Added by MaxL on 31 Dec 2014 04:07

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My Top 10 Least Favourite Movies of 2014

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Decade: Rating: List Type:

5.2

Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return (2013)

This is an embarrassing attempt to bring Oz into the twenty-first century by making the dialogue and humour exceedingly contemporary. It's such an ill-advised idea that this movie is basically dead on arrival. Not to mention, the songs are bad, and some of the voice acting is terrible: in particular, Bernadette Peters is staggeringly wooden as Glinda. Also, I didn't care much for Oz the Great and Powerful, but the little China Girl in that movie was far better than the China Princess in this one. I just wouldn't recommend showing this to your children; show them the more timeless movies instead.

MaxL's rating:

709

6.8

6.3

Under the Skin (2013)

This movie, right from the first minute, seems like it's trying desperately to be a Stanley Kubrick film, with a very slow pace and a vague, visual-fuelled narrative. But a sci-fi movie of this nature doesn't lend itself well at all to that approach; it really needs to be cohesive. As a result, it leaves tonnes of questions unanswered. Just what is that liquid she traps men in? Who is that guy working with her? Why does she even need men's skins in the first place? None of this is ever explained. It constantly left me thinking, "What the hell is going on?!"

MaxL's rating:

673

5.6

Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

I've made no secret of my utmost disdain for the Transformers sequels and Michael Bay movies in general. I was fully expecting this to top the list before I even saw it, so imagine my surprise when it turned out to be nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. It's still overlong and poorly structured, and the human characters are more annoying than ever before, but at least it wasn't as all-around infuriating as Transformers two and three. Despite learning from a few of its predecessors' mistakes, like reducing the robot cast to only a few clearly distinguishable Autobots, overall it's just plain dull.

MaxL's rating:

223

6.2

Winter's Tale (2014)

This is basically a failed attempt at a modern-day fairytale, and I have a hunch that it's going to become a new classic "so bad it's good" movie. But personally, I was only laughing at it half the time; the rest of the time, I just found the stupidity on display aggravating. As an example of both extremes, I lost it whenever I heard Russell Crowe's ridiculous Irish accent, but when Peter survives for a century without aging, it just leaves you wondering what kind of social life he's had in the meantime. There are just too many outrageously stupid moments to even count.

MaxL's rating:

4.3

4.4

Behaving Badly (2014)

Based on Ric Browde's novel While I'm Dead… Feed the Dog. I haven't read the book, but it must surely be better than this. As the title would imply, a lot of the humour is meant to be dark or distasteful, but the overall direction is so indifferent that there's no wit to it; it just comes across as immature. And some of the concepts are downright cringe-worthy, especially the plotline of the best friend's mother having sex with the teenage protagonist, which is wrong on so many levels! I spent the whole time either cringing or just sitting there in awkward silence.

MaxL's rating:

475

6.4

The Purge: Anarchy (2014)

I hated the original Purge, but thought maybe this sequel could offer some improvement. But that hope was quickly dashed. The whole concept of the Purge is still beyond absurd, so illogical that it beggars belief. Thankfully the characters aren't aggravating morons this time around, but it's the cinematography that really kills this attempt. The camera never stops shaking, everything looks overexposed – it's all simply ugly to look at. Plus the half-assed nature of its satire is exemplified at the end, when it turns into a blatant Hunger Games rip-off. So, while it's not as bad as its predecessor, this still isn't much more watchable.

MaxL's rating:

193

6.2

6.4

A Long Way Down (2014)

Another movie based on a dark comedy novel. But this time, the mistranslation from book to film is plainly noticeable – and distressing. Right from the opening scenes, the movie's joking approach to the characters committing suicide made me distinctly uncomfortable. It's a disastrous failed attempt to be darkly humorous about a very delicate subject. And the rest of the movie that follows is just as awkwardly unfunny. The characters often got on my nerves, but by far the most annoying is Jess: she never shuts up! Basically, it's a movie that shoots itself in the foot right from the start and never recovers.

MaxL's rating:

679

5.9

6.3

Neighbors (2014)

One word: annoying! It's one of those movies where both parties involved in the rivalry are as unlikable as the other, in this case because all they do is shout and scream and be as loud and obnoxious as possible – it's just noise, noise, noise! It's so cacophonous that the painfully unfunny and often sophomoric jokes are almost secondary. I also have to wonder why our leading couple are the only ones in the whole neighbourhood who bother to call the police about the noise. The sheer level of annoyance I got from this movie is really what puts it at the number three spot.

MaxL's rating:

197

3.6

4.2

The Legend of Hercules (2014)

This retelling of the story of Hercules is as clichéd a Moses story as it gets. You can even pinpoint the famous historical epics it's blatantly ripping off, including Ben-Hur, Gladiator and every triumphant "people's hero" leader story you've ever seen before. Plus the CGI is astonishingly bad, the acting is so dull it's downright depressing, and the only one of the famous twelve labours that's even remotely referenced is the Nemean lion; even the Disney version had more to do with the legend than that! In short, this is one of the most boring, derivative movies I've come across in quite a while.

MaxL's rating:

1292

6.4

Lucy (2014)

Straight in at number one from the moment I saw it. God, this movie is stupid! Even the trailer had me laughing because, as yet, I didn't realise the "ten percent of the brain" thing was an actual misconception; I always thought it was just an expression meaning that hardly anyone makes full use of their talents. But now here's a sci-fi movie taking that completely false idea entirely seriously! It's insulting! But even simply as a movie, Lucy lost me very early on, when it keeps cutting between two completely unrelated series of events; the transitions are just jarring. The second half is mostly just unremarkable action fodder, but it's still frustrating because it's serving such an idiotic purpose. I hated this movie! It flat-out fails both in conception and execution, and it gets my vote as the worst movie of the year. Others might have been technically worse in terms of tradecraft, but none were more frustrating to watch.

MaxL's rating:

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Once again, the new year is just around the corner, so it's time to reflect on the movies of the year that's just passed, both the good and the bad. I've done a pair of these lists every year since 2011, so welcome to the first part of my fourth annual movie round-up. :)
Now, bear with me for a moment; I need to set some criteria. Movie release dates are a complicated business, and I have my own idea of what qualifies as a 2014 movie. It simply has to have been released to the general public in the year in question. So any movie that's only seen the light of day at film festivals so far, no matter how big a splash it was, is out. The same rule applies to a movie's release date in a particular country: I judge by the first public audience it reached according to IMDb, so if it was initially released in another country earlier but didn't make it to yours until this year, it doesn't count. It is a pain that that's a two-way street, because some big US releases towards the end of the year won't reach my shores until January and February, so I currently haven't seen movies like Big Hero 6, Into the Woods and Birdman.
Speaking of which, I emphasise this every year, but something else to keep in mind is that this is going purely by movies that I've actually seen. I try my best to see every movie that gets either exceedingly good or bad buzz to see if it'll make either of these end-of-year lists, but there are always some that, for one reason or another, I never get round to. But I'll go into the specifics on that in the individual good and bad lists.
So, without further ado, let's get started. :)

I tend to get the bad news out of the way first so that the good news becomes sort of a reward.
But let me tell you, this was a hard list to narrow down! Truth be told, this was a distinctly underwhelming year for movies. There were practically none whatsoever that I either really loved or really hated; the whole year seemed to be running on indifference nonstop. …Or maybe that was just my own ennui.
And I may not have the utmost authority to make a worst-of list anyway, because I haven't seen many of the reputedly worst movies that came out this year. Like, I haven't seen any of the Tyler Perry movies or The Expendables 3, for instance. There's also Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, the remakes of Endless Love and Annie, Dracula Untold, A Haunted House 2, Mrs Brown's Boys, As Above, So Below and Uwe Boll's Rampage: Capital Punishment, among others I'm sure I'm forgetting. But the big one is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; I never watched Ninja Turtles myself – I didn't grow up with it – and I certainly didn't want this piece of shit (as I'm sure it is) to be my first exposure to the franchise.
But anyway, from what I have seen, these are my picks for the top ten worst movies of 2014.

Runners-up:
Divergent
I, Frankenstein
Into the Storm
Need for Speed
The Quiet Ones
Rio 2