Bare in mind that these picks are not for the worst films of the year, simply those with massive potential that I felt could have been better.
10. Tomorrowland
After how incredible Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol turned out to be, the conventional wisdom was that Pixar maestro Brad Bird could go on to direct just about any live action film he wanted. “A film based on a theme park land, why the hell not?” Well, as it turns out, there’s a few good reasons. While by no means a terrible movie, Tomorrowland is sorely lacking the style and soul that made his previous films such masterpieces. There’s just not a whole lot going on for a great deal of it. There’s an overwhelming ‘Disney Channel Original Movie’ vibe running through it, with the cartoonishly plucky Casey (Britt Robertson) generating oil and water chemistry with George Clooney doing his “mean old man” shtick before turning into a bland charity case. Then, in the third act, the movie stops and turns on a heavy handed “everybody’s gotta work together” powerpoint presentation, but gives us nothing to emotionally invest that message in. Beyond a couple of inventive action sequences, this is one futuristic Sci-Fi that would have been even been dated fifteen years ago.
9. Mad Max: Fury Road
“Heresy!” half the internet screams as they click off of this list right now. While I know that many of you are so in love with this film that you’d build you’re own combat cars if you could, it ultimately fell short for me in the wake of meteoric hype. Sweeping review after massive essay describe this film as “operatic” or “a silent film with vehicles and battle as dialogue” but to me, it came off as yet another empty action spectacle. While it’s a superbly directed empty action spectacle to be sure, there ultimately isn’t much to care about beyond that. You’d think that having Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron would ensure that the film would have great characters, not so much. Sure, Theron’s Furiosa is an exciting feminist icon in some ways, but we really learn nothing about her, and Hardy’s Max is a grunting bore. While I definitely plan on re-watching this film soon to see if I might have missed something, for now only so many beautiful explosions and fantastic practical effects can cover that up, which made the film feel pretty “mediocre!!!” to me.
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8. Southpaw
When I first saw this, I dismissed it as a merely average boxing movie that could have been much better. However, after seeing just how phenomenal Creed turned out to be, I’m reminded how amazing a boxing film can truly be when the filmmakers really put a lot into it. This on the other hand felt like an assembly line project for all involved. It’s a film full of the same tired sports movie beats we’ve seen a thousand times, but with none of the rawness and authenticity of it’s contemporaries. While Jake Gyllenhaal’s physical transformation is certainly impressive, his character is a mumbling bore, which makes it hard to root for him to win back both his daughter and his dignity after a series of crippling losses including the murder of his wife.
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7. Black Mass
When I heard that Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, and an ensemble of other fantastic actors were bringing the story of infamous Boston kingpin Whitey Bulger to life, I was thrilled. After all, Depp certainly needed a win after the Mortdecai disaster being the latest in a string of mediocre, Halloween store roles. The trailers and images looked great, with Depp seemingly melting into the deliriously evil, power hungry monster. However, the film turned out to be utterly laborious, with absolutely horrific pacing throwing off any momentum that Depp’s fun if slightly over the performance thought. It certainly doesn’t help that most of the other performances were utterly lame, with Edgerton, Cumberbatch, and Peter Sarsgaard in particular slurring through fake Boston accents to further secure how dull the story is. It’s a bunch of actors playing dress up for two hours, instead of delivering a film with the class and brutality of a proper crime epic.
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6. Aloha
Honestly, there’s not even that much to say about this one. This is the film equivalent of checking into the wrong Hawaiian hotel, with a bunch of pretty people screaming in the room next door. It’s such a shame that former Rom-Com master Cameron Crowe couldn’t pull anything special out here, especially in such a culturally rich setting. Instead he concocts a confusing, cold, and utterly predictable film. The charms of mega-talents Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone (playing a half Asian woman) somehow don’t even help. Both characters are so oddly written that they’re borderline hard to watch, with any chemistry essentially evaporating from the theater in a cloud of smoke.
5. Avengers: Age Of Ultron
This Marvel sequel is a much better movie than most of the entries on this list. There are a few moments of sheer goofy comic book fun that cannot be denied. However, it is such a stark step down from what was one of the most euphoric movie experiences of all time, that in some ways it’s even more crushing. Writer/Director Joss Whedon, who did such a fantastic job balancing the humor and pathos of his many characters in the original, utterly fumbles the ball here. Scared to actually explore a darker, more mature story, he instead merely saturates the colors while breaking the characters down to their most basic elements. Tony Stark makes sarcastic quips, Steve Rogers scolds people on morality, and Natasha Romanoff…falls in love with Bruce Banner. Huh? It’s a film with a thousand cooks in the kitchen without a solid recipe, hoping that endless quips and action sequences that go on for about as long as a GOP debate will keep people smiling. It’s all fat, it tastes good at first, but there’s no sustenance to keep you coming back for more bites, which ironically enough is the reason why this film exists at all.
4. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2
Watching this film, I felt like I was standing in line for a Roller Coaster that I never reached. After an entire (criminally underrated) film of set-up, this was supposed to be the big action extravaganza that gives Katniss Everdeen the revenge and vindication she deserved. Instead, we got a film that is essentially constant waiting, resting, hiding, and kissing. There’s a constant promise of a big battle with The Capital, but when it arrives, the movie doesn’t even show it. It’s almost as if all the money was spent on Part 2, and they had to scrape something together to fill the contractual obligation. The entire cast seems bored out of their minds, and ready to graduate from what was essentially the high school of their careers. Although improvements from the underwhelming novel were promised, no such changes occurred. What an underwhelming way to bring such an iconic franchise to an end.
3. Terminator Genisys
At this point, I don’t know why I even expected anything out of this film. The Terminator franchise has not produced a quality film since 1991, and yet, every single time we cross our fingers and pray that it dosen’t further embarrass itself. Enter Genisys, which stumbles onto the screen like an old drunk who hasn’t pleased anyone for twenty years. Completely devoid of creative inspiration, the film manages to repeat the plot-lines of both of the two good Terminator movies, without any of the energy or innovation that made those films great. The return of Arnold Schwarzenegger dosen’t even help can only do so much with charisma vacuums Jason Clarke and Jai Courtney stinking up the screen, while Emilia Clarke stumbles her way through trying to live up to Linda Hamilton’s legacy. It’s a film so bored with itself, it just might automatically turn itself off before you do.
2. Fan4stic
No, this is not Fantastic Four. This has nothing to do with those classic Marvel comics characters. This thing is 200% Fan4stic, and it’s painful. How Josh Trank could show so much potential with Chronicle, and then stumble through this drab, awkward, atrociously structured film that will be a major argument for the death of superhero films for years to come is beyond me. Especially since at first he claimed that this would be something of a body horror film in the vein of The Fly. No such luck. I watched this movie with my mouth agape, unable to believe how a group of hundreds of people could get such a beloved property so wrong. It’s hardly even a film, it’s a mangled school project that was turned in two weeks late.
1. Spectre
Objectively speaking, this is not nearly as bad a film as several on this list. It’s well shot, the action sequences are pretty decent, and the cast gives solid performances for the most part. However, this film receives this dubious honor for one simple reason. The script. This is one of the most tragic train wrecks of a screenplay I’ve ever seen for a big budget movie. It Lazily attempts to weave together 9 years of this fantastic, revisionist take on James Bond, without having any proper ideas of how to make the connections make sense. It’s a film that merely expects you to believe plots were connected “because they were.” In the meantime, Daniel Craig, while not bad in the film, seems utterly bored as director Sam Mendes attempts to bring some of the more humorous Bond elements roaring back. It just doesn’t fit. After the limitless potential that Skyfall established for this franchise, Spectre bulldozes it all. It commits utter character assignation upon all of the Craig era players, and ends on a note that ensures that any return for arguably the best James Bond ever will be very tainted indeed.
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