Well, it was great covering the list of the best movies of 2019; it was only a matter of time to dedicate my list of the biggest stinkers that had the displeasure of coming out of the year. Even though I can consider the previous year to be one of the better years for entertainment, that’s not to say I can think of 10 movies that were quite horrible. Whether they might gain a cult following in the future, I wasted my time and money on what they should describe as pure garbage of cinema.
There were several movies I haven’t seen yet, but haven’t heard nice things about them. Although I was smart enough to completely ignored “classics” like After, The Fanatic, and Loqueesha. And I’m pretty sure nobody hasn’t even heard of Loqueesha. Even though this past year gave us some huge disappointments/ forgettable reboots and sequels like The Lion King, Terminator: Dark Fate, or Godzilla: King of the Monsters that weren’t good, there were much worse movies that I can think of that out-matched them. Probably the real saving grace was that there wasn’t anything Fifty Shades related that came out.
Dishonorable Mentions: Uglydolls, Gemini Man, 6 Underground, Ma, Annabelle Comes Home, Men in Black International
Here are the worst films I was stupid enough to sit through in 2019…
10. ‘Black Christmas’ (Sophia Takal)
Just because this remake of Black Christmas tried to be different, doesn’t mean it won’t be the greatest thing to come out of Blumhouse. Talk about a pointless remake that was completely not scary and somehow needed to shove in this social message that would’ve been useful anywhere than a horror Christmas movie, proving not all of them are worthy. The worst kind of movie where you honestly don’t give a crap about these characters getting killed.
9. ‘Shaft’ (Tim Story)
Shaft was one of the movies I watched during the summer, but I didn’t review it, maybe it was because it was difficult to put this pile of garbage into words. Did anybody remember this coming out in the first place? Even the presence of Samuel L. Jackson wasn’t enough for this continuation for being nothing but an entirely bland and tasteless funny action-comedy banking in on that nostalgia.
8. ‘The Goldfinch’ (John Crowley)
Sometimes it rarely works when a movie has all the elements needed to make it great, and it leaves you in disappointment. The Goldfinch had the potential to be a memorable follow-up for director John Crowley after Brooklyn, but it offered us a very boring drama and not at all worth remembering after leaving the theater. Such a wasted cast (Ansel Elgort, Nicole Kidman, etc.) and a poorly done adaptation on an award-winning novel. Let me also remind you of calling it 2019’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
7. ‘Dark Phoenix’ (Simon Kinberg)
The fact that Dark Phoenix marked the end of Fox’s X-Men series is a good enough reason to call this a major letdown, even though I wasn’t thinking it would be good, to begin with. It’s baffling how they can screw up the “Dark Phoenix Saga” again with the second-worst entry in the comic book franchise that’s emotionally hollow and offers nothing special about it, making you feel bad for those involved, especially the likes of James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Sophie Turner. The signs were there when it was pushed back for reshoots and first-time director Simon Kinberg having no clue on what to do. The MCU better make an entertaining reboot.
6. ‘Hellboy’ (Neil Marshall)
There was no other comic book that was truly unforgivable than this attempt at Hellboy. Neil Marshall’s reboot of Mike Mignola’s comics sounded like a fine idea, especially knowing David Harbour in the main role. Yet, it’s even sadder knowing that we will never see Del Toro’s third movie. Tones all over the place, no creative style into this world that was found in the previous films, and lacking any cool action, Hellboy deserved to bomb at the box office, and it was an unpleasant experience when having an R-rating wasn’t making it better and tried too hard to be awesome.
5. ‘Serenity’ (Steven Knight)
After sitting through Serenity, it was one of those thrillers I had to question what just happened. There is a twist that they threw in midway through, and me trying to concentrate on how unabashedly moronic it tied into the rest of the story was hard to comprehend. The originally should give Steven Knight credit, but nothing is good when its performances from Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway weren’t the best and a script like this can’t get passed the “so bad, it’s good” type of status. Convoluted to the point of feeling drunk when trying to recall what went wrong with Serenity.
4. ‘Lucy in the Sky’ (Noah Hawley)
Talk about a massive misfire with Noah Hawley’s directorial debut Lucy in the Sky. I’m convinced Fox Searchlight didn’t want to release this as a wide release because they must have known it was terrible. Taking somewhat of an interesting story with Natalie Portman and makes it into a drama that leaves no connection for the viewer to feel any sympathy for the main character, which the fault should be blamed on this messy script. The only thing I took away from this was that “Private Idaho” by The B-52s weirdly enough played at one point.
3. ‘The Hustle’ (Chris Addison)
Putting two Anne Hathaway movies on this list made me feel terrible since she’s a talented actress. Though The Hustle‘s purpose was to be funny, and it left me mad. This female remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels serves no reason to be made when all of its jokes had no effort put into them and having Hathaway and Rebel Wilson making fools of themselves.
2. ‘Playing with Fire’ (Andy Fickman)
You will honestly feel dead inside if you even dare take a chance on Playing with Fire as I did on that cold November afternoon. This is the kind of movie that’s made for children, but they won’t understand how ridiculously horrible this turned out to be. Poor John Cena is selling himself out in a two-hour embarrassing comedy that has its overly long poop jokes and painfully predictable story that you’ve seen a thousand times before. In my head, I wanted to leave, but my idiotic self stayed for unknown reasons.
1. ‘Cats’ (Tom Hooper)
If there was a chance for me to leave one movie from the entire year of 2019, that honor would go to this “so-called” musical adaptation of Cats. Seriously, how did this get made, and how did Universal Pictures approve on the final cut to be released in theaters? That first trailer was an omen of doom. Every time I think about Tom Hooper’s miserable musical based on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway musical has made me hate the actual songs and the show entirely when you take into account the miscast performances, unbearable humor, and the horrendous and abysmal visual effects. What’s even worse is that tried to re-release it with updated CGI, even though it was already out for putting this out in the public, wasting the money that couldn’t help reach its $95 million budget.
Why Ian McKellen? Why Jennifer Hudson? Why did I spend my Christmas Eve on this atrocity? At no point in my life young should I ever think about Idris Elba’s cat body, but it made me hate James Corden more. For a musical that has no appeal to anyone, it’s a cinematic disaster on every level. The best way to describe my experience watching this was like your crush rejecting you for all two hours of your life. Just seeing a single image from this is like a flashback of horror. I literally don’t know what to say to someone when they want to defend this, because they are automatically wrong.
Nonsensical for a story about cats singing about themselves, Cats is not only the worst atrocity to come out of 2019, but it might also as well be one of the worst movies to come out of the decade, in which every single moment of effort was found in the litter box.
Want to read more of my least favorite movies from 2010 to 2018?
- Top 10 Worst Movies of 2010
- Top 10 Worst Movies of 2011
- Top 10 Worst Movies of 2012
- Top 10 Worst Movies of 2013
- Top 10 Worst Movies of 2014
- Top 10 Worst Movies of 2015
- Top 10 Worst Movies of 2016
- Top 10 Worst Movies of 2017
- Top 10 Worst Movies of 2018
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