Leigh Paatsch saw the worst movies so you don’t have to
THESE are the comedies as funny as a fart in a lift. The dunderheaded sequels. The worst thing to ever happen to Jennifer Lawrence. Leigh Paatsch sat through these movie stinkers so you don’t have to.
Leigh Paatsch
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EVERY now and then a movie comes along that’s so bad you find yourself ready to walk on out of the cinema.
Unfortunately for film reviewer Leigh Paatsch, he can’t do that.
So here is his list of total stinkers so you can avoid them.
The Emoji Movie
“Surely this is as low as kids’ entertainment can go.”
For every Dunkirk, there has to be a Dumbkirk. This soulless, cynical and strikingly unfunny cartoon calamity opened a portal to a whole new universe of bad filmmaking.
Is there an Emoji of a dumpster fire? That would sum up everything here to perfection.
Fifty Shades Freed
“The franchise won’t ever be calling for another hook-up.”
The end to the most trouser-troubling trilogy in motion-picture history is upon us. After the first two movie kink-a-tons from the pen of author EL James seduced the world box-office, Fifty Shades Freed is here to zip up, give you a quick peck on the cheek, and disappear. The whole experience has been like a bad Tinder date that lasted three years.
Manny Lewis
“One of the most truly terrible Australian films in living memory.”
Playing a sad-sack stand-up who falls in love with his friendly neighbourhood phone-sex operator, Carl Barron gives acting as we know it a wide berth. Instead, he wistfully slouches from scene to scene as if moving up a queue to pay a parking fine.
Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
“Even more unarresting than before.”
The race to make the most unnecessary comedy sequel of the 21st century has a new leader. To the surprise of everyone, it is not Hot Tub Time Machine 2. Take a bow, Kevin James.
mother!
“The mantically meaningless mood swings in mother! just keep on coming.”
The worst thing ever to happen to Jennifer Lawrence was having her face on the poster of this cinematic cry for help. No-one will be forgiving nor forgetting this baffling debacle in a hurry.
unIndian
‘It should come as no surprise that acting is no friend of Brett Lee.’
This fizzing Aussie-Bollywood bomb warrants no need to go upstairs to the third umpire. No-one should ever be forced to look for a second time at ex-cricketer Brett Lee’s unplayable delivery as an actor.
Dirty Grandpa
“The one thing Dirty Grandpa gets 100 per cent right is how the title is such a bullseye description of its refined target audience.”
From here on in, any estimates on how low Robert De Niro can go will also require the use of the world’s most powerful microscope.
The next Nobel prize goes to the scientist who develops the technology to help viewers unsee all they saw in this terrifying tale of a pensioner pantsman.
The Snowman
“A textbook example of how to melt down a whodunit into a dontwatchit.”
Michael Fassbender started the year by soiling his reputation with the dire Assassin’s Creed, and ended it by stinking out cinemas with a thriller that forgot to include any thrills.
Mother’s Day
“An echo chamber of botched gags gibbered by idiotic caricatures.”
A morbidly obese glob of sickly sentiment, supposedly celebrating the feminine side of good parenting. Leaves one and all wishing they were born and raised in a test tube.
Daddy’s Home 2
“A Christmas movie that makes you wish it was Boxing Day already.”
Every time a disturbing Mel Gibson scowls and growls out a punchline here, an angel is banished from heaven, a tree falls in a rainforest, and everyone watching loses a day off the end of their lives.
Transformers: The Last Knight
“The Last Knight has that rare knack of making less sense the more you focus on it.”
A whole lot of bits of earlier Transformers movies sticky-taped together into a misshapen ball of ear-shrinking explosions and retina-rearranging SFX.
That’s Not My Dog!
“If these are the funniest jokes these people have ever heard, they need to get their hearing checked.”
A poster for this sad old excuse for a movie promises “the greatest jokes ever told ... get told!” That ain’t quite the case. Most gags are very old, rundown and have seen better days. All involved laugh at each other’s punchlines with the rehearsed good cheer of those who have been paid just enough to do so on cue.
Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse
“Scouts Guide lazily cracks open a case of expired gross-out gags.”
A brown paper bag full of cinematic wet waste, flung at the screen for your viewing pleasure. Has ruined zombies for everyone until further notice.
Get Hard
“Ferrell and Hart must be experiencing cashflow problems of their own to be shovelling this sheep dip at their respective fanbases.”
Will Ferrell (career low) and Kevin Hart (career par) loop the same three jokes : (1) black people go to jail a lot; gay people can be so gay sometimes; and white people about to go to jail are very frightened of black or gay people they may meet.
Warcraft: The Beginning
“It only takes a matter of minutes for Warcraft: The Beginning to become the end of cinema as we know it.”
It took $200 million and two hours of your life to recreate the experience of watching a complete season of Game of Thrones … through a set of binoculars trained on a neighbour’s telly.
Terminator Genisys
“Somehow, the whole thing lasts two hours before somebody finally thinks of a way to end it all.”
Ask yourself this: do you really want your final memory of all things Terminator to be the great Arnold Schwarzenegger playing a dialogue-mulching pensioner-bot named Pops? Tell yourself this: no.
The Wedding Ringer
“95% of the lazy new American comedy The Wedding Ringer is as funny as a fart in a lift.”
Imagine Bridesmaids without the women, the wit or the willingness to serve up anything fresh, and you’re in the garbage-strewn ballpark of this tragic “bro-mantic comedy”. Stinker #2 in a whiffy year for Kevin Hart.
Mortdecai
“With Mortdecai, the long, lazy losing streak of the once-winning Johnny Depp continues.”
This groaner got green-lit in the belief there is nothing funnier in this world than Johnny Depp with old-timer facial hair.
Unsurprisingly, 105 minutes of this did not trigger a sudden boom in handlebar-moustache humour.
The BBQ
“Stick a fork right through this. It’s done.”
This flavour-free Australian comedy seems equally determined not to offend, amuse, or entertain. It’s just a big fat slab of movie margarine, spread to its absolute thinnest with the least energy possible.
Unfinished Business
“If you didn’t know it was supposed to be a comedy, it would almost pass muster as a rather creepy contemporary drama.”
Vince Vaughn is now officially a black hole into which jokes disappear, never to return. Drops his punchlines throughout this tired affair as if releasing sacks of kittens off a bridge.
Gods of Egypt
“After two hours of this guff, the whole thing has put a hole in your mind the size of a Sphinx.”
Calcifyingly crummy journey back to that era in Ancient Egyptian history where the tanning salons and smile-brightening clinics did a roaring trade.
Stars all your favourite Egyptian-looking actors like Gerard Butler, Geoffrey Rush, and err, Bryan Brown.
Spin Out
“Only two lasting thoughts can possibly enter the mind throughout this sad experience. How did this ever get made? And when will it ever end?”
In what was hardly a champagne year for Australian film, this smile-erasing comedy about the mating habits and cultural pastimes of bogans and boganettes went down like a bottle of unfiltered swamp water.
Inferno
“Leaves a burning sensation in all the wrong places.”
In the space of a month, this dunderheaded Da Vinci Code sequel took Tom Hanks all the way from Sully to silly. In the world of author Dan Brown, where there’s smoke, it’s dire.
Bad Santa 2
“No one saw a Bad Santa sequel coming. And no one will be coming to see Bad Santa 2.”
Aaah, Billy Bob Thornton soiling himself and despoiling strangely willing women. Now that’s entertainment … if you proudly count yourself part of the target audience of alcoholic sex offenders.
Going For Gold
“Mere words cannot express how awful this movie can be when it really puts its absent mind to it.”
It is nearly 20 years since Hollywood let loose Bring It On, charming the world with a merry band of cherubic cheerleaders led by Kirsten Dunst. Now Australia is having a very belated go at the same stuff. The end result? A total shambles which should have been titled Turn It Off.
Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie
“Tired, lazy and an often rather horrible effort from all concerned.”
Jokes so old — and so far past their use-by date — you need a fully functioning time machine to keep track of ‘em all. In a year rife with comedy reboots, this was a kick to where it truly hurts.
Ben-Hur
“If you were charged no more than a fiver to catch the race ... it would be a pretty sweet must-see deal. But no, you’ll have to sit through 100 minutes of turgid New Testament soap opera to get to the good stuff.”
Everyone knew this underwhelming remake was going to be a Ben-Huh? Always a bad sign when a cast speaks loudly and slowly, as if conversing with an elderly relative who has lost their hearing aid.
Risen
“Speaking of miracles, you would have to chain at least five of them together to save Risen from slowly falling to an agonisingly dull death.”
A wacky episode of CSI: Jerusalem investigating the strange case of a Messiah who was dead one minute, then back performing miracles the next. Stars yet another movie Jesus that is all long hair and distant stares.
A Few Less Men
“Nobody in their right mind could have wished for a sequel to the awful 2011 Australian comedy A Few Best Men.”
The 2011 Australian comedy A Few Best Men was like being trapped in a lift with someone getting a bit gassy. Its mucky sequel was like being thrown down that lift shaft into an open sewer.
All Eyez on Me
“This soulless, selectively truthful scraping of the story of the pioneering rap genius — shot dead in an unsolved drive-by at age 25 in 1996 — is an actual no-brainer of a movie.”
A sloppy, spirit-sapping marathon life story of rap genius Tupac Shakur, giving Naomi Watts’ Diana a serious rival for worst biopic of a pop-cultural icon in living memory.
Three Summers
“A bad movie like this just provides a convenient argument to stay away from local fare until further notice.”
If Australian film is in the real trouble most now assume it to be, then this tacky, hacky, laugh-free comedy is a distress flare signalling urgent help is needed. Will someone come to the rescue in 2018?
Geostorm
“In the D-grade disaster movie Geostorm, meteorology has turned malicious.”
A literal disaster movie, where satellites are zapping the planet with bad-weather laser beams. You couldn’t make this stuff up, and then spend $170 million to make it a movie. But someone did just that.
Flatliners
“Unlike its protagonists, this new version of Flatliners expires early, and never once reveals any vital sign it will be coming back from the dead.”
The world was not crying out for a remake of Flatliners, that trashy 1990 thriller about a bunch of med students experimenting with the act of temporarily dying to improve their quality of life.
CHIPS
“This sloppy, sluggish update isn’t really interested in casually channelling the simple retro goofiness of the concept.”
Constructing a great, or even good, dumb action comedy from the bare bones of an old television show is much, much harder than it seems.
Originally published as Leigh Paatsch saw the worst movies so you don’t have to
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