Mike's Musings: The Bottom 10 of 2021

 2021 was the worst year I've had reviewing movies.  Full stop.  It was the first time when looking for movies that were released this year became an actual chore.  One can blame the fact that the Covid-19 pandemic screwed with film production and caused massive shifts in releases, and to an extent that's true.  But I have a sinking feeling that this is the reality we are in for the near future.  Movies these days come in two flavors: auteur flicks that are designed to stroke the ego of the filmmaker or bloated special effects extravaganzas whose appeal is limited to fanboy obsession and nostalgia junkies.  Call me a philistine or an elitist if you want, but references to other films don't make a movie and continuous pulls to my nostalgia strings have become irritating and manipulative.  And when I watch a movie, I want to be pulled along by the story, not engage in an "Easter egg hunt" (as was Jason Reitman's goal for "Ghostbusters: Afterlife") or debate fan theories or whether or not superhero flicks are cinema.  The mid budget movies that managed to attract top talent and feature good storytelling and acting, such as "The Imitation Game" or "Schindler's List," are gone.  Quality doesn't matter anymore.  Unless your name is Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese, you're making a no budget art piece or you've been swallowed by the MCU.  And God help you if one movie you make doesn't cross the billion dollar mark.  Just as Christopher Nolan, who had the unfortunate luck to release his mammoth-sized blockbuster "Tenet" in the middle of the pandemic.  That the movie was good matters not.  The studio was forced to release it when word of mouth couldn't spread and fanboys turned on him for one reason or another.  Now he's been dropped by his home studio.

Welcome to post-pandemic Hollywood.

10. Eternals.  This review got a comment claiming it was just another rant on why I hate the MCU rather than a criticism of the film.  My disdain for the MCU (which should have died years ago) is no secret, but perhaps I wasn't clear.  "Eternals" isn't on my Bottom 10 list just because it's an MCU movie.  It's on the list because it is literally a carbon copy of every other MCU movie.  I could predict every turn of the plot.  I could predict every line, it seemed.  There was no energy to it, no characters to care about.  The only depth to their personalities came from the actors' charisma.  If you were to change the characters and a few minor names, you'd have "Captain Marvel" or "Ant-Man" or any other MCU movie.  Marvel can do better, but to wast all this money and talent to give audiences a Xerox of nearly every other movie they've made is unacceptable.  Fortunately fanboy obsession didn't carry it as far as usual, so barring repeat success of "Spider-Man: No Way Home." they're either going to have to evolve or change.

9.  Cruella.  This is a movie that was packaged and green-lighted before there was even a screenplay or a story anyone thought was worth telling.  Sure, the two Emmas are gifted actresses and they ham it up as only true professionals can, but why?  Cruella de Vil may be a terrific villain, but why an origin story for her?  She's not exactly high on the Disney Villain totem pole, and the attempt to humanize her effectively neutered her personality.  Emma Thompson can get down and dirty with the best of them, but The Baroness was just a Rich Snob 101.  Neither actress could bring the necessary edge to be really nasty, and so all we are left with is some gaudy costumes and a budget that was 10 times more than necessary.  With nothing to show for it.

8.  Fatherhood.  Few kinds of movies are more painful to sit through than a tearjerker that is practically begging the audience to cry.  The manipulation is shameless, which comes with the territory.  But it's not done well and that leaves a boring, treacly soap opera.  The only concession is that there were some nice performances (including a surprisingly solid dramatic turn by Kevin Hart) and the screenplay did approach some interesting issues.  Still, this is not a movie I recommend.  Other movies such as "Black or White" and "Gifted" have mined similar material with much more finesse, tact and emotional honesty.  This is a movie that is just begging to be parodied by Mad Magazine or "South Park."

7.  Leap.  If you can make a movie that ends up on someone's Bottom 10 list even though it stars China's premiere leading lady, my advice is to seek other employment.  It's true that Gong Li hasn't always picked the best films to be a part of (and she is exceptionally choosy to begin with), but still.  She is such an ace in the hole that the movie should at least be watchable.  The only consolation that director Peter Ho-Sun Chan will get from me is that this is still better than Wong Kar-Wai's ego trip "2046."  Albeit marginally.

6.  Malignant.  I still find it impossible to believe that James Wan, the man who gave us "Saw," "Insidious" and "Aquaman" could give us a movie as inept as as "Malignant."  Perhaps the real James Wan was abducted by aliens and his clueless doppelgänger directed this monument to ineptitude.  Or he was forced to deal with studio interference (doubtful, given how successful he is).  Or that his leading lady can't act to save her life, and he spent all of his time and energy trying to make her look semi-competent (if so, it didn't work).  Whatever the reason, this movie is awful and hopefully just an aberration on a thus far stellar career.

5.  Mortal Kombat (2021).  I almost gave this movie a guilty pleasure rating of 2.5/4 because there are some parts that are so bad that they're funny.  But the more I thought about it, the more I disliked it.  Because, really, what would I be defending?  A few mean-spirited laughs in two hours of a toxic sludge of boredom?  Some nicely choreographed action scenes?  I wasn't expecting "Casablanca" from a movie based on a fighting game, but the film took itself far too seriously.  Had it leaned into the camp more and told a coherent story, it might have been stupid fun.  But it isn't.

4.  The Seventh Day.  The good news about "The Seventh Day" is that it stars Guy Pearce and Keith David.  The bad news is that Keith David is gone after the first two minutes and Guy Pearce appears to be on set under the pain of death.  The Aussie actor, who is quite gifted when he works at it, so very clearly does not want to be there and makes no secret of it.  You can feel the fumes from his fury.  If you want to see Guy Pearce play an pissed off priest, I suggest you check out an indie film called "Brimstone."  At least there he's paired off with actresses like Dakota Fanning and Carice Van Houten (who happens to be his current real life lover).  Here, he's playing off Vadhir Derbez, for whom the term "nepotism" leaps quickly to mind.  It would certainly explain his consistently foul mood.

3.  Zola.  "Zola" appeared to be the indie film that could.  It got good reviews and was a bit of a minor cult hit.  But the same thing happened with "Hereditary" and countless other critical darlings that never caught on with the public (for good reason), and "Zola" is just as bad.  A boring adventure story about people I couldn't stand and watching them be world-class idiots who are just asking for big trouble is not my idea of fun.  It's like trash TV with an even bigger stench than usual.  "Zola" has all the fun of reading supermarket tabloids.  It's boring and you feel unclean while watching it.

2. The Many Saints of Newark.  This is a prequel to "The Sopranos," allegedly one of the greatest TV series ever made.  If this movie is anything to go by, I'll sell my box set on eBay because this movies is boring, incoherent, and goes nowhere very slowly.  There is no one to know or care about in this film.  When a character spoke someone's name, I wanted to know who they were talking about.  There is no internal consistency.  No one has any consistent motives or behavior.  They may as well have sent the film through the leaf shredder.

1.  Yakuza Princess.  This movie is so bad that it was too inept to be bad enough for a perfect zero rating.  It's boring, trite and features the least interesting protagonist in a long, long time.  I've seen plenty of terrible movies in my time as a film critic, but I can't think of any other that can be described in a single word: dead.  Watching this movie is like watching a blank wall.  Stuff may be moving on the screen in this case, but that doesn't 't make it any more interesting.  That a movie can so utterly waste the talents of Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is shocking.  Not even "Pulse" was anywhere near this awful.

My Top 10 list will come when I have found a 2021 movie that gets a 4/4.  Yes, I know that was last year, but I'm willing to cheat in this case.