Like so many years, 2014 had a couple good movies…and a lot of really terrible ones.
Here now, in no particular order, are the worst movies of 2014.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
While the Tom Clancy movies have conclusively proved the law of diminishing returns, they always managed to be exciting and engaging. Until now. Dull in almost every conceivable way, this one had an uninspired story and flaccid action. Heck, even star Chris Pine doesn’t like it; in this interview with moviefone.com, he admitted, “That’s one of my deep regrets, that we didn’t totally get that right.” And while his co-star Keira Knightly was lovely and likeable in this, she would be lovely and likeable if you put her in a burlap sack and made her just stare blankly at a TV.
Robocop
If Gus Van Sant’s version of Psycho drove any point home, it’s that there’s no point in doing a remake of a beloved movie if you’re not going to put your own spin on it. Clearly, this is a lesson not learned by the people behind this Robocop remake, who could’ve made a cool new movie with the character if they hadn’t felt so beholden to the original. Or if they had cast someone more interesting in the title role.
Non-Stop
As a middle-aged man who has trouble opening jars of spaghetti sauce, I love that Liam Neeson is such an ass kicker these days. But he seemed like he was more interested in resting on his ass in this one, as did his co-star Julianne Moore, another actor you can usually count on. Their lack of enthusiasm must’ve been infectious, since I didn’t even make it to the movie’s half-way mark before I got bored and bailed.
Veronica Mars
This one really stung. While I loved the original TV show, and still love star Kristen Bell, this movie just pissed me off to no end. While it has the same snappy dialog as the show, Ms. Mars does something in the movie that may have been acceptable when she was a high school kid — y’know, like she was on the show — but it didn’t ring true in the movie, now that she’s older. And it’s hard to like a movie when the titular character is such a disappointment.
SCORE:
Blu-ray/DVD: 2.0/10 (Full review here)
The Amazing Spider-man 2
While I’ve not been a big fan of any of the live action Spider-Man movies, and don’t like Jamie Foxx’s smugness, I held hope for this one, mostly because I like Andrew Garfield as Spidey, really like Emma Stone as Mary Jane (even if they do call her Gwen Stacey for some reason), and I really Garfield and Stone together. But man, was this bad. Dull, convoluted, and way too long, this is easily the worst Spidey movie yet.
SCORE:
Blu-ray/DVD: 3.0/10 (Full review here)
Transformers: Age Of Extinction
I didn’t watch Transformers when I was a kid, but I’ve enjoyed the earlier movies for their hot robot-on-robot action. But while this has the usual horrible hallmarks —a convoluted story, the uninteresting characters — where this blew it for me was in the uninteresting action and the fact that it dragged more than a truck with two flat back tires. Yes, you read that right: I was disappointed by a Transformers movie.
Muppets Most Wanted
It took me nine months to finally see this movie, and while I was thinking that was lame of me before I saw it, now that I have, I think it’s this movie that’s the lame one. While the previous one was charming, hilarious, and full of life, this one was blah, unfunny, and lifeless. How do you make an unfunny movie with Ricky Gervais, Tine Fey, and Kermit The Frog? Apparently you start by having Miss Piggy sing “Macarena.”
Transcendence
Just how bad was this rip-off of The Lawnmower Man? So bad that I blocked it out of my memory — and thus forgot to put it on this list originally — until I saw a news story about how it was nominated for a Razzie. Not only was this movie nothing we haven’t seen a million times before, but it’s also something we’ve seen a lot better before. Seriously, the slo-mo was so bad that people laughed out loud at it. I’m glad someone had a good time watching this, ’cuz I sure didnÆt.
SCORE: 4.0 (Full review here)
So, what do you think were the worst movies of 2014? Let me know in the comments below.
