The Worst Movies of 2013

I'll be honest, it's more fun to make a worst list than a best list.  While I enjoy debating whether Before Midnight is great as a movie by itself, or whether I'm rewarding the entire trilogy is a good discussion. 

But the movies on this list stole my time and I can never get it back.  In some cases, it's not just the fact that the movie was bad.  It's the reason the movie was made.  All movies are made for money, but you always hope there is some art in there somewhere too.  If someone tried and failed, that's one thing.  But most of the movies on this list are examples of movies by committee.  Someone decided a sequel was needed, or they were trying to create a franchise.  No one involved in the movie was telling a story that was personal to them. 

Anyway, here my worst of 2013 list:

1.  Grown Ups 2 

I like Adam Sandler, and I like most of his movies.  I even liked That's My Boy and Jack and Jill.  They weren't good movies, but they made me laugh.  But Grown Ups 2 should not exist.  They didn't even bother writing a script.  It's like he and his friends hung out every day, filmed themselves goofing around, and they edited that into a 90 minute highlight reel.  There is no story, but even worse there are no good jokes.

2.  Getaway

Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez drive around for an hour and a half, getting in car chases with the police while a voice on the speakerphone tells them what to do.  He has to do what the voice says otherwise they'll kill his wife.  Except when he chooses to defy the voice, in which case it says "That was the right answer."  Ok, what?  I can suspend disbelief when a car drives on the sidewalk and everyone is able to jump out of the way with no injuries.  But he drives through a crowded park at high speed and is able to avoid hitting one person.  That's just ridiculous.  And all the stuff the voice makes them do is for absolutely no reason.

3.  The Host

This is the movie that killed Roger Ebert.  Seriously.  His review was posted on March 27, and he died a week later.  Coincidence?  First Stephanie Meyer showed she had no idea why vampires and werewolves are good movie monsters.  Now she shows us that she doesn't understand what makes an Invasion of the Body Snatchers type of movie work.

4.  R.I.P.D.

This was a bad Men in Black ripoff with a dumb story and no fun.  But the worst part was that they got Jeff Bridges to play Rooster Cogburn, which makes it harder to enjoy True Grit now.

5.  The Mortal Instruments - City of Bones

This started as Harry Potter fan fiction, and it should have stayed there.  The success of Harry Potter and Twilight means that the hot thing to do now is turn a young adult fantasy series into a movie franchise.  This story wouldn't work if it was a series on the WB.  My favorite part was when they revealed that Beethoven was one of the Shadow Hunters, and if you play a Beethoven sonata it will make a demon reveal himself.  Really lame.

6.  Hell Baby

From the team that created Reno 911, this was a really cheap horror spoof that didn't work at all.  No laughs and the only good part was the end when the demon baby was born and started trying to eat everyone.

7.  A Good Day to Die Hard

The fifth Die Hard movie.  Oh how this series has fallen.  The first was probably the best action movie of the 80s, maybe of all time.  Has any other series covered the spectrum from greatness to crap the way this series has?

8.  G.I. Joe: Retaliation

The first G.I. Joe wasn't horrible.  It has some fun parts to it but this one just sucked.  And just like a bad Die Hard movie, it also had Bruce Willis sleepwalking his way through it.

9.  The Lone Ranger

No, just no.  It was so obvious Disney and Bruckheimer were hoping for another Pirates of the Caribbean franchise with this.  There was no reason to make it 2 1/2 hours long.  The last 15 minutes or so were fun, and that should have been the tone of the rest of the movie.

10.  The Internship

Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson were great together in The Wedding Crashers.  Not so much this time around.  Once again, a comedy that isn't very funny.  Vaughn's schtick just seems tired now, and there is no way these characters are this dumb about the internet.  It's like they were transported from the 80s into 2013.

Biggest disappointment - Man of Steel

Not one of the worst movies, but it should have been great.  They got Superman all wrong.

Best Worst Movie - Movie 43

I still can't decide if this movie is so bad it's great, or if it's so bad the joke is on us.  It's a bunch of different sequences that don't try so much to make us laugh as to gross us out.  Some of them made me laugh, but not much.  I wish I could erase the image of Halle Berry and Stephen Merchant with their weird plastic surgery from my mind forever, as there was something just so disturbing about it.  But I did laugh at Hugh Jackman with balls on his chin.