The Big Picture: MovieBob's Worst of 2013

[faefrost]

I gotta say for once I mostly agree with Bob's list.

Star Trek Into Darkness was horrible. It might have been good, or at least better if they hadn't tried to do the wink wink nudge nudge is it or isn't it remake of Wrath of Khan. Which had no business in this or any other movie. WoK was the best Star Trek movie, arguably the best single Star Trek story, and honestly above and beyond the normal hammy acting, a deeply layered piece of excellent filmaking. Abrams forced us to directly compare his retread action shlock with that. Ugh! He had a decent cast. He had a great actor as the main villain. Either give us something truly new or go home. This should have been a story of the begining of the Enterprises voyages. If they had to remake a classic story, they would have been better doing "Where no man has gone before" (just imagine Benedict Cumberbach as Gary Mitchell going mad with godlike power.) Wrath of Khan is a story about the end of the journey. About mortality and aging and coming to terms with loss and regrets. Trying to redo it as young and hip and actiony just insulted everyone.

I'll actually give the Lone Ranger some minor support. Yeah it's a bad movie. And yeah Johnny Depp as Tonto is more than enough to put it on this list. But honestly it's not as bad of a movie as everyone says it is, or as the critics savage it for being. It's too long. The story wanders and gets annoying for the first 2/3rds of the movie. But damn the last half hour almost makes up for it. The moment you finally hear the music it becomes an entirely different movie. One of the best most ass kicking action sequences of the year. I just wish they had tied it to a better script and a different pool of actors. And maybe spread that ass kicking action over the entire 2 1/2 hour movie.

Man of Steel I will wholeheartedly agree is the worst, most disappointing, most saddening, and most troubling movie of the year. It had some individually decent scenes. But everything about the movie was just wrong. And the more you think on it, the worse it gets. Who exactly was this movie made for? 30 something basement dwelling man children who like comic books, explosions and wholesale destruction? The twisted relics raised on the worst of the 90's comic book excesses and stupidity? People who view 9/11 footage as entertainment or worse?

 

[TristanBelmont]

I'm both proud and kinda sad to say that when he mentioned "disappointing" as a major factor in the intro it was kinda hard for my mind to not jump immediately to Man of Steel. Still, to each their own; I enjoyed it, even if there is waaayyyyy too much downtime in-between scenes of anything interesting.

 

[vagabondwillsmile]

I actually really liked American Hustle. But yeah, it did drag a bit.

And the actor you were referring to was indeed wasted on the screen-time he was given. At least Louis CK was awesome in it.

Yah, for the most part Movie Bob's reviews are fairly in line with my own thoughts on films, but I have to whole-heartedly dissagree with American Hustle being on any "Worst of" list. To me the first ten minutes are like a microcosm of the whole movie. There is a set-up and a pay-off to the piece that feels really tight and clever to me. The three main characters have interesting arcs (especially Jeniffer Lawrence's character - damn). And there was were some great running comedic themes, that consistantly got chuckles out of my friends and myself.

I noticed Movie Bob mentioned that the accents were off and the way he discusses it makes it seem like he heard something that really got under his skin. I can understand that. Anytime I hear a fake French accent or crappy translation that somehow made it through to final product I cringe. I can sympathize with Movie Bob - this is a period movie about real people in a real place. He wants the local stuff to be right. BUT the worst I could call the accents and dialogue, would be "not perfect?". Especially considering the mains all have pedigrees in passing accents. I have to say, even though I sympathise with Movie Bob on a desire for authenticity, there was plenty of effort being put into this one and there was nothing I heard that was so off-putting as to make me lose focus. I've seen movies crippled by tragic mishandling of language, accent, and dialogue. This isn't one of them though; and I'm not sure what more could have been done to make it more convincing without perhaps sacrificing quality in another facet of the film. In fact, the film is accutely self-aware of the need for authenticity and getting into character - this conceit is a driving force in so much of the film's drama and tension. Even the blatantly fake British accent works because, once again, the accent is a device to vehicle the conceit of the film. I found it all very clever really. The more I think about it, the more I like it.

Imperfect people, pulling imperfect cons, on other imperfect people - and all the risk, danger, and heart-break inheritent in the deception.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. From the drama to the dry humor, to the performances, everything worked for me. When to me this year has more than its fair share of vapid, empty cash-grabs, lowest common denominator comedies, a bad case of sequelitis, and see it now - forget it later time wasters, with a few bright jewels shining from from the dust, American Hustle for me is a lovely little gem well worth the full price of admission.

 

[TheOneGuyInNebraska]

Bob, I love you man, but American Hustle on the 10 worst list, and 12 years a slave only an honorable mention?
I know its your opinion and I respect both it and your right to have it, but
WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[TheOneGuyInNebraska]

I mean yeah, american hustle did have some problems (the clearly rushed ending, for example), but one of the worst of the year, really?

 

[Paradoxrifts]

I'll take Man Of Steel's ultimately flawed attempt at making Superman mean something over The Avenger's overly successful attempt at meaning absolutely nothing.

 

[Alarien]

I think we actually see more eye to eye than we both might think. I really enjoy the Star Trek reboot because of the fact that they're fun, and they can be dumb all they want. They're fun action adventure films. But that's the exact reason why I don't like the TNG films, because TNG shouldn't be dumb. If you're going to have a TNG movie, make it like TNG. If you're going to do a reboot, you can do whatever you want. Which is what JJ did.

Touche. I think this is fair. I can see how TNG stands a bit apart from the other series in being more about the intelligence of the characters and the resolution than just the dumb action. It is also the only series that takes place in a general time of peace or, at best, cold war. I am not sure I wholeheartedly agree with the idea, as one of my absolute favorite episodes was the one where they encounter the temporal disturbance and save the Enterprise C, causing the Klingon war to still be on, Tasha Yar to be alive, and the Enterprise D to be a warship. Still, I do know where you are coming from and understand it.

I mentioned Picard and Ahab a few times. I *really* wanted to see him play that part, because I knew he wanted to and I know that's what fed into First Contact. I also know he made that as a TV movie at another point later, but still, I liked seeing him just let loose with it.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I appreciate his reasoning and analysis, and not going into full on nerd rage, which would be the most pathetic thing ever. But putting Man of Steel ahead of stinkers like Movie 43, After Earth and R.I.P.D. is still baffling. Despite him giving very good reasons for why he thinks about it the way he does, it still seems he'll only talk about the film he wanted to see, not the film we got.

 

[Strazdas]

you know the more yu talk about man of steel the more i want to see it because all those things you "Hate" are in fact GOOD and what the world NEEDS.

Though as you say, you are human, with overwhelming emotions, and therefore unfit to do objective review. But as you said in previuos videos, your not even tryin to do that.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

OK, I've heard Linkara and MovieBob rant about how much of a betrayal Man of Steel was, and from what I gathered of the NC review (that I haven't watched yet, because while I do generally like his work, old and new, I don't tend to have entire hours to burn), he similarly doesn't care for it, and I have to ask...

... Why? I don't get the hatred.

Is the editing bad? ... Not necessarily, tbh. I could follow the plot perfectly well and I didn't find the transitions from one point of time to another jarring. To me, it just felt like we were seeing flashbacks of Superman's life and him remembering his discovery of his abilities and how they affected him, adversely or not. Maybe it's a bad way of conveying that kind of story, but I certainly didn't have any problem following it.

Is the action bad? Eeeeeh... it does fall under the curse of the Prequel Trilogy, Transformers, etc. where its flashy, choreographed style causes it to lose its tension. Then again, as a fan of shonen anime, stuff like Monty's work (Dead Fantasy, RWBY, etc.) I absolutely love "action porn," where it's mindless (or sometimes not mindless), ridiculous action on scales that just inspire grandeur and awe, and while Man of Steel didn't set any huge milestones with its action scenes, I certainly found them interesting and they kept my attention. In particular, I'd say that the battle between Supes and Zodd was the highlight of the film, since they just seemed to take the whole concept of "Kryptonian-enhanced beings" and went about as far as they could without, say, reversing time by spinning around the Earth at a fast speed.

Are the characters flat? ... Yeah, in retrospect, no one had rather inspiring development. Lois Lane had almost no screentime despite being THE quintessential LI of the Superman stories, and the only guy that had anything close to a developing character was Meloni as that Nathan Hardy colonel guy (though tbh, I think Meloni's actually a rather good and underrated actor and I liked his performance in Man of Steel). They also tend to take huge leaps and bounds of stupidity at some points (seriously, how did you guys forget YOUR DOG) (every scene with Lois Lane, tbh) (MOVE OUT OF THE WAY OF THE FUCKING HEAT BEAM), but I don't think they took away too much from the film.

What damage does it do to the Superman lore? Guys, no offense... but Superman as a character is a bit stale. OK, I humbly await all the DC fans to jump down my throat for saying that because he's "iconic" and all that jazz, but guys, he's seriously one of the flattest characters in existence. He is literally a paragon of virtue, justice, etc., and, in his most idealistic form, cannot differ from that one form. That means that he will never kill, he will always do everything in is power to save everyone, yada yada yada, and his Kryptonian heritage literally means that his only weakness is Kryptonite (which seems to be a popular ebay purchase and readily available in almost every medium he's in), and otherwise he'll probably take a punch or two before smashing the bad guy into oblivion without somehow killing him.

Does Man of Steel do him better? Debatably no, since it's hard to develop a character when the flashbacks make it hard to develop his current character (my only gripe with the editing there) to actually evolve from there. My best assumption is that he's still a bit conflicted about using his powers and assuming his role as some greater being to watch over the Earth, and Zodd's intervention eventually pushes him to accept his responsibility and assume the mantle of "Superman," but then again, that's an assumption drawn from a few elements from the movie, and his previous personality doesn't have much establishment. Still, that's one inkling of development.

Besides, and I have to just point this out here, but Superman is, in his normal form, a bit of a Mary Sue. He's smart (or at the very least, cunning enough to outwit people like Lex Luther), obviously the strongest man ever, and will always win, even if he needs to break the laws of physics to make it so (repeating the same joke twice for my own sake). I personally enjoyed Man of Steel because it makes him LOSE. He has to break his ideology, the very ethical code that he's known for, for a greater good, and that makes him more of a "character" than an "ideal." Some people might like the squeaky-clean Superman that they can look up to as some milestone humanity should try to reach up to, but that gets old after a while.

Of course, I await the DC people who want to tell me that characterizing Superman has been done better in comics. I'm pretty sure it has - I'm not a comics guy and I don't follow these characters past the movies and occasionally some fledgling knowledge of comics shared by people like Bob or Linkara. From the movie on a purely objective and unbiased standpoint, I thought this was a better characterization of Superman than even the original Reeve films (though, imo, the original film was probably better overall).

But that's just my opinion. Take it for what it is, but I really don't see the big deal behind this movie. It's certainly not as good as what I remember coming out of the theater, but it's certainly not the most disappointing film of 2013.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

We all knew After Earth was going to suck.

As for Star Trek, they did good in the reboot in creating an alternative time line separate from the original set of movies. For the sequel they had free creative rein to do anything, dig into the vast expanse of the ST universe or just create something brand new and never seen before. An what do they do? Remake Wrath of Khan. What a complete waste of time.

 

[Guffe]

Bob top ten list = had seen number 1 and 2
Bobs top ten bad list = had seen number 1 and 2
But I like also the number 1 and 2 on this list :/

 

[Acton Hank]

I feel that The Purge was my biggest letdown. That movie had so much potential to be turned into a terrible horror thing.

I disagree, the premise is only skin deep when you think about it.

Man of Steel over Movie 43 and Inappropriate Comedy? You're really slumming MovieBob.

 

[mattttherman3]

Man of Steel. Just an awful piece of of shit. The pacing was terrible. It was so completely joyless, I have never left a movie so pissed off in my life. The point where he let Johnathan Kent die was the point I knew it was completely downhill from there. There was 2 good scenes: Oil rig and the bus. BECAUSE HE ACTUALLY SAVED PEOPLE!!!!!!

 

[Acton Hank]

I feel that The Purge was my biggest letdown. That movie had so much potential to be turned into a terrible horror thing.

I disagree, the premise is only skin deep when you think about it.

Man of Steel over Movie 43 and Inappropriate Comedy? You're really slumming MovieBob.

Don't forget the shit that wasn't on the list. Films like: Texas Chainsaw massacre 3d, the internship, The smurfs 2, Grown Ups 2, Gangsterland and many more that I can't remember.

I haven't seen any of those.

The two bad films I've seen this year that I remember were Inappropriate Comedy and Movie 43, sure I've seen Good Day to Die Hard and After Earth but frankly I don't remember them enough to be angry.

Bob if you want to make a list of films that disappointed you personally make a "most disappointing list" don't call it the worst of the year list.

You only make a worst of list once a year and this time you made the blandest most uninteresting list imaginable.

 

[Eamar]

Eh, speaking as a lifelong Star Trek fan (my parents pretty much raised me on it), I really liked Into Darkness. Also its predecessor, while we're at it. And I say that as someone who doesn't blindly heap praise on any and all Star Trek movies - I love The Voyage Home, The Undiscovered Country and First Contact, I like Wrath of Khan, can enjoy Search for Spock and even Generations (I accept it's a terrible movie though) when I'm in the right mood, and yeah... let's not talk about the others.

But those are just my opinions. I was genuinely surprised by the extent to which some people hate Into Darkness, but I guess you can't please everyone. I would say there's a difference between "didn't match my expectations" and "worst film EVAR" though, and that goes for several entries on this list.

That said, it's Bob's list, not mine.

 

[MetalMagpie]

Gotta find it weird that there was so many bad flicks this year that 47 Ronin didn't even make the list, and it's the biggest box office bomb in history now.

Maybe he just hasn't had time to see it yet. The holiday season is a pretty busy time of year for many people.

 

[Lusty]

Actually find Bob's constant trolling of Man of Steel (and any DC related movie projects) quite funny now. He'd made his mind up before he saw it, enjoyed it despite himself, and has spent the rest of the year trying to retro fit his prejudged opinion to the actual movie. I'd be willing to bet GOOD money that Bob loves the next few Marvel films and hates Superman V Batman, regardless of what the films themselves turn out like.

Almost as tiresome as his constant lauding of Pacific Rim as somehow 'new' and 'refreshing' when it's basically a scene for scene remake of topgun...