With the Oscars out this week, I will be announcing tomorrow, officially, my Top 10 list of the year's best pictures. However, before we get our dessert, we need to eat our vegetables, except these veggies are not nutritious at all. Before the best, comes the worst, and these were indeed the worst films of 2018 (listed alphabetically).
(As a reminder, I'm not a paid critic, so these are the worst that I saw this year-if you're wondering why X movie that you hated more isn't here, point it out in the comments, and I'll let you know if I even saw it or not):
Final Portrait (dir. Stanley Tucci)
Unlike Bohemian Rhapsody there's nothing really to hate in Final Portrait, it's just that literally nothing happens in this movie. Rush & Hammer are quite likable screen presences, but there's no sense of understanding into Rush's Giacometti, a genius sculptor/painter who had no self-confidence, or Hammer as his gay biographer. The movie is literally about watching paint dry, and it shows cliches have some grounding in fact.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (dir. JA Bayona)
I mean, it's better than the first Jurassic World, but that's about all I've got to say about it. One of the worst things about sequels to crappy movies is that they change the characters to fit the criticisms without explanation(Bryce Dallas Howard, a pretty limited actress, has to totally up-end her character here), but the reality is that the script has no bite, no sense of danger, and really no vision at all for these characters. Save yourself the trouble by avoiding the sequel & rewatching the '93 classic instead.
Vice (dir. Adam McKay)
Bohemian Rhapsody is the year's worst picture, but I think I left Vice hating it more than I did any other film I saw this year. What McKay has come up with in Vice is a shoddy, self-congratulating piece of dreck with lifeless performances (Bale & Adams winning Oscars for this would be a crime considering what they're both capable of), and more unnecessary asides than a Seth MacFarlane cartoon.
A Wrinkle in Time (dir. Ava DuVernay)
I so wanted to love it-the books I adored as a child, and Ava, Oprah, & Reese have all given me such special cinematic memories in the past. But this is really bad-the child performances are horribly underwritten (and not to pick on kids, but these iterations are pretty cardboard), and DuVernay isn't able to convey the complicated mythology of this world the way L'Engle could on the page. A missed opportunity, but truly a dud.
(As a reminder, I'm not a paid critic, so these are the worst that I saw this year-if you're wondering why X movie that you hated more isn't here, point it out in the comments, and I'll let you know if I even saw it or not):
Bohemian Rhapsody (dir. Bryan Singer)
The worst movie to be nominated for Best Picture since...I'd honestly have to do some research. Freddie Mercury's memory is doused in a haze of homophobia and backstabbing, as the surviving members of Queen make him look a lucky prima donna, and Rami Malek's surface-level work doesn't contest this assertion.
Unlike Bohemian Rhapsody there's nothing really to hate in Final Portrait, it's just that literally nothing happens in this movie. Rush & Hammer are quite likable screen presences, but there's no sense of understanding into Rush's Giacometti, a genius sculptor/painter who had no self-confidence, or Hammer as his gay biographer. The movie is literally about watching paint dry, and it shows cliches have some grounding in fact.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (dir. JA Bayona)
I mean, it's better than the first Jurassic World, but that's about all I've got to say about it. One of the worst things about sequels to crappy movies is that they change the characters to fit the criticisms without explanation(Bryce Dallas Howard, a pretty limited actress, has to totally up-end her character here), but the reality is that the script has no bite, no sense of danger, and really no vision at all for these characters. Save yourself the trouble by avoiding the sequel & rewatching the '93 classic instead.
Vice (dir. Adam McKay)
Bohemian Rhapsody is the year's worst picture, but I think I left Vice hating it more than I did any other film I saw this year. What McKay has come up with in Vice is a shoddy, self-congratulating piece of dreck with lifeless performances (Bale & Adams winning Oscars for this would be a crime considering what they're both capable of), and more unnecessary asides than a Seth MacFarlane cartoon.
A Wrinkle in Time (dir. Ava DuVernay)
I so wanted to love it-the books I adored as a child, and Ava, Oprah, & Reese have all given me such special cinematic memories in the past. But this is really bad-the child performances are horribly underwritten (and not to pick on kids, but these iterations are pretty cardboard), and DuVernay isn't able to convey the complicated mythology of this world the way L'Engle could on the page. A missed opportunity, but truly a dud.
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