Top 10 worst movies 2020

Notes: I have to admit that it was only afterwards that I realized that this movie was actually directed by Dennis Dugan, a guy who has spent most of his directing career delivering some dreadful movies starring Adam Sandler. Well, even if it wasn’t his worst movie (pretty much nothing can be worst than ‘Jack and Jill’), it wasn’t far from it though. Basically, it was dealing with a whole bunch of romances intertwined with each other. Sure, there is actually nothing wrong with such a generic concept except that, in this case, everything single of one of these little romantic tales turned out to be so half-baked, rather pathetic but, above all, not entertaining whatsoever. Seriously, even though I have to admit that Maggie Grace was actually quite charming in spite of the rather abysmal material, pretty much nothing worked with this movie though. Concerning the cast, I have become unfortunately used to see Diane Keaton showing up in such lame romantic-comedies recently but this movie was probably the worst of the bunch. To make things worse, she was really weak playing some blind woman but I have to admit that she wasn’t helped by the fact that none of the characters involved in this movie was properly developed whatsoever. On the other hand, I was much more surprised to see Jeremy Irons ending up here. Indeed, even if Irons might not have a perfect track record, he always managed to stay away from such drivel, at least, until now.

Notes: To be honest, I think there was in fact a couple of good ideas but most of it was just terribly average at best and some of it was some total garbage. Eventually, the most bewildering thing was why such a generic action flick required a whopping running time of 150 mins?!? Seriously, it was as if they forgot to actually edit the damned thing and put every single shot in the actual movie. As a result, they did end up with a whole bunch of scenes going on for way too long with no actual purpose whatsoever. At least, they could have given us plenty of interesting or fun characters, after all, there was apparently plenty of time for that but, no, there were only 3 characters who were not even developed at all. I almost forgot that there was in fact a 4th character played by Sharlto Copley but his sub-plot was so half-baked and completely useless, I wonder why he was even there at all. Seriously, who was this guy and what did he have to do with the rest of the story? It’s too bad because the concept was not bad, at least, it was not much worse than the concept developed in ‘The Purge’ and this movie did manage to spawn several sequels.

Notes: Seriously, it seems that the makers watched ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ and decided to deliver something even worse. At least, Anna Maria Sieklucka and Michele Morrone were both attractive and had some decent chemistry but, to be honest, they gave some really poor performances. In fact, the whole cast was really weak. The story was even worse though. Indeed, the beginning scenes barely made sense, those were very poorly put together and, obviously, the concept was rather ludicrous. This movie was based on a book and the author was apparently inspired by ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ and it was pretty obvious. Indeed, this movie displayed another really toxic relationship and, yet, according to the makers, it was actually supposed to be romantic. In fact, I don’t think that such a misguided even abusive relationship can’t somehow turn out to be romantic, even if it is rather unlikely. However, in this case, the characters never had a single conversation during which they could at least learn about each other and the main reasons why Laura did finally fall for Massimo was apparently because he had a hot body and because he let her buy pretty much anything she wanted. Concerning the sex scenes, the main reason why this movie made some waves when it was released, sure, there were 2 blowjob scenes that were pretty explicit but the other sex scenes didn’t display anything really shocking, original or interesting. Anyway, even though this movie was apparently a massive success for Netflix, it turned out to be pretty bad.

Notes: Even if Robert Rodriguez has been quite productive since his breakthrough at the beginning of the 90’s, his work has not always been impressive but the worst he has done so far is easily all these tedious kids flicks. Well, this one was not much better, I’m afraid. This time, Rodriguez went for a sequel of ’The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl’, arguably his most obscure movie. At least, I have to admit that it was pretty neat that they managed to bring back Taylor Dooley to play Lavagirl and it's too bad they didn’t manage to bring back Taylor Lautner, that would have been so weird. However, except for these returning characters, there was actually no link whatsoever between the 2 movies. Anyway, the damned thing was just so tedious to behold mainly due to a generic and simply terribly boring plot. To make things worse, you had a whole bunch of children and seriously not a single one of them was able to deliver a decent performance. It was rather painful to watch but, at least, I hope they did have some fun shooting this movie. Eventually, the only positive thing about this flick was that Priyanka Chopra was as usual quite gorgeous to look at and she was actually the only one who managed to make her character believable and mildly entertaining. To be honest, you might wonder what would have happened if, back then, ’Spy Kids’, the first family feature directed by Rodriguez, would have been a flop instead of a box-office hit. As a result, the guy would have spent much more time delivering such movies like ’Sin City’ or ’From Dusk Till Dawn’.

Notes: Well, the (only) interesting with this movie was that, for a very long time, Mel Gibson was ruling the A list and, at some point, Emile Hirsch and Kate Bosworth got close to get there but the fact that they nowadays get involved in such generic and borderline worthless action flicks shows the current bad shape of their respective careers. In fact, with such a title and since it was taking place during a hurricane, I thought it would be a disaster movie but, in fact, it turned out to be some kind of very cheap version of ‘Die Hard’ taking place in Puerto Rico. By the way, you might wonder why the action was taking place in Puerto Rico since all the main characters were actually American. It’s like the hurricane, it had actually so little impact on the generic plot, it could have been actually easily removed. To make the whole thing even more random and half-baked, you had also some stolen Art by the Nazis and also some mysterious beast. Concerning this ‘beast’, it was rather disappointing that it didn’t have more impact on this tale but when it finally showed up for a split second, it actually seemed to only be a rather large dog after all. Concerning the actors involved, I’m afraid Emile Hirsch was not really convincing but Mel Gibson was not much better and gave here a rather weak performance. Eventually, Kate Bosworth was probably the only one who was not bad but she wasn’t helped by this poor material.

Notes: Following the impressive ‘Mudbound’, still probably one of the best movies ever released on Netflix, the expectations were pretty high regarding this follow-up from Dee Rees but, unfortunately, the damned thing turned out to be indeed so disappointing. Seriously, it has been a while since I have seen such a huge pretentious mess. Basically, it started out as a typical political thriller about the US intervention in the various conflicts taking place in Central America during the 80’s but, even if it was nothing really original, it did have some potential. But, then, the main character got involved with some kind of shady weapons deal originated by her own father which was just such a misguided idea, and, from this point, the whole thing just completely spiralled out of control. Indeed, the damned thing became murkier by the minute and, to be honest, it was rather difficult to make sense of what the hell was going on. To make things worse, Anne Hathaway provided one of her weakest performances in years. Of course, you could blame the material but Willem Dafoe still managed to be interesting. On the other hand, this guy would remain spellbinding no matter what they gave him to do. Concerning Ben Affleck, he wasn’t really convincing either but he had the luck that he was playing only a supporting character. Anyway, the damned thing was quite a misfire.

Notes: After ‘Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit’, I’m afraid it was another pathetic attempt from Kenneth Branagh to launch a new franchise. Eventually, by releasing it on their streaming platform, it seems that Disney dodged a bullet because it is pretty obvious that it would have been a major flop if it would have been released theatrically. To be honest, I have to admit that I wasn’t really familiar with the book it was adapted from but, with ‘Thor’, Branagh already tried to make a movie mixing our world with a 2nd fantasy world. However, here, this mix never worked though. I mean, after maybe 20 mins, we finally got to see the fairies world but this first glimpse was just so abrupt, it pretty much came out of nowhere and it felt really awkward. Another issue was that all the kids involved gave some rather weak performances, especially Ferdia Shaw. But, above all, the biggest issue was that I was so bored from the beginning until the very end. Apparently, they did remove the thing that sounded the most intriguing about the books, the fact that Artemis Fowl II was a 12-year-old prodigy who had dedicated his life to criminal activities, leading in the process the Fowl criminal empire. Basically, he was supposed to be a bad guy which did sound pretty cool but this idea was completely cancelled in this adaptation.

Notes: Eventually, it turned out to be a really lazy rip-off of ‘Taken’ and, at this point, I wish such a fine actor would finally do something else. Seriously, except for a nice pay check, I just can’t see what could have been the appeal for Liam Neeson. On top of that, to make things worse, the concept was pretty idiotic this time around. So, the basic idea was that the main character was framed for a murder he didn’t commit (wasn’t it exactly the same plot in ‘Taken 3’?!? Anyway…) but the only way to achieve this goal would be to have the bag guy actually confessing which was/is pretty lame. Of course, you might argue that you shouldn’t watch such movies for their depth but even the action stuff didn’t really impress me. Indeed, I actually saw the trailer at some point and you did get to see a handful of action scenes. However, if you’re expecting some non-stop badass action, well, you’ll be disappointed because what you get to see in the trailer is in fact pretty much everything that actually happened action-wise during the whole thing. Concerning the rest of the cast, they were not bad but they were not helped by the fact that none of their characters was developed whatsoever. It was mostly sad for Kate Walsh who learned that her boyfriend was a master thief, looked shocked and bewildered and then completely switched to support him and love him anyway within a span of 10 mins.

Notes: To be honest, I have to admit that I didn’t remember ‘Trolls’ at all, except that I knew that it didn’t impress me at all, so I have actually no idea if this sequel was actually an improvement or not. Well, I have to admit that there were a couple of surrealist moments which were interesting but we are here talking about 2 or 3 scenes only, everything else was just rather tedious to watch. One thing that really annoyed me though was the fact that, even though the message of this movie was supposedly that all the Trolls from all different music genres should respect each other and be nice to each other, at the end of the day, the bad guys were some hard-rockers which is such a stupid cliché… Seriously, it felt like I was back in the 90’s when heavy metal, hard-rock, and other similar music genres were somehow linked to Satanism. To make things worse, the argument that you shouldn’t expect much from a movie based on a toy, or in this case, a freaking doll, doesn’t work anymore since ‘Barbie’ displayed that you could definitely deliver something at least a little bit entertaining with such material.

Notes: From the 5 movies that Peter Berg has made with Mark Wahlberg so far, even if I haven’t even seen yet ‘Patriots Day’, I’m pretty confident that this flick will be the weakest of the bunch. I mean, the opening scene was decent enough, at least, until the characters involved started a brawl. Seriously, it has been a while since I have seen such an uninspired fight scene and, unfortunately, it was pretty much representative of the quality of the whole movie, I’m afraid. Indeed, even he is definitely not the greatest actor out there, Mark Wahlberg has a decent comic timing and the guy can be entertaining but, with such a generic material, there was not much the guy could do, I’m afraid. Concerning Winston Duke, I won’t blame the guy but their characters barely had any chemistry together. On top of that, to make the main character team up with his roommate - because, well, there was basically no one else available - was rather pathetic. At least, Post Malone was pretty convincing and it would have been neat if they could have managed to expand his part as he only had 2 scenes. Anyway, he was probably the only interesting thing about this movie.