It’s been years since I made a Worst List, as there seemed to be a tide of caution about being unnecessarily harsh to filmmakers. But I don’t know why we can’t talk about films that disappoint, whether because of sheer mountainous missed potential or just good ideas gone stale. I’m breaking these down into several groups, because it’s not just “they’re all bad”…some of these films came close to their targets, while others blew up on the pad. (Quotes from my Letterboxd entries at the time of viewing.)
A for Effort
Eureka (dir. Lisandro Alonso)
“…the opening segment's stark, old-photograph-etched style of black & white photography is striking, while the latter segments are lush in their density and natural beauty.
But even as someone who urgently defends long films and long takes, there were too many scenes where literally nothing happened, and the almost frozen images wore me down greatly in Eureka.
The second segment, cast entirely with what I assume were non-actors, was the most compelling, mounting an almost endless string of narrative complications but leaving almost every one ambiguously discarded, and I loved this despite how troubling much of it seemed.”
Monkey Man (dir. Dev Patel)
“…there is a pacing problem with the film. It is two hours long and feels like twice that. It effectively gives slivers of the character's backstory but then spends long stretches belaboring those same points. It has some beautiful shots, but never whole scenes I can point to as memorable. Something always feels off. And something always feels familiar. Patel really gives it his all, but apart from an early sequence where his character works his way up through a night club's waitstaff ranks, and that finale, it never consistently hums along in a satisfying manner.”
Maxxxine (dir. Ti West)
“It's hard not to walk away from Maxxxine disappointed: gone are the supremely creepy horror scenes of X, and the uneasy uncertainty in every moment of Mia Goth's Pearl performance. The final film in Ti West's trilogy, admirable as it is, does only one thing well - provide an 80s vibefest - but to the point that it becomes the film's only characteristic. Maxxxine is not a scary film, or creepy, or dread-infused, or unsettling, and the dark humor is all but lost here (Kevin Bacon's Seedy-With-A-Capital-"S" detective did provide some laughs, though they were mostly at the expense of his health).
…I had the sad sense that what I had watched was more of a flashy epilogue than a compelling feature. And the worst of it? The film felt as plywood-thin and inconsequential as the film’s Hollywood backlot facsimile walls, just with none of the magic those structures have helped produce.”
B for Broken
Longlegs (dir. Osgood Perkins)
“About an hour into Longlegs I muttered "Jesus Christ, does anyone turn on a fucking light in this movie?" Beautifully framed but too dark. Creepily acted, but why is everyone except for Blair Underwood so affected in their behavior? The slow/stare approach is annoying, and this film is stuffed with it. And while the film almost exclusively sets you up for cheap jump scares, there are two exquisite shots: an empty room behind a character that I stared at, ignoring the actor; and an edit to someone in a car, and back to them a moment later with someone else behind the car, almost out of view. Great non-jump jump scares.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (dir. Wes Ball)
Technically expert, from the cinematography to the seamless effects work. But holy mackerel, Kingdom was a boring film, one that never gets you invested in any character. It’s a shame the writing wasn’t as sharp as the craft.
Abigail (dirs. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett)
“Abigail gets off to a solid start and pleasingly takes its time before a 40-minute-mark turn that would have been a great surprise had the studio not allowed the marketing team to give everything away. The latter half is shouty, sloppy, and irritatingly repetitive.”
Saturday Night (dir. Jason Reitman)
“I laughed a lot more than I expected…some of the performances were solid, given how reed-thin almost every character is...if you're older like me and you're working on nostalgia fumes for the duration of the film, something will eventually connect. But I don't know that a younger audience is going to feel compelled to stick with this. And the frenetic energy became dulling. That anyone could stand out was kind of amazing…Sennott, Morris, and O'Brien, for me, were all aces.”
Twisters (dir. Lee Isaac Chung)
“It kills off several perfectly likable characters to jump-start the protagonist's plot trauma. It spends the first hour surrounding the viewer with aggressively unlikable characters and predictable scenarios. Then with a couple of lines of dialogue and humane gestures it flips everything, becomes rather charming and satisfying, if still perfectly predictable and utterly disposable.
And why was this film made other than to make bank? No reason whatsoever. Oh well? (shrugs)”
FU for Failure, Utter
Red One (dir. Jake Kasdan)
When you take all that money, all that star power, all those holiday cliches, and you come up with a frenetic, loathsome piece of shiny trash that hasn’t one iota of charm. How dare you pretend this is anyone’s new Christmas tradition?
Wolfs (dir. Jon Watts)
“...two guys who resent having to be in the same space as each other, barely communicating…then it ends with the impression someone intends for there to be a sequel, but this film doesn't leave you wanting more…this was so very tiresome.”
Argylle (dir. Matthew Vaughn)
“Frontloaded with so much predictability, transparency, eye-rollingly lazy writing, and a penchant for gimmickry that irritates quickly and often, Argylle has few flashes of goodness and absolutely no greatness, and much of what is good is thanks to Sam Rockwell.”
Borderlands (dir. Eli Roth)
“It is a lazy film. It looks cheap. It relies on noise and frantic motion, but without good results. Its dialogue is lowest common denominator stuff. The ADR is frequently clunky. Cate Blanchett is ill-suited to her character, a human eyeroll. Other performers are just embarrassingly bad or miscast.”
Boy Kills World (dir. Moritz Mohr)
“…is not short on cartoonishly despicable characters or dulling action…the story and acting made me roll my eyes so much that my optometrist busted through the wall like the Kool-Aid man and told me to knock it off.”
Tarot (dirs. Spenser Cohen, Anna Halberg)
“It's remarkable that Tarot has such a well-shot, exceedingly atmospheric, surprisingly satisfying setup, and in quick fashion roars into some of the most insipid writing I've seen in a film. The latter half of the film is visually murky to a problematic degree.”
Worst of the Wackadoo Failures
Pandemonium (dir. Quarxx)
“Pandemonium is the cinematic equivalent of taking a lovely 15-minute walk while thinking about some lofty issues and then stumbling down a flight of stairs until you land face-down in shit.
That setup is just so good…then you veer off into one sinister, unsettling story, and then a second, worse one. We return to the initial character only to find that the filmmaker doesn't have much of a plan for them.” I was left repelled and frustrated. I hate Pandemonium.
Best of the Wackadoo Failures
Kinds of Kindness (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)
“Kinds of Kindness is the sort of near-inscrutable film that poses questions like ‘why does a man desire the attentions of an indifferent, vengeful, micro-managing god rather than embrace his own free will’ and creates faintly Lynchian scenarios with largely deadpan characters…but also avoids giving satisfactory answers to such questions or redeemable reasons for its stories. It leaves you with distasteful possibilities (like the man who seems to be drugging his cult-devoted wife to - I assumed - get her deprogrammed, but instead rapes her unconscious body).
With all its puzzling motivations and characters that seem to be playing at what, let's say, dogs might interpret humans to be, I won't begin to understand the themes in the director's head. I do appreciate the commitment to the bit, and the actors giving it their all.
Maintaining this weirdly unsettling vibe for three hours was quite the achievement, but I doubt I will be watching it again.”