Ten Worst Films of 2015

It is time to start talking about the best and worst films of 2015, to look back at what entertained us and enraged us. However I always like to end on a high note, so for that reason I am deciding to publish the list of the worst films of the year before ending with a celebration of the best. I’d much rather leave the year feeling as if I have recommended ten films that I consider excellent rather than having to think about the monstrosities again.

Before I get into the actual countdown, I have a few dishonourable mentions. For me the year’s biggest disappointment may have been Blomkamp’s ‘Chappie’. ‘Big Game’ also stands as one of the worst, maybe its badness is intentional but I don’t buy it. In the trend of poor teen dystopia movies I can add both ‘Insurgent’ and ‘Maze Runner: Scorch Trials’ to the list and finally one must not forget Adam Sandler’s ‘The Ridiculous 6’ which is quite possibly the worst film of the year, but at least they had the decency to not release it in cinemas so it lands here instead. But now on to the worst of the worst.

10: Jupiter Ascending

 Few wanted this film to succeed more than me. To everyone that complains about a lack or original blockbusters in Hollywood, this film is why there is a lack of original blockbusters in Hollywood. The Wachowski’s space opera is ludicrous in every way, from its plot, design, characters and acting. Far from being the action heroine of a generation, Jupiter Jones spends the entire film being saved by Channing Tatum, rarely thinking for herself and being utterly useless. The fact that another certain space opera with a strong female lead was dominating the year only makes things worse.

9: Poltergeist

 In the realm of utterly pointless remakes, this one stands as one of the most shameful and most inane of them all. The original ‘Poltergeist’ is still an amazing film (take that from me because I watched it immediately after watching this one) and this remake does not add anything new to the story in any way. There are still ghosts in a suburban setting, there are still creepy clown dolls, there is still a child pressing her hands against a TV and saying ‘They’re here’. It’s the same, but worse.

8: Taken 3

 It may not be a remake, but Taken 3 is an equally pointless endeavour in filmmaking. Although, I say it isn’t a remake, but it does borrow its plot from ‘The Fugitive’ and its logic from ‘The Naked Gun’. The directing may be the worst I’ve witnessed this year, it may be news to the director of ‘Taken 3’ (I can’t be bothered to look up his name) that shaking your camera and making your scenes incomprehensible does not make good action, I don’t care what you learned at Michael Bay’s school of action movies.

7: Mortdecai

 The least entertaining and least humorous movie of the year, I honestly laughed more while watching ‘Sicario’ than I did while watching this. It represents a definite low point in Johnny Depp’s career (pray that ‘Black Mass’ leads to better things). But despite that, the most disturbing thing about this is that there are 6 films that are actually worse than this.

6: Terminator 5

 I refuse to call it by the title it was given by the studio. Perhaps the worst thing about this film is that for a while it tricked us into thinking it was decent, that first trailer looked promising, James Cameron gave his seal of approval to the film… and then we saw that second trailer, which is practically seeing the film anyway. The fact that this was advertised as the sequel/reboot to two of the best action films of all time only makes its uninspired, nonsensical and dreary nature even more painful.

5: Pan

 Sucking the magic and joy out of Peter Pan is a difficult task (for all of the faults in ‘Hook’ it was undeniably fun) but this ludicrous retelling manages to be idiotic and boring at the same time. The acting is atrocious, the design is dull beyond belief and nothing is unique or imaginative in any way. You probably didn’t see it, in which case you were very, very lucky.

4: Fant4stic

 The first 40 minutes of ‘Fant4stic’ is actually fairly decent. But from then on it becomes an utter disaster. Whether it was the studio interference, the tumultuous production or budgetary issues virtually nothing from this film felt original. It resembled a checklist for a studio desperate to start a franchise, sewn together from remnants of what may have been a decent film. Rest assured, one day there will be a movie about the making of this movie.

3: Accidental Love

 Speaking of a movie cobbled together out of dismembered body parts, what was once a David O Russel satire somehow mutated into this monstrosity of moviemaking. Wilfully unintelligent and unfunny as well as completely without meaning, ‘Accidental Love’ is the worst kind of romantic comedy that even manages to lack the sentimental schmaltz that makes them mildly appealing.  

2: Pixels

 In a parallel universe, where Adam Sandler never became a terrible comedian, this was an enjoyable summer blockbuster. But unfortunately we live in this universe, where Sandler’s tired clichés, idiotic humour and terrible plot permeate this film that tries to appeal to retro gamers, yet contains jokes that a five year old would call immature.

1: 50 Shades of Grey

 It is not just the film that is bad, but everything leading up to the inception of the terrible novel it is based upon to the production of the horrific movie seems destined to infuriate me. The fact that it started as ‘Twilight’ fanfiction, before having the characters names and locations changed to become an awful book full of grammatical errors and appalling writing that somehow became one of the bestselling books of all time, the fact that it was then turned into a hideous film that starred a relative of someone who once worked with Alfred Hitchcock (that’s too close a relation for how terrible this film is to anything Hitchcock made) and how that film made $570 million, stealing the profits of Matthew Vaughn's ‘Kingsmen’ in the process and was over two hours long, that is what annoys me. As well as the fact that this film is utter garbage. It represent everything that is wrong with modern cinema, jumping on whatever popular trend regardless of how good it is and not bothering to put any effort into it anyway. There is no excuse for how dreadful this movie is, not in a year where the fifth film in the ‘Mission: Impossible’ franchise was amazing, a year where bestselling books like ‘The Martian’ were adapted into brilliant films, a year where Quentin Tarantino still made an effort to deliver fantastic results and JJ Abrams used more than just the 'Star Wars' name to achieve greatness. We can do better than this vomit inducing, boring, terribly acted, horrifically scripted, sequel establishing, generally appalling piece of crap.

So what are your least favourite films of the year, leave a comment below, thanks for a great year and be sure to come back soon for the best of the year list.