Editorial 23/02/15- Worst 7 of 2014

While I was enjoying the heavy snow on the front range of the Rockies, I had a bit of time to look at the Oscars. It was a great show for the most part, but I have a few arguments about the animated feature and visual effects categories.
But I digress.
Now, this would normally be the time to post my picks for best films of lat year, but that already happened. So, instead, I'll be giving my picks for the least entertaining films of last year. The same rules apply- we'll be judging based on quality of storytelling and filmmaking, and no R-rated flicks. With all that behind us, let's get to the grind.

7- Heaven is for Real

I feel slightly bad putting this on the list, seeing that it's based on a true story. That's probably part of the reason this film failed, though- it simply didn't feel like it did the story service. The main marketing ploy was the fact that it was about a boy who caught a glimpse of Heaven while in the operating room. It was a disappointment, then, to see little about heaven and more around the politics of owning a church in Kansas. That, coupled with stiff acting and muddled storytelling, made me leaving the screen with little satisfaction. Don't get me wrong: it had potential, but it never felt like more than a Sunday-school intermediary.

6- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

It's honestly hard to believe that this was only produced by Micheal Bay. I say that because this retelling of the Turtles' origin story has everything we hate about his films. While I still can say that the turtles themselves had great chemistry, that was the only thing to truly enjoy. Megan Fox offers her stereotypical "I'm-not-getting-payed-enough-for-this" performance, and Will Arnett gives the best he could with what he had (which wasn't a lot.) On over-complicated plot either bores us until the action comes or raises even more questions than it attempts to answer. By the time the climax came around (it doesn't make any sense to any one who knows where New York City is,) I was long-done with this pop-culture fest.

5- The Giver

When I announced to my family that this was going to be on the list, they said to give it a break because it was based on a novel that was written before "the Hunger Games." Not only does that not give it an excuse to be marketed at a time when those story formats are most successful, but that's the least of "the Giver's" problems. Even in a society where emotion and memory has been removed from all but one man called 'the receiver', there needs to be some tension for a story to work. Besides Jeff Bridges, none of the actors truly put any energy into their parts, and the visual effects are a let-down from the team behind "the Chronicles of Narnia". Even the reveal of the actual conflict- an intently disturbing depiction of infanticide- doesn't carry any more weight than it already came with. As much as I didn't want it to be, it was simply boring. Not creative, not shocking, and not even thought-provoking. 

4- Transcendence

I mentioned a bit of this in my "Top 7 Most-Overused Cliches" list, but there are plenty more reasons not to like this. It had the potential to be a great movie, being about a dying man who uploads his mind to the internet, obtaining god-like powers along the way. However, the poor script about things being good or bad just because they are, the poor direction reducing actors like Johnny Depp to wooden planks, and the poor casting giving stars like Morgan Freeman and Paul Bettany roles that ultimately make no difference to the story- they simply didn't work. I can give it points for cinematography, being from the man behind that of 'the Dark Knight" trilogy, but not as many as I can take away for this being such a slow, small scale, and even excruciating experience at times.

3- Transformers: Age of Extinction

Every part of me wanted to write this as the worst film of 2014. This plot-less, effortless, talent-less, pointless, direction-less, service-less... omni-less piece of garbage is undoubtedly among the worst that film has to offer. Even more so, its success proves that Micheal Bay can make more like this as much as he wants to, and the good critics of the world will have to endure them and possibly lose all hope for film making. However, as much as I hate this movie, I hate Micheal Bay even more. So, as much as I think this was a waste of the dollar I spent to rent it, I'm not going to give him the honor of worst film simply because he wants it.

Well, this would mean more if my blog wasn't all the way at the back of the internet, but the idea still stands.

2- the Legend of Hercules

It's not as though Dwayne Johnson's summer blockbuster "Hercules" was a masterpiece, but at least it had an enjoyable first and second act. Looking all the way back into January, though, gives us the true injustice to the greek legend. It attempts to be an origin story with Hercules as the leader of a revolution of sorts, but everything gets lost in translation. We could go on for days about the emotionless acting, the horrendous script, the plastic visual effects, the high-school set and costume designs, or the unbelievably unbelievable choreography (at one point, an actor resorts to tucking the spear under his arm to depict being stabbed, which would be bearable if he wasn't facing the camera while doing so.) It shouldn't have been a theatrical release- it should have been a SyFy Channel Special. Hopefully, it can fade into obscurity along the lines of their so-called 'cult classics.'

1- Winter's Tale

I went into this movie not knowing what it was about, and I left this movie knowing even less. This movie not only gives us the lowest point of no less than four great actors' careers (Colin Ferrell, Russell Crowe, Will Smith, and Jennifer Connelly) but also spends most of its time conveying ideas that just don't make sense. Why would a miracle be so bad for the demons if no angels are shown? Why can't the devil leave the New York City sewers? How does loving somebody make you live forever? What is this mysterious heat-disease, and why don't we hear about it anymore? What are everybody's motivations? Most importantly, why am I watching this movie? It couldn't decide what it wanted to be or where it wanted to go, and it chose the lowest paths every way it went, placing it perfectly into the category of Worst Film of 2014.

Now, before we leave you in your misery, here are a few dishonorable mentions.

Dishonorable Mention- Maleficent

Here, we have proof that, sometimes, nothing is better than something. Maleficent was one of the greatest Disney Villains of all time, but we never learned anything about her in "Sleeping Beauty". We were all excited to hear that she would be portrayed by Angelina Jolie in an origin story and perspective flip. She definitely delivered on her end, and Sharlto Copley showed us a very interesting side of King Stephan as a corrupt leader driven to madness. Besides that, though, her story just wasn't interesting enough, even to the point of ruining some of Maleficent's shining moments in the animated original. If you want to see a fresh re-imagining of a classic fairy tale, you're probably better off watching James Cameron's "Avatar". 

Dishonorable Mention- the Amazing Spiderman 2

There were some great superhero movies that came out this year, but Marc Webb's sequel to 2012's Spiderman reboot wasn't one of them. It seemed to ignore the warning set by Sam Raimi's "Spiderman 3" and took the risk of throwing everything the fans wanted to see into one film. The result was a two-hour collection of half-baked ideas. Of the three villains, one was decent at best, one was there to give us an unnecessary second climax, and the third was for marketing purposes alone. I can admire it for its creative action scenes, but even those go into Micheal Bay-style destruction gorn at points. The plot was mismatched at best, and no single aspect gets the chance to really shine from the others. As a fan of the character of Spider-Man, I wanted this to be good, and I saw the possibility for it to be great. In the end, though, there just wasn't anything to bring me back for the second viewing.

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