10 Worst Movies of 2019
Hollywood swill flooded the multiplex in such large quantities this year that it’s difficult to confine the number of worsts to 10. The public enemy No. 1? How about the tendency of major studios to remake and rejigger, to prequelize and sequelize until the very notion of originality is obliterated from the landscape. But why kick a dead horse — of D.O.A. franchise entries like Men in Black International — when the major offenders were from filmmakers who should have known better yet willingly squandered real possibilities. Here are the worst films that 2019 had to offer. Read this list and actually weep.
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‘The Lion King’
Jon Favreau’s photo-realistic rip-off of Disney’s 1994 animated classic reps a toxic trend — it’s a corporate product minus heart, soul, and any hint of originality.
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‘The Kitchen’
Melissa McCarthy, Elisabeth Moss, and Tiffany Haddish — they’re three wives who take over for their racketeering husbands when the men get thrown into the slammer — bury their talents in a misbegotten Seventies mobster movie that’s a true criminal offense.
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‘Gemini Man’
Oscar winner Ang Lee gets so caught up in making Will Smith a digitalized younger version of himself in this misbegotten sci-fi/clone thriller that he forgets to craft a watchable movie.
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‘The Goldfinch’
Donna Tartt’s novel and an all-star cast (including Nicole Kidman, Jeffrey Wright, Finn Wolfhard and Ansel Elgort) go down in flames in what’s arguably the worst literary adaptation in decades.
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‘Where’d You Go, Bernadette?’
Even Cate Blanchett and director Richard Linklater can’t energize this lifeless take on Maria Semple’s joyous book about a woman who suddenly “disappears” and sends her family on a wild goose chase.
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‘The Dead Don’t Die’
Indie-film giant Jim Jarmusch never, ever screws up. This DOA zombie comedy — starring Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Tom Waits and a number of other regular collaborators — says otherwise. What the hell happened here?
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’21 Bridges’
Black Panther‘s Chadwick Boseman shuts down New York to catch drug dealers and dirty cops. Too bad he didn’t shut down this no-thrills thriller instead.
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‘Midway’
Roland Emmerich depicts this crucial World War II naval battle by bombing us with cardboard characters (someone should personally apologize to Woody Harrelson, Patrick Wilson, Mandy Moore, Dennis Quaid and the rest of the cast) and phony FX. It’s a bomb, alright.
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‘Glass’
What happens when M. Night Shyamalan jams the characters from Split and Unbreakable into one doubled-up sequel? An incoherent, god-awful mess.
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‘Last Christmas’
Justice demands oblivion for this indigestible blend of holiday rom-com and ghost story with zero-chemistry lovers (Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke, Crazy Rich Asians’ Henry Golding) and zero reason to exist.