The 10 worst films of 2023, the year Hollywood collapsed
Teyonah Parris as Captain Monica Rambeau in a scene from The Marvels.Laura Radford/Associated Press
Around this time last year, I predicted that 2022 would be remembered as the year that shattered the film industry. Oops, turns out I only needed to wait 12 months, two strikes, and a major economic collapse for things to get really dire.
Certainly, it is true that there has been a wealth of contradictory rallies this year, even beyond the Barbenheimer phenomenon. But there was also a lot of trash, much of which inadvertently symbolized signs of the industry’s decay. For those of you who have avoided the 10 films below, consider yourselves lucky. For the filmmakers and producers responsible, let this serve as a warning: moviegoers understand.
10-9. Pain hustlers & We have a ghost
The streaming wars are over, and Netflix has been declared the winner. Not only has the industry giant’s continued performance outpaced its closest rivals, but it’s also spent the past few months launching a truly impressive list of high-profile awards contenders, including David Fincher’s film. the killerTodd Haynes May DecemberBradley Cooper Artist, band leaderAnd George C. Wolfe Rustin. However, given Netflix’s sheer size, it’s also responsible for clogging up our digital queues with truly terrible stuff, further blurring the line between cinema and just “content.” To wit (or, more accurately, to not be witty): These are two high-gloss titles, and both speak to Netflix’s self-created fault lines.
Pain hustlers It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, with hopes of becoming an audience favorite for an Oscar. However, David Yates’ pharmaceutical crime comedy went down like a frustrating limp The Wolf of Wall StreetWhat made matters even more frustrating was the fact that he wasted the valuable time of star Emily Blunt. Superhero comedy We have a ghostAt the same time, it proved that Netflix still needs more time to learn about the family audience market. Even in the usually capable hands of director Christopher Landon (Happy death day), this transaction bin Beetlejuice Stealing starring David Harbor felt like it was designed solely to attract subscribers who were trying to find the latest season of the series Weird things.
Emily Blunt, left, and Chloe Coleman in a scene from Pain Hustlers.Brian Douglas/Associated Press
8-7. Al-Mu’awwidhatayn: The believer & Demeter’s last journey
The amazing financial success you have achieved Five nights at freddy’s And X saw Regardless, it seems safe to say that Hollywood has a horror problem: The bogeymana Animal Cemetery Reboot, The Pope’s exorcistNew and flat Insidious. There wasn’t one but two Failed attempts this year to create a decent Dracula film – first with the horrific Nicolas Cage-fest Renfield (more like a comedy than a horror film) and then just a few months later with the boring, bloodless thriller “The Vamp on a Boat” Demeter’s last journey (Which he insisted would have done better if this one had also starred with Cage and held a title shot Boateferrato).
Meanwhile, someone decided to spend an unholy amount of money to secure royalties Exorcist Franchise, just to deliver a boring head The exorcist: the believerthe first in a planned trilogy whose sequel I doubt will reach audiences, no matter how much the power of Messiah forces its producers to recoup their investment.
Olivia O’Neill in a scene from The Exorcist: Believer.Universal Pictures/Associated Press
6-5. Shazam: Wrath of the Gods & the light
while Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom It provided a surprisingly good conclusion to the DC Extended Universe, but it still didn’t erase the terrible year(s) Warner Bros. had endured. With a list of superhero movies. Pointless Shazam! The sequel was expected to be dead on arrival, but there was tremendous hype for it the light, which studio leaders foolishly touted as one of the best comic book movies ever before any outside eyes could see it, made the movie’s hypersonic crash all the more embarrassing. (The studio’s fourth DC production of the year, Blue beetleit looked like a sitcom with too much VFX to be considered a disaster on the big screen.) Maybe James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy, Suicide Squad) will be able to save the intellectual property when it reboots the entire DC Universe in 2025 with new Superman film. Or maybe it means we can go back and watch a new movie Batman A trilogy every decade, and leave it at that.
Ezra Miller and Sasha Calle in a scene from The Flash.Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures/Associated Press
4-3. Freelance & Expend4bles
How hard is it to properly kill a man these days? Plus the worst films in contention of 2023 Equator 3 And Heart of stoneIt’s been a particularly tough year for movies about tough guys. In an action comedy with a sad rate Freelance, John Cena emphasized the unintentional irony of his film’s title in that he would take any gig that came his way, including the most superficial of action comedies. Meanwhile, Sylvester Stallone and his frustratingly diminished crew of mercenaries carry out a second-rate massacre in… Expend4bles. Its silly title suggests that the film may be intentionally stupid. But instead it came across as just being stupid stupid.
In Freelance, a former Special Forces agent stuck in a dead-end office job (John Cena) reluctantly takes on the task of providing private security for a neglected journalist (Alison Brie) while she interviews a ruthless dictator (Juan Pablo Raba). ).note
2-1. Wonders & Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Obsession
Although two of this year’s three Marvel Studios productions failed hard and fast – only James Gunn’s produced Guardians of the Galaxy Capper came out relatively unscathed – I wouldn’t be so quick to declare the Marvel Cinematic Universe dead. You can’t make 30 game-changing blockbusters without learning a few things about survival, after all. But confusing, ugly and soulless Captain Marvel And ant Man The sequels have undoubtedly highlighted big, fat signs of MCU fatigue — both from exhausted audiences and from filmmakers who’ve completely given up on the machinations of frustratingly bland blockbuster filmmaking. It’s time to blow up this multiverse and start from scratch.
Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man and Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror in Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.Courtesy of Marvel Studios
Canadian Entry Bonus: simulation
This local sci-fi movie (that somehow found the money/Kompromat To convince real-life movie stars Simu Liu, Jordana Brewster and Sam Worthington to participate) will make you question the necessity and concept of Canadian cinema. In an industry where many filmmakers struggle to realize their visions, simulation It is a particularly egregious example of Telefilm funding chasing bad money with worse money, a disaster whose deficit requires it to be high/diluted.
Double Kick ’em Bonus When They’re Down Entry: Haunted Palace & the little Mermaid
This won’t put me back on my Disney Christmas card list, but 2023 can’t end without confirmation that the Mouse House needs a serious restructuring of its live-action film unit. I’ve never resisted the urge to flee the theater so strongly as I did when I watched these two films, both of which are really just craven opportunities to raid the corporate intellectual property vault. Bah nonsense.
Halle Bailey as Ariel in The Little Mermaid.Photo by Disney/Associated Press
(tags for translation) nostack
