The Worst Movies Of 2015 (So Far…)

Last week, us WGTC critics counted off some of our favorite films of 2015 so far, but all in all, it hasn't been a terrific first half of the year. Avengers: Age of Ultron arrived as a bloated, messy sequel with far less charm than the first MCU phase-capper, talented sci-fi filmmakers like the Wachowskis and Neill Blomkamp delivered some of their worst work to date in Jupiter Ascending and Chappie, Johnny Depp eliminates any residual good-will in Mortdecai, and strong actors like Tom Hardy and Jonah Hill ended up mired in slogfests Child 44 and True Story. It's been a depressing season for cinephiles punctuated by some occasional pleasant surprises. But amid all the mediocre-to-bad entries from Hollywood so far this year, there were some titles that triumphed above all else to cement their place on the list of the year's worst, most atrocious and irredeemable films. So, on that note, here's the worst of the worst, the Razzie frontrunners, the crap of the crop. Find picks from WGTC critics Sam Woolf, Isaac Feldberg and Matt Donato below, followed by our personal worst-of lists, and feel free to count off your personal lists below. Sam Woolf: Unfinished Business 2015 has been an anemic year for comedies, especially considering how many of the duds have been non-sequels. While there’s very little you could point to as being original in Unfinished Business, the cast alone should have made for a serviceably bawdy business trip comedy (think The Hangover in slacks). Instead, what we got was a string of derivatively smutty set-pieces and Xeroxed “ain’t Europe weird?!” gags. But it’s the treacly sentimentally of Unfinished Business that’s more disgusting than any of the body fluids on display. The film desperately wants you buy into the big softie hiding underneath its lifeless, joyless exterior. Unfinished Business is like a boorish, aging fraternity brother who wastes time and oxygen trying to convince you, “No, really, I’m a good guy.” File it under NSFW: Not Safe for Watching. Isaac Feldberg: Get Hard It’s hard to think of a more abhorrent comedy in recent years than this noxious, ugly, outdated piece of trash, which follows a racist businessman (Will Ferrell) who recruits the only black guy (Kevin Hart) he knows to give him ‘prison lessons’ so that he can avoid being raped while on the inside serving time for embezzlement. It’s also hard to know where to start criticizing it, because absolutely everything in Get Hard is shockingly awful, from the gay-panic humor to the bland and lazy direction (by Etan Cohen, who thankfully hasn’t found another helming gig since). Ferrell and Hart never conjure any sort of chemistry on screen, simply inhabiting poorly staged scenes and sleepwalking through lines so unfunny that the film almost works better as a self-satire. They’re victims here, trapped by a thoroughly horrible film, but they’re also guilty of not looking at the script they were given. Had they done so, they would have realized the entire flick is built on a nauseating foundation of racism and homophobia, poisoning the movie from first frame to last. In 2015, it’s downright shocking that a movie as despicable as Get Hard got made. It lands with a splat in a country more attuned to the horrors of racial inequality and sexual discrimination than ever, like that hateful old relative who sits in the corner at family gatherings, the only one still laughing at the denigration of others. Matt Donato: Hot Tub Time Machine 2 Hot Tub Time Machine came as a surprise to everyone. Could a movie with such an asinine plot seriously work? With the help of punchy 80s comedy and some serious laughs, John Cusack and company scored a stellar comedic hit. But lighting striking twice on the same ridiculous concept? I can't say I'm surprised by the sequel's utter failure. Hot Tub Time Machine 2 is basically one long-running dick joke, whether characters are saying the word, or someone is literally rubbing their junk up against a squeaky-clean window. The absence of Cusack means Rob Corddry takes over as the gang's leader of sorts, but his guidance only translates into stupidly juvenile tenancies that fail far too often. Like I said, if you don't giggle upon hearing the word "penis," you're in for a rough watch. This is a sequel that takes all the funniest parts of the original, and rehashes them over, and over, and OVER again, until we're begging for our own hot tub time machine. You know, so we can gain back the last hour-and-a-half of our lives. SW: The Cobbler I’ll say this much: I left The Cobbler with a smile plastered on my face and certain it was a film I’d remember for years to come. This was owed entirely to the incredible, stupefying final ten minutes, which almost justify sitting through the 90 minutes of The Cobbler that are just a stupid, pernicious and wasteful Adam Sandler comedy. The Cobbler’s New York fairy tale quickly devolves into an unintentional farce, and its star may not be pleased that the cavalcade of Sandler impressions that the film’s premise calls for turn a solid supporting cast into a parade of mugging caricatures. The next step in the promising career of writer-director Thomas McCarthy has unfortunately been right into a steaming pile of shtick. Bless you then, The Cobbler, for choosing your own ridiculous, baffling and insane ending, instead of just a quiet one. IF: Fifty Shades of Grey Of all the adjectives that could be used to describe Fifty Shades of Grey, I never imagined that one would be ‘dull.’ Instead of the sexy-fun romp many were hoping for, the adaptation of EL James’ smutty bestseller was actually a colossal turn-off, setting every sex scene to deafening pop music and delivering cringeworthy line after cringeworthy line (“Laters, baby,” anyone?). Though Dakota Johnson valiantly struggled to act, and director Sam Taylor-Johnson tried to inject some class, they both ended up dominated by glorified fan-fiction writer EL James, who ruled the entire production with an iron fist (and a cat-of-nine-tails, I can only imagine). James just had no idea what she was doing – she warped what could have been a sensual and stylish romance into a numbingly explicit Harlequin bodice-ripper brought to life. What’s left is a limp, lifeless Skinemax entry far less erotic than even Gilbert Gottfried’s reading of the source material. The dialogue is atrocious, most of the acting is terrible, the tone is all over-the-place and there’s just no escaping how sinister the unhealthy, abusive relationship between Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele really is. Remove Christian’s expensive suits, and he’s just a manipulative creep preying on an innocent, malleable romantic. Almost as disturbing: that this, the first mainstream Hollywood porno (because pretensions aside, that’s what Fifty Shades is) isn’t even a particularly good one. MD: The Human Centipede III (Full Sequence) There's a way to make exploitation fun, inventive, and boundary-pushing without being hateful, juvenile, and lazily racist just for shock value. Many filmmakers have accomplished such a satirical feat. Tom Six is no such auteur, whose latest film, Human Centipede III (Final Sequence), is simply a self-masturbatory ode to everything he thinks is "edgy" and "provocative" - yet it's nothing but hate-speak. Six goes for all-out laughs this time around, setting his scenes like a brightly-lit, low-budget soap opera. Bree Olsen is brought into be abused as a meaningless sex object, which adds nothing to the film, and insults fly like poo being flung by mindless monkeys. I mean, Six doesn't even get to his largest centipede until the film's finale, and when he does, it's a rushed affair. Like someone reminded him that there should probably be a human centipede in Human Centipede III (Final Sequence). 100% Politically Incorrect? My ass. 100% Wasteful. 100% Misinformed. 100% Unworthy. And most importantly, 100% Shit. SW: Taken 3 Rest assured, there have been plenty of offerings so far this year that were more offensive, less intelligent, worse made, and a better example of why we should give up on both film and humanity (or maybe it’s just The Human Centipede 3). Taken 3 looks benign by comparison: sloppy, embarrassing action movies are a dime a dozen. But we have to draw the line somewhere, and for me that line was Taken 3, the lazy, cynical crescendo of a franchise that’s been knuckle-dragged out to the tune of $1 billion dollars. “This is why we can’t have nice things” is the lesson writ large across this nauseatingly shot, incompetently assembled bit of blockbuster backwash. What goodwill the original Taken inspired has been as used up as the franchise’s aging, exhausted star. Forget Liam Nesson’s daughter: so long as cashed-in, half-assed sequels like this are being rewarded, we’re the ones being taken. IF: Insurgent Talk about missing the point – the second installment in the supposedly female-powered Divergent franchise relegates Shailene Woodley’s Tris to a supporting role, letting hunky boyfriend Four (Theo James) extricate her from most of the serious binds she finds herself in. A newcomer could be forgiven for thinking that the Divergent series is about a tattooed, hulking heartthrob and his tremulous, traumatized and danger-prone girlfriend. That’s what’s so damnably disappointing about Insurgent – it makes the fatal error of sidelining its real star, making her a victim, never a victor. That dire miscalculation aside, Insurgent is a stale and stagnant sequel that cares more about junky special effects than any enjoyable plot progression. There’s no real momentum in this second installment – all it’s doing is setting up for the more climactic, two-film finale, biding its time and using a deluge of pointless conversations and action sequences to hide the fact that its plot could be written out in two short sentences. You’ll see through it in a second and wonder how the hell the franchise could have gone off the rails this quickly. MD: Area 51 It's a shame that Oren Peli, the man who jump-started horror's found footage craze, made his second movie irrelevant while the subgenre exhausted itself. Area 51 was supposed to come out years ago, but for whatever reasoning Peli and Blumhouse decided, Area 51 had plenty of time to be perfected. There's two problems with that statement. 1) They screwed themselves by taking so long. 2) Perfection was MOST CERTAINLY not achieved, which is inexcusable given the time production took. Had Area 51 come out when expected, Peli's alien adventure might seem relevant, but so many movies beat this sleepy chase sequence to its own punch. Hell, Peli produced movies himself that beat Area 51 to certain gags, which makes me wonder which came first, Chernobyl Diaries or Area 51? This boring, shaky, distorted mess does everything a good found footage horror flick SHOULDN'T do, and no one involved seems to care. Ever wanted to see a director throw in the towel and admit defeat? Trust me, you don't. Yikes. SW: Woman in Gold The tale of an elderly businessperson struggling for a gold artifact they believe rightfully belongs to them might have great appeal to Woman in Gold’s producers, but this latest bit of Oscar bait from the Weinstein Company is consumed by its own awards appetite. The true story of Maria Altmann’s legal battle for a family legacy stolen by the Nazis is a tale Woman in Gold can’t keep itself from gilding, turning the portrait of one woman’s incredible life into a prestige pic Photoshop job. That someone thought Ryan Reynolds was the man to go toe-to-toe with Helen Mirren as Altmann is the only surprise in store for you here. At least now we’ve answered the question, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Woman is Gold is so proud of its assumed accomplishments that it forgets to stop patting its own back before giving itself a round of applause. MD: Blackhat Starting this blurb, I actually had to re-read my entire review of Blackhat. No, not because I love reading my own thoughts, but because I couldn't remember a single defining characteristic of Blackhat. Only flashes of cyberspace, plenty of running, and Chris Hemsworth's inability to keep any shirt buttoned. Michael Mann brings the same hazy focus to Blackhat that most his movies sport, as Hemsworth finds himself hacking his way around the world through a lackluster lens. Of course, Hemsworth's character is also a total badass, like most stereotypical hackers, but lifeless choreography doesn't do much in the way of action excitement. As a generic cherry on top, Mann throws in a hot little piece for Hemsworth to immediately fall in love with, because nobody goes on dates anymore - they find love through deadly government conspiracies! Blackhat is as bland, tasteless and mundane a thriller as they come. Easy as that. MD: Aloha Despite receiving good graces from Hawaiian natives and beautiful tropical weather, Cameron Crowe's latest blunder, Aloha, ends up being an early contender for 2015's biggest bomb. With names like Bradley Cooper, Alec Baldwin, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, and MANY more, there's no reason for this cast to nose-dive into a catastrophic rom-com disaster. Houston, we've got a MAJOR problem. Many a hater lashed out against Crowe's decision to cast Emma Stone as a (part) native Hawaiian, but my qualms aren't with Allison Ng (Stone), a far-too-perky spirit who's everything that Brian Gilcrest's (Cooper) isn't. I'm more bothered by a strange space story, the complete abandonment of Hawaiian culture about halfway through the film, and many subplots that are simply unnecessary. Gilcrest's relationship with ex-lover Tracy Woodside (McAdams) only adds to the confusion, as he continually makes advances despite her current familial status, but at least this emotional assault leads to the film's most entertaining moments when John 'Woody' Woodside (Krasinski) asserts his steely dominance. But even Krasinski's macho stare can't save Aloha from crashing and burning to an embarrassing, wasteful extent. Looks like we'll have to wait a bit longer for the redemption of Cameron Crowe... Sam's Bottom Ten: 1. Taken 3 2. Unfinished Business 3. Woman in Gold 4. The Cobbler 5. The Humbling (pictured) 6. Strange Magic 7. Home 8. Hot Pursuit 9. The Longest Ride 10. San Andreas Isaac's Bottom Ten: 1. Get Hard (pictured) 2. Fifty Shades of Grey 3. Insurgent 4. Taken 3 5. Child 44 6. True Story 7. Everly 8. Cymbeline 9. Monsters: Dark Continent 10. Welcome to Me Matt's Bottom Ten: 1. Area 51 2. The Human Centipede 3 (Full Sequence) (pictured) 3. Hooked Up 4. Blackhat 5. Unfinished Business 6. Hot Tub Time Machine 2 7. The Harvest 8. Aloha 9. Reality 10. Burying the Ex