The Top 10 Worst Movies of 2019

It is time for my one of my last lists for 2019! Overall, this year has been quite exceptional for movies. I saw a lot more films than I've seen in past years, and I liked a lot more this year than I disliked. There were still some real low points, though, and I really have to talk about them. Here is my personal list of the Top 10 Worst Movies of 2019!

Dishonorable Mentions: "Aladdin", "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile", "Eli", "Velvet Buzzsaw"

10. Pet Sematary

You could call this year "The Year of Stephen King Adaptations", and I wouldn't disagree with you. The amount of King films this year was insane, from some of the biggest like "It: Chapter 2" to some smaller films like "Doctor Sleep". I had a range of reactions on the adaptations, but in my opinion the worst of them was "Pet Sematary". To be absolutely fair, this book is one of King's hardest to adapt in my opinion. The novel is a truly bizarre, atmospheric experience that I think probably works best in its textual form rather than on screen. I am not even a big fan of the book, to be honest, so I was totally fine when I heard that this movie took some serious liberties with the text. What we got here, though, was really underwhelming. This film has some potential in the beginning, but quickly goes the way of quite the generic horror film. There's just not a whole lot of interesting stuff going on here, with only the well-trained cat providing some intrigue. The acting is stiff and awkward in many places, especially from Jason Clarke. He really doesn't fit the role he was given at all. And, while I was open to the movie changing some things around with the text, some of the changes made here were real head scratchers. This is especially true of the totally different ending, which is more cheesy than it is chilling. I don't really hate this film, but it stood out to me for the rest of 2019 as one of the biggest misses of the year. The trailer marketed the film as incredibly scary, and what we got was considerably run of the mill.

9. Brightburn

Talk about SERIOUSLY wasted potential. Everything about this movie's concept was awesome to me: a horror superhero movie, where the very idea of Superman as a force for good was turned on its head. It sounded like it should've worked. After watching it, it was very clear to me that the movie was trying to coast by on its cool concept alone. A concept can only take a story so far, and this one falls flat on its face pretty quickly. What makes this a little more disappointing is the fact that the James Gunn and his brothers worked on this film, so I was really anticipating something that could be clever and even a little bit fun. The movie actually starts decently enough, but once it falls, it falls hard. We hardly ever see Brandon Beyer (aka evil Clark Kent) before he becomes evil. His turn to corruption is almost immediate, which is a real disappointment. There's no real character development for him at all. Elizabeth Banks is stuck in a rather thankless role as Brandon's mother. She is in constant denial that her child is a murderer, even though there's clear evidence he is. Her character is frustratingly idiotic, and the same goes for David Denman as the father; he may be even more insufferable. Pile all this on top of a pointless gorefest, and you've got a pretty weak film. I was expecting to enjoy this, and the exact opposite occurred.

8. The Dead Don't Die

This movie is rife with many problems. The first is that it wastes its incredibly talented cast on a rather weak script. Every character in this movie has the same deadpan manner of speaking, no matter whether they're a police officer or a literal samurai (I'm not joking, there's a samurai in the movie, and no it's not as cool as it should be). It really does seem like almost no one is trying in this movie, or maybe it's just the characters that are dull. I think it's supposed to be funny that no character is invested in what is going on, but what it actually does is make the audience also lose any sense of interest in what is happening. Every character here feels like a caricature or stereotype. Some characters didn't even need to be here at all. What honestly did cast members like Selena Gomez, Steve Buscemi, or RZA bring to the table? Heck, even the oddball chemistry between Bill Murray and Adam Driver started to lose me as the film went on. The ending of the movie is what set me over the edge, as it broke the fourth wall for no reason, and it the zombies were symbolic of something else. It was all very eye-rolling. I'd skip this one if I were you.

7. Glass

Coming hot off his best film since "Unbreakable", I was expecting M. Night Shymalan's latest movie "Glass" to have at least somewhat good quality. I will admit, though, I went into the film with caution considering Shymalan's highly inconsistent track record. Unfortunately, "Glass" ends off a trilogy of movies with a pretentious whimper rather than a bang. What makes it hurt a little more is all the main cast members are pretty solid in their respectable roles (except for Bruce Willis, who was really phoning it in as he has done for some time now). All of the biggest problems here really come down to Shymalan's writing and directing. Directing-wise, Shymalan did not really take full advantage of his contained space. There was hardly ever a time when all three main characters were together. That was what I was looking forward to this film having, and it was quite a blow that it rarely happened. Anytime they are together, they're not even really talking to one another. Either they're fighting, or they're talking to Sarah Paulson's insufferable exposition machine character Dr. Staple. The movie often looks flat and boring, not typical of even the worst of M. Night's movies. The writing is what hurts this film more than anything, though. This movie wants to let you know in every moment that it's a real-life superhero flick. But, because of how determined it is to constantly espouse its cleverness, it comes across as pretentious rather than interesting. The writing is so on the nose it's annoying. Elijah Price in particular has some awful lines where he's basically telling the audience what part of the typical comic book plot they are "subverting". It's not a subversion if you're still telling the same type of comic book story. This film should've been great, and instead it was my biggest disappointment of the year.

6. Unicorn Store

I promise that I like Brie Larson as an actress a lot. I think she has obvious talent, and is one of the most promising young actresses working right now. It's unfortunate that both movies she was in this year I wasn't huge fans of. "Unicorn Store" was Larson's directorial debut, and unfortunately, it was easy to tell. This film is pretty cringe worthy to get through. There were several places in the movie where I just wanted to stop watching, but I kept going for some reason. The beginning of the movie seems like it's setting up an intriguing world that's maybe a more exaggerated version of ours, but it doesn't ever dedicate fully to doing that for the rest of the film. Instead, we're stuck with Kit, who is stuck in a childlike state and refuses to grow up or accept adult responsibilities. In some ways, I could sympathize with her plight; it can be hard to grow up. But, the thing is, we all have to some time, and her character simply never changes throughout the movie. There's an attempt at forced development near the end of the movie, but it's too little too late. Mamoudou Athie as Vigil is the only remotely likeable character in the movie, and he's not nearly enough to offset all the annoying characters here, including Kit's awful parents. This movie seems like it's trying to appeal to literally all audience types, but because of that it ends up appealing to no one. Hopefully Larson's next effort will be a little better.

5. The Laundromat

This movie is absolutely perplexing to me in all that it attempts- and fails- to do. At the center of the movie should be something compelling: a story of a widow who realizes that an insurance company has deceived her, and then her discovering just how deep the corruption goes. I think a story about the corrupt side of capitalist America is pretty relevant to today. But the movie just utterly fails in the way it tries to tell this story. For one, director Steven Soderbergh tries to make an anthology film of sorts, where there are multiple stories that show insurance fraud in different ways. I think that the film suffered from being about multiple stories rather than just one. None of the stories ever have a chance to truly take off. There is one interesting story where an Asian family poisons a man who they no longer need for their own insurance scams, but it ends too quickly. Most of the talented cast here is put in places where they woefully do not work. The worst of these is Gary Oldman playing the corrupt Russian insurance businessman Jurgen. His accent was so clearly fake, and a lot of the times it looked like Oldman had no idea what to do acting wise. That's the marking of a bad director. Antonio Banderas fairs a little better as Jurgen's associate Ramon, but still isn't given a whole lot to do. Meryl Streep is basically phoning in her performance here, barely even trying. But who can blame her when her character is as interestingly written as a pile of rocks? The ending of this movie sent my eyes rolling right up to the ceiling with how preachy and holier-than-thou it tries to be. Any potential message is lost in this disasterpiece.

4. Dumbo

I thought that maybe Tim Burton could do right by "Dumbo" with his remake, but I was so very wrong. Like I mentioned in my full review, I should've remembered that Burton also greatly butchered "Alice in Wonderland" in the early years of Disney's remakes. The things that work about this film are very few and far between. In fact, I only really like Dumbo because he's cute, and Danny DeVito at least puts some passion into his performance. Everything else about this movie is a mess. The original "Dumbo" is only about an hour long, so why this one tried to extend that run time and cram so much in is beyond me. Did we really need a sub plot about a corporate executive bringing Dumbo into his amusement park? What's even more amazing about that is that Disney doesn't realize their own hypocrisy in making this type of character a villain. I also just didn't find myself caring about the circus losing business, or about Colin Farell's character trying to find a place in the circus again. Almost all of the actors here are barely even trying, Farell (unfortunately) included. The child actors are the worst offenders, both being so wooden and boring. I don't think they're entirely in the fault, as their lines are horribly written. This movie tries to bring critiques to the circus, but at the same time makes its main circus act sympathetic. This movie is just another in a long line of miserable, unnecessary Disney remakes.

3. The Lion King

Of course this Disney remake was also going to make my list. How could it not? Besides "Beauty and the Beast", this is the remake that has offended me the most so far. For as bad as "Dumbo" is, at least Tim Burton tried some new things. This movie feels like director Jon Favreau copied off someone's better homework (that being the original "Lion King"), made a crappier version, and claimed it as his own. Literally everything about this film screams pure laziness. The animation is picturesque, sure. But, does it really help that all the animals here have an uncanny valley feel to them? All of them verge between looking realistic yet not realistic enough. That makes every animal here hard to attach to when their mouth and physical movements look animatronic rather than organic. Because of the animation, it's hard for any of the voice actors to passionately emote. It would be awkward to do so with the stilted animal movements. Even those who try to bring more emotion don't work out, with the slight exceptions of Chiwetel Ejiofor and James Earl Jones. Most of the voice actors here sound like they're phoning it in, both when they are acting and when they are singing. This is especially true of Donald Glover and Beyonce Knowles. It's really bad when your two main characters sound like they don't care. Everything is lifeless here, and iconic scenes from the original are insultingly hollow shells in this film. Audiences claim they don't want remakes, and yet whenever something like this releases, it makes an overwhelming amount of money. This clearly tells Disney that this is what audiences want. I did not invest money to watch this movie, and I don't want to support anymore Disney remakes. This should not exist.

2. Dark Phoenix

This has got to be one of the absolute worst superhero movies I've ever seen. It's right up there with the likes of "Batman vs. Superman" and "Suicide Squad". Perhaps it's even worse that both of those films in some ways. What really hurts this movie so much is how completely, utterly boring it is. Superhero films are supposed to be exciting, adventurous, otherworldly. This film has practically nothing like that. You can even tell that the cast doesn't care. Even normally great actors like James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender look like they took a huge dose of sleep pills before going on set. No character here is interesting, least of all the titular character. I feel so bad for Sophie Turner. She's had two characters this year ruined by incompetent directors/writers. The way the movie establishes Jean Grey is so weak. She's not a remotely compelling character. Similarly to "Brightburn", we don't get to truly know this character before she gets her powers. That makes it hard to sympathize with her. Almost anytime she's on screen, she is attacking people, which makes it hard to even try to feel any type of empathy for her plight. Charles Xavier is practically a villain in this movie with some of the idiotic things he does. Aren't we supposed to like this character? This film seems to want us to feel for him, but it's hard to considering the choices he makes. The only good part of this movie is the climactic train fight, but that can't save what is overall one of the most insufferable movie experiences I've had in recent memory.

1. The Haunting of Sharon Tate

And yet, for as bad as "Dark Phoenix" was, "The Haunting of Sharon Tate" was SO much worse. There are only two films I've ever given 0.5/5 stars. This is one of them. That should tell you how much I loathe this movie; it's easily one of the worst movies of the 2010s. It's grossly exploitative. The movie is using a real-life tragedy to get an audience invested in this garbage pile of a film, and it has absolutely nothing to say in exploiting this tragedy. There are points in the film where it tries to be "deep" by bringing up questions of fate and destiny, but these questions are only asked and never really explored. The movie wants you to think it's deep because it's asking questions, but if you're not gonna do anything with them, then it's a clear cop-out. The acting in this film is ATROCIOUS. I mainly blame the director, because everyone is bad here. That usually means the director did not give anyone good direction. Hilary Duff is the worst here, trying to put on the accent that Tate had. But her accent is so inconsistent. Either she should've just used her normal voice, or she should've practiced more on the accent. Everyone else here is quite bad as well, especially Tyler Johnson's awful portrayal of Tex Watson. This movie fails on every level. Cinematically, the movie is so lazy. There are a lot of shots that are just handheld and gave me a headache because of how shaky the camera was. The same establishing shots are used repeatedly, including a particularly bad one of an out-of-focus moon. The ending ten minutes of the movie are some of the worst pieces of film I've ever seen, as it's all filler with nothing of value to say. Apparently this director is coming out with a film about the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson next year. It's disgusting how he's using real tragedies to try and make his films seem more interesting than they actually are. Screw this film; it's not even a fascinating type of bad.

There you have it: those were my personal Top 10 Worst Movies of 2019. There are still two more lists on the way. Next up will be my the Top 20 Albums of 2019!