The Top 3 Worst Films of 2019

An excerpt from my May 2019 Soph & Nick's Magazine.

There were a lot of great movies in 2019, from Ford v Ferrari to Parasite, and from Us to 1917. However, there were also a lot of duds, as expected, and although I try to avoid seeing terrible movies as best as I can, when you see a lot of movies there is no doubt you will also see some bad ones. So here are three of the worst films I saw in theatres 2019, and exactly what made them so terrible.

3. Aladdin

This live action remake can be humorous at times, but mostly it is overshadowed by bad acting, poor character development, and dull musical number additions. First, the things I enjoyed: Will Smith as the Genie was a great part of the show, as was a few of the scenes in it that featured his powers on Aladdin. I loved Will Smith’s portrayal of the Genie just as much as I loved Robin William’s portrayal—but I see them as incomparable. Will Smith didn’t need to copy the energy of Williams and instead relied on his own usual charisma to really drive home the suave, comical character of the Genie. However, the rest of the film kind of fell flat. Rather than being sweeping and grand like one would expect, the film was met with terrible character development and plot inconsistencies. Mena Massoud’s acting, at times, is very stilted and unnatural, his emotion forced. If you can get past these flaws the movie itself is by no means “terrible”, but intensely unnecessary. However if you are looking for an entertaining family flick to watch, there are worse ones out there.

2. Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark

I, admittedly, watch a lot of horror movies, and it takes quite a bit to scare me. Which is why I was hesitant to watch Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, knowing that it was based off a middle-grade children’s book series. However I still went in with the hopes I would at least be creeped out, especially knowing it was produced by Guillermo del Toro—and that was where I failed. Although somewhat entertaining, this movie does little to the emotion, just as its hollow scares leave little to the imagination. There is almost no suspense built up, creating zero atmosphere and making the scares little more than two-dimensional objects on the screen. Although I am familiar with the original book series—and many of the scenes was met with a sort of nostalgic remembrance—I found the additional plot, which attempted to connect the individual stories together, extremely far-fetched and lacklustre.

1. Yesterday

When I first wrote about this movie in my journal, I called it “Beatles for Millenials.” And before you comment that I, too, am I millennial—uh, sorry, I’m actually Generation Z. Or X. Or is it Y? Anyhoo, the whole movie seems like it was written by someone who doesn’t actually enjoy the Beatles in the slightest, and actually prefers Ed Sheeran, since the whole movie acts like an Ed Sheeran sponsorship. Seriously. The premise is unique, and despite its terrible execution, I will give it that. It goes as follows: one day, this guy wakes up and BOOM! Nobody remembers The Beatles! But what comes from that is a terrible tour-de-force of stupidity, as the man decides to recreate all their music and pretend he wrote it. Then at the end he comes clean and admits he didn’t actually write any of the music, and the world still keeps on loving him. The main character, who is intensely lacking in personality, charm, humor, and charisma—in fact he barely speaks a word the entire film other than to grunt— manages to get just as famous as The Beatles, despite also being utterly talentless. His one- dimensional, flat character just made the absurd plot even more unbelievable—am I really going to believe that this guy managed to get as famous as The Beatles? Yes, they were talented songwriters, but they were also charismatic, talented, entertaining, and charming. Beatle Mania wasn’t based on their lyrical talent alone. There was also no character development for this man—at the beginning of the film, he is a pretentious trash bag, and at the end, he still was. The only thing the movie managed to tell me was that The Beatles = good. It also told me that whoever made this movie needs to get out of the movie industry and start an Ed Sheeran cult.

Obviously, this is just my opinion. However, if you come here and tell me that "Yesterday" was a good movie... well, we're going to have to have a talk about that.

What were your least favourite movies of 2019? Comment down below and let me know.