Hey everyone, Jack Drees here! It is time to talk s*it about s*itty movies! Now that I have done my top 10 BEST movies of 2018, it’s time to count down my top 10 WORST movies of 2018. In complete honesty, the movies this year have been fantastic for the most part. The number of positive verdicts I had this year were high compared to the negative. So while I will say my list this year definitely has some stinkers, it’s nowhere near as awful as last year. Speaking of opinions, this is a reminder that this is my countdown, therefore everything on this post is strictly my opinion. I am not trying to tell anyone that these are the OBJECTIVELY WORST movies of the year. Art does not work that way. If you like a film on here, that’s cool. Also, I have not seen every single film to have come out in 2018, meaning certain notable titles like “Fifty Shades Freed,” “Mile 22,” or “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” do not appear on the list. Speaking of which, like the last couple of years I have seen a new “Sharknado” movie, but another rule that applies here is that the movie has to be theatrically released, otherwise it does not qualify to make the list. That means certain films like “Zoe” (straight to Prime Video), “The Cloverfield Paradox” (straight to Netflix), and of course, “The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time” (straight to Syfy) do not qualify for this list. Before we count down my ten worst of the year, I am going to announce three dishonorable mentions that were quite bad, but they are the kind of bad that makes them slightly more watchable than the ten movies below them.
Dishonorable Mention: Peppermint
The first dishonorable mention spot goes to “Peppermint.” There are some decent qualities about “Peppermint.” Jennifer Garner is a decent action star at times, I liked some of the editing, and there were one or two laughable lines. But overall, “Peppermint” was kind of disposable and something I wouldn’t really want to watch again in the near future.
Dishonorable Mention: I Feel Pretty
My second dishonorable mention is “I Feel Pretty.” I know it’s kind of “cool” to hate Amy Schumer right now, but the reality is, when it comes to this movie, Amy Schumer is not the main part I hate. I’m not saying she was the best part, but still. I hated the way her character was written, but given her material, she did what she could with her character despite how much I hated said character. Plus, this movie’s overall message, the notion that people can be beautiful just the way they are, is a good message. But sadly, from my viewpoint, based on the movie’s script, that message is SHATTERED.
Dishonorable Mention: The Grinch
And finally for dishonorable mentions, we have “The Grinch.” This is a terrible animation which despite Benedict Cumberbatch’s decent voiceover performance and some stunning visuals, turned me into a green, vile being. Kenan Thompson’s character made me cringe, some of the writing didn’t make sense, and honestly, that narrator DID NOT WORK. I know it’s a narrator, to some people it might be weird to bring up a narrator as a problem in a movie, but the voice just didn’t come off the way I would have preferred.
Without any more dilly-dallying, let’s talk some s*it about certain movies that are in fact, the opposite of the s*it. These are my top 10 WORST movies of 2018.
#10: The 15:17 To Paris
Coming in at #10 is “The 15:17 To Paris!” Clint Eastwood came out with a couple of films this year. He released this one and “The Mule.” I actually just saw “The Mule” and it was, alright, I guess. Disappointing, but alright. This movie? Don’t even bother, it’s basically unwatchable. I will admit, from an experimental point of view, it was kind of cool to see a visual story of a few men reenacting a significant event from their lives. But the reality is that we have “actors” for a reason. Plus, if you consider what this movie is, a majority of it almost makes it feel like a road trip movie. Granted, this movie mainly involves intercontinental travel as opposed to cross-country travel, but I almost felt more like I was experiencing an European tour as opposed to a story. I’ve been talking quite a bit to my family recently, and they seem to LOVE Clint Eastwood. I would love to sit down with them one day in perhaps my living room and we all watch this movie together to see if anyone changes their mind. Eastwood, you’re a household name, but this was a seriously mediocre year for you! Just stating the facts.
#9: Adrift
Some of my favorite movies of all time tell their stories in a way that stays away from the word “conventional.” This movie however tells its story in a less than conventional way that just makes me question the filmmakers, studios, and everyone who actually thought this was a good movie. “Adrift” can go to hell! I’m a sucker for non-linear storytelling, where everything comes together in the end. But what whackjob actually thought constantly going back and forth between the main couple’s story would make the movie better? I didn’t care for anything, anyone, at anytime. There are certain movies out there that feel like puzzles, and puzzles can be fun sometimes. When you finish a puzzle, that can give you some sort of sense of accomplishment. But this is like going through a puzzle of a clear sky during the day. Literally everything is the same color and it’s just plain irritating! I’ll be honest and say that I have never walked out of a movie, but if movies were like puzzles, this is probably a movie I’d eventually give up on. This movie had some alright marketing, I was somewhat sold, but the final product was truly abominable, as explained here in this countdown.
#8: Pacific Rim: Uprising
This entry on my list might just be not only one of the worst movies I’ve seen this year, but also one of the most disappointing movies too. I’m talking about “Pacific Rim: Uprising.” I enjoyed the first “Pacific Rim.” I find it to almost be a throwaway movie, but at the same time, it’s better than most of “Transformers” movies that Michael Bay has put out, which if anything, is nothing short of a compliment. “Pacific Rim: Uprising” on the other hand is a letdown! John Boyega himself performed well in the movie, but his character just had nothing for me to write home about. I mean, he wasn’t even the worst character there! That obsessive fangirl got on my nerves REAL fast, and I just couldn’t stop wanting to eliminate her from society. I was curious to see a “Pacific Rim” sequel, but in reality this turned out to be “Independence Day: Resurgence” all over again. This movie takes place YEARS after the first one, lacks the characters we’ve gotten from the first one, and might as well just exist to continue a franchise. It just feels really uninspired and just a reason to grab some cash. Oh and Charlie Day! HOLY F*CK I forgot about Charlie Day. I won’t go into spoilers, but his character in this film is like watching Doc Brown from “Back To the Future” in the most poorly written of remakes! But to avoid being a complete Negative Nancy, there were some neat battle sequences and some nice shots at times. But in all seriousness, avoid “Pacific Rim: Uprising.” Watch the first one though.
#7: Second Act
From STX Entertainment comes their latest film, “Jennifer Lopez Is a Showoff.” That’s not the actual title of the movie, but it might as well be my personal nickname title for “Second Act.” “Second Act” is about a girl who is not that educated, she has more street smarts than book smarts, but she wants to show Madison Ave in New York City that she’s the f*cking boss. And in reality, the movie felt like an abusive boss at times. I went to see this movie with a friend of mine and we basically talked about it on the way home just in ways that simply associate with trashing it. Leah Remini is in the movie and I like her because she’s in “King of Queens” and that’s one of my preferred sitcoms. But that’s like saying Kate McKinnon, who I happen to like from “Saturday Night Live,” is in the 2016 “Ghostbusters” film. Good actress, terrible movie, boom! Mediocre combo. On the bright side, I didn’t even owe the theater a cent for this film! I saw this at an early screening, so I didn’t have to pay up! Jennifer Lopez cannot be bought as her character, her outfits sometimes are questionable, and the comedy in this film either goes one or two ways. It’s either crap everyone’s seen before, or it’s just plain stupid!
#6: Gringo
On Amazon’s quest against Disney, Apple, Google, Walmart, McDonald’s, Netflix, Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Comcast, all of the big corporations out there, their mission to take over the world and make all of the consumers out there their slaves, did they ever think distributing “Gringo” was the best way to keep this quest going? I sure hope not, because 1, Amazon’s growth in society is kinda scary, and 2, “Gringo” is just terrible! “Gringo” stars David Oyelowo, who played Martin Luther King for crying out loud, and while I wouldn’t say his performance here was abysmal, it’s just cringeworthy realizing you have this talented actor in a position like this. That’s not the only talented actor here, because Charlize Theron was admittedly, great at playing a character I absolutely hated, but I can also look at this movie saying, “Oh, s*it, Charlize Theron’s in here.” To me, “Gringo” just felt like an excuse for Joel and Nash Edgerton to work together and to give each other some attention. Joel stars in the movie while Nash is directing, and I must say it’s nice to see family members come together on a project. But I have a sister and if I’m making a movie, she’s begging to be in it, and I agree to let her be in it perhaps playing the starring role or something, not only would that be nepotism, but let’s say I’m a thousand times more well known then her in the film industry, people would automatically question my casting choice! I mean, I’m not saying no family members can work on a professionally made or widely released movie together. Just look at what the Francos did with “The Disaster Artist!” Also, this won’t be the last you hear of me talking about family members or a couple of people that have some sort of relation to each other working on a project together on this list. Just you wait…
#5: Venom
Spider-Man is my favorite superhero of all time. He is such a relatable character and totally has some great movies which he happens to appear. Now Sony wants to cash in on the name without exactly using Spider-Man and it f*cking sucked! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you “Venom.” I’m not joking with you when I say this is not only one of the worst comic book movies of the year, but it makes a comic book movie like “Batman & Robin” almost look watchable. At least that movie was cheesy fun. This piece of crap? I felt it wasn’t dark enough. OK, well, lighting-wise and when it comes to costume design, sure, it’s pretty dark, but I’m talking about the vibe. This movie should have been rated R. Maybe it didn’t need as much language as “Deadpool,” but it certainly needs more blood! This movie is essentially about a guy who merges together with a monster who has a desire to eat tons of people. Let us see more of the action! Don’t cut away from the good stuff! I don’t care about how many children are watching, the fact is this movie would have been a quality product had it been R rated. But no, let’s make it corporate. Let’s just make it a cash cow. Let’s make this thing as studio-oriented as possible, with little to no passion whatsoever. I still remember when I saw this in theaters when I was staying in New York. When the movie ended, I heard everybody applauding and I just turned into the snobby critic in the room. I basically did a Peter Griffin impression saying, “That sucked.” Also, seriously? This movie made more money than “Spider-Verse” on its first weekend? Are you kidding me?
#4: Uncle Drew
Hey guys, you want a Pepsi? How about a Gatorade? Maybe some Tropicana juice? After seeing “Uncle Drew,” I’ve nearly decided that I’m giving all mine up. I saw “Uncle Drew” on one of the first shows on its opening Friday, and having seen this movie, it made me realize how long I’ve been hiding under a rock. I like basketball, but I don’t follow sports as much as I did as a youngster, and when I saw the movie, I purely saw it because I had time to kill. Unfortunately, time seemingly killed ME in the process. Going into this mess, I had no idea that this was an intellectual property that already exists! I had no idea that this was based on a web-series, but somehow it is, and seeing this movie only made me want to avoid the web-series. The Shaq wasn’t even funny in “Uncle Drew.” My gosh. Remember “Grown-Ups 2?” Not many people would consider that a quality movie, but at least the Shaq was pretty cool in it. But seriously though, guys, watch “Uncle Drew” and I dare you to tell me that it’s not a commercial for Pepsi, just go do it and report back to me telling me it’s not a Pepsi ad.
#3: Gotti
Coming in at this next spot is “Gotti,” starring the classically trained actor, John Travolta. Why the f*ck do I watch his movies after what he did in “Battlefield Earth?” This film is about the life of John Gotti, a crime boss who was a very… very much talked about man. What do I remember from this film? Well nothing good to be completely honest. I will give some kudos to this film however because there is an argument to be made that this is one of those movies to watch with your friends and poke fun at it. After a short amount of time of being on my screen, I wanted to get into “Mystery Science Theater” mode. How bad is this movie you ask? Well guess what? When it started, a part of me thought I was watching Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room.” Granted, in terms of production value, this movie exceeds “The Room.” But in all seriousness, I heard “Gotti” was terrible before watching it, and I heard the same about “The Room” before I watched that, but in terms of establishing shots, “Gotti” doesn’t blow into full-fledged carbon copy mode, but it did remind me of Tommy Wiseau’s disasterpiece. Even the music choices are a thing of beauty. One music choice during an action scene made me compare an attempt at murder to a lively party. If you have Prime Video, this movie is probably free for you at the time this list goes up, but brace for either hilarity, cringe, creeps, boredom, or perhaps some combination of those things.
#2: The Hurricane Heist
If you thought “Sharknado” was bad, let me just keep it simple with “The Hurricane Heist,” it’s not any better. What the hell did I watch?! This movie was directed by Rob Cohen, and he is relatively known for directing other movies that either have huge followings, fall into the guilty pleasure category, but this movie didn’t even fall into one of those categories! It fell into category -10, because ya know, it ended up on my top 10 worst list! This wasn’t even fun, it was just boring. The characters were bland, the writing was stale, the directing had nothing to write home about, and even the ADR was seemingly cringeworthy! When you market your movie saying it is from the director of “The Fast and the Furious,” and with the song “Rock You Like a Hurricane,” is it wrong to expect some corny, stupid fun? Also, Toby Kebbell is in this film and I am starting to get worried about his track record. He has done “Fant4stic,” “Warcraft,” the “Ben-Hur” remake, “Wrath of the Titans,” and now this! Then again, he’s also in the newer “Planet of the Apes” films and many people seem to like those. I didn’t expect Shakespeare material from “The Hurricane Heist,” but can we at least get fun material? Is that too much to ask for?
#1: Life of the Party
And finally, #1! They say that a story is only as good as its villain. We have now arrived to the ultimate antagonist of the list! I don’t go to parties all that often, and I will point out, I am not a party person. I’m probably not even the most fun person on the planet, but in a world where movies are people, this movie is the ultimate party pooper. Melissa McCarthy? Ben Falcone? F*ck y’all! My worst movie of 2018 is “Life of the Party.” One recent trend that I have been doing for the past few years is that I would go see a movie on Mother’s Day. Sadly, all of those movies have been nothing but hot trash! The trend continues here and it sucks! Melissa McCarthy and her husband, Ben Falcone work on yet another movie together and while I have not seen Ben Falcone’s other movies that he directed, I have been given another reason to continuously avoid checking them out. 2018 may have been the one of the best years for comedy I’ve personally been through, but this abomination stood out as that, well, abomination. Melissa McCarthy plays the cliche mother who tries to be goofy, but really comes off as one of the most corny individuals of all time! This feels more like a bad episode of a situation comedy on ABC as opposed to something that is trying to be a movie. Some of the scenes between the mother and daughter were awkward, the characters were uninteresting, almost none of the comedy landed for me. I distinctly remember one scene from my theatrical experience on Mother’s Day where I was hearing everyone react to what was happening on screen either with shock, laughter, or faint applause. I already checked out. I legit did not care about anyone in the film and throughout my experience I wanted to die. The fact that this flick even got made is probably funnier than what happens in “Life of the Party” as a comedy. Aside from that, the movie is cliche, both predictable and unpredictable in the worst possible ways, and overall the movie just made me feel dumber as I walked out of it. And HOLY CRAP! I almost forgot! Christina Aguilera plays herself in this film, and it might just be the ALL TIME WORST occurrence of someone playing him or herself, that I’ve ever seen. NOTE: I have not seen Adam Sandler’s “Jack and Jill.” This is a spoiler, and you know what? I don’t care, this movie ruined my brain, so I might as well ruin it. As mentioned, Christina Aguilera is in the film, and she happens to be a cousin to one of the more prominent characters. I knew this movie was dumb, but at no point did I think it would be, nor did I ask for, a complete eradication of my own brain cells! Also, just a fun fact, when I saw “Ghostbusters” in 2016 that actually made my worst movie of the year when I saw it. That was a couple years ago. McCarthy has done public work in 2017, but none of it involved theatrically released movies. Out of the three years I’ve done these countdowns, Melissa McCarthy has now been in TWO of the #1 worst films of the year! Congratulations! You won the award! …For making me feel like I wasted hours of my life multiple times! And apparently, Maya Rudolph was in this too, making this HER second time being attached to the worst movie of the year on here, with the first one being last year’s “The Emoji Movie.” Don’t see “Life of the Party,” and if you do, I AM SORRY FOR YOU, and I hope you somehow liked it better than I did. But for me, “Life of the Party” is my worst movie of 2018.
Thanks for reading this countdown! You guys are now aware of my very objective and totally not at all opinionated list! I want to thank you all for coming along with me on an epic journey through 2018 in film, and I hope 2019 goes well for you as it does for me! I will say, I’ve got a ton of big plans for this year, including my own awards ceremony, more reviews, from old movies to new movies, I’m going to be going to Hollywood this year, and since that is a movie-oriented city, maybe I’ll do a post related to it. I’ve got plans to do an update on my Blu-ray collection. I can’t guarantee it, but there’s a good chance I’ll do a series of “Star Wars” movie reviews sometime this year. Maybe I’ll continue to be that crazy IMAX guy, who knows? But I gotta be real. Part of me is gonna miss 2018. Sure, I won’t miss the continuation of Trump being in office. Sure, I won’t miss a couple of my local Sears stores going out of business. Sure, and I know a lot of people value education, but truth be told, I will not miss high school (or at least certain parts of it). But this was seriously a good year. Despite what I said about high school, I actually graduated this year. My favorite game show of all time, “Deal or No Deal” is now airing new episodes on CNBC. I went to New York Comic Con for the first time. Speaking of which, this year I went to New York City for the first time! Also, this year, as far as film goes, possibly might be the best I’ve experienced all decade. I saw a lot of movies, not to mention a lot of good movies! But it’s time to forget 2018 and move onto 2019! Let’s grab this year by the balls and make something good out of it! Happy new year everyone, and let’s make it a fun one! Be sure to follow Scene Before either with a WordPress account or email so you can stay tuned for more great content! I want to know, what are your worst movies of 2018? Do you have a countdown? A select few? Just one you want to point out? Do you agree with my picks? Do you disagree? But let’s be real, what is the Internet without a little disagreement? Feel free to share your honest thoughts! Scene Before is your click to the flicks!
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