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My Top 10 Least Favourite Movies of 2019
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121
6.2
6.6
Since it's a Luc Besson movie and the plot summary mentioned a woman unlocking her full potential, I was hoping for a slightly less stupid version of Lucy. No such luck! The characters are flat as pancakes, and the story is told out of order for a very cheap reason, but worst of all is its pathetically juvenile view of Cold War-era Russia. This becomes obvious right from the opening scene, which features Soviet officials arresting several people and then mailing their severed heads to the US embassy like they're fucking ISIS! That scene immediately had me thinking, "Oh boy, we're in trouble!"
MaxL's rating:
85
5.1
6.1
Of course I haven't seen the show it's based on, but I hoped this might be a charming kids' movie regardless. While there are a couple of laughs, like the mocking of Dora's habit of breaking the fourth wall, it still embodies many of the worst aspects of children's entertainment, in that it constantly treats the audience like toddlers, boasting overly childish dialogue that often states the obvious, and awful acting to boot. I mean, how did the director go from The Muppets 2011 to this?! Google Play recommends it for nine- to twelve-year-olds. That's a pretty condescending view of kids nearing adolescence!
MaxL's rating:
18
6.3
6.6
The White Crow (2018)
Another one set in the former Soviet Union. :-) But whereas Anna was puerile and imbecilic, this one is just straight-up boring. Every plot summary mentions the protagonist's defection to the West, but that doesn't happen until very near the end. The preceding two hours are an extremely laborious sit because very little of note happens, and the fact that the storytelling is once again nonlinear aggravates this. Anna at least was doing it for the gimmick of constant plot twists, saying, "Here's what was really happening," but this one does it for no discernible reason whatsoever, resulting in a confusing narrative and a tiresome borefest.
MaxL's rating:
61
5.3
5.5
Unicorn Store (2017)
The film is obviously supposed to be an allegory for growing up, and it could have worked if the main character weren't so unbearably annoying! I don't know if she's supposed to have a mental condition or something, but it seems like she really did never mature, like she actually believes the childish fantasies she's seeing, and what's even more painful is how she tries to convince other people. Maybe it could have been salvaged if she were merely discontented and consciously imagining these things as a coping mechanism, but as is, she just comes off as delusional, so I have no sympathy for her.
MaxL's rating:
21
5
4.4
Domino (2019)
This might be the least remarkable film on the list. It starts out as a meagre police movie that ticks several obvious fantasy boxes, so when the plot goes on to include grisly terrorist details, including following a suicide bomber, it doesn't really feel earned. In general, the plot itself is a generic quest for revenge, the few action sequences that pop up are lethargic, and something about the cinematography has a very flat, cheap feel, almost like it was meant to be direct-to-DVD. It's just an overwhelmingly weak movie, and yet another sad disappointment from once great director Brian De Palma.
MaxL's rating:
64
4.2
5.4
Countdown (2019)
It's a horror film about a killer app! Do I even need to say any more? When I saw the trailer, I had the same reaction I believe everyone else did: I thought it sounded abysmally stupid. As it turned out, while certainly bad, it was more or less just another subpar horror film. The writing is uninspired and a lot of the scares are predictably cheap, but it's mostly just too dull to be truly anger-inducing. Even the actors look unenthusiastic – though I can't say I blame them! Of course, the main problem is that it's all serving such an utterly moronic premise.
MaxL's rating:
221
5.3
5.4
This is one of the most torturously unfunny comedies I've seen in a long time. It seems to think its slow pace, deadpan serious delivery and frequent repetition automatically equals humour. Well, it doesn't! The understated performances and total lack of gusto are bothersome, and it gets incredibly tedious hearing the same words or phrases repeated over and over again. It's a movie that's so slow and monotonous that it becomes pure agony to sit through. In fact, the two films are so similar in overall performance that I had to look up if the director, Jim Jarmusch, was also behind Napoleon Dynamite.
MaxL's rating:
16
2.5
3.1
Let's leave aside how disrespectful it is to the true story it's based on. Even as a horror film in its own right, it's still awful. The acting is lame, and the soundtrack is way too overblown, sometimes getting so loud that it drowns the actors out. The constant hallucinations and premonitions that Sharon experiences are most certainly not scary, and the movie relies on them so heavily that they eventually become absurd. But do you know what pissed me off the most? I paid €3.99 to rent it on Google Play, only to discover afterwards that it was on Netflix the whole time!
MaxL's rating:
23
4.6
4.8
The Queen's Corgi (2019)
I hated pretty much everything about this movie. The main character is played by Jack Whitehall, whom I felt was so miscast that I quickly grew to despise his voice. The animation is lacklustre and sometimes pretty shaky, especially regarding the lip movements, which often clearly don't match, as though it were badly dubbed. The script is thoroughly hackneyed, predictable every step of the way, and the jokes are all cheaply written and listlessly delivered. Plus, who thought it was a good idea to include a caricature of Donald Trump and have one of the first things he says be "grab some puppy"?!
MaxL's rating:
161
4.5
5.2
Hellboy (2019)
I mean, wow! I was obviously aware of its overwhelmingly bad reputation, but it turned out to be far worse than I could have anticipated! I could reiterate what everyone else has said about the quality of the script and especially the CGI, but my real issue is how inhospitable it is to new audiences. I haven't read any of the Hellboy comics, and that ended up very much working against me. Every character and element of the story is thrown at you a mile a minute with no regard for setup or explanation. After the prologue, the first scene shifts gears to another subject entirely, and Hellboy himself just appears with no preamble at all. The whole movie is like that: just ceaselessly blindsiding you with a whirlwind of features it seems to expect you to know already, even though this isn't a sequel. Anyone like me, who's not already familiar with Hellboy, is going to be totally lost. For that reason, it was by far the most frustrating and unpleasant movie experience I had all year. It's a shame, because I really want director Neil Marshall to be more successful, but movies like this will likely put him on the express line to infamy.
MaxL's rating:
Well, it's the last day of 2019, and also the last day of the 2010s. Starting tomorrow, we'll enter a new decade, and in my case, since I was born in 1988, it'll be the fifth one my life's encompassed. Five decades, two centuries and even two millennia, even though I'm only thirty-one! :-) Naturally, a lot of people like to reflect on their life experiences at a time like this, both the good and the bad, and for me, that means taking a look back at the movies I've seen during the past year. I've done this pair of lists annually without fail for the past nine years. So let's revisit some of my personal high and low points of film in 2019.
Before we begin, here's a quick reminder of the rules I set for these lists. The movie has to have had a general release in 2019 according to IMDb, so no movies that haven't yet been seen outside of film festivals, and none that were released in another country in an earlier year but not in yours until this one.
So, with that said, how were the movies of 2019 overall? Well… I'm not going to sugarcoat this: 2019 was a terrible year for movies! Though there were a couple of exceptions on both ends, I found it extremely hard to get overly enthusiastic or enraged over almost any movie this year. I don't know if that's more indicative of the year's suite of movies itself or just my position in life, but the whole year seemed very blasé and middle-of-the-road. Not even several of the most highly acclaimed movies impressed me enough to warrant a five-star rating. Other years may have had a higher volume of worse movies, but this year was a particularly drab and uninspiring one.
But like I said, there were some notable exceptions to that mediocrity. And, since I'd prefer to end with the positive, we're going to look at the films at the bottom of the barrel first.
First, I should point out what I feel the need to emphasise every year: I haven't seen everything that came out in 2019. There are a fair few movies that got generally negative reactions that I simply never saw, be it voluntarily or because I had no way to see them. I didn't see the new Shaft, for instance, because I haven't seen either of the first two versions and I didn't want to start with this one. Other examples include Kim Possible, The Fanatic, Annabelle Comes Home, Expo, Mary, I Trapped the Devil, It Chapter Two, 47 Metres Down: Uncaged, and above all, Cats. There are also this year's three live-action remakes that must never be named; I've written a whole essay explaining why I'll never watch those (maxle2000.wordpress.com/2019/01/25/my-movie-blacklist/). So now you know for certain that all the above won't be on my list, and if there are any other movies that you feel should be, they might be absent for the same reason. Either that or I just disliked my final ten picks more.
So, with that said, here are the movies that I'll always remember as the perfect symbol of my disdain for this dismal year, my top ten least favourite movies of 2019.
Runners-up:
The Addams Family
Eye for an Eye (AKA The Poison Rose)
Killers Anonymous
Ma
Men in Black: International
Playmobil: The Movie
Before we begin, here's a quick reminder of the rules I set for these lists. The movie has to have had a general release in 2019 according to IMDb, so no movies that haven't yet been seen outside of film festivals, and none that were released in another country in an earlier year but not in yours until this one.
So, with that said, how were the movies of 2019 overall? Well… I'm not going to sugarcoat this: 2019 was a terrible year for movies! Though there were a couple of exceptions on both ends, I found it extremely hard to get overly enthusiastic or enraged over almost any movie this year. I don't know if that's more indicative of the year's suite of movies itself or just my position in life, but the whole year seemed very blasé and middle-of-the-road. Not even several of the most highly acclaimed movies impressed me enough to warrant a five-star rating. Other years may have had a higher volume of worse movies, but this year was a particularly drab and uninspiring one.
But like I said, there were some notable exceptions to that mediocrity. And, since I'd prefer to end with the positive, we're going to look at the films at the bottom of the barrel first.
First, I should point out what I feel the need to emphasise every year: I haven't seen everything that came out in 2019. There are a fair few movies that got generally negative reactions that I simply never saw, be it voluntarily or because I had no way to see them. I didn't see the new Shaft, for instance, because I haven't seen either of the first two versions and I didn't want to start with this one. Other examples include Kim Possible, The Fanatic, Annabelle Comes Home, Expo, Mary, I Trapped the Devil, It Chapter Two, 47 Metres Down: Uncaged, and above all, Cats. There are also this year's three live-action remakes that must never be named; I've written a whole essay explaining why I'll never watch those (maxle2000.wordpress.com/2019/01/25/my-movie-blacklist/). So now you know for certain that all the above won't be on my list, and if there are any other movies that you feel should be, they might be absent for the same reason. Either that or I just disliked my final ten picks more.
So, with that said, here are the movies that I'll always remember as the perfect symbol of my disdain for this dismal year, my top ten least favourite movies of 2019.
Runners-up:
The Addams Family
Eye for an Eye (AKA The Poison Rose)
Killers Anonymous
Ma
Men in Black: International
Playmobil: The Movie
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