For today’s Year-Ender roundtable, the Film Flam staff moves away from the good and casts an eye toward the bad and the ugly. Fittingly, each of these films is a dispiriting Hollywood would-be blockbuster; if you find yourself missing a certain superhero smackdown, be sure to revisit the epic takedown from Bad Reviewz’ James Donner.
KYLE AMATO
Suicide Squad wasn’t even a movie. It was a collection of introductions for the dullest “villains” imaginable. Will Smith and Margot Robbie were acting in a completely different film, one that may have had some dramatic clout. But they were droned out by nonsensical motivations, muddy cinematography and brutally sexist humor. I don’t understand how anyone could defend this garbage. Also, Jared Leto is a bad person and he deserves nothing.
KYLE BRUNET
The winds are changing. A chill runs down my spine as my head sweats at the same time. The contradicting temperatures blend with a harsh sense of melancholy. How did I get here? What did I do to deservsuch a pain? My legs are numb and my mind is blank, wishing this would end. As Justin Bieber dies on screen in such an over the top fashion, so did a little piece of my heart and a deep love for the craft. Just at that moment, this body of mine melts into my seat. The unnecessary cameos, the misogynist, transphobic ,and racist jokes, and the annoying Ben Stiller stare. “I’ve had enough,” I said, as I tumbled out into the lobby and collapse to my knees. With a dumbfounded look on my face, I state “Dignity has died today,” as an anxious tear drops from my ducts, signaling a defeat like no other. This is it. This is the world now. This is Zoolander 2.
W. LOGAN FREEMAN
Norm of the North. This is the worst movie I have ever seen. I paid 12 dollars to see it at the theatre by Universal Studios in Los Angeles and ate Panda Express afterwards. The food was the best part of the experience. I was falling off my seat in pain listening to Rob Schneider voice that stupid fucking polar bear.
OSCAR GOFF
Making a sequel to Independence Day should have been an easy task. Most people who would have been excited to see it (myself included) were under no impression that it was going to be “good.” All director Roland Emmerich needed to do to make Independence Day: Resurgence a satisfying summer blockbuster is to just make the same thing, only bigger, dumber, and more expensive. Instead, Emmerich seemed to practically do backflips to avoid making that movie. The sequel is so packed with ideas– an alternate present with integrated alien technology; a moonbase full of photogenic young stars; a sentient space-orb governing an intergalactic civil war; a psychic, machete-wielding African warlord; a criminally underplayed love interest between Jeff Goldblum and Charlotte Gainsbourg, and a semi-veiled gay romance for Brent Spiner’s scientist– that there’s simply no room for the lovable “Welcome to Earth” jingoism that made the original such a perfect popcorn movie. Still, the fact that I saw this, but did not see Jurassic World, proves that I am more loyal to Jeff Goldblum than I previously suspected.
NICK PERRY
Can I just rant about X-Men: Apocalypse and Bryan Singer for a hot minute? This movie was a pile of bullshit and caused me literal physical reactions of disgust (stopping just short of vomiting in the theater). Bryan Singer is an appalling director whose career we let go on for far too long and who must be stopped. I’ve lost any goodwill I might have had from the original X-Men movies and Superman Returns simply because of this fucking garbage movie. He is so boring, so lazy, and clearly does not understand nor care to understand what the X-Men are all about, let alone care about making a good movie. I blame a lot of this on his propensity to ignore characters who aren’t conventionally attractive cis white men. Seriously, in a cast of characters as awesome as the X-Men, which has a whole canon of badass intersectional women, people of color, and queer people, Bryan Singer constantly foists the most boring, watered-down versions of these characters on us and puts the main focus on other (white, conventionally attractive, and mostly dude) characters.
Beyond the terrible characterization, every scene in this movie is either nonsense or garbage. We’re stuck with another heavy-handed, sympathetic Magneto backstory in which a single wooden arrow kills both his daughter and his wife (so at least Singer is economical in wasting the audience’s time). In another scene, Magneto destroys Auschwitz, although I can’t name a single reason that this type of poorly CGI’d scene was even included, since the destruction of Auschwitz had no theme or meaning but only served as the endnote on a “climactic moment.” It shouldn’t have been such a terrible surprise that this scene happened, since much of Singer’s use of the Holocaust has been as some plot device or lazy metaphor. The destruction of Auschwitz is a powerful statement and it’s a powerful image, but when rendered meaningless, as in this movie, it’s a complete disregard to both historic and current world events. Bryan Singer is one of the worst working directors, making movies that are both terrible and lazy (for real though, rewatch The Usual Suspects and explain to me why I’m wrong). X-Men: Apocalypse is a testament to everything wrong with superhero movies, modern studio filmmaking, and the power given to filmmakers because they can break box office records.
TOMORROW: Our week of roundtables ends on a high note, as we look back on our favorite filmgoing experiences of the year!
