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Worst Films of 2019

2019 was a pretty good year for cinema. It gave us some true masterpieces as well as many very strong, memorable movies, both foreign and American. However, like every other year, it has its own share of stinkers, some being downright bad and inexcusable. These films represent the very worst of the year in my honest opinion.

5. Waves

I expected much bigger things from Waves, but I ended up immensely disappointed. Yes, its acting is strong and its framing is inspired. However, the movie is so angry, and so damn aggressive in putting its characters down that it becomes an incredibly frustrating, frankly even offensive case of misery porn.

4. Alita: Battle Angel

Alita: Battle Angel was written by James Cameron and it shows. It’s incoherent, very badly adapted from its source material and featuring terrible character development. I did find it visually arresting and its anime-inspired action is fun, but it’s emotionally empty, and it is an overloud spectacle over substance.

3. Cats

On the one hand, Cats is far from horrible as most said it is. The production design in it is frequently splendid, the music is obviously great and the actors did a good job. However, the silliness abounds in terms of storytelling, it’s downright creepy in the stupidly uncomfortable designs of the cats, and it’s so messy and odd throughout. It obviously should have been an animated film instead.

2. Ford v Ferrari

Indeed, I included a Best Picture nominee on my list of worst films of the year, and deservedly so as Ford v Ferrari is just a bad movie through and through. It’s frustratingly middlebrow, it is overloud and frankly boring in its endless action, and Christian Bale himself annoyed me to no end with his horribly fabricated performance. The fact that so many people adore this movie is baffling to me.

1. The Lion King

And yes, I actually chose The Lion King remake as the worst film of 2019. And I had so many reasons for this perhaps somewhat unusual choice. One is its utter unoriginality as it recycles the original so shamelessly to the even most minute details. Another reason is the music as the songs are bland and simply ruined here. And the biggest reason is the choice to go realistic in the animals’ faces. That rendered the movie emotionally distant, and no matter how marvelous it is in its backgrounds, it has nothing else to offer instead of an obvious case of copyright infringement, even if done by the same company.

Honorable Mentions:

Bacurau – I did really like Bacurau’s intriguing opening, but the movie quickly succumbed to an unbearably off-putting, odd mix of genres that simply doesn’t work.

The Addams Family – Though well animated, this Addams Family reboot is entirely pointless, uninspired and, worst of all, lacking the edge and darkness that is required of this material.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – This incoherent, hugely overrated mess a movie finds Tarantino at his worst so far. It has no point to it, and it’s even offensive in some areas.