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Gerard’s Worst Films of 2013!

To compliment my best of the year lists I’ve once again compiled a short “worst of” set of selections. The following are films that I saw in 2013 that sucked and/or did not live up to the hype. I’m not going to include a “dishonorable mentions” list like last year, because it would be a waste of time. The films contained here star A-list actors and most had gigantic budgets to work with. It makes it that much more painful to recap why they sucked. I understand the concept of “guilty pleasures,” and I have many, but these don’t even qualify as guilty pleasures, in my opinion. Shall we begin? 

Here are the WORST films of 2013, in no particular order:

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters – What could have been really promising, taking the lead from the fun as hell Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter concept of films, is Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, which was pretty much dead on arrival for me. Don’t get me wrong; it made a lot of money that they’re working on a sequel now. That makes me even sadder. I was actually looking forward to the film towards the end of 2012 but then it got delayed to January of 2013, and as we all know, January is where movies studios send their films to die…mostly. Hansel & Gretel are brother and sister who team up to rid the world of witches and demons after their parents are killed by evil forces. This would be fine and all if the dialogue and basic story weren’t so atrocious to begin with. Tommy Wirkola, who directed the excellent Dead Snow, directed the film. I was anxious to see what he had up his sleeve but was severely let down in the end. It was beyond slapstick and having Famke Janssen ham it up for an admitted paycheck did the film no favors.

Evil Dead (remake) – I’m a casual fan of the original Evil Dead trilogy. I enjoy Army of Darkness the most. I remember when the remake was announced and all of the people involved said that it would be pushed beyond the normal horror filmmaking limits – damn the ratings board! Yes, first cut submitted received an NC-17 rating before they settled on a final rated R version. I also curious about first time feature film director Fede Alvarez who was personally tapped by Sam Raimi to direct the remake after Raimi watched Alvarez’s $5,000 short film about an alien invasion. You would have thought that everything was going in the right direction. Wrong. The film was garbage and served no purpose whatsoever to move the mythology forward. The remake was played straight as opposed tongue-in-cheek, which hurt it in the long run. The gore is great but the film is an incoherent mess that never actually expands the storyline and what was set up in the prologue. The filmmakers even go so far as to pay fan service by including an after credit sequence that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the film that we just watched. What were they thinking? I know what I was thinking. Get me out of here!

Snitch – I saw the trailers for Snitch and thought it looked pretty cool. Hey, The Rock takes on the Mexican Cartel and the DEA? Sure, why not. I’ll tell you why not. Because it sucked! Snitch was dull from the get-go and never progressed beyond mediocrity. It had a great but squandered cast that were actually TOO good for the material that they were given to work with. None of the performances felt inspired considering how deep the material shown is presented. We see characters introduced here and there to never be seen again, because the story doesn’t call for it. Yes, I know that Dwayne Johnson is busy nowadays making one film after another until he becomes an A-list movie star. I have no doubt that he will get there but Snitch does not help his cause at all. Skip it.

The Purge – Blumhouse Productions, which has been on a roll releasing micro-budgeted horror films for the last few years came into the game to release The Purge, a story about a society where once a year, for 12 hours, all emergency services and police presence will be suspended, so that the citizenry can go on a crime spree and “purge” itself of its least desirable elements: People.  Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey star as the married couple, with family, who after setting up for the purge are interrupted by a series of events and stupid decisions that look to derail everything that had been set up all year. The film goes from being a near-future pseudo-fascist tale of where we’re heading to a lame game of cat and mouse where every other person is an idiot and just can’t help do something stupid. Once again, the film did gangbusters in theaters and part 2 is on the way. Here’s hoping that the few items that were hinted at in this film get to be explored in the sequel.

Jack the Giant Slayer –  Brian Singer came back in 2013 with his latest fantasy flick called Jack the Giant Slayer. A giant epic of a fantasy tale utilizing some of the best special effects money can buy. Too bad they didn’t spend enough money on the script. It’s a bore to get to the final payoff. I will concede and say that when we do get to the finale – that part of the film rocked. The film runs just under two hours but feels like three. It just drags and drags. And here people were telling me that The Hobbit dragged? Shieeeeeeet. Jack the Giant Slayer was also one of those films that were supposed to be released in 2012, as well, but tested horribly, so they postponed it to the first part of 2013. I’d say if you were that compelled to check the film out then you should forward the flick to the last 20 minutes, which is the part of the whole thing.

Getaway – Getaway makes me chuckle, because the trailers looked badass and I like Ethan Hawke, so it’s great to see him in flicks (as long as The Purge isn’t one of them) from every genre. Getaway is set up as a thriller where Ethan Hawke’s character is an ex-race car driver who’s wife has been kidnapped and he’s got to do everything he can to get her back while barreling through town in a custom Cobra Shelby Mustang that looks bloody awesome. Oh, and he’ll have to team up with uber-hacker-rich girl- Selena Gomez who can hack networks with her iPad. Groaaaaaaan. The film literally grinds to a fault 10-20 minutes in, because the plotting is ridiculous and I got tired of watching lame car chases. Getaway is really frustrating, because even after you finish watching the film it literally answers ZERO questions as to what happened in those previous 80 minutes I spent glued to the TV. I guess the joke was on me, huh.

G.I. JOE: Retaliation – I’m one of the few that actually enjoyed the first live action G.I. JOE: Rise of Cobra romp that was released a few years ago. It was campy fun that was self-aware. You know it all goes to hell when you drop Dennis Quaid from your film as the sequel that I was really looking forward to got delayed almost a year so that they could re-shoot scenes and do a 3-D post conversion. When the final film finally hit theaters it was a sloppy mess of a film that I had to go and re-watch the first one to get the bad taste out of my mouth. Retaliation’s story is an incoherent mess and characters show up and disappear for no reason at all. I think Best Buy also released a limited Extended Edition that added a few more minutes to the picture that made it a little better but not by much. Most of those scenes were composed of alternate angles and outtakes with a bit more RZA in them. I was severely disappointed with G.I. JOE: Retaliation. 

That’s a wrap folks. I’m sure I’ve missed quite a few more bad films from 2013 (and the year’s not over yet!) but these are the ones that I’ve actually seen. Remember, if you’re interested in any of the films mentioned above, click on the thumbnails and you will be transported to the product page on Amazon. This entire list is available on Blu-ray.