Top 10 Worst Movies of 2013

In the past, I've forgone the standard "Worst of the Year" list in favor of a list of the "Worst Movies I Didn't See" in that given year (2010, 2011, 2012 can be found at the links). I switched gears this year, partly because I saw more movies this year than I have recently and thus saw some of the stinkers that would have propagated that list previously and partly because it feels kind of wrong destroying movies that I didn't see. I don't know, it was always a fun piece to write so maybe I'll go back to it in the future, but for now, I'm going to roll with the typical "Worst 10 Movies of 2013" instead. I got my eyes on quite a few more bad movies this year than I have in years past (that last statement should be read while the sad buzzer from The Price is Right plays in the background) so I had PLENTY of movies to choose from for a worst-of list. Please enjoy and feel free to leave your own worst in the comment section.

Dishonorable Mention: 

Movie 43 (Box Office Total: $8.8M Rotten Tomatoes Score: 4%)

It is a point of pride that I finish any movie I start and this especially pertains to any movie I see in a theater. In the first 29 years of my life, I was UNBEATEN when it comes to walking into a theater and finishing the film, no matter what. Then Movie 43 came along and wrecked my perfect streak. Now, I went to see it strictly because I knew it was terrible and I thought it might be fun to write a "10 Movies That Are Actually Worse than Movie 43 ", only that turned out to be an impossible list to put together. I left 20 minutes in. It is the most disgusting, foul, vomit-inducing "movie" I've ever had the misfortune of encountering. It is probably the worst movie ever made. But since I couldn't finish it, I don't feel like I can definitively pass the judgment on it it so rightly deserves. To make a "worst-of" list without including it, however, would be a significant misstep. So here it sits.

(Two other movies I couldn't complete this year: Upsteam Colors had great potential and I can see why it made numerous Top 10 lists this year but it is just sooooo overwhelmingly "artsy" that I just lost my desire to stick with it. At times it made Terrence Malick look like Michael Bay. I also bailed out on the documentary Salinger because, despite centering on one of the most interesting subjects in the world (reclusive author JD Salinger), no film in recent memory has had less to say or been more boring in saying it.

10. The Counselor (Box Office Total: $16.9M Rotten Tomatoes Score: 34%)

I don't think any movie on this list had more going FOR it coming in than The Counselor did. I was legitimately excited about it in the months leading up to its release. Great cast (Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt), great director (Ridley Scott), great writer (Cormac McCarthy). Unfortunately, McCarthy's DENSE, novel-esque, and pointless script completely railroaded everything else in the movie and the result is one of the most verbose, beat you over the head with wordiness movies EVER. A complete waste of time.

9. On the Road (Box Office Total: $720K Rotten Tomatoes Score: 44%)

I'm not a fan of the works of the Beat generation, especially the literature and poetry (so basically, the music is good and that's where it ends), so this wasn't really up my alley. Even still, I can appreciate a good film that isn't geared toward me if it is, in fact, good. On the Road most assuredly is not. It took me three days to get through a two hour movie and if I hadn't watched it over Staycation when I literally had nothing else to do, I would've quit.

8. G.I. Joe: Retaliation (Box Office Total: $122M Rotten Tomatoes Score: 28%)

The BEST thing about 2009's G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra is that it was so bad that it wouldn't warrant a sequel. And then they made a sequel. And then they delayed the sequel so that they could convert it to 3D. This is an all-around bad movie. Not even The Rock can make it watchable. It is a slight improvement on the first film, though, so maybe by the time G.I. Joe 23: This Time Duke is Really Dead reaches us in 2037, it'll be a decent movie.

7. R.I.P.D. (Box Office Total: $33.6M Rotten Tomatoes Score: 13%)

There are a lot of movies on this list that fit the bill of, "Does not need to exist" but R.I.P.D. takes the cake. It feels like a movie that's been sitting on the studio's shelf since 2005 and clearly the entire pitch was just, "We're going to make Men in Black but with ghosts instead of aliens." It's awful, it's needless, and it wastes Jeff Bridges, a crime against all humanity.

6. Carrie (Box Office Total: $35.2M Rotten Tomatoes Score: 49%)

Okay, maybe this one challenges R.I.P.D. for the title of the movie that least needs to exist. I'm not a big fan of horror movies because I find that they are either A.) not scary and therefore incredibly dumb or B.) terrifying and therefore cause me to not sleep. Carrie fell into the first category, a scare-less, spine-less, needless remake rife with awful acting and miserable scare tactics. Just go watch the original.

5. A Good Day to Die Hard (Box Office Total: $67.3M Rotten Tomatoes Score: 14%)

For the record, I don't mind the other Die Hard sequels. None of them come close to touching the greatness of the first one (best action movie of all-time) but for the most part, they're decent enough. This one is not "decent enough." It is tired and lifeless but worst of all, it takes John McClane, an American movie character icon, out of his natural environment and send him off to fight Russians in Chernobyl. Just a terrible idea.

4. Kick A** 2 (Box Office Total: $28.7M Rotten Tomatoes Score: 29%)

There are obviously three films from 2013 that I felt were worse than this one. However, I don't hate any of them as much as I hate this one. And I mean that. I actively, and on a daily basis, hate this movie. The popular trend this summer was to bash on films for their depiction of "destruction porn", that being the total annihilation of a city with no regard to the loss of human life that these scenes would result in. I guess I kind of get that except that I never heard those same critics complain about this movie which contains more mean-spirited, wanton disrespect for human life than any other movie this year. Hate, hate, HATE.

3. Now Your See Me (Box Office Total: $117M Rotten Tomatoes Score: 50%)

I've not seen Now You See Me on any other "Worst Of" lists this year and I guess I get that. If you completely turn your brain off and pay absolutely no attention to the RELENTLESS FORCE of plot holes that drive the entire thing, you could be convinced that this is a decent movie. This is precisely why Now You See Me ranks so high on my list. Rather than actually making an honest effort to make a decent movie, the whole of Now You See Me is designed to fool the audience into thinking it is a decent movie. It is wit-less, ambition-less, and painful to watch if you're paying ANY attention. I will, however, tell everyone to see it so that we can all talk about how terrible it is. So, there's your homework.

2. The Host (Box Office Total: $26.6M Rotten Tomatoes Score: 8%)

I have no idea if the novel this movie is based on is any good. I'm leaning towards "no" because Stephanie Meyer, of course, also wrote the Twilight books which also made for historically bad films. We've found the common denominator. Regardless, as a "film", there are few (ever) that I found to be less boring and more unbearable than The Host. Have you ever read a 500 page book that could've been boiled down to a 12 page short story? That's The Host in a nutshell. There is no character progression or plot development, it just drifts from one scene to the next and before long you start to realize it's just the same thing happening over and over again. Once upon a time, Andrew Niccol wrote and directed an excellent sci-fi film called Gattaca and ever since then he's done more and more to make it quite clear that this was just luck rather than skill. Terrible, terrible movie.

1. The Lone Ranger (Box Office Total: $89.3M Rotten Tomatoes Score: 31%)

Where to begin with The Lone Ranger? The plot is needlessly dense. The runtime is excruciatingly long (a full hour needs to be cut out AT THE VERY LEAST). Most of Johnny Depp's dialogue is worthless. The Lone Ranger himself is played as a complete moron rather than a brave hero. The villains are cliche. The plot device through which the entire film is framed (an ancient Johnny Depp explaining the myth of the Lone Ranger to a kid) is painful and unnecessary. Is that enough? Because I could keep going.

Even with all of this, without taking into consideration things such as budget, scale, and opportunity, there were probably worse movies this year than The Lone Ranger. Not many of them, mind you, but they probably exist. Adding in those factors, however, jumps this movie up a number of levels on the Bad Movie Spectrum. Disney spent $215 million on this movie, slated it for the vaunted July Fourth opening day, and pushed it HARD for the better part of 15 months. What they should have gotten with this film is a tentpole blockbuster, an exciting spectacle that people talk about all summer and tell their friends to go see. Instead, director Gore Verbinski and his increasingly obnoxious muse (Depp) took that money, flushed it down a sewer, lazily stumbled through a TWO AND A HALF HOUR film and topped it off with an expensive, "eye-catching" train sequence that felt like the only scene in the film that anyone put any effort into. The Lone Ranger is a failure on every level but moreover, it is a complete waste of opportunity on an EPIC scale.

Well, those are my picks. What movie am I leaving out?

Review A Good Day to Die Hard

Like every other breathing human male in the world, I love the original Die Hard. 25 years and four sequels after its debut, it is still the greatest action movie of all time and in my opinion it’s laughable to even debate this declaration. But somewhere in that time period, the essence of Die Hard and more importantly the essence of John McClane have been lost. In the immortal words of Michael Scott, “…John McClane was just this normal guy. He’s just this normal New York City cop who gets his feet cut and gets beat up. He’s an everyday guy. In Die Hard 4 he is jumping a motorcycle into a helicopter…in the air. He’s invincible. It just sort of lost what Die Hard was. It’s not Terminator.” If Michael Scott could see A Good Day to Die Hard, he’d probably start retooling Threat Level Midnight into Die Hard 6 immediately because it might just get the big screen treatment. A Good Day to Die Hard begins with John McClane (Bruce Willis) in search of his prodigal son, Jack (Jai Courtney). McClane tracks Jack down on the eve of his trial for a murder in Russia and immediately heads overseas to provide any help he can. What he doesn’t realize, however, is that Jack is actually a CIA operative and soon father and son are caught up in an explosions-filled trek across Moscow in an effort to protect Russian businessman Yuri Komarov (Sebastian Koch) and the secret file he keeps. Shenanigans ensue.

I am 95% confident that A Good Day to Die Hard did not start out as a Die Hard movie. It reeks of a script written to be a throwaway action movie that was ill-fittingly converted into a Die Hard movie in order to (hopefully) get it streamlined into production. Perhaps this assumption is just my naïve hope bleeding through into this review as it pains me to believe that someone actually wrote this movie with John McClane in mind. Regardless, among its many sins, the biggest issue with A Good Day to Die Hard is in its inexplicable and callous disregard for everything that John McClane has stood for over the last 25 years. McClane is a regular Joe, a man with a handgun who happened to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and whose greatest moves came in his use of packing tape and a sharpie. He is brash but not cocky, funny but not silly, and hard but not unbreakable. You could see the transition from anti-hero to superhero in 2007’s Live Free or Die Hard but I think the core idea at the heart of that film was the clash between old school and new school, a subject that suited McClane well. This movie is a horse of an incredibly different and unappealing color.

A Good Day to Die Hard holds nothing in common with any of the previous Die Hard films other than the title and the name of the leading character. It is rife with epic, explosive violence that serves to fill the holes leftover by the paper-thin plot and bland dialogue and while I enjoy a good action movie as much if not more than the next guy, this one seems to be cobbled together with the spare parts leftover from a myriad of mediocre 90s movies. I half-expected Wesley Snipes to pop up at some point. It’s a bad script by Skip Woods (the genius behind Wolverine) and the direction of John Moore (of Max Payne fame) is abysmal. Moore seems to have no control over what anyone is doing on screen, least of all Willis, and his dramatic timing is nonexistent. Moreover, neither of these men  have any idea of what the Die Hard franchise is supposed to be. In fact, the company that cut the trailer for this film displayed a much greater understanding of the mythology of this series than those actually involved in the making of the film. Maybe those guys should be given a crack at the sixth installment.

For their parts, Willis isn’t awful in his role, though he’s definitely in this for the paycheck more than the legacy, and Courtney isn’t a bad companion to McClane. And if none of this had anything to do with Die Hard, if it could be looked at as a Mission: Impossible knock-off instead of an extension of a tremendous film, I might concede that it has enough enjoyable parts as to remain at least watchable if not entirely worthwhile. But since the studio behind this film decided to drag the Die Hard name through the mud, then I find it necessary to point out that A Good Day to Die Hard is big, dumb, loud, and faceless, all adjectives that the real John McClane would never stand for.

A Good Day to Die Hard Director: John Moore Cast: Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Sebastian Koch Rated: R (language, violence) Recommended For: Fans of big, dumb, loud, faceless action movies, 14+

Top Ten Most Anticipated Movies of 2013 - Part I

This will be, I believe, my fifth year writing this column. It’s one that I look forward to writing (twice) each year and one that I hope some of you, my dear readers, get at least a little something out of. If you’re a longtime fan of The Soap Box Office, you know that two years ago I started breaking this column up into two parts, one (the likes of which you are about to read) to cover January through June and one to cover the back half of the year, allowing me to highlight a few more films and protecting me from having to judge a late-November movie I haven’t even seen a poster for yet. As always, it should be noted that this is far from a science. I avoid bad movies like a champ but it can, of course, be difficult to peg a stinker six months out (see: the prominent place of Green Lantern in 2011 and the unfortunate miss on Taken 2). Also, let me say right now that the front half of 2013 looks like a real kick in the pants. Now, the back half…that’s a solid six months for film! But this section…not the best. So read on at your own peril. Honorable Mention – The Great Gatsby (May 10) – Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carrie Mulligan I really, really, really want to like The Great Gatsby. It’s one of my favorite books and DiCaprio is one of my favorite actors in the business, not to mention that the trailers forecast it to be a beautiful film. But man, I am just not a fan of Baz Luhrmann’s style. This leaves me quite wary of the finished product.

10. 42 (April 12) – Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford, Kelley Jakle It is SHOCKING to me that it’s taken over 60 years to get a legit, modern biopic for Jackie Robinson. I’m not entirely sold that 42 is going to be the landmark film that a hero like Robinson really deserves; it looks entirely too much like The Express for my tastes. Even still, it’s a tremendous story that needs to be told and I’m digging Ford’s involvement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hww-Xxbud0

9. A Good Day to Die Hard (February 15) – Bruce Willis, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jai Courtney Look, I know I shouldn’t be excited about the fifth entry in a series that probably should have stopped after the first one. But what can I say? I need more John McClaine in my life. Die Hard is the greatest action movie of all time and while none of the sequels have measured up, I have a healthy appreciation for all of them, especially Live Free or Die Hard, which I find to be incredibly rewatchable. At the end of the day, Bruce Willis in his element is never a bad thing, even when it isn’t a GREAT thing.

8. Warm Bodies (February 1) – Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, John Malkovich For the last I don’t know how many years, I have repeatedly made it clear that I am not the sort of nerd who goes in for all this zombie stuff. And yet, I now find myself deeply enthralled with The Walking Dead, defending the literary integrity of World War Z in the face of a movie adaptation I already loathe, and putting a blasted zombie rom-com on my “anticipated” list. I guess I’ve changed. Warm Bodies looks BRILLIANT to me and its pedigree (written and directed by Jonathan Levine of 50/50 fame) is superb.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07s-cNFffDM

7. Monsters University (June 21) – Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi Two years ago, there’s a very good chance that Monsters University would have topped this list. Monsters Inc. is one of my favorite Pixar films and if you know of my affinity for Pixar you know that that is really saying something. But with the near-travesty that was Cars 2 and the good-not-Pixar-great turn by Brave, I find myself much more leery of the studio than I ever thought I would be. That said, decent Pixar is still better than almost any other animated film so, of course, I’m still on board.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYTE2_W2O00

6. Fast and Furious 6 (May 24) – Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, The Rock You know what’s awesome, almost in spite of itself? Fast Five. I have probably watched all or parts of Fast Five two dozen times over the last 18 months and I am 100% not ashamed to admit it. Okay, maybe 90% not ashamed. Seriously, though, I love this franchise and it seems to me that everyone involved, from Diesel and Walker on to director Justin Lin and writer Chris Morgan are just now hitting their stride on how to make this series work. I can’t wait. I. CANNOT. Wait.

5. Oblivion (April 19) – Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko I had this movie flip-flopped originally with Fast Six but a viewing of the trailer in a theater today changed the order. I'm fully intrigued now. I don’t fully understand what’s happening in the first trailer for Oblivion and I think that’s part of why it’s so exciting. Is Morgan Freeman an alien or some sort of survivor from our species that was, assumedly, sort-of wiped out? Either way, I’m excited! And, as the leader of the “Movie Bloggers Who Love Tom Cruise” coalition, the prospect of Cruise in his first sci-fi turn in 8 years is exciting!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmIIgE7eSak

4. Gangster Squad (January 11) – Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Emma Stone Obviously the reasons why Gangster Squad was bumped from the fall to January are awful. But if they were going to move it, it was awful nice of the studio to give it to us early in the year when it will be surrounded by absolutely nothing worth seeing, providing a nice little stop over to get us through to the warmer months. The more times I watch this trailer, the more I become convinced that, regardless of how the overall movie turns out, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are both going to be INCREDIBLE in their roles. Also, I don’t know when exactly Gosling became one of my Hollywood favorites but I now look forward to his films sight unseen just because of his involvement.

3. Iron Man 3 (May 3) – Robert Downey Jr., Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley This is the mark at which 2013 stars to get itself in gear. Like most fans of this series, I was disappointed that Jon Favreau left the director’s chair empty instead of finishing at least a trilogy with a strong final chapter (though, if memory serves, RDJ will be back for a fourth film). Marvel wasted no time in replacing him, though, with Shane Black, who collaborated with RDJ on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a seriously underrated film that put its star back on the map. I am truly excited about seeing them work together again and the additions to the cast are fantastic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBhYULqQsdM

2. Man of Steel (June 14) – Henry Cavill, Michael Shannon, Kevin Coster, Russell Crowe The fact that Man of Steel finds such a prominent place on this list is a testament to the ability of anyone and everyone involved with this film’s marketing campaign. Truth be told, Superman bores me to tears. I’ve never really and truly enjoyed any of the previous films and teaming director Zack Snyder with a relatively unknown Brit in the cape was not the best way to pique my interest. But the trailers, posters, etc. for Man of Steel have been otherworldly-great, bringing about a sort of giddy anticipation that I never would have expected a year ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMLX2ddR874

1. Star Trek Into Darkness (May 17) – Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch 2009’s Star Trek was one of my favorites of the year (in a very strong year I might add) and since then, it has become one of my favorites, period. It is constantly in my home viewing rotation. This sequel has the potential to be better, maybe even significantly better. As I noted when the trailer first arrived, it definitely has a different, much grander tone than the first film, which makes me nervous. But if JJ Abrams (in whom I place great trust) can pull it together, Star Trek Into Darkness could be a landmark sort of sci-fi blockbuster and could FINALLY make Benedict Cumberbatch a household name on these shores.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WzJXmY2xrg