Many upcoming high-profile films have already scheduled their debuts, and some have even
released trailers to the public at large.
Unfortunately, some of them also look pretty lame.
You heard it here first, these are fated to be the worst movies of 2019.
All the most popular stage musicals eventually get adapted into films, they're well-known
enough for studios to take a chance on them, they almost always score an Oscar nom or two,
and they give musical fans who don't live in New York a rare chance to enjoy them.
In 2019, another well-known musical will hit movie screens.
And no, sadly it’s not Hamilton.
It’s Cats.
Debuting on Broadway in 1982, Cats is a loosely plotted show, based on a book of poetry by
T.S.
Eliot, which is about, well… cats.
Singing, dancing, frolicking, homeless cats.
Cats's original run ended in 2000, and Hollywood has finally figured out a way to do this show,
but not via animation, like you might expect.
No, it seems the stars of the movie, who include Taylor Swift, Ian McKellen, Jennifer Hudson
and James Corden, are going to actually dress up in cat costumes.
So does this have any prayer of being the next musical to clean up at the Oscars?
Not meow, not ever.
It just wouldn't be a new year without another movie in which an angry Liam Neeson tracks
and kills a small army of bad guys who did him wrong.
Following the three Taken movies, Run All Night, The Commuter and many, many more, comes
Cold Pursuit.
This time, Neeson shows off his very particular set of skills as a mild-mannered Rocky Mountains
snow-plow driver named Nelson who is forced into action when his son is killed by a drug
cartel.
Unfortunately, Neeson has done this same movie so many times that it's starting to get a
little embarrassing.
“Then why would I do it?”
“Because there would be a reward.”
“Uh-huh.”
One thing in Cold Pursuit's favor, however, is that it's based on a pretty good Norwegian
dark comedy called In Order of Disappearance.
It’s just a shame they seem to have drained all the humor out of it.
In The Beach Bum, the always cool and totally chill Matthew McConaughey plays a beach-loving
stoner named Moondog.
And no, despite what you might remember, this movie doesn’t already exist.
Maybe you’re thinking of Surfer, Dude?
“Is that a job, surfer?”
“Not really.”
While the title and details make it sound like a straight-to-video, National Lampoon-branded
boorish comedy from the early '90s, it's actually an indie movie, albeit one directed by Harmony
Korine, mostly known for more unsettling projects such as Kids and Gummo.
At least the cast is likable: Zac Efron plays a dude named "Flicker," Snoop Dogg portrays
someone genuinely named "Lingerie," and Martin Lawrence makes an appearance as "Captain Wack."
Roll on awards season.
The Rambo movies may hold claim to the film franchise that has veered the furthest from
its original intent.
The first entry in the series, First Blood, was the harrowing and tragic story of a PTSD-stricken
Vietnam War veteran, starring Sylvester Stallone in what was probably his finest and most nuanced
work since the original Rocky.
Then came the second one, and everything changed.
"The war won't stop with First Blood Part II.
It will escalate to Rambo 3.
Which should really be called Rambo 2 First Blood Part 3, but the Rambo titles never made
sense."
The political climate of the 1980s fueled an explosion of action movies that celebrated
American patriotism and hardcore violence, and so the subsequent First Blood sequels
had that same broken man become a muscle-bound, machine-gun wielding one-man army who routinely
shoots up entire villages full of terrorists.
“Live for nothing or die for something.”
Stallone’s career has been reinvigorated in recent years thanks to the success of old-school
action franchise The Expendables, as well as his Oscar nomination for the role of Rocky
Balboa in Creed.
As part of this victory lap, Stallone has decided to go and make the completely unnecessary
Rambo 5.
This time, Rambo faces off against a drug cartel.
Odds are, he'll come out on top, which is an impressive feat considering both Stallone
and his character are well over 70 years old.
The Rhythm Section is pretty much exactly like Peppermint, 2018’s moderately successful
Taken rip-off starring Jennifer Garner.
This one stars Gossip Girl veteran Blake Lively as Stephanie Patrick, a woman who slowly and
methodically tracks down a bunch of bad guys because she just knows they're responsible
for the plane crash that killed her family.
Lively is no stranger to an action thriller, having starred in 2016’s The Shallows, but
it’s hard to get worked up about this.
And the best part?
It’s based on a book series, so you can probably count on a sequel or six somewhere
down the line.