In cinema as in all things, there are highs and lows. And when a filmmaker steals two hours of your life with a movie that makes you question what the Lumière brothers were thinking, that’s the biggest low. So what made the Chronicle critics roll their eyes at the screen this year?
Four Good Days
Nothing was more tone-deaf or lazily inaccurate than the pandering addiction drama Four Good Days. The film locks onto the corny beats of the worst entries of the genre, notably the life upheaval of Glenn Close’s tranquil golden years by the arrival of her strung-out daughter. What will the neighbors think?! – Josh Kupecki
Read our full review here.
Wolf
Watching Wolf was probably one of the worst experiences in the theatre in a long while. It’s just wholly unpleasant in every way. The only good things I can say about it are that it was shot really well and fans of George MacKay will rejoice as he spends most of the movie shirtless as we prowls around the run time. Otherwise, I would not wish this film on my own enemy, let alone yours. – Sarah Jane
Read our full review here.
Dead & Beautiful
There is nothing like the insult of a very bad ending in a movie that almost had you fooled. Dead & Beautiful is a moderately fine Only Lovers Left Alive-esque moody vampire film that seemingly works for the most part until it reaches its multiple rug pulls. What these twists create is a vapid piece of work, a film so out of touch that it’s maddening. Dead & Beautiful should have stayed dead. – Jenny Nulf
Read our full review here.
Old
Much as infuriating and unfunny alternative history The King’s Man struggled for the battered crown of the year’s worst film, it was still a mere pretender to the throne occupied by M. Night Shyamalan’s latest obnoxious chapter in his baffling Renaissance. Boring, mean, with a veneer of technical competence that disguises all its horrible choices, it’s proof that he confuses smug gags and wink-wink nastiness with actual scares and chills. – Richard Whittaker
Read our full review here.
Malcolm & Marie
The only thing worse than a bad John Cassavetes riff is one that’s so flagrantly convinced it’s actually a good one. I can’t think of another film I’ve seen this year with its head stuck so firmly up its own ass, one whose audience seems to truly only be the writer/director who birthed into the world what is nothing less than a catastrophe. John David Washington and Zendaya deserve better than the insufferably privileged, exhaustingly self-serving eye and pen of Sam Levinson. – Trace Sauveur
Read our full review here.
Godzilla vs. Kong
In this corner, taller than a football field and weighing in at 100,000 tons, it’s that scaly amphibian with the kick-ass tail, that Tokyo-stomping mutant with atomic bad breath, a walking wrecking ball proving it ain’t easy being green … Godzilla! And in the other corner, slightly shorter but still a big boy who doesn’t monkey around, that chest-pounding simian with anger management issues and a soft spot for the ladies, a killa gorilla… King Kong! These iconic movie monsters duke it out like rock ‘em sock ‘em robots in Godzilla vs. Kong, a mess so incomprehensible even its Wikipedia plot summary requires a translator. Say what? – Steve Davis
Read our full review here.
The Addams Family 2
On one of the infinitely lower levels of Hell there’s an especially non-creepy, un-kooky, and decidedly anti-ooky graveyard plot reserved for filmmakers who manage to make an Addams Family production a soporific and spiritless yawn-fest. I like to imagine lots of little Wednesday and Pugsley hellions running riot over the condemned, armed to their pointy little teeth with nooses stitched from rusted razor wire and guillotines with blunted blades while the newly hung, drawn, and quartered suffer from eternal vertigo, forever trapped within endlessly plummeting elevator pitches for unnecessary sequels like The Addams Family 2. And Charles Addams and I get to watch and join win the fun. Now that’s entertainment! – Marc Savlov
Read our full review here.
This article appears in December 24 • 2021.