My top movie flops of 2015 was influenced by how many headaches I suffered while watching it and thinking about if the experience would be better while drinking or being repeatedly struck in the head.
1. Black Hat – Black Hat was one of the earliest 2015 movies I watched that made me question if anything else in the whole year would try to take the dishonor of being the worst movie I saw. Pixels came in close to almost defeating Black Hat, but then I remembered remote hacking a generated fan and magazine knife armor and the bad Black Hat memories take over.
2. Pixels – This movie insulted me to my core of being a nerd. It’s not hard to screw up meta video game movies if you actually understand your audience. Did these people not see Wreck it Ralph? Did they not grow up in the 80’s? How does the movie studio try to sue everyone and everything with the word “Pixels” in the title and not expect to look like a money grubbing asshole?
3. Fantastic Four – It seems the Fox version of Marvel can’t tell a decent story that doesn’t involve X-men in the title, Fantastic Four is another failed attempted to get the audience to love these four misfits that I think America has choice to ignore. Even Marvel Comics has outcast the F4 in the new timeline. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when I decided to hate this movie, it might had been between the confusing science fair or the introduction to Emo Dr. Doctor. I honestly don’t remember because as soon as BS science stuff pops up, I remember Black Hat again. .
4. Jem And the Holograms – Ever been trying to focusing on doing work and you accidentally go into a YouTube binge? JATH simulates that experience. The beginning starts out pretty innocent and 80’s like (The Bank is going to foreclosure on some property, dead parents, the answer to most problems is singing). Jerrica becomes Jem and the new origin tale is born! Then it is dropped on it’s head as soon as they try to shoe horn a talking robot and a bizarre savager hunt created by Jerrica’s irresponsible father. Toss in some random YouTube clips and dumb reasons for a teenage band not to hire a lawyer, and you have a text book example of a cash grab movie made by people out of touch of both modern pop culture and 80’s nostalgia.
5. Unfriended – There is something I dislike about Webcam Horror. It could be that I can predict more horror movies attempting to do this glitchy, face hugging perspective of story telling that involves people on computers and a decent internet connection. Unfriended is the story of terrible friends and misusing social media. What ever message this movie had attempted to tell gets mixed up by the silly “attacks” during the movie and Skype having an evil mode.
6. The Lazarus Effect – Early in the year, I had already guessed most of the major plot points of this movie by just seeing the trailer. When I finally saw the movie, I was more upset that I was right about some of the crazy theories that I made up. Some of there were “Donald Glover is only in this movie for 10 minutes, maybe 20 tops.”, “Olivia Wilde will probably be super guilty of something”, and “This will probably turn a profit since Olivia Wilde is wildly hot!”. The movie was rather bland for trying to explain hell and demons, but the result was simple jump scares and a gothic looking Olivia Wilde that didn’t quite turn into the super monster I was hoping to see.
7. No Escape – The everyday family man surviving a crazy adventure of South Asia might had been exciting to see if it just had Pierce Brosnan in the leading role. What we got was a weird World War Z rip off that made me question about ever traveling aboard.
8. The Loft – The potential for the Loft to be a great story was lost when cluster plot starts to trip on itself. The story is about this collection of playboy husbands and boyfriends sharing a loft apartment so they can cheat, but the actors start to crowd each other and scrap for who can be the most over the top in reckless behavior. There are hints of classic hitchcockian suspense, but it falls flat on delivery a coherent story.
9. Aloha – True story, I saw this movie twice. Once on an airplane without sound and again with sound. The soundless version I saw was actually better in retrospect. There aren’t many military romance stories and this isn’t going to help bring that trend back (So no Officer and A Gentleman 2 anytime soon). The plot is weirdly complex with ex lovers, secret nuclear plans, Hawaiian air space and hula classes. You bet this will be on How Did This Get Made? next year.
10. Hot Tube Time Machine 2 – It’s really ashamed what could’ve been a decent follow up to a cult classic that was
and what we got felt like a cheap cash grab for a sequel no one demanded. Following the same steps of The Hangover series, if there was any jokes that earned a laugh, it was beaten to death during the whole movie.