Top 10 worst movies 2021

Notes: From all these awful direct-to-VOD garbage Bruce Willis has done towards the end of his career, it was probably one of the worst I have seen so far. Seriously, pretty much nothing worked with the damned thing and my mind was wandering off every 2 mins but I’m pretty sure that I didn’t miss anything important. It was probably the cheapest and weakest story I have seen so far in this genre. I mean, it started with a really pathetic shoot-out, then the bad guys escaped to some farm and one cop (who didn’t have a cellphone to call for back-up for some reason) chased them and, well, it was pretty much it. Indeed, the whole thing was basically some kind of really pathetic cat-and-mouse game between these thugs and this cop who was helped out by a local ‘farmer’ (possibly the least convincing farmer I have ever seen). Another issue was how terrible the cast was this time around, even worse than usual. It was also pretty weird that the 3 ladies involved all had some really botched plastic surgery which was so distracting, probably even more than their abysmal acting abilities. It was even more bewildering to discover afterwards that one of these ladies was actually Donna D'Errico who was barely recognizable (and, frankly, rather ugly) with all this misguided plastic surgery done on her face. Concerning Bruce Willis, well, it is actually difficult to judge his work because you can be sure that the guy was already struggling with aphasia at the time. Basically, even though he seemed to have more screen time than usual, he was barely acting at all and looked confused most of the time which was actually rather heartbreaking to see.

Notes: Even though I have to admit that the title did sound pretty cool, I’m afraid it was the only interesting thing about this flick though. Indeed, unfortunately, as expected, it turned out to be another dreadful direct-to-VOD hack job from Bruce Willis. I mean, sure, it was maybe not the worse of the bunch I have seen so far but it was still a seriously half-baked thriller, that’s for sure. In fact, the worst scenes were probably the ones involving Bruce Willis and Megan Fox. Indeed, these scenes were just so cringe-inducing to behold and you might wonder what was the point of his character at all. Seriously, you could easily remove him and the story would work just the same. Willis basically had only a few scenes which were apparently shot during a single day of work and, yet, the guy was still displayed prominently on all the promotional material but it’s the usual swindle with these features, I’m afraid. Concerning Megan Fox, well, even though she dreads in her interviews the fact that she had been pigeonholed as a sex symbol through her whole career, after watching her in something so worthless when she was obviously displayed as a sex object at least in her first scene, it is actually rather hard to take care her seriously. Concerning Emile Hirsh, sure, he was maybe not as bad as Bruce Willis was but he was still hardly convincing with his pathetic mustache and it’s just sad when you think that he was at some point such a promising actor, especially after the critical success of ‘Into the Wild’ almost 20 years ago.

Notes: It turned out to be one of these movies arguing that raising kids has become such an impossible task nowadays and, to be honest, I always have a hard time to relate with such movies. The fact that I got 3 very easy children to raise doesn’t help I guess. Anyway, in my opinion, raising children is not really about when you should say ‘No’ and when you should say ‘Yes’, it’s actually more about building trust between you and your child. So, you can see I didn’t care much for the whole set-up but, at least, it was nice that it was dealing with a bilingual family, even if they did actually very little with this aspect after all. Still, I have to admit that there was something pretty neat to see these kids calling all the shots for one single day. However, for some reasons, they completely derailed the whole thing during the 3rd act by sending the parents to jail for some rather dubious reasons. Finally, the tone was just so feather light. Indeed, the parents were nice, the kids were nice, there was barely a conflict even at the beginning of the movie and I get that it was probably done on purpose but it would have been more interesting if the characters would have been slightly more complex.

Notes: The damned thing was so weak and it’s too bad because the opening scene actually had some potential. Indeed, I really liked these 2 girls who bonded together and there was something really neat and genuine about their relationship. Unfortunately, it was pretty much the only thing that worked in this movie and, to make things worse, they broke this relationship almost right from the start which was, in my opinion, a huge mistake. It’s not that the concept was really bad (it was still hardly original though), it was more that the whole thing was just so flat and unfunny. Indeed, Melissa McCarthy basically played her typical foul-mouthed (slightly less) fat dim-witted woman, a role which did manage to launch her career at some point, but she has done this gimmick too many times by now and it did outstay its welcome a long time ago already. Concerning Octavia Spencer, she was basically given nothing to do except looking annoyed at McCarthy’s character’s antics so she was pretty much wasted here. Concerning the rest of the cast, Pom Klementieff did have some fun playing a bloodthirsty villain but her character was terribly one-note. Eventually, the only one who managed to do something slightly more interesting was Jason Bateman who played one of the weirdest super-heroes ever but, even in his case, this character was still barely developed whatsoever.

Notes: The interesting thing with Olga Kurylenko is that she always had a rather versatile career, in fact, she actually started her acting career with such French productions. As a result, it was pretty neat to see for her for the 1st time playing in a French movie, even though, it took me so much time to get used to hear her speaking in French (Seriously, I even thought for a while that she had been dubbed). Unfortunately, Kurylenko has also spent at least half of her career showing up in some really weak stuff and this movie was definitely one of those, I’m afraid. Seriously, pretty much nothing worked in this flick. First of all, its title and the presentation they gave at the beginning would make you think that it would be about ‘vigipirate’, the French anti-terrorism policy, but, except the fact it was the job of the main character, it had actually nothing to do with the plot after all. Instead, they gave us a really generic and predictable story about a traumatized soldier becoming a vigilante. Concerning the directing, it was just so flat and uninspired, it was not much better than a really cheap TV movie. And, yet, the main character had some potential and Kurylenko gave a solid performance, even if she looked way too thin for a seasoned and highly trained soldier. Eventually, it’s such a pity that she very often wastes her potential in such lame movies and, even if this movie might not be the worst she has made, it was still really weak.

Notes: I have noticed that it turned out to be a huge flop when it was released (it was even nominated for the Razzie of the worst movie of the year) and, well, I can't say I was surprised as the damned thing turned out to be pretty much an unwatchable mess. Seriously, right from the intro explaining how this concept was supposed to work, I thought it already sounded really half-baked. To make things worse, Sophie Cookson's character repeated exactly the same explanation maybe 30 mins later. Concerning the cast, there were a few decent actors involved but, in my opinion, Mark Wahlberg was completely miscast here though. Indeed, even though he can be certainly entertaining, he was never convincing whatsoever playing a man supposedly suffering from schizophrenia. The fact that he looked ridiculous carrying all the time his samurai sword probably didn’t help either and I wish he did stop delivering wise-*ss oneliners every 2 mins. In fact, I think the concept might have had some potential. Indeed, what if we could remember past lives? The metaphysical implications would be huge. And, indeed, how someone would cope with this? Becoming schizophrenic or mentally ill from all this didn't seem so far-fetched but, instead of digging deeper in what it could mean and the impact it might have on an individual, all these ideas were buried very deep under so much nonsense and so many boring and derivative action scenes.

Notes: Even though the old film legend is still productive, it has been more than a decade since Clint Eastwood really impressed me and I’m afraid this new director effort was probably one of his weakest movies so far. I mean, even though I’m not huge fan of road-trips (I think it’s a lazy gimmick), I really like minimalistic features involving a few characters and I do believe that Rafo was a really interesting character. Unfortunately, well, pretty much nothing else did work in this work though. There was first the issue that the film was filled with some awkward clichés about Mexico and especially the Mexican people. Another big issue with this movie was that the fact there were only 2 characters involved and both actors were just seriously miscast. Indeed, like I mentioned before, even though Rafo was a complex character with a lot of potential, Eduardo Minett was actually really weak though. Concerning Clint Eastwood, sure, he is actually a solid actor but I still think he wasn’t the right choice to play this character. Indeed, even though it’s really cool that Eastwood is making movies focusing on elderly characters (something terribly rare nowadays in spite of the ageing of the Western population), I’m afraid it didn’t work in this case though. Indeed, at more than 90 years old, Eastwood was at least 20 years too old to play this guy. The fact Natalia Traven’s character would fall in love with him, when she is in fact almost 40 years younger than Eastwood, was also ridiculous and even rather pathetic.

Notes: I have to admit that I had never heard of Sion Sono before but, apparently, the guy had a rather prolific career going over almost 30 years. Well, after looking into it, his work seems to be quite intriguing and, indeed, this movie turned out to be weird, daft and even really unhinged. Seriously, it felt like they took some acid when they wrote this movie and it seemed they took some even more while they were shooting the damned thing. I read somewhere from some critic that it was actually his most mainstream(!) movie so far so I can’t imagine how weird his other movies must be. Sure, now, I made it sound as if it was a super cool movie but, unfortunately, even if it was definitely much bolder than the usual cheap action flicks that Cage has been doing during the last 10 years, I’m afraid it was never really interesting or entertaining at all. Basically, this movie was just an unwatchable f*cking mess. The most pathetic thing was probably the suit that Nicolas Cage had to wear and, in fact, if this weird material was the perfect material for Cage to go completely nuts, I thought his performance was rather tame after all. At least, he wasn't really wasted like Sofia Boutella who was given nothing to do at all. Eventually, I did give this movie a few extra points because it was so wild but, to be honest, I just didn’t care at all about the damned thing.

Notes: With its combination of ‘The Terminator’ with ‘Training Day’, the damned thing certainly felt rather derivative but, to be honest, I have to admit that the concept actually had some potential. On top of that, the two main characters were quite charismatic. Unfortunately, even if it wasn’t a total disaster, it still didn’t really work though. Indeed, even if the concept was not bad, the story was just really weak. Afterwards, I came to the conclusion that the whole story was pretty much built up around their wish to hide for as long as possible the fact that Leo was actually a rogue robot. As a result, this tale was just terribly and unnecessarily murky but, eventually, nothing said or happening actually really mattered and this approach completely weakened the story. To make things worse, when the main character finally found out what was actually going on, Leo pretty much disappeared until the final climax which was also rather disappointing. Basically, it was a rather dumb movie with actually a few really neat ideas and they should have dropped all these generic action scenes and, instead, have most of the movie being about the two characters arguing about the meaning of life. It’s such a pity that such movies dealing with superior AI always turn them into some wannabe mass murderers.

Notes: Even though the directing team Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini always had some potential (I especially loved their directorial debut 'American Splendor'), this movie was quite a misfire and I’m not surprised that it received such poor reviews. Basically, it started as a really generic ghost story involving a rather boring couple. Like most movies in this genre, it was some typical slow burn approach with nothing much happening for a while, except for Amanda Seyfried’s character who was anorexic. However, this aspect of her character had actually so very little impact on the rest of the plot that you might wonder why it was even brought up in the first place. And, then, at some point, they started to add pretty much anything they could find and throw it into the mix. Let’s see, we had some really half-baked spiritualism, some ghost, some Ouija session without a Ouija board, a couple of murders, some vague marital issues, anorexia, weed smoking, identity theft, adultery, a con artist becoming a very unlikely serial killer, Saul Goodman’s sidekick and Indiana Jones’s first love interest. Sure, not everything was bad, Amanda Seyfried and James Norton actually delivered some solid performances even if they were both stuck with some rather tedious and poorly written characters. Still, most of this movie was just either poorly developed or simply not interesting at all and the ending was also a pathetic cop-out.