Isaac Feldberg’s 15 Worst Movies Of 2014

2) Men, Women & Children

Want to see Adam Sandler masturbate for 119 minutes? Didn’t think so. Given that, you’d be well-advised to avoid Men, Women & Children, as would all of us. Even when separated from that repellent storyline, though, Jason Reitman’s latest film is his worst by a considerable margin, a screechy sermon about the dangers of the Internet age that even the Parents Television Council would find excessive.

Taking a page out of Crash‘s book, Men, Women & Children attempts to teach moral lessons by charting the various ways in which the Internet has corrupted and corroded relationships between parents and their kids. What a pity that Reitman, once a refreshingly honest voice in cinema, turns what could have been an insightful look at how we live now into a shrill, alarmist piece of anti-technology propaganda. His movie is a cock-up of Titanic proportions, never pointing out anything that wasn’t blindingly obvious to begin with.

Narratively, Men, Women & Children is an eyesore, shifting uncertainly between various characters without much idea of what to do with any of them. Thematically, it’s even worse, superficially concluding that the Internet has doomed us to a life of dissatisfaction and disconnect. In addressing our times, Reitman refuses to roll with them. As a result, his film feels dated and desultory, like a feature-length finger-wagging delivered by some right-wing hack.