catalog of villains were all forgettable, except for Hornsby as the Joker. He had some giggles, sure, and it just still felt really off and like I was getting the most reject version of his character they could have made. Something left at the bottom of the bin and ignored.

And finally, the story. It is wild a little bit that part of this plot would have the kid thinking his dad was dead for a large part of this film. And he is hearing his voice on the bat belt. It is played for comedy, and we know that Batman isn’t, but damn, this kid, whose size makes him look like he is 5 years old or younger (look, the animation style is BAD), but it is fucked up. I never feel compelled about any part of this story. I don’t get scared, or excited, or confused. I just watch in boredom, apathy, and a bit of disdain.

I am not saying some people out there might think this is just a cute Christmas movie. The good news for you if you like it, is that it is also turning into a Prime show at some point next year which, well, explains a whole lot more in that regard.

0 out of 4.

(dis)HONORABLE MENTIONS:
A lot of these had the potential to go the shitty distance, but they weren’t picked overall. That includes The Greatest Inheritance, Minions: The Rise of Gru, Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, Breath, Titanic 666, Deep Water, Blacklight, and The 355.

Also I decided this time to not include some documentaries, which a few of them could have battled for the number one spot. Shame on these stories meant to be derisive and full of lies: The Real Anthony Fauci, What is a Woman?, and 2000 Mules.

15) Snow Day

Why is it on the list? Not often do you have a remake of a mildly popular film from over 20 years prior. But in Snow Day, we are given a remake, while also turning it into a bad musical. I will go out and say I don’t remember a lot about the first Snow Day, I don’t think I even saw the whole thing. Nickelodeon hyped it as their own movie. Oh well. But this one has to be worse. It is a musical, but all of the songs are just sort of generic poppy sound and don’t feel like they belong in the world. They don’t move the plot forward. And of the three plotlines we have, only one of them is remotely interesting. And yes, it is about terrorizing the snow plow driver. The other two are creepy and terrible.

Worst moment? I wish I could remember any song, so let’s just pick the first one.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Musical of 2022!

14) Firestarter

Why is it on the list? Stephen King adaptations are almost always hit or miss, and this one is a huge, huge miss. I don’t know how close it is to the book, to the previous film version, none of that matters. Because at least this version is bad. I started playing Tony Hawk Pro Skateboarder halfway through this movie, no longer able to give it my attention, and now whenever I go to play the game anymore, I think of this film. It is affecting my nostalgia, and that shouldn’t happen when its a movie from the current year. Bad effects, bad story, and something that should just be set aflame from its namesake.

Worst moment? Liar, liar, pants on fire

Any Worst Awards? Worst Remake of 2022!

13) The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild

Why is it on the list? There are quite a few reasons to not like this movie from my point of view. The first film I thought was okay, but I haven’t liked a single sequel after it. They went to great lengths to make the first one accruate-ish for science reasons and timing. Close enough, and then threw it all away. This one takes the characters you know and maybe love, and says no you get some other people. Do you want to see some opossums fawn over a legendary character, and find him? And then mostly still not give you that character? Not me, not on my watch. It doesn’t help that the studio that made this series was dissolved after being bought, and this was going to be a TV show, that I guess wasn’t good enough. So they scrapped the episodes to piece together this horribly pointless film. As long as you can get some money out if, I guess?

Worst moment? I’m sorry. I don’t remember a single scene in this movie.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Scrapped-TV-Show-Turned-Film-From-A-Dead-Studio of 2022!

12) Bring It On: Cheer or Die

Why is it on the list? Franchises that last 7 movies are usually remembered fondly. I think most people you ask about Bring It On will tell you they only saw the first one, maybe a random sequel. Almost all of them were straight to video, and all of them were lesser quality. It is sad, they could have done great things. So if a franchise does a direct turn, and tries a new genre? It is worth noting and checking out. Thus we have this sequel that gives us a horror film! But is it good? Nope. The deaths are poor, the acting is worse, there is barely any cheerleading in it. Hell, the ending reveals don’t really make a lot of sense. Why was this one especially bad? Because it was made for Syfy. Which has decided to intentionally make shitty films for some reason. I won’t get into that now.

Worst moment? The killer reveal.

Any Worst Awards? Worst sports film of 2022! (Worst seventh film of a franchise in 2022!)

11) The Munsters

Why is it on the list?  Ugh. See. I understand why this movie was made. I do. I understand the point Rob Zombie made with it, and casting his wife in it. I get it. Honestly. I understand the campiness of the original show and trying to match that silliness. And yet somehow, none of that matters, because what was given to us was just a trainwreck from start to finish. I wish I could have laughed. I wish I could have cried. I wish I could have cared. But trying to match a tone, and yet still somehow missing the charm the entire time is just insulting to both us the viewers and the original source material.

Worst moment? Where the fuck are the other characters in this reboot?

Any Worst Awards? Worsts Television-Show-Turned-Reboot of 2022!

10) The Wolf and the Lion

Why is it on the list? This is a movie that looks like it wants to be telling a true story. It isn’t. It is just a random animal story to be cute with baby animals that grow up into still cute adult animals. This is one that should probably be rated G due to how little conflict exists. Sure, she wants to keep the animals, and various groups want to take them away. At least one of the groups makes a good amount of sense to take them away. The circus one sucks, sure, boo the circus. But it felt anti-science with its narrative as well. I guess she really needed to have her cool island and wildcats to be able to play her instrument again. Sure. Okay.

Worst moment? The convoluted setup to get our character a wolf and a lion.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Convoluted Plot Set Up of 2022!

9) The Cellar

Why is it on the list? Suggested to me purely for being terrible, The Cellar did not disappoint. With arguably only one good scene in the film, the initial disappearance of the daughter, it was filmed to the brim before and after it with just absolutely dreadful horror shit. Nothing felt scary. It felt too silly early on to create the circumstances of her disappearance. The parents didn’t feel believable. And the film just kept digging a hole deeper and deeper up its own ass with its conspiracies and ancient histories and math cults. I almost died watching this film in terms of second hand embarrassment. And I watched it alone.

Worst moment? Anytime math cults were brought up. It made me groan.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Counting of 2022!

8) Spiderhead

Why is it on the list? This is a more well known item on this list, one that came out at some point and apparently everyone decided to watch it! I don’t know personally if anyone in particular liked this movie. If they did, it was because Chris Hemsworth had a fun look to him I bet. Miles Teller is also being pushed to us more and more as someone we should care about for whatever reason. I liked him a decade ago. As for this film, it was a movie that was already pretty bad throughout it, but got seemingly worse at the ending. I was shocked. It was laughably bad and what was meant to be pretty serious twists, and chases, and people yelling. I wrote before that this would have worked really great as a short film. This one had too much plot that felt like filler.

Worst moment? Everything in the final act.

Any Worst Awards? Worst “Twist Ending” of 2022!

7) 1Up

Why is it on the list? I generally hate it when my opinions align with people I dislike, but that is bound to happen now and again. For example, the movie 1Up. A poorly budgeted film about college esports competition. The fact that it is about diversity and inclusiveness is not the problem. The problem is the movie itself is just regular amounts of bad. A woman is treated badly by a sexist captain of their college e-sports team, so she quits and makes her own gender specific team. And eventually they have to compete (spoilers) against the original team, and winner take all, including existence at their college!  The insults are corny, the plot is a groan, the conflicts between characters is just so fake feeling. It feels like a movie to appeal a Buzzfeed quiz crowd, which makes sense, because it was made by Buzzfeed.

Worst moment? Trying to take Ruby Rose‘s character seriously as a gamer professor.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Sports Movie of 2022!

6) Morbius

Why is it on the list? I assume people would expect this, but maybe just not this high up. Morbius is a movie I got to see early, and sang its terribleness from before day one. I sometimes sleep in a theater, but rarely is it at a 1pm showing in the middle of a great day (normally it would be at night!). Morbius has almost nothing working for it. It was a bad movie, where the scene in the credits made it worse. The confusion around what occurred at the end of Spider-man: No Way Home still seeps through these movies, because the crossovers aren’t making sense. My full review goes into a lot more details, but honestly, Morbius is so bad, the memes to mock it for being bad are also bad.

Worst moment? Thanks for meeting me, Doc. I’ve been reading about you. I don’t know how I got here … something to do with Spider-Man. I’m thinking of putting a team together. Do some good.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Superhero Film of 2022!

5) Jurassic World: Dominion

Why is it on the list? I flash back to myself as a kid at 4 or 5 years old. I don’t think Jurassic Park is the first film I saw in theaters, but I know it is the first film I can still remember seeing at theaters. This franchise has not affected my life path at all, and I wouldn’t say any other Jurassic film is necessarily good. The entire Jurassic World trilogy is rather stinky and basic. But this one feels insultingly bad. Bringing in all of the fan service they can from the original film, instead of just smaller bits and parts like the previous movies. It seemed like a no brainer, a slam dunk even! However, it also made the mistake of needing to follow the plot of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which had its own terrible plot lines and releasing dinosaurs into the world. Did the fact that dinosaurs were now able to roam the world matter? Not at all. Instead we got a long film of bad decisions and forgettable scenes.

Worst moment?  The main plot points (clone daughter, programming locusts) don’t really excite in a dinosaur movie.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Fantasy, Worst Trilogy Ending, and Worst Adventure Film of 2022! (Worst sixth film of a franchise in 2022!)

4) Redeeming Love

Why is it on the list? When I went to watch this movie, I didn’t even know it was some “modern version” of a bible story. It is inspired by the book of Hosea, or whatever that means. This is about a bachelor farmer, doing good at his job, praying for a woman when he goes to town, and sees the local top prostitute and takes it as his sign. He swears to save her from her life of sin, and make a real honest woman out of her, and pays a lot of money just to talk to her in her “sin den” as he may have called it at some point, I don’t remember. The entire thing felt creepy. He was slut shaming her, and deciding he needed to make her his wife, not based off of her personality or intelligence, but purely based on her looks. Strange idea of a charming romance character.

Worst moment? When he buys her freedom after she gets beat up.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Slut Shaming, Worst Bible Retelling, and Worst Romance of 2022!

3) Blonde

Why is it on the list? Speaking of people getting beat up we have Blonde. Disguising itself as a biographical film about Marilyn Monroe, it is instead a film based on the book, Blonde: A Novel, by Joyce Carol Oates. That book is in the genre “biographical fiction” which is apparently, “a type of historical fiction that takes a historical individual and recreates elements of his or her life, while telling a fictional narrative,”. Oh, so, taking a person and some moments of their life that are famous and just sort of making it up. Inherently, I don’t hate that for a film, although I would rather it be obvious that is what is occurring. However, in this movie it just feels downright creepy. This movie, and this story, about a woman who became famous and was exploited throughout her life and just…exploits her further. Decades after she died. Making up stories that are extra worse in her life, adding more abuse and ridiculousness to it. It feels like it is done in the poorest of taste.

I am not inherently against biographical fiction. For example, one of my favorite movies, Steve Jobs, is clearly in that same genre. The conversations that take place in those press release conferences didn’t happen, but at at least indictive of real arguments and controversies that happened, and it didn’t go out of the way to give Jobs excessive praise or scorn either. It gave a realistic portrayal of the man, without stomping on him at the same time. However, in Blonde it feels like that was the main attempt. To just fuck up Monroe’s life even further for the viewer to just have to gasp, cry, and shake their head in sadness.

Worst moment? The opening forest fire scene should have told me to just turn it off, but alas.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Biographical Fiction, Worst NC-17 Big Release Film, and Worst Drama of 2022!

2) Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Why is it on the list? Look, I am not an expert on this franchise. I have only seen two of these films, the other being Texas Chainsaw 3D. And miraculously, this 2022 iteration is still somehow the worst version I have ever seen. It is meant to be another modern sequel to an original that ignores other versions, because that is fun, and also, have almost identical titles. This one was questionable early on, as it seems our main characters were people who wanted to revitalize a dead town, buying up property and putting money into it. Is that bad? I don’t know. But in this film it is the worse that they would do that, and also, eventually, we get Leatherface showing up ready to kill zoomers and millennials who are just terrible I guess.

I need this to be clear. At some point, a party bus arrives in the town, with influencers, people having a good time, and he pops on the back of the bus. Spoilers I guess, but sure enough, he kills the whole bus, because these people are so pathetic and young and on their phones that they can’t do anything at all to help themselves. It was the biggest goddamn boomer fantasy in a movie I have seen in so long. People who were around when the first film came out probably would love this scene.

Worst moment? The bus scene. I cannot and will not stop talking about how bad it is.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Horror Movie, Worst Party Bus (see another), and Worst Movie for Boomers of 2022! (Worst ninth film of a franchise in 2022!)

1) Pinocchio: A True Story

Why is it on the list? Pauly Shore doesn’t act much more. And he honestly hasn’t really done it in the last 20 years, mostly playing himself in films. Then Guest House happened, which also made a worst of the year list, and he decided acting is fun again. So why not voice work? Why not? Well, honestly sure, why not, I can see him doing fun animated characters. But apparently one of the worst animated flicks of the decade was his time to breakout into the medium, and it helped create a perfect storm of ghastly material.  You see, because here he is voicing Pinocchio, which is a very well known character and story, and at no point would anyone see the story and think Shore’s voice is the best fit.

Did they know we would be in the middle of bunch of Pinocchio films when this one came out? No idea, but it does hurt it further. Did Shore know that this Euro based production company would be using CGI that looks like it came from early 2000’s Nick Jr. shows? No idea. Does the fact that this story has almost nothing in common with any Pinocchio story, and feel like a last second addition? Yes, yes it does. Complete with a talking horse.

I am inherently fine with movies to be different than the source material. I try to go out of my way to avoid books to not know about the source material more. But its harder with more and more iconic stories. And so if you are going to go far away from the source, you should have great reasons to. This story is just so incredibly generic and bland that it does nothing for the Pinocchio game, nor animation, nor fiction in general. It is low effort from everyone involved, and a pain to sit through. I generally start with a disdain for stories that label themselves as a “True story” version of the events of well known stories as a crutch to tell it in a new way. Couple that with all of the other issues, and this one had no chance. Movie is so bad, most of it you can’t even tell he is supposed to be a wooden boy.

Worst moment? Just pick one from the trailer. Which immediately goes out of its way to tell a pop culture reference.

Any Worst Awards? Worst Film, Worst Voice Acting, Worst Animated Film, and despite Disney’s best attempts, the Worst Pinocchio Film of 2022!

Thanks for reading! If you disagree with part of this list, let me know. If there is something I missed, let me know (but I probably saw it and reviewed it on this very site!

And as always, I accept hate mail via the post office, email, or tweets.

Every two years, I get to start a review talking about how every two years Dinesh D’Souza releases a piece of crap documentary.

It is the only thing getting him money, and it is presumably getting him nice amounts of money too, since he just keeps doing it. Maybe he sells some books and does some speaker tours too, I don’t know, but dumb asses keep throwing their money at him, so this whole thing continues.

I am meant to be a bit unbiased about these things, but the past films of a director totally should influence the future ones. Then you can see growth. Or see if they keep the same bad decisions that are calling cards for them. D’Souza’s calling card seems to be conspiracy theories, creating false narratives, projection, and usually, repeating the same arguments over and over in these documentaries.

Like three of them in a row seemed to pretend that why were different, but kept falling back on the weird same arguments about the history of parties and didn’t offer almost no new material between them. But yet, he made money.

So I will say this about 2000 Mules, the latest effort. This documentary is finally, FINALLY, about something new. Although just because it is new doesn’t mean it is worth watching.

This cover photo is reenacted for maximum fear mongering.

So what is 2000 Mules about? It is saying that at least 2000 people were hired during the 2020 election, to take pre filled in ballots to ballot boxes in states that were going to be close. To then stuff 3-10 ballots at a time in these ballot boxes, before going to 5 or more in an area in one night, early in the morning, whatever. And then doing it again, and again, and again. The assumption being these are people paid by Democrats to push the election in 2020 to Joe Biden’s favor, and is why Trump lost the election.

Sigh.

Okay, first of all, I can’t debunk everything in this review. That isn’t the point of my reviews. What I was surprised to find out though is how detailed the Wikipedia on this movie is, including noting how all these claims are basically bullshit, with sources. So here you go.

Instead, let me just note a few things. One, this thing really likes to attack people who are voting early in the morning or late at night, with the assumption that if you do something late, you are clearly suspect. Which is factually stupid. So moving on.

Two, it claims it doesn’t understand any level of selfie/internet culture. Since it attacks people on cameras who would take a PICTURE on their CELL PHONE when putting a ballot in the box, and said it was clearly them proving they did it for pay. Instead of like, you know, the many people who love to vote and take pictures of their vote and encouraging others to do so.

Thirdly, and this one is the most hilarious. They will show a video of someone with multiple ballots for whatever reason they might (maybe they brought in their families, I don’t know, I don’t care). And claim that this person also went to many other drop boxes, and would do this many times. And then they never showed that person in another video again. Like, it seems like the obvious proof of something awkward. Show the same person, in different boxes, or the same box, voting on multiple days or times. And they don’t. Why? Because this whole thing is just bullshit.

Honestly, yes, the Wikipedia does all the work.

This is a documentary that was even talked about in the January 6 public hearing already, and more people noted the dumbness about it.

So congrats D’Souza, you tried something new, and it was worse than before. I always need a good mind refresh after these things.

0 out of 4.

Ah yes, the expanded Spider-Man universe from Sony. They have been talking about this for years. Remember the announcement of an Aunt May movie? That was back around the time as Andrew Garfield Spider-Man. But now that Venom has been slightly successful, and Tom Holland has been wildly successful, Sony is under the impression they are doing something right and going to milk the fuck out of the Spidey-universe.

After all, we got teased a lot of villains in Spider-Man: No Way Home. And we have heard the casting announcements. Besides Morbius, we have a Kraven the Hunter movie coming out. Now a Madame Web film. Rumors of the a Sinister Six film, maybe Spider-Gwen, maybe a Tobey Maguire Spider-Man 4. Sony is exploring all options.

The only issue is…Sony is historically not great at making these movies without Marvel’s help the last decade. Venom: Let There Be Carnage seems to be a strange case, since it was a decent film, just still had some awkward B-movie comic book feels to it. Sony likes to rush things with their Spider-Man movies. Sure, Morbius was pushed back several times, including this year for some “reshoots”. But just because it was going to be a January movie initially doesn’t mean it has to feel like a January movie, right?

If you need some blood, cutting the PALM OF YOUR HAND is one of the worst places. What the hell?

Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) has one big problem. He has a really rare blood disorder. Which one? Uhh, a rare one, that is what. It has no cure. And it seems to require a blood transfusion three times a day in order to keep surviving. That is rough. He has had it for most of his life, but he was really smart, so he got sent to a smart school, and got his PhD by 19. Hey, life is short for him, I guess, better go through it fast. His friend/pseudo-brother is Milo (Matt Smith), who happens to be super rich too, with the same disorder. Michael plans to cure their disease, at any means possible, and Milo is gonna fund that research.

So how are they going to do that? Well, apparently by experimenting with vampire bat DNA. Because they are the only mammal that has evolved with the ability to consume blood, something something made up science, Morbius wants to put the bat DNA into his DNA to see if he is cured! He had to go to South America to get a bunch to bring back to NYC, you know, for science. And then he does the experiment, with his fiancé and lab partner, Dr. Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona), which is a few ethics problems rolled into one.

The experiment goes painful, and it works, I guess. Well, he does have his eyes and skin change color, his teeth somehow grow into fangs, and he can’t control his instincts. He now wants to kill all these random dudes with guns, not Bancroft, draining them of their own blood quickly. He can also…fly? Sort of? And see bullets in slow motion? And some strange level of echolocation-punch. Wow, what a surprise. But don’t worry, the range ends, and then he is back to normal. But stronger looking, less frail, and actual color in his skin. Until his body starts to deteriorate back into his normal frail self, unless he eats more blood.

How does he control the more-Vampire looking version of himself? I guess he just concentrates really hard. Milo wants the cure too, so he forces it upon himself, and sure enough, he is more evil than Morbius, so Morbius wants to cure him and put a stop to it, while cops and others are trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

Also starring Jared Harris, Tyrese Gibson, Al Madrigal, and Michael Keaton, for a little bit.

Get yourself some bat-DNA. Makes you get all ghoul-y. 

Since 2015, there have only been two worse comic book based movies than Morbius, based on my humble reviewer opinion of course. Fantastic Four and Suicide Squad. But Morbius is bad in a different way. Morbius is bad because it attempted to be dark, moody, and serious. Instead it gave us a rushed plot, terrible characters, vague science, and just nonsensical plot elements.

For the umpteenth time, yes, this is a fantasy film where things don’t reflect reality. But it is still based in our reality, and uses a lot of rules. I know vampires aren’t realistic, but this film has powers that still don’t make sense. They never even attempt to explain how getting some bat DNA allows Morbius to weirdly fly. Not sure if it is just a gliding with style mechanic? And part of it feels like teleporting? But they just pop on some purple blurs around him, and he can now go wherever he feels like through the air. The echolocation elements aren’t consistent. Apparently he can not just do it for almost an entire city, he can focus in on a specific thing he wants to hear, and only hear that to find his prey. I feel like echolocation in NYC at a powerful scale would be maddening, but what do I know.

Vague/undefined powers always piss me off in these sorts of things. That is one of my biggest complaints about the “snake mutant” in The Wolverine. Hell at one point, Morbius just yells and apparently commands thousands of NYC bats to come to him, and he controls them to attack. But also, we all know they aren’t vampire bats. That is why he had to go to another continent to get the bats. Why would his vampire bat genes let him control random fruit and cave bats, that are all different species? Is there a bat quality that let’s an alpha bat command the rest of the bats? What if Spider-Man could just scream and have spiders show up? That would be frightening.

But for the rest of the movie, the plot is nonsensical as well. For a quick “joke”, the kid who grows up to be our rich villain is called Milo, because that is what Michael wanted to call him so he wouldn’t get too close, I guess. And now everyone just calls him Milo? He goes by that officially as an adult? Like. Why? Just have him be named Milo. Unnecessary complication for no payoff. There is no real reason why Milo would turn out to be a ridiculous jerk when he is in this now Vampire-like form, versus Michael who can just control it better? Is it a smart thing? I will admit, the movie was going so poorly I was going in and out of sleep at one point, but I am pretty sure they never explained it. Nor did they explain the transformed self really outside of some emotional balance. I can buy a weird DNA thing permanently changing one to look different. But to constantly having your body shifting between these forms, changing color, growing fangs, whatever, without the use of any sort of magic, just science/DNA is uncomfortable in the universe they have set up.

By the time the movie was over, I was glad at its short run time. The ending is still abrupt. It doesn’t really make sense as a stopping point for where we are at the films plot, but okay. So then they saddled on two credit scenes, the only scenes that feature Michael Keaton. I think these will count as spoiler free, just in case you are worried. The first is, uhh… fine. It doesn’t make sense based on what was established in Spider-Man: No Way Home however, and officially this film shouldn’t even be connected to it.

But the second one? It was just so…dumb. Did they film it in one take and say that was enough? Why was the delivery of both characters so bad? Why would Keaton’s character even bring up that name? Why would the other character nonchalantly agree, despite definitely having no clue what the hell Keaton’s character is talking about? It is so, so, bad. The rating of this movie was teetering between a 1 and a 0 at that point, and those two scenes were enough to figure out where this one needed to go.

0 out of 4.

(dis)HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Here are the other films this year I gave a 0 out of 4 to, in no particular order: A Week Away, Dave Chappelle: The Closer, F9, Rumble, Sensation, Taking A Shot At Love, The Boss Baby: Family Business, The Ice Road, The Never List, The Retreat, The Unholy, and Zeroes and Ones.

15) Secret Magic Control Agency

Why is it on the list? With so many terrible movies, why does this animated movie make the list instead of a new Boss Baby? Well, for one, this movie is lazy. It makes Hansel and Gretel the main characters. Why does every Grimm brothers story adaptation need to have them as the lead? Are they even trying? This one started to do something different, by having them being adults and having some angst in their past. Cool. Grown ups. Then nope, convoluted plot later, they also are now going to be kids to solve this boring ass mystery. The animation is poor, the story is extremely poor, and at no point was enjoyment derived.

Worst moment? The logic that a great trained spy needs to work with a criminal to save the day.

Any Worst Awards? Worst use of Grimm brothers material in 2021. (This was hard to come up with).

14) The Addams Family 2

Why is it on the list? I certainly didn’t like the first film, The Addams Family, but it had a couple of nice moments. Some clever stuff. The animation style threw me off, and it didn’t feel like they tried too much. The sequel is worse. It goes through a classically boring plot line of “what if one of them isn’t actually a family member,” when we all know they are. It is a plot line that has no pay off, and oh what is that, a road trip movie as well? Fan-fucking-tastic.

Worst moment? I am pretty sure this is a movie with a science fair with a volcano again, so I am picking that by default.

Any Worst Awards? Worst animated sequel film of 2021.

13) Caged

Why is it on the list? Even if you have never heard of them before, low budget shit movies are still shit movies. Caged is a story about a guy in jail, for murder, and then specifically about solitary confinement. He gets harassed by guards, we have flashbacks to exactly one scene on a boar between him and his wife, and then he starts to hallucinate and freak out. But honestly, this is one of the situations where the ideas behind this movie aren’t terrible, but the execution is a barely a whisper. The lighting, the visuals, the sounds, it just draws to a horrible experience for the viewer. No, it is not putting us in his situation, it is just putting me in a situation where I have to strain to tell what is going on and I have determined nothing worth my time.

Worst moment? The very slow flashback on the boat, that kept returning.

Any Worst Awards? Worst prison sentence of 2021.

12) Narco Sub

Why is it on the list? There is a good chance you haven’t heard of Narco Sub, and there is a better chance some biases affected this pick. The director at this point had only been known for doing mostly music based films, with dancing and weird graphics, or short films. None of which I would say made a whole lot of sense. This is the first example of making a longer film, but it is also an action film with explosions and drugs, hooray!  Unfortunately, or, as expected, the plot of this film makes very little sense. The characters actions are questionable, the fact that they even feel the need to do this strong war on drugs at this point is questionable. The payoff by the end is not worth any reason to keep watching it.

Worst moment? I tried to block it all out of my mind, but I remember some mansion scene at the end with the finals deaths, so definitely that one.

Any Worst Awards? Worst drug busting of 2021.

11) Tom & Jerry

Why is it on the list? I am never someone who got behind the idea of Tom & Jerry as an amusing idea. Jerry is a pompous dick. He is a mouse in some person’s house, who doesn’t want a mouse stealing the food and damaging the interior, and the cat is supposed to help get rid of it, but when Jerry succeeds it is awesome? Damn, Jerry, go to a different house. In the movie it is more of the same. For some reason they have animosity, and once again, Tom has to get the mouse out of the house. But this time it is a fancy hotel, with guests, and standards, that don’t include damn mice in the kitchen. Arguably even worse standards. But what makes this film actually terrible is to take cartoon physics and violence and put it in the real world, with almost no consequences. Sure, they show the damage that a giant fight dust cloud makes, but it seems in a world where these cartoon animals just exist and are okay with each other’s existence, somehow these two cause giant danger messes. Honestly, the wanton violence and destruction was so odd in this film, and it even turned my kids off from watching. I am also annoyed I can’t call this the worst film that had animated and real life people together.

Worst moment? Jerry destroying tom’s piano. He was using that to make money. He was a cat who could play piano!

Any Worst Awards? Second worst animated/live action film. Worst animated film based off of Hanna-Barbara.

10) Vanquish

Why is it on the list? Vanquish is a film that apparently actually went to theaters last year in April. It very quickly went to VOD on after that, and then everyone promptly forgot it existed. Honestly, I think if we didn’t have the weird theater situation last year, this one would have gone straight to VOD because no one would care to see it in theaters. Morgan Freeman in a film is a sure sign that things aren’t going to be great, and Ruby Rose seems to do a lot of roles to show that she can’t act. So why not combine the two into a dumb plot where her daughter is kidnapped and in danger unless she goes and takes out all these people in one night. Sigh. None of this film feels original, it is just the same old shit.

Worst moment? The ending twists, that everyone can see miles away.

Any Worst Awards? Worst action-drama film of 2021.

9) Karen

Why is it on the list? Because of course it is on the list. Karen is a BET channel exclusive, that wanted to make a Jordan Peele movie with no subtext, no good acting, and everything is entirely on the nose, including constant metaphorical winks. Having a white woman named Karen be racist and call the cops on people doing no wrong? Great, works well. But damn the hyper level overacting, like a soap opera on steroids, turns what could be a great thriller idea into a mess where everyone will just laugh at it and mock it relentless as it scrolls across the screen. Maybe that sounds like a good time, sure, but it is still a bad film. And why does she look like a Wayan’s brother is wearing her face as a mask?

Worst moment? The party crash scene was particularly cringe, but so was the calling of the cops.

Any Worst Awards? Worst white bitch of 2021.

8) The Hitman’s Wife Bodyguard

Why is it on the list? Coming from someone who didn’t love The Hitman’s Bodyguard, for a myriad of reasons, I am honestly shocked they could make a sequel that somehow felt a lot worse. I am not saying that shifting the focus to Salma Hayek‘s character and increasing her screen time is bad. They just did everything somehow worse. One of the only personality traits Ryan Reynolds had was his strict focus on safety, and after one movie of keeping it, they threw it out the window in this one. Once again, we have a terrible plot for our characters, and everything is a loose explanation between bad comedy scenes and average action scenes. And for some reason, Morgan Freeman shows up again, which as I already stated is a bad sign. They really kept his appearance under wraps, its because people know it would lessen the film.

Worst moment? The adoption scene.

Any Worst Awards? The worst action film, the worst action-comedy film, and the worst Morgan Freeman of 2021.

7) Music

Why is it on the list? Hey look, Sia directed a movie. Oh no, Sia really directed a movie and made a lot of decisions. For whatever reason, in this movie, she decided she needed the main character to be quite Autistic, nicknamed Music, and listening to songs all day. And then we get a normie family member who has to take care of her, and so we have a film about a person struggling to deal with someone with Autism, and less about Autism in general. Maddie Ziegler, who Sia puts in everything she can, plays Music, and goes into some very uncomfortable territory with what feel incredibly offensive. When this was all pointed out to Sia, and that they could have actually hired someone with Autism, she instead attacked her fans and made a movie she wanted. It had a lot of fun colorful song/music videos, which seems to be the real point of the film, stuff that we see in Music’s head. And it decided to offend everyone in the process.

Worst moment? Learning how to properly tackle and take down Music if she needs it?

Any Worst Awards? Worst musical, worst film about disabilities, and worst director backlash of 2021.

6) The Kissing Booth 3

Why is it on the list? Honestly, I am more surprised at how I thought five films were somewhat worse. Let me change the order real quick….no it is fine. The Kissing Booth 2 ended up with my worst film of 2020, for all the reasons anything is a bad move, and I wouldn’t really describe 3 as a better film though. The only reason it isn’t “as bad” is because this one objectively has an ending which notably the second one lacks an ending. The same cast of characters, making more confusing stories and moments where our lead absolutely has no boundaries with those she finds to be friends and lovers. And we have people practically stalking her to win her over? That shit ain’t cool. Get this child written nonsense out of here.

Worst moment? Mario Kart, a new list approaches, and the fact that this movie doesn’t end with all the characters in an orgy, since it seems to be going that direction this whole trilogy.

Any Worst Awards? Worst romcom, worst romance, worst “third film” in a franchise of 2021.

5) Space Jam: A New Legacy

Why is it on the list? Is the original Space Jam movie good? Probably not. But it certainly has some level of heart. It keeps things relatively focused on the Looney Tunes characters, and their attributes. It had, mostly low stakes, and only affected Michael Jordan and the Tunes. So what does the sequel do? Well, it first has an extremely similar plot, but HIGHER STAKES. (It also has characters both acknowledge with some jokes of the similar plot, while also not really acknowledging that the events in Space Jam happened, just to keep us confused).

Now, millions of people might die. Now we have all of these WB properties as cameos. At the same time, we have a game that doesn’t matter or has to happen. It just takes Lebron talking to his kid and being honest about what the App is trying to do, and they wouldn’t play the game, everyone could go home and they can be good. But no, we get a shitty sports game where LITERALLY the points are all made up. And at that point, there is nothing to root for. We don’t have any traditional rules to follow. It is just something that resembles basketball, with no real way to tell what one side has to do to win. That isn’t fun. That is confusing.

Worst moment? To be specific, it is when WB made a movie that wanted to have a humor and plot to appeal to kids, and stick it full of references to films before the year 2000 that a lot of them haven’t seen, to appeal to adults, who will hate this movie. And the background members of the audience.

Any Worst Awards? Worst movie with a mix of live action and cartoon characters, worst sports movie, worst sports cameos, worst film cameos, and worst movie dad of 2021.

4) God’s Not Dead: We The People

Why is it on the list? I am pretty sure every film in this franchise has made my worst of the year list, but surprisingly, never been the worst film. They all have similar problems, so it feels repetitive to write about it at this point, but still important. This is a franchise that wants to make big political statements with religious characters, to show that religious values are being attacked in the USA and the law is out to get them. The war on Christianity is real. They usually have real law cases in question in the credits that relate to the events in the film. And finally I checked them for this one. None of them match what is going on in this film. All of these law suits are generally about families who are suing school districts for teaching their kids they don’t want them to learn, or for being accepting of gays and trans kids. They let that moment out of the bag near the end of the movie with a big rant too, about evolution and gender. Is this what this about? Really? These films just make straw man arguments, make anyone not religious as a bad guy, and basically cartoon character villains who just want to oppress the fuck out of everyone.

Worst moment? Ending rant and the Muslim girl subplot finally returning from the first film.

Any Worst Awards? Worst fourth film in a franchise of 2021. And every other award I could give to this movie, instead will go to the number 3 film.

3) Roe v Wade

Why is it on the list? Oh? A movie about the supreme court case of Roe v. Wade that went to the Supreme Court and made sure that everyone in the United States needed to legally have access to abortions as a medical procedure. Surely nothing can go wrong with this.

Ohhh. Well. Sure. If they make a movie that is just highly propaganda for the Henry Wade side of Roe v. Wade. Henry Wade was a district attorney in Dallas, because Texas outlawed abortions and made it a criminal case for doctors. This went to the Supreme Court, and the rest is history. A history that is slowly but surely being ticked away and made more and more bare so that eventually it will be overturned, and then one group of people can celebrate the oppression of women in the United States. Where depending on where you live, you might have more rights than another state, in a country people call full of freedom.

Honestly, this movie was just disgusting. They made the lawyers look gross on the Roe side, the client look inept, doctors who did abortions as greedy/evil and also Jewish. This film that was made before 2018 actually, had a lot of names signed on who walked out, including the director, realizing this was a biased trash film that existed purely to attack women making a hard decision, and adding more unnecessary public pressure to not allow women choice. It feels like a follow up to Unplanned, but it turns out those were different people involved.

Worst moment? The behind the scene dialogues from the supreme court that no one would know, and the abortion jingle.

Any Worst Awards? Worst religious film, worst drama, worst political film, worst use of washed up celebrities, and worst piece of propaganda of 2021.

2) Earwig and the Witch

Why is it on the list? I remember seeing Earwig and the Witch relatively early in the year. It is the first CGI film from Studio Ghibli and it was a big deal. At the same time, it should be considered a big deal for how BAD it was. It is a film with a orphan who is probably a witch, getting adopted by a witch purely to be a cleaning hand in their house. This girl is absolutely the worst, getting in trouble on purpose wherever she goes, complaining, and whining. And you know what? She doesn’t change the whole movie. She wins what she want and is a brat the whole time. When her missing mom finally shows up, the film unexpectedly ends. The whole movie sounds like it was meant to be 25 minutes long and an introduction to a more interesting movie. Instead, it is drawn out, has bad morals, has a trailer that absolutely makes it look like a very different focused film with a musical element, and definitely the worst ending of a movie the whole year. I knew when I watched it that it had to be near the top worst endings ever, and it kept its pedestal the whole time.

Worst moment? The ending.

Any Worst Awards? Worst magic, worst bratty child, worst pet, worst trailer, worst ending, and worst animated film of 2021.

1) The Terrible Adventure

Why is it on the list? I think I developed actual pains watching The Terrible Adventure. You go in expecting it to be about a bad trip, not realizing that the bad trip was actually the decision to watch this film. It was clearly made on a shoestring budget. The audio is off throughout the film. I feel like most, if not all characters had to redo their dialogue after the fact, so it the sounds/words said don’t always match the mouth movements. The director cast his own kids in this film, that is hardly about environmentalism, and more about nepotism.

The kids are meant to be smart, so that they can solve these puzzles to win a hidden prize. However, they don’t come across smart in their actions and the puzzles are either so obvious, or so out there that of course only the “smart” characters can get it, when in reality it is just gibberish. The contest itself makes little to no sense. We have the dad character being abused by his ex wife, as she yells at him and physically throws objects at him, with the daughter just laughing to the side like this is normal. The ice cream bad guys are worse than cartoon characters. They are just nonsensical plot clouds that float around, sound strange, and interact with the characters when the writer decided them to, whether or not it made sense. There was one guy who I think imitated being Hispanic, which they all probably thought was hilarious for him to put on an accent, ignoring their own shitty racist decisions.

I can’t believe how bad this film was, nor could I believe the high ratings. This is what happens when you make a movie that no one sees, except your friends and family, and all the friends and family love it because they know the people involved.

Worst moment? (Gestures around wildly at the whole thing).

Any Worst Awards? Worst casting, worst comedy, worst villains, worst riddles, worst plot, worst casting again, and worst film of 2021.

Thanks for reading! If you disagree with part of this list, let me know. If there is something I missed, let me know (but I probably saw it and reviewed it on this very site!

And as always, I accept hate mail via the post office, email, or tweets.

On its own, I don’t hate The Wolf and The Lion as a title. It is a title that sounds like a metaphor.

Is this a film about two aggressive individuals, with varying traits that differ in their aggressive attitudes that makes one of them more wolf-like and one more lion-like? Usually with metaphors like this, one of them is seen less as a predator. I could imagine a title like The Lamb and the Lion easily. Or the Wolf and the Worm. Some nice alliteration there.

Maybe these are two superpowered individuals, one good, one bad. If so, I bet the Lion is the good one. They like making wolves out to be the bad guy, for some reason. Actually, there is a Game of Thrones episode named The Wolf and the Lion, and it was in Season 1, so you know it was a good episode.

And then you realize that the title is just referring to one actual wolf and one actual lion, and things can get a bit disappointing. Like an accurately, yet stupidly, named audio recording on the internet.

“Hi, I’m wolf-” “And I’m Lion!” “And this is our podcast.”

Alma (Molly Kuntz) has inherited land! In the Canadian wilderness. It did come with the death of her grandfather (Jean Drolet), however. She basically has this whole island to herself, a private forest island, in the middle of a lake. Where animals can be free and she can live with nature. She has plans to go and join an orchestra as a career, but she is going to put that off for now, due to anxiety, or whatever.

Anyways. Surprise number 1. A rare-ish breed of wolf was living on the island, and it befriended the grandfather and his house and would just exist there. So now it will do that too with Alma with the similar smells. And it will also hide its wolf cub there. Because two scientists (Derek Johns, Charlie Carrick) are getting onto her property to try and tag and capture the wolf, for “research.” So Alma tries to hide them out in her house, keeping the cub after the momma goes missing.

Surprise number 2. A tiny plane crashed on her island. It had a lion cub from Africa, that was being brought to a circus to be trained. They want it back, but it escaped, and she hides it as well. She (and her grandpa) notably hated how circuses treated their animals.

And that is why she has a lion cub and a wolf cub to care for and bond with on her island. And due to plot, where she gets injured in such a stupid way, people are brought in to help her, where they also take the wolf and lion away. Now they have to get back together, or whatever.

Also starring Graham Greene, Rebecca Croll, Rhys Slack, and Evan Buliung.

“Today our next guest on this podcast is, Human Lady!”

Well, if I could start with a positive, I would say this is a really well shot movie. I mean clear. The cameras were nice. Lot of nature. I don’t think the cinematography was anything special, just that the cameras used to shoot the movie must have been nice ones.

And there, that is about it.

I did my best to explain the plot of the film up there, and it is not just dumb, it is unnecessary. They had to go to great lengths for a lion cub and a wolf cub to befriend a young human woman. And then go to more lengths to have this friendship even matter. Because after a montage of growing up together, they had to be separated, then the animals had to individually be in a bad spot and show it, and then individually escape, and then everyone slowly be reunited. And then the movie is over.

It is like Homeward Bound, if the pets were actually a rat and a seagull and they weren’t already friends before the movie started. And we don’t even get badly talking animals communicating. It is just animals. Apparently they went out of their way to make this movie work, by having a real lion and wolf cub grow up together, and mostly only be around the star, and all of that. Cool. It also had sixteen script revisions based on how the animals acted. Guess that explains how the story was such a pointless story overall.

The filmmakers just wanted to have a wolf and a lion be friends. They did that, and then filmed a bad story around it, for some attempt at profit I guess. I am glad I didn’t show this one to my kids, they would have been bored to tears.

0 out of 4.

Here we go again…again.

Hotel Transylvania hasn’t been a shining example of a good animated franchise. Its jokes are cheap, its concept is meh, its animation is on the lower tier of big releases.

But there is now a fourth one. Hotel Transylvania: Transformania. Why didn’t they just call it Hotel Transformania? The world will never know, because clearly the FOR is meant to indicate the fourth one.

This was set to come out early October last year, same day as The Addams Family 2 (which also wasn’t great), but sold to Amazon before hand. And then everyone was surprised when it wasn’t out. Turns out the release date wasn’t finalized. Early January next year? Fine.

And a lot of people also found out that Adam Sandler wasn’t even involved with this one. Only him and Kevin James cut the plug, every other older famous person remained. Why did they leave? Where did they go? Maybe only Cotton Eye Joe knows.

Unrelated, did they ever say why there are so many of Dracula’s friends at the hotel, all the time? They don’t work there right? Are they on some permanent free vacation at their friends place of business? Honestly, if this was a first movie question, I have forgotten by now. If so, those early movies are a good metaphor for how Adam Sandler’s movies have turned out the last decade.  He admitted that himself that his movies can just be paid vacations for him and his friends.

Turning Jonathan into a monster is going to make some weird fanart porn now.

So what is up with the hotel of monsters?

Well, the 125th anniversary is happening, and of course, Jonathan (Andy Samberg) is fucking things up. They had a big evening planned, so he did a lot more nonsense to surprise Dracula (Brian Hull), who hates surprises. Honestly, calling Jonathan a clumsy person with a big heart at this point seems ridiculous, since he knows what Dracula prefers and ignores all of his well wishes when it comes to things for Dracula. That means Jonathan is really just doing it for himself, or at least, for exciting Mavis (Selena Gomez).

Dracula was going to announce his retirement and giving the hotel to Mavis (and technically, also, Jonathan since they are married), but they find out early and piss him off again, so he lies and says he can’t give Jonathan the hotel, since he isn’t a monster. Some old made up real estate law. And so Jonathan finds someone who has a transformation ray, that turns someone into monster or human, and sure, goes monster. Dracula knows this will piss off Mavis, so he does the thing he always does, tries to hide stuff and not communicate.

Sure enough, he gets turned human (and his friends do also), the ray gets broken, so Dracula and Jonathan have to go on a long perilous journey for another crystal. Eventually the friends and Mavis and them join too. They gotta switch everyone else back, damn it.

Also starring a lot of returning voices, you know, except for the two who weren’t. Brad Abrell, Fran Drescher, Steve Buscemi, Jim Gaffigan, Kathryn Hahn, Keegan-Michael Key, Molly Shannon, and David Spade.

Hey look, it is that scene with the monster ray! How fun. 

I don’t care if it is an animated film, but…characters should be able to grow and change over time? And having four movies in a row where Jonathan does the same mistakes, learns a lesson, then does the same sort of thing again isn’t growth. When Dracula distrusts his daughter making decisions, and lies to friends and family, learns a lesson, then does that same sort of thing again next movie isn’t growth. Adding children to a movie and more characters, isn’t growth.

What the heck is the point?

One of my least favorite parts of the third film was the extended dance sequences they decided to have with each monster doing the macarena. Slowly. Over and over. Multiple times in the movie. That was a bizarre waste of time. This movie tried to test me early on, as they had the Cha-Cha Slide and started to do the same thing. Thankfully, it didn’t last as long as the macarena, but I feel like it was done intentionally to troll me.

The movie itself isn’t great. There is no reason for most of the adventure. It could be saved a lot of time if they just…fly…further. They know a lot of monsters who can fly and travel. Fuck. Mavis in bat form could do most of the work in the country, go to the cave herself, and get a crystal from looking safe without all the danger. It is such a nonsensical journey adventure, that exists purely for the movie, when clearly there are many work arounds for it.

Why the hell did the Slime DJ turn into a jello dessert? The goddamn ray said HUMAN and MONSTER. It didn’t say revert to some non-monster form on it. It can take a non-human and make it human. That is it. They had a giant monster dog get zapped and it turned into a regular dog. That isn’t a human either. These are just fundamental issues that make up a movie of lazy writing.

I will say it is technically better than the third film for me. But only because it has less dance sequences. I guess they are turning this into a TV show, with different animation style. Or already did. I don’t know. I won’t watch it.

0 out of 4.

Here we go, here we go, here we go.

First of all, I apologize for never writing out my review of The Kissing Booth 2. I had a lot to rant about and did it live in person a few times, but never got it all down on a review, and that made it worse since it made my worst film of the year last year.

So I knew with the final (better be) film I would make sure to jot it all down. The Kissing Booth 3, a movie that seemingly exists just to make it a trilogy, because they damn well could have finished the storylines established at the end of the 2nd film, but left it with a cliffhanger because they think resolving any aspect of a movie is pointless, I guess.

I am mostly fine with cliffhanger endings in general, in a planned series, but I also would demand that the film tells a complete story. Avengers: Infinity War ends with a sour note, kind of a cliffhanger (because the bad guy wins?) but it also tells a complete story and no one should leave unfulfilled. The second movie ended with a single decision to make and just suddenly decides to not do it.

Fuck that.

Fuck this.As you know, of course, the last time we left off, Elle (Joey King) not knowing where to go college. Harvard, or Berkeley. Because of course if she goes to Berkeley, which she has talked to going for years with her best friend Lee (Joel Courtney) and was their dream. But her boyfriend, Lee’s older brother, Noah (Jacob Elordi) is a year older and in Harvard. If she chooses to go there, she will pick her love life, her future, and you know, it is Harvard. Should she care about a promise to a best friend? Well, she is already lying to both of them saying she is wait listed on both, so she can take her time.

After a few weeks of travel with them and Lee’s girlfriend (Meganne Young), they still have a lot of summer left, and decide to go to Lee and Noah’s family beach house. But oh no! Their parents (Molly Ringwald, Morné Visser ) are going to sell the place after this summer! The kids somehow convince the parents to just let them live there the rest of the summer then, and they promise to clean it up and get it ready for the market. This is where Elle finds an old Beach Bucket list that she made with Lee. They decide to make it the best summer ever, especially since Elle has decided to go to Harvard.

But that isn’t all the plot! For example, her dad (Stephen Jennings) is maybe finding love after all these years, someone to help raise the much younger son (Carson White). And Elle hates it.

But that isn’t all the plot! Marco (Taylor Zakhar Perez) is still around, making Lee jealous. And Chloe (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) is still around, not making Elle jealous. Also Lee has to deal with the fact that he will be in a long term relationship with a girl he already has problems remembering, because he is a goddamn man-child. And Elle has to come to terms with the fact that she is in a relationship with Noah, who keeps having emotional bursts of jealousy (usually for good reasons), but also because he is a goddamn man-child. And Elle has to come to terms with her own shiftiness, because she is a goddamn womanchild.

Wow, good pristine condition after 8-10 years. 

How does one start to talk about a movie, nay, a franchise, like The Kissing Booth. Something written by a teenager, and every aspect of that fact is obvious through every scene, decision, and dialogue choice.

The fact that it is called The Kissing Booth isn’t even an issue. It is, for all intents and purposes, a minor part of the first film and still fine to be a dialogue. The dialogue choices from the narrator to overhype the minor part, and constantly try to bring it back through relevance, is really what hurts. Because in the second movie, it has even less of a point on the plot, and of course, in the last movie, is just once again unnecessarily brought back up in the epilogue, six years in the future, because apparently that is where several characters need to meet up at and pretend they never really stayed in communication the times before that.  This aspect of the movie makes more sense if the movie was set in the 1920’s, where maybe there was never a kissing booth beside it, because then we could all understand the strange hype and obsession with it.

The main character Elle is a terrible person. And role model, in case anyone looks up to her for that. You can have movies about bad people, but usually those people have some sort of consequence for their action, or a really hard choice that they will live with for regret to get to their power. Important things to show that those who hurt are hurt in return. But Elle? The girl who actively cheated on her boyfriend while he was away at college, both physically and mentally, and kissed another boy publicly. The one who demanded all the free time of her best friend so much that he literally forgot about her girlfriend who for some reason stuck it with him.

So what does she do this movie? Well, she is more trusting of her boyfriend that he won’t cheat on her, which is great, because he never did. And she decides that means she can hang out and plan things with someone she did cheat on him with, who made it obvious he wants to still win her over? She also decides to get upset with her best friend who wants to do so many things with her, when it was both her idea to make him feel better for it (after lying for over a month) and she did the same thing last year with no care for repercussions?

Let’s be clear on the things that happen to Elle negatively this film. One, her dad is dating a woman and Elle gets mad at her, and lashes out cause of her other shit, over one of the worst board games ever made (Monopoly), and still doesn’t care, until her dad calls her out on her bullshit and makes her feel bad. Second bad thing that happens to her is her boyfriend broke up with her over her bullshit.

Wow. Well let us make it obvious. She has a lot of bullshit and keeps making mistakes and never learning from them. He should have never been with her over the events of The Kissing Booth 2.  But even more importantly, SHE SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN WITH HIM DUE TO THE EVENTS OF THE MOVIE THE KISSING BOOTH. Where he was shown to be emotionally abusive, and threatened other guys to leave her alone for years while he was on his own path of getting experience before trying out her. He is shown to not handle any really conversation or argument well time and time again, which is why he runs off and does dumb shit all the time. And so does she. They are both really bad people, which doesn’t make it a good fit for them. Nor does it warrant spending three movies to talk about this relationship.

The problem with this movie is the impressions it leaves on people. Since there is almost no real consequences for any of the characters being terrible, it just helps reinforce that being terrible is a great thing for people to be. After all, look at all the fun they are having. Did you see those costumes? [Editor’s Important Note: Why the fuck does the go-kart track at a water park have stands for people to watch. Do people just sit there all day and look for exciting basic races? It was more than just a parent sitting area.]

I could talk so much about the other technical problems with the movie. Like how all over the place it is in time. When was it set? When did they make the beach bucket list? Why is going to Berkeley on a beach bucket list? Why would they hide it in a hidden time box if the goal was to actually complete it, and they went to the beach every summer? Why does the box have a Super Nintendo Mario Kart design, as if it was set in the 90’s? That goes with my earlier question about time. Because things on the list don’t make sense for various age groups they would have written it.

This is a trilogy that trivializes high school, relationships, proper communication, and the ability to fucking apologize.

0 out of 4.