Not every Hollywood release can be a home run, but you should at least be able to expect
some decent entertainment when you go to the theater.
Every so often, however, even great filmmakers will churn out a pretty terrible movie.
In 2018, these are the films that perked up our ears, and then sent us home with our hearts
unfulfilled, our wallets empty, and our foreheads sore from all the facepalming.
(when you find out they made 9 Madea movies but there's still no sequel to Dredd)
These are the worst movies of the year so far.
And they sure aren't pretty.
Insidious: The Last Key
Fans of the Insidious series started getting goosebumps of anticipation when a fourth installment
was announced in 2016.
But it wasn't long before we saw signs of trouble.
Insidious: The Last Key's release date was pushed back from October 2017 to January of
2018.
And as you probably know, January isn't exactly prime territory for horror releases.
So when the film finally hit theaters, the reason for the shuffle became extremely apparent:
it isn't very good.
Critics hammered Insidious: The Last Key for its confused tone and for playing like a mishmash
of well-worn horror tropes.
(Darth Maul returns)
But diminishing creative returns don't always translate to diminishing box office returns.
The film's worldwide gross is actually the best of the entire series, meaning that Insidious
5 is all but inevitable.
Here's hoping the next installment finds a way to deliver some bona fide scares while
moving all those tickets.
(Yup, that's the landlord from Kingpin)
Proud Mary
On the surface, Proud Mary seemed like a sure thing: it's the story of a contract killer,
played by the immensely talented Taraji P. Henson, who finds herself responsible for
the welfare of a young boy after a job goes sideways.
The exciting trailers promised a great performance from Henson, and she delivered, but unfortunately,
she did so in a film that felt like it was slapped together out of spare parts.
The $14 million flick did dismal business worldwide, making it a certified flop.
The 15:17 to Paris
Clint Eastwood has a pretty good track record as a director, and an even better one as a
director of historical dramas.
So, expectations were high for The 15:17 to Paris, the true story of a trio of American
soldiers who found themselves in the middle of an attempted terrorist attack on a train
while traveling in Europe.
The actual story is a harrowing account, and Eastwood even even recruited the soldiers
to play themselves in the movie.
Unfortunately, it turns out that one spectacular act of heroism doesn't necessarily make for
an entertaining film...and real-life heroes don't always make great actors.
Even the stars themselves had different ideas on who should have been in the film.
"You must have had ideas in your head of… who did you want to play you?
"Zac Efron."
(crowd laughs)
One of the other problems critics had was that the portrayal of the actual incident
was fairly short, with nearly two-thirds of the film's run time devoted to exposition.
While the main action sequence was praised, everything surrounding it was a disappointment,
and The 15:17 to Paris arrived at the station to be greeted by generally indifferent audiences.
Midnight Sun
Music video director turned filmmaker Scott Speer scored a minor hit with his first big-screen
directorial effort, Step Up: Revolution, a solid if inessential addition to the Step
Up series.
For his next trick, Speer mounted an adaptation of the 2006 Japanese feature Midnight Sun,
starring former Disney star Bella Thorne alongside none other than Patrick Schwarzenegger.
It's the story of a teenage girl with a rare and life-threatening genetic sensitivity to
sunlight, who is finally asked out by her secret crush, but instead of tugging at the
audience's heartstrings, the film left critics and audiences alike feeling cold with its
gimmicky portrayal of an actual, terminal condition.
The film opened to a dismal $4 million opening weekend, while critics far and wide advised
filmgoers to save their money.
Forever My Girl
Writer/director Bethany Ashton Wolf helmed her second big-screen effort with Forever
My Girl, the story of a country music star who returns home for the funeral of a friend,
only to face the lost love he left behind.
If that description strikes as you as the type of thing that Nicholas Sparks might have
come up with, you're certainly not alone, and that's part of the problem, critics couldn't
help but note that Forever failed even to clear the bar typically set by Sparks' formulaic
film stories.
The film seemed to bring out the worst in practically every critic who viewed it, with
most reviewers feeling that it barely lived up to the standards of a Lifetime movie.
"I didn't find out that I was pregnant until a couple weeks after what was supposed to
be our wedding day."
The picture managed only a $16 million haul during its theatrical run, further indication
that 2018 is decidedly not shaping up to be a great year for romantic dramas.
Sherlock Gnomes
The 2011 animated romp Gnomeo and Juliet was a surprise hit, raking in nearly $200 million
at the worldwide box office.
The story is basically retelling of Shakespeare's famous starcrossed tragedy but with… well,
garden gnomes.
And also slightly less suicide.
"Are you crazy?
If dad finds you here he'll bury you under the patio."
The film earned mixed reviews, but its box office returns were more than enough to guarantee
a sequel.
Sherlock Gnomes spent six years in development, but was finally released to audiences in 2018.
Unfortunately, all of those years weren't spent crafting a, y'know, watchable movie.
Despite the presence of Johnny Depp in the title role and Chiwetel Ejiofor as Watson,
critics and audiences were bored to tears by this outing.
"We'll need a ship."
"No ship, Sherlock."
Many noted that, like the original, the film seems to exist as a delivery service for the
music of executive producer Elton John.
The film's box office struggles may mean that we'll be spared another trip to Gnome world
in the future, however.
So at least there's that.
Death Wish
There may not be a major Hollywood film that has ever arrived with worse timing than Death
Wish.
The 2018 remake features Bruce Willis as Paul Kersey, an everyday Joe whose daughter and
wife are assaulted by thugs.
When the police don't do anything, he takes matters into his own hands.
"So there's nothing I can do, is that what you're saying?"
"You can have faith."
Critics certainly took note of the film's incredibly poor timing given that the Stoneman
Douglas High School shooting had occurred just a few weeks earlier.
But aside from that, Death Wish just doesn't really work as a movie anyway.
Viewed as a pure action film, it's surprisingly sluggish.
The Charles Bronson original famously spawned four sequels of diminishing returns and escalating
insanity.
"What are those?"
"Teeth!"
With this version failing to strike box office gold, history probably won't repeat itself.
The Cloverfield Paradox
During the Super Bowl in February 2018, a surprise trailer dropped for The Cloverfield
Paradox, the third installment in J.J. Abrams' loosely connected sci-fi/horror series.
The flick was released to Netflix directly after the game, and millions of eager fans
tuned in… to be supremely disappointed.
Despite the presence of an impressive cast, Paradox was a disappointing dud, with much
of the criticism heaped on its undercooked characters and exposition-heavy script.
The film was originally intended for a theatrical release, and Paramount COO Andrew Gumpert
explained why the decision was made to distribute it on Netflix, saying:
"We all decided that there were things about it that made us have a pause about its commercial
playability in the traditional matter."
If you think that seems like a delicately worded way of saying that the film was the
opposite of good, well...you may be onto something.
"That's my f---ing arm."
Winchester
On paper, Winchester sounded like the kind of horror slam-dunk that comes along once
every decade or so: a supernatural fright-fest based on the spooky true story of Sarah Winchester,
who spent years building the mother of all haunted houses.
"Why all the noise?
Why all this construction?"
"They want me to build, doctor.
The spirits."
Writing/directing duo the Spierig Brothers had recently scored a nifty sci-fi hit with
2015's Predestination, and with Helen Mirren in the lead role of Winchester, the stars
were all aligned.
So how did it go so terribly wrong?
Critics agreed that it represented a hugely missed opportunity that led to an utterly
forgettable film.
The Spierigs were taken to task for choosing jump scares over atmosphere.
In the end, Winchester became perhaps the most disappointing film of the year so far.
Fifty Shades Freed
Nobody thought the third installment in the Fifty Shades series would become a critical
hit… and, well, nobody was disappointed.
Despite raking in almost $370 million worldwide, Fifty Shades Freed was torn apart by critics.
The few positive reviews tended to highlight its merits as unintentional satire rather
than any redeeming qualities it might have.
But there is one cinematic achievement that Fifty Shades Freed deserves credit for: putting
an end to the Fifty Shades series.
A Wrinkle in Time
Expectations were sky high for director Ava DuVernay's adaptation of the classic young
adult novel A Wrinkle in Time.
With an amazing cast that included Storm Reid, Reese Witherspoon and Oprah Winfrey, the film
looked like it'd be another winner for Disney, but unfortunately, it fell surprisingly flat
with critics, and posted flat box office receipts to match.
Not surprisingly, the negative reviews mostly focused on the disappointment fans of the
novel felt, as the adaptation ultimately failed to match the source material's tone.
A Wrinkle in Time is a novel that most fans have always considered un-adaptable, and it
looks like they were right.
One review described it as a film that "does not stop feeling generic."
Another hinted that the film might have been improved with better editing.
Apparently, it wasn't just one thing that went wrong, but if you put them all together,
A Wrinkle in Time is nothing more than a bright, colorful dud.
The Outsider
The last five years or so have been full of ups and downs for Jared Leto.
The actor went from an Oscar win for his role in Dallas Buyers Club to a target for critical
disdain after his portrayal of the Joker in Suicide Squad.
And Leto's career rollercoaster continues with the Netflix original film The Outsider.
In this movie, Leto stars as a former American soldier who joins the Yakuza in post-World
War II Japan, a character that has been called "among the least engaging cinematic protagonists
in recent memory."
The film itself was mercilessly bashed as a "clueless misfire" and "another big swing-and-a-miss"
for Leto.
Ouch.
Acrimony
It's safe to say that Taraji P. Henson is having a rough year.
In addition to the colossal disappointment that was Proud Mary, she takes the lead role
in Acrimony, the latest film from Tyler Perry.
Henson portrays a wife whose cheating husband pushes her to the brink of insanity, but her
presence simply wasn't enough to save this limp, derivative thriller.
Reviews compared the movie to a slower, less interesting version of Fatal Attraction.
Despite Perry's name virtually guaranteeing a profit, Acrimony failed to even match the
box office performance of his latest Madea movie, which is saying a lot.
"Hush, I'm trying to be incogarico."
"Incogarico?
We're not trying to be incogarico this weekend."
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