The worst Toto movies of 2023
It’s faint praise to say that this year has resulted in fewer foul balls than usual.
Yes, 2023 has seen its fair share of disappointments, including Indiana Jones and the Disc of Destiny, The Flash, and Napoleon.
The following films were complete flops, wasting their potential and leaving us thirsty for the end credits.
“Saltburn”
Emerging director Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”) has a rich visual talent and socially conscious narratives. None of this saves “Saltburn,” a predictable attack on elites that gropes for everything that matters in a story of this kind.
Don’t blame stars Barry Keoghan or Jacob Elordi, solid actors who do what they can with the material. “Banshees of Inisherin” stars him as a middle-class student at Oxford University, transfixed by a popular classmate (Elordi’s Felix).
The trouble begins when Felix invites his new friend to stay with him on vacation.
Saltburn struggles to bond between unlikely friends, but things get worse when tragedy strikes Felix’s clan.
None of this makes sense and does not effectively impact the upper middle class. It’s a mess, and the psychological imagery becomes more wobbly as the feature goes on.
Add in gratuitous sequences that deliver shock value and little else, and you’ve got a prestige season candidate worth ignoring.
Don’t you hate that black people are always the first to die in a horror movie?
Race issues in Hollywood are no secret, but you can file this issue in the fake news trash.
It’s one of the many problems with this comedic stab at comedy.
An annoying group of friends are called to a party where the unseen host has a few tricks up his sleeve for them. They are forced to play a game full of racist tropes, meant to highlight cultural inequality through a satirical take.
Except that the scares never really show up, and the jokes are, at best, poorly put together. Director Tim Story will never have the word “auteur” near his name, but he’s usually smart enough to tell a competent story. Just watch his poignant 2002 comedy “Barbershop” or the populist “Ride Along.”
He’s lost here, unable to draw laughter from the anemic scenario.
’65’
Adam Driver. Dinosaurs. A place steeped in mystery.
Isn’t that enough of a drama, the kind that an actor of Driver’s stature would have to change his IMDB.com profile?
Not when it’s as exhausting as “65,” a movie that makes “Jurassic World: Dominion” look like “Citizen Kane” by comparison.
It’s not Forex’s fault. The story is a mess, and we’re emotionally disconnected too early for “65” to engage us.
Eddie Murphy shows off his old self once or twice in this socially conscious comedy. That’s more than we can say for Jonah Hill, who has abandoned his past to punish us with films like this. He plays a white hip-hop fan who falls in love with a free-spirited black designer (Lauren London).
Cultures collide, and there is little in the way of laughter or insight.
RogerEbert.com’s review distorted the film so efficiently that it’s worth repeating here:
“Nobody talks that way. Nobody acts that way.”
Come back, Bob Ross! But do not see the “paint” at any cost.
This “comedy” follows a Ross-like TV performer (Owen Wilson, who can’t save the fool) as he maneuvers through romantic entanglements and professional retribution.
Wilson’s anti-hero is modeled on Ross, who died in 1995. Why try to character assassinate someone who’s been dead for decades?
Better question?
What is the point of this dreary, laughless mess?
There’s more than just a dash of wokeness that hits the screenplay, but the bottom line is clear. “Paint” asks us to care for a terrible human being without finding a worthwhile redemption arc.
These trees are not remotely happy. And it wasn’t just anyone who paid for this stink bomb.
