2013 was a year with a lot of good movies. There weren’t too many bad movies. But boy oh boy when a movie was bad, it was bad. Here are my “top” 10 worst films from the year 2013. Hopefully I feel a little better after writing this list because Lord knows I suffered watching these films.
10. The Purge
A movie that has its plot revolve around a 24 hour period where all crime is legal should not be as boring as this movie was. It honestly had some painfully dumb characters, even by horror film standards. I wish I could purge this from my memory (see what I did there?).
9. A Good Day to Die Hard
The name of this movie should have been “A Good Day to Die”. Period. That’s it. Somehow the makers of this film managed to ruin one of the most iconic characters in the most famous film franchises in one movie. The acting in the movie was bad. The writing was worse. And the direction was even worse.
8. The Family
Robert De Niro has sleepwalked through a lot of movies in the past decade, but this was almost insulting. He clearly didn’t care, and somehow managed to make a mob movie boring. It was just an unnecessarily violent film, and not in a fun way.
7. Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters
An extremely bland film, especially considering it is about mythical gods and monsters. The books were good; this franchise is not.
6. Pain & Gain
Probably my biggest disappointment of 2013. The actors are all A-list, and tried their best. The true story it is based on, bodybuilders kidnapping rich members of the gym at which they work, is crazy. But director Michael Bay isn’t funny, no matter how hard he tries. The tone of the film was all over the place, none of it landing anywhere fun.
5. A Haunted House
I didn’t loathe this movie, and they made it without the intention of winning awards, but that doesn’t change the fact that this movie is bad. Lazy and outdated jokes and a horrible story arch made it hard to enjoy.
4. Identity Thief
A movie with Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy, two masters of deadpan, should be great. But this is never funny enough to be a dumb comedy or smart enough to be a sharp satire. It is no surprise the writer of this movie also wrote the third Hangover film. And speak of the devil…
3. The Hangover: Part III
I don’t think a film has ever been so lazy in its execution, and made it so obvious the actors didn’t care about being on set. The writers tried hard to get away from the formula of the first and second film, but what it turned into was a black action comedy that was neither exciting nor funny.
2. Grown Ups 2
Adam Sandler just keeps getting worse. Every time I walk into a new Sandler film, I think to myself: “maybe this time will be different. Maybe Sandler will actually respect his audience”. Nope. Rob Schneider refused to be in this movie. Rob Schneider. Rob. Schneider. God, I hated this movie.
And Grown Ups 2 would have been number one, if not for a film that was just an insult to all of Hollywood and the human race in general. That’s right; the number one worst film from 2013, the king of crap, the film that was a slap to the face of movies in general is…
1. Movie 43
They made this movie after guilt tripping and tricking dozens of actors into filming it over four years. Even if the film was funny, which it is by no conceivable measure, it still would be awful because of the choppy editing and lack of any coherent story. Words just honestly can’t describe how bad and unfunny this movie is. It insults anyone who enjoys laughter or who has talent and is trying to break into the film industry. It truly is one of the worst films of all-time. No exaggeration.
Well, I feel better. I hope that you had the fortune of never seeing any of these films, but if you did, hopefully this eased some of your pain a little bit, too. Reviewing and watching movies is one of the most enjoyable things on God’s green earth, but it doesn’t come without its share of pain. Like spending two hours watching movies such as these.
I want to thank everyone who read this and read my reviews in 2013, and here is to a great year of cinema in 2014.
