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Weekend Discussion Thread: The Worst Movies of 2014RiffTrax conducted a poll, and these are the results:
So, let’s have at it. What is/are your pick(s)? Show your work! 64 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: The Worst Movies of 2014”Commenting at Satellite News
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How could they have left out Saving Christmas? I’m a conservative Lutheran pastor and I thought it was too much of a sermon. The IMDB users were pretty close to right in making it the worst movie of all time (at least for a little while).
Noah was human defecation and I don’t think you want me to show that work.
Cgi makes special effects in movies essentially unchallenging. At least Chuck Heston’s 10 Commandments took some effort to make (although I doubt there were all that many blond, blue-eyed Egyptians and Jews in ancient Egypt- I mean, his stepmom was so -50s Hollywood), but Noah demonstrates the corruption of movie making by too easily done special effects. Now a Simpsons done Biblical movie, with the pastor the pivotal actor…
Sad truth. The last movie I saw at a theater was Iron Man 2. So I’ll take their word for it.
Good selections. I would throw in these clunkers.
1. Endless Love – I saw the trailer late last year before American Hustle. There was a cover of “Addicted To Love” in it and the sexual part was cranked up tenfold from the original (I actually saw the original.). I was curious about it but then there was nothing. I did not see anything about it for ten months until I saw an ad for its in my On Demand section. I had completely forgotten about it, out of curiosity (and had 5.99 burning a hole in my pocket) I rented it, awlful; sheer, unadulterated crap. It relied on sexy cliches and standard plot devices to the point that it made me hate the characters. I can see why the movie was forgotten. The characters were so wooden, it was like watching Hugo and the German girl from Werewolf.
2. Pretty much any honor movie released in 2014 because they are pretty much cookie cutter in cinematography, acting music, marketing etc.. One quick one about Ouija – I remember my pastor (ironically, also Lutheran) warning of things like this. The actual board, not the movie. He should have reversed them. Besides, it just some kid moving the pointer, anyway.
3. Blended – is it wrong that I skim through Adam Sandler films just to see the Dan Patrick cameo ( I am a huge fan of his show.) if it is, and it counts as people who watch Adam Sandler films, I deserve the ridicule. His movies are egregiously unfunny. This is just another suitcase on a 747 of dated stereotypes and sophomoric humor. I am sorry, I am truly, truly sorry.
I thought Noah was really good. It wasn’t what I expected at all. It started as a sci-fi fantasy adventure film and then turned into a compelling story about a religious fanatic who goes nuts and almost kills his family. According to the people who voted in this poll, Kirk Cameron is a better filmmaker than Darren Aronofsky. Wow.
Even the most devoted Seth MacFarlane devotees in my social group have pretty much been “meh” on “Million Ways to Die in the West.” No wonder he’s making “Ted 2.” Bleargh.
Frank: Mostly because no one actually went to SEE a no-budget film where Kirk Cameron bloviates. I mean, doesn’t everyone want to see a nutso former child star rant and make up stuff about religion for an hour?
But “Noah” was a blockbuster that got a lot of attention, so there you are. In general, there are probably worse films than what ended up on that list that got no attention at all.
I will say this about “Noah” … if the Bible had had more giant rock monsters in it, I might have enjoyed it more.
I want to say “The Interview” despite not actually seeing it yet, but it’s a Seth Rogan film so I already know it’s crap. I also didn’t appreciate the controversy it stirred up, giving itself that much more unnecessary attention.
For me, the worst movie I have SEEN this year has to be TRANSFORMERS 4…On another topic, CGI is just another tool, like stop motion or traditional animation….It all depends on who uses it and how they use it…Let me give you an example of who does not use it properly, Michael Bay, who uses live actors and special effects like blunt objects over the heads of audience members.
Sorry I went on that rant…I just had to get that out of my system.
Jack and Jill.
Worst movie of the year, for a record four years in a row.
Off the top of my head I’ll assume that Transformers 4 was the worst.
I’d switch one and two. I was surprised by TMNT, it wasn’t terrible. The Turtle characters were well done, each with correct personality traits. I liked their action scenes. The only thing that should’ve been better was the Shredder. The mostly felt right. It was also short, which is rare these days, so that gave it a lot of points.
Transformers: Age of Extinction was almost okay, but mostly a mess. Then it’s bogged down by scenes like a 22 year old man explaining to a 17 year old girl’s father why it’s okay for them to be dating!
hmmm…I did not see any of these top ten…lucky me ;)
Steve wins the debate.
They really should’ve waited ’til after the New Year to close the poll. Maybe Exodus would’ve takem Noah’s place. Remember when Ridley Scott made good movies?
I think Frank mistakes this years’ Nick Cage Left Behind remake for Kirk Cameron’s 2001 film of the same name. Kirk made the Saving Christmas film this year, which doesn’t seem to make the list. (Sorry if that was your point, though!)
Personally, I completely loathed Noah. It’s not because I’m religious: I am, but I tend to look at Bible adaptations the same way I do every book adaptation. I hated it for the exact same reason I hated the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. It’s the same environmental-extremism nature-is-good-humans-are-evil garbage that I just completely loathe as a philosophy. I can get behind taking care of nature if that’s all we’re talking about, but preaching about humanity’s inherent corruption and how we’d just be better off dead than trying seems like complete hypocrisy. It’s as foreign to the story of Noah as it is to the original TDTESS. But besides all of that, I think Darren Aronofsky’s stuff is just so boring. I went to see The Fountain when that came out too and felt like my time was just as wasted.
I only saw one movie on the list, A Million Ways to Die in the West. It was OK, I appreciate that someone made a comic western, that’s different these days, and I thought Seth was good as an actor.
Not surprised that TMNT got the nod, I mean Michael Bay doing a Turtles movie? That sounds like a joke!
@5 – Yes, I’m sick of paying for Adam Sandler’s vacations too, especially when he already gets a major chain store to pay for them onscreen.
Let’s see, think it was Dick’s Sporting Goods in this one? Bed Bath and Beyond was “Click”, wasn’t it?
I used to kid the Mike years about “turning the show into an Adam Sandler movie”, but at least the show joked about product placement.
@6 – Everyone wonders why Noah was so loopy, without realizing that it was a pretentious graphic novel (it’s not a comic book!), because that’s all Aronofsky does anymore, including The Fountain. And not even GOOD pretentious not-a-comic-books, like the Batmans the studios keep throwing at him, hoping he’ll finally do one like he promised.
And yes, @17’s right, Kirk had nothing to do with Nic Cage’s latest slide into tax relief. This one was a reboot for the book franchise authors, since the original Cameron franchise had already ended the world fifteen years earlier in direct-video sequels, and they had to start the franchise fresh. Sort of like the TMNT franchise.
Annabelle. That movie was just a re-made Chuckie and super super SUPER predictable.
Annabelle. That movie was just a re-made Chuckie and super super SUPER predictable.
I went to the theater a total of 7 times this year. 4 of those were Rifftax shows and one was the 75th anniversary showing of Gone with the Wind. The only two “new” movies I saw this year were The Grand Budapest Hotel and Gardians of the Galaxy (both of which I very much enjoyed).
So, long story short, I am not qualified to comment on any of these movies but indeed they all look pretty bad :)
I would like to go off topic, but first I have not seen any of the movies on this list because I wait until they show on my overpriced movie channels on Dish Network. Now I know which ones to avoid.
My question is does anyone know what Retro-Tv is going to do about the MST3K episodes they have been showing? This weekend is the last of the 26 Eps. originally scheduled(Hamlet–no less,that will kill any series). Are they going to repeat the ones they had,show some different ones or drop the series altogether. I e-mailed Retro on their contact us part of their web site but didn’t get an answer. Anybody heard anything?
I liked NOAH and enjoyed its weirdness. The “creation” scene was utterly fantastic and was one of the best individual scenes from a movie this year, inmyopinion. It’s not a movie that will go onto my personal Top 10 of the year list, but I would say that it is underserving to be in the Bottom 10 of the year. Sure, it doesn’t hit 100%, that’s easy to concede, as the 3rd act isn’t all that hot with Crazy Noah, but overall, I appreciated the film’s boldness and strangeness. And for the record, I like Aronofsky as a filmmaker and even I can’t stand THE FOUNTAIN. . .
As for the rest of the list, the only thing I’ve seen was THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2, which goes at the top of my Worst of the Year list. It was TERRIBLY written, with a bunch of meaningless and motivational-less action and Jamie Foxx being bad and Dane DeHaan being WORSE!. . .ugh, I hated that movie.
Other garbage:
NEED FOR SPEED: What it really needed was some good action scenes and characters that didn’t suck.
BAD WORDS: Ugh. I shoulda watched TEEN WOLF TOO instead..
ROBOCOP: How is this not on the worst of the year list? Did people forget it came out? Lifeless and dull remake…
I must confess I kinda enjoyed TMNT — it was a passable fun/bad experience. It moved quickly, a few of the jokes made me chuckle, and Megan Fox was easy on the eyes.
On the other hand Transformers 4 was nigh unwatchable. It is a cinematic kidney punch. The Transformers cartoon was part of my childhood, so the promise of Grimlock lured me to the theater. I went into the theater feeling well, I walked out with a headache and $10 less that I’ll never get back.
Can’t go wrong with any Michael Bay effort, but I’d vote for Pompeii. A waste of Keifer Sutherland’s time, and the man’s time is not even that valuable
#15: I hadn’t HEARD of any of these films, which makes me ignorant. (I am simultaneously happy and very nervous about my ignorance.) You, on the other hand, seem to have known of their existence and also didn’t see any of them, which means that you actively chose not to see any of them, which makes you both lucky and wise.
I wonder if such lists were compiled in, say, 1959? In 1959 we were blessed with both Girls Town and North by Northwest. Which film is better? Well, Hitchcock’s film didn’t have Mamie Van Doren in it. ;-)
@LouisvilleSlugger.
A lot of garbage came out in early 2014. These people taking the RiffTrax poll seemed to forget that. The Legend of Hercules surely belongs on that list as well.
Strange not to see an Adam Sandler movie on the list..
Not surprised to see TMNT at number 1…
Guess that Kirk Cameron movie didn’t play in as many theaters…it should be tied with TMNT…
There is something people tend to forget about the Kirk Cameron film that is a rule for most films: No stars + Limited run + Agenda Film = No one outside of its intended audience sees it (in this case Christians not already annoyed with the guy and Reddit trolls). Here in the Twin Cities it was in one theater in an AM showing by the time November ended — forgotten by the Christmas it came to save. Of course it was awful, but it flew under the radar.
Didn’t see any of these.
8: Sex Tape
who’s was it by the way (there were a few made i think this year).
I avoided every single movie on this list – yay me! Though I will probably watch the TMNT and Transformers movies when they hit Netflix. Watch “Honest Trailers: TMNT” on Youtube for a laugh if you will. Me? I’m still waiting to see Wolfcop….
How about the Identical, a movie so inept that it may transcend into terrible greatness a la Manos, The Room, Birdemic or Troll 2. Let’s give the top turds their due :poop:
I didn’t see a single one of those films on the Rifftrax list because they all looked pretty terrible.
:yes: * 1000 – one label that’s been applied to this phenomenon is “misanthropic environmentalism” (ME).
As far as I can tell, it’s a logically incoherent position to hold – if we arose via materialistic processes, then everything we do is just as much a part of “nature” and “the environment” as what any other animal does; alternatively, if we were specially created to be the rulers of this planet, then it’s our responsibility to take better care of it, and we shouldn’t be looking for self-destructive ways to avoid that responsibility.
And the ME mindset *is* ultimately self-destructive and self-defeating – where the original stories of Noah and TDTESS provided different kinds of hope for a better future alongside their warnings, the ME versions imply that we’re simply horrible aberrations of nature and the world would be better off if we were all dead. Doesn’t that just inspire you to go out and make the world a better place? :roll:
I’m all for taking better care of the world we pass on to our children, but the self-destructive anti-humanism of ME really needs to be stamped out for us to make real progress.
(Hey, Sampo *did* say “Show your work!” Granted, this may not be what he had in mind, but still…)
At first, I thought having TMNT and Transformers 4 as #1 & 2 was just the fanbase jumping on more tired RT nerd-bashing–“Oh, look, the RT guys say the worst movies of the year are TMNT, Transformers, any Marvel movie and Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies, hyuk-ewww!”
I had TMNT rented over the weekend, in 3D no less, and thought, well, c’mon, how bad could it be?…And then Whoopi Goldberg showed up in the movie.
Okay, I’ll give ’em that one. THAT bad.
Yep. Completely forgotten.
There should be federally mandated stickers on the disc that say WARNING: Contains Whoopi Goldberg.
I think Whoopi filled the “cranky newsroom manager” archetype quite well.
I loved A Million Ways to Die in the West. And I thought Noah was pretty good. The Greeks, Sumerians, Babylonians and other ancient pagan cultures had great flood myths. Apparently Zeus got mad about cannibalism and flooded the world once. It seems that a great divine cleansing is a compelling, possibly universal narrative. The book of Revelation and the whole Left Behind series is a kind of great cleansing.
Historicly there have been 5 great extinctions (75%+ global species loss). Each great extinction was followed by a burst of evolution as new species moved into the cleared away spaces. Dinosaurs evolved as a result of the fourth extinction, only to be victims of the fifth.
As a result of human activity, the global species extinction rate has risen from it’s average of about one every four years to about one every hour and is accelerating. The sixth great extinction is well underway. Humanity is the cause, as well as a likely victim.
If divine will is somehow behind the cycle of extinction and evolutionary renewal, I can only assume that human beings were placed here to be the next “great flood”. And while that is bad luck for for most living things today. In a million years (or maybe just one hundred thousand) the evolutionary party will be in full swing and jumping.
Hellokittee in #23 reminded me that I have been to the theater since Iron Man 2, but it’s been for Rifftrax Live shows exclusively.
Million Ways to Die in the West has sounded like a lazy effort worth avoiding. If I want a Western comedy, there’s always Blazing Saddles (or Support Your Local Sheriff if grandma and the kiddies are going to be present).
Whoopi playing cranky? What a stretch!
(I assume it was a lesbian editor, since she always insists on having that written into her scripts now…)
(Well, actually, no it isn’t, it was an allegorical early-Christian pamphlet for “Don’t associate with icky pagan Babylonians!”, that had to be disguised as a “dream” so that they could sneak it past the censors and the Romans would just pass the author off as a nut.
Oh, and the nutty Noah we got in the movie was from an artsy-@$$ comic-book nobody read, but we’ve been over that already.)
@24 after doing some research on the topic, I have discovered that RetroTV will begin to replay the 26 MST episodes starting in January. The only difference appears to be a different episode on Saturday and Sunday. For example, Mad Monster on Saturday, Corpse Vanishes on Sunday.
For all its merits, I wholeheartedly agree with TMNT as #1. The best TMNT I’ve seen in the theater is the the 2007 CG vague-soft-reboot.
The problem with this new one was it wasted so much time on yet another retelling of the turtles’ origin, which though it did tie into the ultimate evil plan, resulted in THE most contrived, convoluted mess of a turtle mutation I’ve seen (admittedly, I haven’t done my homework on the comics). So let me get this straight: April’s dad was involved in the experiments, so when she was little, she kept feeding them pizza and gave them their names and favorite colors, then years later she just happens to be the one reporter that catches up to them?
Best of all, they become ninjas because Splinter finds a manual on ninjutsu that someone just happened to chuck down the sewer. So…if someone had tossed a Hustler instead, they’d have become furry/scaly porn stars to establish mob ties and infiltrate the Foot Clan? Argue for consistency in how the mutagen works all you want, but the first cartoon’s origin where Splinter WAS Hamato Yoshi still makes the most sense in terms of them becoming ninjas (David Wise’s idea, right?)
And speaking of the Foot, just as each of the first Bay Transformers trilogy made for a better G.I.Joe movie than Rise of Cobra, so was this latest Foot Clan a better terrorist organization than live-action Cobra, at the cost of not being at all martial artsy…but then, who needs another night of a million-zillion ninjas?
I understand Trans4mers making #2 because it was more polarizing than the first 3, but I thought it was a genuine improvement. Though unintentional, the subtext of the original cartoon was misanthropy (alien-robots = characters, humans = background-ciphers/dumb-animals). That really spoke to me as a child, because even in kindergarten I was getting fed up with human nature, so it was damn refreshing to see Optimus Prime follow suit. In that respect, it was true to the source material.
One Sideshow Bob quote Rifftrax needs to do when Wahlberg accuses Kels of trying to kill his family: “ATTEMPTED-murder, now really what is that?”
The one I was kind of surprised to see on the list was Amazing Spider Man 2; is ‘better than Raimi’s Spider Man 3’ really that low a bar to applaud a film for sailing over?
I’ll cast my vote the “The Grand Budapest Hotel”. I’ve had enough of Wes Anderson’s relentless quirkiness.
Re#45
You’re right, the book of Revelation is all that and some other things as well. It certainly differs from great flood narratives in that it takes place in the present and near future as opposed to the distant past. Noah is Apocalypse then. Revelation is Apocalypse Now/Apocalypse in the Near Future. And a flood is a lot more simple and less personal than all the plagues, and curses, and earthquakes, and locusts that resemble manticores, and all that fill Revelation.
But the book of Revelation is a narrative in which the majority of humanity/the world is destroyed by divine will/wrath so something better can be established. This is what I think Revelation shares with Noah and other great flood stories and why I referred to it as a “kind of great cleansing narrative”. I hope we can agree to agree about this.
You wanna unpack that one for us, CJ baby? I tend to get skeptical when numbers get thrown around all willy-nilly.
Besides, we should really just relax.
but you tell me over and over and over again my friend…