Another year has come and gone and with it comes the never-ending number of lists summing up the year. The year of 2022 will go down for me as the year I saw the most new films, helped massively by finally getting a cinema membership and being more than happy to watch anything and everything they were showing. This does mean that I watched a lot of pretty bad films in 2022, and that is what this list will focus on. This won’t necessarily be the worst films of the year but instead it will be my least favourite, although the two do tend to go hand in hand. I will post the list of my favourite films tomorrow for those who prefer more positive reviews. Anyway, there are plenty of bad films I am forcing myself to remember so let’s crack on so I can push them to the back of my mind once more.
10. Pinocchio – Robert Zemeckis
I think is about time these Disney remakes stop. Has there been a single good one, or have they all just been big wastes of time? Unlike many of the other remakes they have put out, I have no real affinity to the original, but that didn’t stop me from feeling like this was just a pointless film. It stays low on this list because it didn’t annoy me all that much, but it basically just washed over me and trying to remember anything from it now is difficult. I may as well have just sat staring at my blank screen for the runtime and I would have had almost the same experience.
9. Black Adam – Jaume Collet-Serra
Another film that just felt like so much nothing while I was watching it. I hit my superhero fatigue a long time ago, and even before I did, I had no interest in the DC universe at all. I’m sure some people may have enjoyed this, but aside from Pierce Brosnan everything is just so bland, and it effectively just becomes CGI mess after CGI mess, held together by a dull and played-out narrative. This may have been higher on this list but with the news that the DC universe is cancelled it makes the end credit scene with Henry Cavill as Superman comedic gold and so it lands here.
8. Coppelia – Jeff Tudor, Steven De Beul, Ben Tesseur
This was one film I knew nothing about going in and boy was I very disappointed as soon as I realised it was a ballet. I do not like ballet. I think it is physically impressive and I appreciate the huge amount of effort that goes into it, but it does absolutely nothing for me. This film is not helped by the fact that it is also ugly as sin. The film looks like it takes place in a lazy Lazy Town and it is nightmarish. The fact that this came out in the year of our lord 2022 (in the UK) is somewhat impressive because of how cheap it looks. Even if you were into ballet, I think you would struggle to look past how horrible the film looks as a whole.
7. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore – David Yates
While I definitely think this is an improvement on the second film that isn't particularly saying much. What I will say is that they massively improve on my biggest problem with the last film which was that it was all fan service at expense of narrative and also actively weakened the intrigue in the world. When this film dips into fan service it is much more subtle and ends up being the strongest aspect of the film for me. But apart from that it is just naff. I can't say I hated it, but I was instead bored and struggling to care about any of it. This isn't helped by the fact that it is juggling several narrative plot points that weren't set up particularly well to begin with and we're paid off in a completely underwhelming fashion here. All the actors do a good job and it I'd competently made, but that is almost the minimum requirement. I find myself questioning why this franchise exists ultimately.
6. Don’t Worry Darling – Olivia Wilde
If not for Florence Pugh and Chris Pine, I'd have very little positive to say about this film. There are some good visuals scattered throughout, but it is a mess narratively. It starts off kind of promising but quite quickly becomes pretty dull. That is until the film’s narrative twist is revealed. At that point I became suddenly more entertained, but not for the reasons the film wanted me to be. I was entertained because the twist makes the film become a complete farce and I basically was treated to a comedy for the third act, except I was taking itself super seriously.
5. Morbius – Daniel Espinosa
How I feel about this film could basically be copied and pasted from what I said about Black Adam earlier. Except where Black Adam was boring but at least competently made, this film is boring but also a shit show in terms of tone, direction, and editing. It is really no surprise that this film became a meme shortly after it came out. The only positive thing about the film is Matt Smith, and it isn’t because he is putting in a good performance, but because he is hamming it up beyond belief, so he becomes the only interesting aspect of the film.
4. Jurassic World Dominion – Colin Trevorrow
I have been looking up my Letterboxd reviews for these films as a refresher and when it came to this one there was just a YouTube link. I couldn’t remember what it was and so followed it, and it still remains the most accurate way of me describing this film, so I am passing it on to you: https://youtu.be/14K5OdguJro
3. Texas Chainsaw Massacre – David Blue Garcia
There was a moment in this film where I thought it could be okay, and it was the most fleeting of moments. This was the first really bad film I saw last year, and I suspected it would be high up on this list. There is almost nothing good to say about it. I guess if you’re really into gore it might do something for you, but even then, it is pretty tame. Apart from this, it is just a thoroughly dislikeable film. From how it looks, to its stupid narrative and endlessly unlikeable characters, this was hard to sit through.
2. Halloween Ends – David Gordan Green
This film is slightly better than Halloween Kills (2021) but that really doesn’t say much about the quality of it. What I will say is that it does try to do something interesting, but the execution of this is horrendously bad. And this premise means that Michael Myers is hardly in the film, which I wouldn’t mind if they delivered on this premise, but as they don’t then the lack of Michael Myers is a big issue for me. The reason this is so low is that after the first film in this reboot series, I was genuinely optimistic, and it ended up being such a massive letdown. It is helped much by the film being a huge pile of shit either.
1. Thor: Love and Thunder – Taika Watiti
Is this film technically the worst film I saw this year? Probably not. But my god is it the one that grated on me the most. Even Christian Bale, who is great in the film, could not save this shitshow. I am already bored of this whole Marvel shtick anyway, so when you put out a film like this which is just aggravating and painful to sit through then you are not going to get me back involved. The main issue with this film is that the comedy is unbearable, and it became apparent that it wasn’t going anywhere good when it involved screaming goats almost a decade on from when that was a thing. And yet the screaming goats perfectly encapsulate the film. Dumb, loud, and way past its sell-by date. Just a complete crock of shit.
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