Tag: The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature

This year has been harder than others to truly keep up my commitment to a year in shitty film.

Now, I was disappointed in a lot of films this year. A lot of films didn’t go as good as expected, but it took me a long time before I got enough 0 out of 4’s. I had my normal end of the year squeeze. That magical sweet spot time where I have to first watch the rest of the probably great movies, make a list of potential shit movies, watching them all before I get to the award movies I missed.

And in that list we have films that I still didn’t get to, and now just won’t. For example, I am so fucking done with Sharknado, it won’t be watched again by me, so no Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. It just isn’t even fun to write about. On a similar fifth in the series note, I honestly just refuse to watch Transformers: The Last Knight. That is 2.5 hours of my life, dealing with a franchise that has not improved in several films. I need time to do hobbies as well!

Other films I didn’t get around to, that might have been bad: A Bad Moms Christmas, 47 Meters Down, Rough Night, Snatched, Amityville: The Awakening, and Sleepless.

(DIS)HONORABLE MENTIONS

Instead of just choosing a few of the ones that didn’t make the list, here are all the other 0 out of 4 films for the year. They should be noted! These films include Unforgettable, The Shack, My Bakery in Brooklyn, A Dog’s Purpose, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, You Get Me, and of course, Cars 3.

15) The Boss Baby

Starting off this list with probably the only thing to be on my worst of the year list, and nominated for an Oscar. The Boss Baby wasn’t even nominated for an abstract technical award, like Suicide Squad was. It was nominated for BEST animated film.

And the only reason that is true is due to the fact that they changed the voting for animated films. Now everyone in the academy can vote for things, before nominations, in the animated category. So the biggest names will get nominated, and less awesome foreign flicks.

That is the only way to describe why The Boss Baby was nominated. Because it is straight animated trash, but not the worst animated film of the year.

14) The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature

Speaking of animated trash, we have a sequel next. The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature was so bad they delayed it over a year to add character to the list!

And guess what. Just like the first film, it is full of non funny jokes, piss poor animation, even pissier poorer plot, and an ending that will leave you scratching your head. This is a good ending? One that we are supposed to show kids? The fuck, animated movie people. The. Fuck.

13) Wish Upon

Ah good, this list isn’t just animated films (although, roughly 1/3 of it is). 2017 was by in far one of the best ever years for the horror genre in recent memory. But don’t worry, not everything was a success.

Wish Upon takes the very overdone genre of “be careful what you wish for!” and turns it into a extremely tame horror film, with elements of the Final Destination franchise thrown in for lawls.

It doesn’t work. It feels stupid. And that is just because it IS stupid.

12) Fist Fight

Oh but what about the funny films? The ones that should make you laugh and be hopefully amusing enough to warrant a grin now and then on your face? Well, Fist Fight is not that that kind of movie.

I watched this movie with a blank face the entire time. It failed to elicit a single grin, a guffaw, or even mirthless chuckle.

It is about two dudes going to fight, one of them not wanting to fight, and eventually, a fight happens. Shrug emoji everyone. This is the WORST LIVE ACTION COMEDY film of 2017!

11) Kidnap

Almost to the top 10, but on a regular year, I could imagine this one actually have making it closer to the bottom. Kidnap was supposed to come out years ago, but delays in bankrupt companies made us wait.

And now that we have waited, we realize that Kidnap is a terrible thriller. It is ass. It is bad. It is The Call 2.

Halle Berry should be upset about this sort of film coming out, but I think she enjoys doing these movies. That is the only reason we would keep being at this point with her. This is the WORST THRILLER film of 2017.

10) Friend Request

Hooray, the top ten! Now we get another horror film, this one is not American made. I happened to be one of the few people in the world to enjoy the movie, Unfriended. It gave me social media scares!

Friend Request is a movie that tries to do a similar thing, but in a dumber way. We get to have angsty college students, death scenes you can barely understand due to poor lighting, and a message comparable to Walk Up not Walk Out.

I just…its so bad everyone. I can’t believe it even made it to theaters. This is the WORST HORROR film of 2017.

9) The Book of Henry

It is so hard to describe The Book of Henry. It starts off feeling like a family film, one that goes into some very dark and again, stupid, territory. I feel like stupid is the theme of this list.

This is a plot line featuring an absurdly smart individual, one that isn’t in anyway believable and is annoying throughout the film, especially after he dies. It deals with serious real topics, while shitting all over plausible things to do in these scenarios. It was frankly painful to make it through this film, that I thought would be good the first time I saw a trailer for it. Silly me.

8) Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter

There is no way you have heard about Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter, but I don’t need to make sure films are well known to be on this list. I am not some goddamn Razzies publication.

This film I saw at a film festival, which was never going to be in theaters otherwise. It is a straight to DVD film by a guy who does a lot of these sorts of films. It relies on an attractive woman lead, pretending this movie deals with serious sci-fi elements. But it is poorly made, quickly put together, and something that can easily help you nap. I guess that is a positive.

7) The Star

Oh good, the third animated film to make this list! I think the fact that The Star came out and was god awful (pun intended) is the only reason why The Shack didn’t make the list.

It is a retelling of Jesus’ birth, but from the point of view of animals, on their way to the manger, where he was born. It is a comedy film, I guess, and it is religious, of course, yet it is all around painful. It features the cringiest line in film this year, which I put in the full version of the review.

Normally superly religious movies that are really bad always make the list, but this year wasn’t a terrible year for religious movies. I mean, we got mother! Next year however…

6) Ghost in the Shell

Ghost in the Shell is the last movie I have seen from 2017 to make this list. It is one I never wanted to watch, but also one I didn’t assume would be on this list. I honestly didn’t.

I just had no interest in what amounted to a whitewashing of a really fucking famous anime. Little did I know it would be as bad as it was. One of those hard to follow plots, attempting to go to a deep place while instead floundering in its CGI robotic horse shit.

Ghost in the Shell does nothing for the viewer. It doesn’t do anything, for anyone. The WORST SCI-FI film of 2017.

5) The Only Living Boy In New York

The Only Living Boy In New York is so bad and pointless, that I didn’t review the film until months after I ended up watching it. Why months? Because it was so bad, I forgot I watched it. I accidentally saw the email inviting me to see it, remembered it, hated myself, and then wrote the review.

It was so forgettable, it almost didn’t make this list.

It stars a character who know one will like, dealing with issues that no one cares about. It is some individualized hipster dream movie. I can’t believe this one exists, either.

4) Fifty Shades Darker

Making fun of these films is almost unfair. They were not made to be good. They are a trashy product, based off a trashy product, that was based on a different set of trashy products.

Fifty Shades Darker is like the first film, but less BDSM, less plot, and more…boats. More goddamn boats.

This is the WORST ROMANCE FILM of 2017.

3) The Dark Tower

The Dark Tower was a very hard review to write, because it was one of those films that just didn’t make any goddamn sense while I watched it. Poor Stephen King, having his life’s work reduced to a CGI fantasy fest film that is only partly based on his works. Something that just feels like two hours of setting up a universe that already was set up in book form, and failing badly.

This might be a good movie for those who have read the material, who can recognize the characters, and see the reasoning behind this. But instead, we get a movie that is CGI full and plot thin. What was this about? I dunno, guns and a mirror world.

This is the WORST FANTASY film of 2017.

2) Song to Song

Just like the Fifty Shades series, I wonder why I even watch movies made by Terrence Malick. I guess part of me assumes if I watch enough of them, I might finally understand one. I might get the dialogue heavy conversations that float over the actions of sometimes related characters. I might get the whimsical dream nature of these movies.

But until then, they belong on this list, and continue to confuse and confound me. Fuck. Just, stop using these great actors in these confusing films. And who knows what is coming after Song to Song, but I am not looking forward to it, because they are bad movies that just feel like torture to me.

This is the WORST DRAMA film of 2017.

1) The Emoji Movie

I could just put a big picture of a shit emoji to explain this, and everyone would get it. I don’t want to waste any words on The Emoji Movie, which came and went like a fart in the night.

It is forgettable, it is not funny, it is a stamp on a year of bad animated movies. That is all I have to say.

The Emoji Movie is the WORST ANIMATED film of 2017.

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! Check out my thoughts). Overall totals put four animated films on this list, but it could have been more. We have a few horror, some thrillers, some comedies, and some super serious drama films. At least one romance, two science fiction, and above all, a lot of crap.

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

Alright, this is an easy introduction. The Nut Job sucked. It came out January, 2014, made an okay money and a sequel was announced for January 15, 2016. Months before that date I noticed it and waited, because I was ready for an equally shitty movie that is easy to trash.

And then January happened, it was nowhere to be seen anywhere, and no one knew when it was coming out. It wasn’t until months later, April 2016, when it was announced it was pushed back to May 19, 2017. Yes, it wasn’t officially delayed until THREE MONTHS AFTER IT WAS SUPPOSED TO COME OUT. No announcements about being pushed back indefinitely, just quietly hidden under a rug. But I was there, I was asking the hard questions. I also don’t know when they finally gave it a name that was different, but they called it The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature, to appeal to…some demographic.

Three months later in July, they announced that Jackie Chan had joined the cast. He joined the cast six months after it was supposed to already be out. There is some real big behind the scene delays going on. It wasn’t until December of 2016 when it was pushed back into August 2017, where it moved around again once I think, but was kept basically the same.

What a production shit show. And to think there is a The Nut Job 3 IMDB page saying a 2019 release date, despite no official announcements at all. Who is in charge damn it?

Ah, the fucking squirrels are probably calling the shots.

This sequel takes place a few years later with the nut store now out of business. And by that, I mean, it was being used as a mob den or whatever, so they probably just never got a new owner and it was condemned. And for some reason this condemned building was never removed of its items, so its basement was still full of nuts of all sorts. I assume it is a few years later, because literally none of the other squirrel and rodent leaders are present in this film, just our main character and crew and some young things, so at some point everyone else must have died out.

Now Surly (Will Arnett) and Andie (Katherine Heigl) are the de facto leaders of this group, I guess. And by that, I mean Andie is trying to teach some baby chipmunks how to hunt for nuts in the park, and Surly and his gang of randoms (Maya Rodolph, Gabriel Iglesias, Jeff Dunham, Rob Tinker, Kari Wahlgren, Tom Kenny, Sebastian Maniscalco) are living in the nut shop basement that has turned to a variable den of sin. Andie thinks they are losing their ability to succeed in nature. Probably true.

Also in this city is a corrupt mayor (Bobby Moynihan). He seems like he has been there for awhile though, based on the way he lives and talks. He keeps getting elected despite being openly and obviously corrupt, and a danger to the citizens. He drives along sidewalks and hurts people while displaying he is above the law, yet everyone is fine with i? Anyways, this mayor likes his city making money and says that every square inch of his city makes money except for one. This is when most people would say “Oh yeah, the abandoned nut shop”. No, he says the park. Meaning he doesn’t know about the nut shop either.

So yeah, he wants to put an amusement park on the park instead, to make money. He begins to demolish stuff, which would be fine because of the nut shop, but the nut shop also blows up.

Now the animals have to go to war with the machines and the amusement park and the mayor. Oh how nutty!

Also featuring Isabela Moner as the mayors bratty as shit daughter (no mom in site, mayor probably killed her to be honest), Peter Stormare as an exterminator, Bobby Cannavale as another dog, and Jackie Chan as a kung fu mouse leading an army of city mice.

That is a sweet ass sign, I would probably go there if I lived in the general vacinity.

“It was a mess of a movie.” – Gorgon Reviews, describing The Nut Job, in 2014. And it easily fits this review as well.

At this point in the review I am already over 700 words, and I haven’t even started to deconstruct its ass down yet.

I already alluded to it, but the mayor character cannot even exist in the world they created. Unless right when the movie starts he just got elected (despite implying longevity), and he was going on a two week crazy spree of fucking up parks and killing pedestrians. But we know it is a lie. For whatever reason this mayor character wanted to make the shittiest park, quickly, to make small amounts of money. But he is clearly a guy with high standards, so he wouldn’t make a park out of used parts, but something nice and shiny that people would want to go to for a long period of time. Another bad plot point.

The park premiers at a big fancy event for the mayor and all of his campaign donors, where everyone is dressed up, fancy as fuck, and rich. Except literally none of those individuals would ever set foot in a park like that. It is extremely ugly and they don’t try to hide it at all. It looks like a park that could give you AIDS just for walking into it.

The animals start terrorizing the park, the rich people hide, but don’t worry, exterminators come and get rid of them all. And the mayor makes these rich people stay. Of course animals quickly break out, come back to the park, and start to rip things up and destroy things with explosions. That point is weird though because 1) The rich people didn’t leave, 2) When things were exploding they carefully only showed the exterminators (who had already finished and should have been gone). Yes, very odd. Although they didn’t show them there, they specifically showed them staying, so a whole bunch of people probably died in this plan and they are just covering it because of badly written PG films.

Speaking of badly written, I am pretty sure that the movie was made, was worse, then they had to change a lot of it. Since Chan was brought in so late, they probably added his plot lines. He wasn’t in the film until halfway or so, and only one scene. Then he was brought back during the crazy end mess. I have to imagine that they just added this shit in, and that is why it was delayed a year and a half. A big waste of Jackie Chan.

The voice work is bad. The movie has absolutely no real feelings behind it. They just patched some shit together, hoping no one would examine to find out that there are holes everywhere.

And goddamn it, where is that little girls mom? Why was the Nut shop ignored by a money hungry government? Why the fuck does Andie the squirrel put up with Surly, who abuses her emotionally and puts her down in front of others constantly? And did the eat the other goddamn squirrels from the first movie?

0 out of 4.