The worst movies of 2020
From a real Crock of a reboot, to morally suspect kids’ movies and laugh-free comedies, Hollywood has come up with some real stinkers this year, reckons James Croot.
This year has been a trying one for Kiwi movie-lovers. With nary a blockbuster in sight because of the pandemic, they’ve had to cope with a mixed bag of replacement viewing in cinemas and trying to work out which streaming service will best cater for their needs.
So while there have been some terrific films this year, there have also been some huge disappointments and downright disasters. Here’s Stuff’s list of the 10 worst.
Cats & Dogs 3: Paws Unite!
In truth, this wasn’t supposed to play in cinemas. Made by Warner Bros’ Home Entertainment Division, until the pandemic, it was destined for a direct-to-streaming-service debut. It shows.
Filled with expositional dialogue, terribly telegraphed action, alley cats who live in a Tesla and an obvious parrot puppet driving an icecream truck, it offered a minor diversion for littlies, but little entertainment for anyone over the age of about 9, especially those who easily tire of a movie seemingly totally reliant comedically on poop and fart jokes.
Coffee & Kareem
Touted as a homage to 1980s high-concept buddy cop comedies such as 48 Hours and Beverly Hills Cop, this foul-mouthed farrago felt more like an insult to those movies’ memories.
Literally a one-joke comedy (or, at least, that’s the number of times I laughed), Coffee & Kareem was a celebration of ineptitude, where each onedimensional character introduced was more annoying than the last. Netflix’s algorithm billed Coffee & Kareem as ‘‘absurd, irreverent, exciting’’. It’s one-third right. A better description would be ‘‘absurd, irrelevant, execrable’’.
Dangerous Lies
With its brooding main poster image, provocative title and the casting of the actress who plays Riverdale’s scheming socialite Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes), there were high hopes this might be the 2020 answer to femme fatale movies of the early 90s. Sadly, it was not to be.
This Netflix thriller, penned by Christmas TV movie specialist David Golden, is a ploddingly predictable trawl through old tropes, a mystery Scooby Doo would be embarrassed by, and a fatal lack of characters. A frustrating film, filled with teases, red herrings and never-explained sub-plots.
The Empty Man
This combination of convoluted, ever-changing storylines, Candyman- esque rules of engagement and Jacob’s Ladder- like mysteries boasted enough crazy conspiracies to suggest it was put together by a social media group whose Scrabble word score adds up to 14.
It’s a story that might just have worked if it was led by someone with the gravitas of Denzel Washington (think Fallen), or the sheer compelling nuttiness of Nicolas Cage (take your pick of his oeuvre). But with everyman James Badge Dale playing it straight, it just didn’t fly.
Follow Me
A kind of Eastern European-set semi sequel to his little-seen 2017 film, Escape Room, Will Wernick delivered a derivative, dull and downright nasty kind of Saw- meets- Hostel.
While its premise may attempt to make fun of modern-day influencers and YouTubers, its frights and tone were distinctly old school, with manacles, maiming and more than a little misogyny present and correct. If the main male characters came
across as narcissistic or empathy-free, then it’s the females who suffered the worst privations, be it dreary dialogue or near drowning.
The Last Days of American Crime
This nasty, nihilistic tale deserved only a wide berth. At least an hour too long, screenwriter Karl Gajdusek’s story was just a jumble of ideas and stylistic tics hoarded from better movies like Upgrade, Minority Report, Resident Evil, The Purge and Suicide Squad (well, maybe that’s a stretch). Even then it’s a film, to paraphrase the streaming service’s most famous lifestyle guru Marie Kondo, you’ll find no joy in.
Yes, this might be set in an alternate future, but Netflix’s American Crime was very much mired in a depressing past. Less blockbuster, more Blockbuster bargain bin, less Fast and the Furious, more loud, lurid and laborious.
Like a Boss
As evidenced by everything from Girls Trip and The Lego Movie 2 to Peter Rabbit and Bad Neighbours, Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne are very talented comedians. But this was not their finest hour and 20 minutes.
Everything about this flat, fatuous scenario felt forced and rushed. The trio of writers’ story hinged on lazy contract law, cod psychology 101 and ploddingly predictable action. Meanwhile, the laughs, such as they were, appeared to consist of daggy dancing, crude jokes and food sabotage.
Midway
If 2001’s Pearl Harbor was a Titanic- inspired take on America’s day of infamy and its aftermath, then this action-drama’s template was clearly 1996 blockbuster Independence Day (perhaps no surprise, given that it was Midway director Roland
Emmerich’s biggest hit). In an era when there have been so many interesting, holistic, sensitive takes on war – 1917, Hacksaw Ridge, Unbroken, Dunkirk, Jojo Rabbit – this seemed like an unnecessary, jingoistic, tin-eared throwback. One of America’s greatest intelligence failures and most important naval battles presented with all the nuance of a shoot-’em-up video game.
Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs
Billed as a parody with a twist, this second-rate Shrek ripoff somewhat disturbingly mixed knockabout kids’ humour with the premise of the Farrelly brothers’ Shallow Hal.
It was a tale filled with forgettable songs and problematic morals. Something might have been lost in translation in the creation of this South Korean animation, because the ‘‘it’s what’s on the inside that counts’’ message seemed occasionally drowned out by the idea that a pair of shoes can transform you into a luminous vision of beauty.
The Very Excellent Mr Dundee
The now octogenarian Ocker Paul Hogan went all postmodern for this Hollywood-set reinvention, but it was less The Last Action Hero or JCVD and more a second-rate Curb Your Enthusiasm, as our doddery ‘‘star of the most successful independent film in the history of cinema’’ (as this movie constantly reminded us) lurches from one crisis to the next.
Whereas Larry David’s long-running Enthusiasm relies on cleverly crafted cringe comedy and brilliantly conceived delayed payoffs, this Amazon Prime Video release was simply a series of strained set-pieces that relied on old tropes and celebrity cameos, including Olivia Newton-John, Chevy Chase, John Cleese, and Wayne Knight.