A rundown of the year’s most awful films
Now that 2015 is almost over, moviegoers can thankfully breathe easy, having survived a year of some of the most terrible films to ever disgrace the silver screen. Although this was not a terrible year for cinema in general, and showcased the highest average ticket sales of any year in Hollywood history, the low points were both frequent and horrendous. Flop after flop, stinker after stinker, disappointment after disappointment, Hollywood seemed to be clamoring to create the most unoriginal, low-browand generally reprehensible films they possibly could. None of the films on this list are based on original stories, and all suffer for it.
The Top 5 Worst Films of 2015 (at the time of publication)
Dishonorable Mention: “Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2”
This movie was terrible, but not quite interesting enough to make the top 5.
- “Mordecai”
Johnny Depp continued his slide into mediocrity in 2015 with one of the biggest stinkers of his career. In what is likely the most bizarre film of the year, Depp branches out from his usual charming, funny persona to become a black hole of humor and entirely devoid of any sort of likability. This movie is not even laughably bad. This movie was one entire low point, with absolutely no highlights, no worthwhile jokes and no decent performances. Even Gwyneth Paltrow and Ewan McGregor manage to be boring and unlikeable. Not quite as bad as the others on the list, but terrible nonetheless.
- “Jupiter Ascending”
The Wachowskis, clearly realizing that they cannot make a movie that has more substance than style, chose to forego all substance and make a very pretty, very stylish sedative. It’s a gift to medical science for how quickly it puts the people who view it into a deep slumber. Nowhere is this film painfully bad, just completely boring. Although technically speaking it is no worse than “Mordecai,” it is higher on the list only because “Mordecai”at least has the decency to be poorly written enough to complain about. “Jupiter Ascending”gives you nothing.
- “Fantastic 4”
In 2005, “Fantastic 4”premiered and was universally panned as a bad, cheesy, poorly written mess. Now, it can be looked back as part of the golden age of Marvel’s First Family. 2015’s “Fantastic 4”is not even a film worth wasting this amount of ink on. It had no respect for it’s source material, no decent performances, it didn’t even have a single somewhat decent line. With no redeeming features, this by all rights should have been in the top two worst of the year, but a certain someone happened to make a film this year…
- “Pixels”
The two scariest words in movies are “Adam”and “Sandler.” America’s least funny “funnyman”created this horrendous insult to comedy, to video games and to the intelligence of everyone who saw it and had even the smallest hand in making it. The plot is ripped off from a gag in an episode of “Futurama,” and none of the so-called “jokes”have any punch behind them. Maybe this idea could have generated even a single laugh, but it just doesn’t even slightly work on every level. Only a very special film could surpass a stinker like this one. Only one film contains fewer decent pieces of dialog. Only one film could possibly take home the gold in this contest of crap…
- “Fifty Shades of Grey”
Across history, mankind has struggled to survive and grow, developing new technologies, new forms of art and entertainment and giving birth to great works of art, engineering and science. It is almost impossible for a single film to be so bad as to make one question if it was all worth it.
How can a film contain dialog so horrible that every line knocks the air out of you? How can two actors have absolutely no chemistry together, as if they had never interacted with another human together? How can an ending be so pointless and stupid that nobody could ever be even remotely satisfied by it? How is it that “50 Shades of Grey”made half a billion dollars in this day and age, when we have had four “Twilight”movies to warn us of how bad these stupid young-adult romance adaptations are? “50 Shades of Grey”is possibly the most impressive movie ever made, as no film has managed to fail in so many ways in such a unique manner. Every line is worse than the last, and the pacing is nonexistent, to the point where the 125-minute running time feels like 4 hours.
