This group should be the last of the truly bad movies, though it’s not without a few that at least provide a good time.
Previous Rankings
#191-209
TRUST isn’t anything special, but I’m a big fan of Victoria Justice and Kathryn McNamara, which allows it to stay out of the “complete and total failure” level. No thank you to DON’T BREATHE 2. No one is ever asking for a follow up to the rapist kidnapper story. I’ve forever been fully up front on my love for the Netflix Christmas movies, especially the ones that form their weird little connected universe. THE PRINCESS SWITCH 3 (full spoiler review here) continues the tradition of being poorly made, yet wildly entertaining. Never stop making these movies.
“Lifeless” might be the best single word to describe SILK ROAD. Jason Clarke’s DEA agent is made confusingly dumb. Like a straight up idiot who has never used the internet before. The movie takes place in 2012. MALIGNANT is an odd one. I know of several people who loved this movie, but it didn’t work for me, plain and simple. It has some fun moments with how ridiculous certain parts are, but it’s not enough to cover up the rest of its many problems.
Clint Eastwood is a legend, there’s no debating that. But I think it’s obvious with CRY MACHO that he’s lost his fastball. He still sees himself as the handsome gunslinger he was in his heyday, which just doesn’t match the characters he’s playing these days. Halle Berry is pretty great in BRUISED (also her directorial debut), but you’ve seen everything in this story several times before. A CALIFORNIA CHRISTMAS: CITY LIGHTS is maybe a more competent movie than other Netflix Christmas originals, but it tries to be too much of a “real” movie. It doesn’t have the same “balls to wall” energy that make the others fun. HE’S ALL THAT is just plain dumb. And bad. And cringey. INFINITE is a really cool concept that got absolutely butchered in execution.
Take what I said about Halle Berry and Bruised, and apply it to Sandra Bullock in THE UNFORGIVABLE. NATIONAL CHAMPIONS was actually better than I expected. It tried to be timely, but with the new NIL rules going into effect before the movie came out, it just made it that much worse. It’s poorly written, with plot “twists” that either make no sense or are completely uninteresting, often they hit both marks. THERE’S SOMEONE INSIDE YOUR HOUSE has a pretty intriguing premise, so there was potential for this to be a fun little slasher. But the premise is about where all the good ideas ended.
Nobody wants to see pandemic-set movies, so LOCKED DOWN was already playing against a stacked deck. Add in the fact that it wasn’t funny, wasn’t smart, and was – other than the pandemic setting – just your standard-fare heist movie, and you get a bad movie. ME, YOU, MADNESS is completely wild. It’s full of flaws from a movie-making standpoint, but has enough manic energy to make it passable in terms of being a fun watch.
Booooo DEAR EVAN HANSEN. Evan Hansen is supposed to be a sympathetic character, but he actually sucks. He’s despicable. Even when you factor in some degree of a benefit of the doubt for him only being a high school senior, it’s far from enough. It’s just uncomfortable all the way around. Speaking of bad musicals, CINDERELLA is up next. Terrible script, wooden performances, and they couldn’t even be bothered to come up with any good original songs. They mostly used covers, which just comes off as lazy.
HYPNOTIC is bad. And if you’re going to make a bad movie, at least go full bore with the wild stuff. Had they done that, it could have at least been a fun watch. Unfortunately it comes up short on both fronts. COMING 2 AMERICA is flat-out unfunny. That’s a pretty big problem for a comedy. DIE IN A GUNFIGHT is just Romeo and Juliet, but really, really dumb.
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