I've written before on this blog that I don't generally write "Worst of" lists because I go out of my way not to watch or pay attention to the media that ends up on "Worst of" lists. I'm not a professional, and am not obligated to subject myself to the horrors of "The Exorcist: Believer" and "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3." However, there's been some debate this year about the utility of "Worst of" lists, and I find I'm firmly on the side of those who are for their existence. Our working critics deserve to have a release valve if nothing else, and these lists can be a fun way to criticize the wider failings of Hollywood.
Still, I don't feel qualified to write this kind of list because I just plain haven't seen very many of the usual suspects. So, this attempt will be my yearly April Fools post. It's a few months until I can finalize my "Best of" list for movies, but I'm pretty much done seeing all the mainstream releases. I'm limiting my picks to five this time out, to avoid making this too long. Minor spoilers ahead.
And now, without further ado, let's get mean.
"The Sound of Freedom" - So, remember when a serial grifter named Tim Ballard managed to make himself the subject of a biopic that portrayed him as some kind of badass, righteous crusader against child trafficking in South America? And the film made millions through a shady pay-it-forward ticketing scheme and relentless fearmongering marketing among religious communities? And now Ballard is being sued into oblivion for multiple claims of sexual assault and grooming? Yeah, and the movie's terrible too.
"Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" - I'm not mad at the MCU. I'm just very disappointed. It was incredibly frustrating to hear that the people in charge of the film thought they'd made a crowd pleaser, and it was only when the reviews and reactions rolled in that they realized how much trouble they were in. If you want to pick a point when the MCU really started to fall apart, it was "Quantumania" spending the whole movie enthusiastically showing us all of these things that nobody had any interest in seeing whatsoever. It's a talking slime! And MODOK! And… Bill Murray?
"Magic Mike's Last Dance" - This was a straight to streaming project that was given a theatrical release at the eleventh hour, and it shows. I think we've found Steven Soderbergh's worst movie, friends, and it's not pretty. Channing Tatum and Salma Hayek-Pinault are certainly easy on the eyes, but they're obliged to go through the motions of a truly tedious "putting on a show" narrative and avoid being in an actual relationship. The other dancers are kept in the background. Instead, we have a precocious teenager narrating the whole story for some reason, who makes no sense even being in this film.
"Rebel Moon: A Child of Fire" - So, doing the "Seven Samurai" plot in a "Star Wars" -ish science fantasy setting sounds like a lot of fun. And it was! When Roger Corman and Jimmy Murakami made "Battle Beyond the Stars" in 1980! Zack Snyder's attempt is, alas, far, far worse. Everything looks gorgeous, but the writing is abysmal. The whole thing is built on tropes borrowed from other sci-fi media. Everyone's self-serious and glum, with only Ed Skrien showing a few signs of life as the villain. I'm going to watch the forthcoming second installment of "Rebel Moon" purely out of spite, so I can continue to mock it with the voracity it deserves.
"Freelance" - Has Pierre Morel gotten any better behind the camera since the last time I saw one of his movies in 2012? No, he has not. I don't understand how you have actors as charming as John Cena and Alison Brie in an action comedy together, and nothing about it works. There was a lot of hate thrown at "Ghosted" this year, but "Freelance" was so much worse. It's not funny or romantic or even exciting to watch. How on earth do you make Brie grating and Cena boring? And I you just know that Alice Eve and Christian Slater are hoping nobody notices that they're in this movie.
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