10 Worst Films of 2014

While the year is not yet done, especially in cinematic terms as I usually don't flip over my movie calendar until the Academy Awards, I have soaked myself in plenty of horseshit this year and I believe I am finished seeing films that I am likely to loathe. Therefore, I feel the time is right to lay out the ten movies I truly hated the most in 2014.


10. Nymphomaniac: Volume II

My Review of Nymphomaniac Volume II

I can't take credit for this quote, it was said by another user on a film site I frequent, but I think it so perfectly describes Nymphomaniac: Volume II: I love movies and I love porn. This was neither.

Boring. So boring. Surprisingly uninteresting in subject matter too, as you would think at the very least the story of a nymphomaniac would be shocking enough to keep the viewer's attention. I couldn't care less what happened to the characters, the dialogue did nothing for me, I was already mentally moving on to something else by the half way point and I had to force myself to sit through the rest and properly evaluate the film, as I previously have enjoyed the work by Lars von Trier and thought perhaps I would extract something eventually. I didn't.


9. Let's Be Cops

My Review of Let's Be Cops

A comedy completely void of humor. Uh oh. I didn't laugh once. I didn't even crack a smile.

I believe I heard this was quite successful financially and thus has earned a sequel. They will probably be cops again and absolutely nothing clever or of merit will occur for 90 minutes. Sign me up!


8. The Purge: Anarchy

My Review of The Purge: Anarchy

The part that bothers me the most about this terrible sequel is that I actually had hope for it. That's not even something I can fault the movie for, that's on me. When I first heard the concept of the original Purge, I was cautiously optimistic that it could be interesting, a commentary about a the deep flaws of humanity inside a low budget horror film. What we ended up getting was Ethan Hawke stumbling around his house for 80 some minutes, and it was atrocious. The film had absolutely nothing interesting to say, it was just the set up for a completely generic, boring home invasion premise.

When the sequel rolled around, I saw clips of people out in the streets, out in the middle of the purge and I thought alright, here we go. Perhaps this will give us something to actually chew on, a little bit of subtext underneath these events. Nope. Nothing. Merely an exercise in moving from one set piece to the next with the possibility of death hanging over everyone, but who cares? I sure didn't.


7. Pompeii 

A film about the incredible true story of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the massive loss of life as a result? In the last 30 minutes, sort of. A love story involving a slave and the daughter of the man who rules the city? It's there, but briefly and with absolutely zero chemistry. So what is Pompeii really about? Well, a majority of the film is just terribly choreographed sword fighting. This crap fest is like the love child of Titanic and Gladiator, except only half the running time and with absolutely nothing complimentary to say about it, unlike those two films that birthed it.

I haven't seen the nominations for the Razzie awards yet, but if Kiefer Sutherland isn't nominated for his role in Pompeii, than those "awards" are an even bigger joke than they admit to being.


6. I, Frankenstein

My Review of I, Frankenstein

A film so terrible that I actually spent the entire time watching it developing an idea for a television series about Frankenstein attending college. No, seriously. Check out the review above and let me know if I should pitch the concept of Yo, Frankenstein to networks.


5. 3 Days to Kill

My Review of 3 Days to Kill

I will say this about 3 Days to Kill, at least I remember it. Not in a good way, as just seeing the title again made me emit a pained laugh. McG directs (your first sign this is gonna suck) this story about Kevin Costner having cancer and getting an offer from Amber Heard which basically consists of kill these three people and you will get the cure. She just kinda has a needle with this wonder drug in it. I guess you just have to be pretty and pretend to be a bad ass to come with some amazing scientific shit.

This terribly executed main premise also tries to balance a father reconnects with his daughter side story, and it sucks. I don't know how else to put it, it's awful. Costner and his daughter have no chemistry on screen and their dialogue is a joke, and they spend so much time trying to develop this relationship that you forget what the original stakes of the film were in the first place, only for them to get back to the action and then you recall, oh, right, he has to kill The Albino to save his life. That's the name of the big bad guy. The Albino.

Such a terrible film.



4. Need for Speed

Oh Aaron Paul. After Breaking Bad, I was willing to follow you anywhere, as proven by the fact that I sat through every awful second of the film Need for Speed, which had one really funny scene in which the dipshit dude driving the one car way too fast on a road full of innocent people blows himself up. That's the only scene I really remember, and not for the reasons it was going for, as you could tell it was actually striving for emotional resonance. I thought it was really funny, until I remember that he was the only victim. All these other completely terrible characters lived, and thus the driving of cars and terrible writing and ridiculous performances would continue.


3. Winter's Tale

My Review of Winter's Tale

I'm still convinced this was actually intended on being a practical joke, but the studio was too dumb to catch it so they green-lit it anyways. I refuse to accept anything else. How could people with actual talent be involved in the production of this tripe and take it seriously? Perhaps that explains the bloated, absurd 60 million dollar budget, the checks to the actors were so above the norm they were willing to be a part of this disaster as a cash grab.


2. The Legend of Hercules

To be clear, this isn't the one with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in it that was released as a summer blockbuster. Whenever I told people I saw this train wreck, they thought I was referring to that film. No, the other Hercules movie that was released in 2014, the one with Kellan Lutz in it. Who the hell is Kellan Lutz, you may be asking? I have seen the movie and I don't know. I don't care either. This was just a giant bag of crap from beginning to end, and if it were another year it may just be the worst, but not in 2014...


1. A Million Ways to Die in the West

My review of A Million Ways to Die in the West

Just having to list this atrocity makes me angry all over again. The only thing I could not finish watching released in 2014, and notice I said thing. I refuse to refer to this as a film, or a picture, or a movie. It isn't worthy of those distinctions. This was nearly a death blow to comedy as a whole, as not only is there no single split second worthy of a laugh, it is actually offensively awful and insulting to the audience watching it.

Seth MacFarlane has done some funny and entertaining things in the past, but A Million Ways to Die in the West is something he should have to apologize for. Without a doubt, the worst film I saw in 2014.

Nymphomaniac: Vol. II Review

In my review of Nymphomaniac: Vol. I (which you can read here) at one point I mentioned that the film was "teetering on the edge of being painfully boring". Volume II didn't just fall off that edge, it flipped dozens of times as it careened down the cliff and exploded in a cartoonish fashion once it found its final resting spot.

Lars von Trier is a gifted filmmaker, I am not doubting that. Before he unleashed his two part erotic opus on the world, he haunted me with Melancholia, a film I deemed great immediately after my one and only viewing and I have since gained a tremendous amount of admiration for it, as I cannot shake its rather profound approach to covering a topic like depression. I would need to revisit Dancer in the Dark, but it is a film that I have seen only once a dozen or so years ago and yet I can still recall various sequences that clearly were powerful enough to leave a lasting impression.

What I admired about the first half of Nymphomaniac is now long since forgotten. All I am left with is this slightly sour yet mostly shockingly bland taste in my mouth after witnessing the way the story concludes. Obviously I cannot make guarantees for the future as I have no idea what it holds, but I would be willing to wager a hefty sum that von Trier's four hour sexual odyssey will be quickly and easily left behind, never to be pondered again.

When the Nymphomaniac project first garnered buzz, it was because of the artistic decision by von Trier to include only real sexual acts in the film. The foreplay would be performed, the penetration would be real, and thus I suppose the work would be exciting in its authenticity. I rolled my eyes at this news because I figured it was merely an attempt to shock, a way to rally controversy and steal headlines rather than have any real value to the storytelling. Thus I was pleasantly surprised after viewing the first film because it attempted a meaningful, valuable narrative rather than just filling every frame with exposed genitals, although the fact that I found the finished product to be quite mediocre tells you I still had plenty of issues with the work.

At one point in Nymphomaniac: Vol. II, Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is being viciously beaten by a man named K (Jamie Bell) for the purposes of pleasure. The scene includes rope, a taut strap to ensure a human being will stay still during anything, and a level of nudity that most films would never dream of showcasing. Sounds like something that would keep my eyes glued to the screen, right? Not so much. I was literally sipping a cup of coffee the whole time to make sure mine stayed open.

It was the kind of display that I was glad they avoided in the first first, and yet here it was. How shocking! How outrageous! How bold! How daring!

How boring. How ponderous. How utterly forgettable.


1/5

Nymphomaniac: Volume I Review

I totally get what von Trier was trying to do here with Nymphomaniac: Volume 1, and I commend him for transcending the simple shock value factor by actually making a meaningful film beyond all the "OMG REAL SEX!" talk that lead up to my finally viewing the film. I am all for pushing the boundaries of cinema with methods meant to elicit a reaction from the audience, as long as those factors are contained within an actual film and an actual narrative, and clearly Lars delivered in that regard.

In fact, the first volume of his Nymphomaniac story is far less sex infused than I expected, as I went into the experience anticipating 86 minutes of artistic pornography and then 30 minutes of character development and plot. Lars von Trier clearly approached the topic of nymphomania with the intention of heading down a similar path as his 2011 film Melancholia, a film about depression and the devastating toll it can take on the person suffering as well as the victims they take down with them, and in that way I found Nymphomaniac Vol. 1 to exceed my expectations.

It's 2014 and sex is constantly at our fingertips, with a few clicks of a mouse you can find exactly what you want to see and who you want to see doing it, so merely presenting actual intercourse doesn't have the appeal it would have, say, 15 years ago when I was a perverted teenager with a one track mind. I had very little interest in a film such as this unless it had substance to back it up, and unfortunately while it tried, I simply could not grab hold of anything thematically with this picture. I just didn't care. I found the stories of sexual encounters to be rather bland and seemingly repetitive, which I guess you could say is the point because very little of this film is actually presented in a sexy fashion, but in the end what matters is that the content portrayed on the screen is capable of  holding my interest and Nymphomaniac: Vol. 1 was teetering on the edge of being painfully boring.

The particular sequence that did work for me was the portion involving Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her father as he is losing a battle with cancer. I found the ability to associate her desire for pleasure with the urge to mask the pain of losing someone to be very effective and important for the film's narrative, but in the end that one portion wasn't enough to actually elevate the work to anything I would consider good or even remotely memorable. Well, except for seeing the erect penis of Shia LeBeouf. Unfortunately, that cost me at least a few minutes of sleep last night and will likely be something I have trouble forgetting any time soon.

I admire the craft of Lars von Trier and the fact that this film wasn't merely a compilation of debauchery and "shocking" imagery is enough for me to not completely dismiss the work as a whole, but when so many films are able to shake my core and leave me craving more, Nymphomaniac: Vol 1 didn't even register the slightest rattle and I certainly can take my time before sitting down for part two.


2.5/5