2013 List Part 3: 105. Free Birds (3/10) This is a rather stale animated film. This movie might as well have been direct-to-video. The story was just a Thanksgiving movie with Back to the Future elements added to it. The animation in this movie is lacking, especially if you were to compare it to the animation seen in Pixar and Disneys movies. The characters fare no better. The only redeeming qualities are the voices of Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson, who are always nice to hear. But Free Birds is a miss. 104. Escape From Planet Earth (3/10) Like Free Birds, this is a bad animated movie. The idea of this movie is about a bunch of aliens trying to escape from their human captors. An animated movie about aliens was done so much better with Monsters Vs. Aliens, which I thought was only decent, but its a masterpiece compared to this. The animation is not that good and none of the characters really impress. The only voice I recognized was Jane Lynch, who voiced Sergeant Calhoun in Wreck-It Ralph. 103. Admission (3/10) Another stale comedy. While this one was more bearable than the ones listed before, there isnt that much comedy and it mostly feels like an extended commercial of Princeton University. While Tina Fey and Paul Rudd do have some chemistry and try with what they can, the script doesnt help matters. 102. Planes (3/10) Now Disney is ripping off Pixar? What is the world coming to? A lot of people complain about the two Cars movies, but I disagree. The first Cars was a good Pixar movie even if it wasnt a classic masterpiece. It had great animation as always with Pixar, it had some decent characters and it had morals like how the self-absorbed Lightning McQueen becomes a better person as he becomes friends with the local cars in town and seeing that theres more to life than just being a huge star. Cars 2 lacked the heart and soul that most Pixar movies have, but it at least delivered on the fun and animation factors. But with the exception of decent animation, Planes has none of that. The main is all about the main character learning how to fly and racing to win. Theres no heart put into it, he doesnt learn any moral lessons or grow as a person, and the comedic elements are sparse. This made Cars 2 look like a masterpiece by comparison. 101. The Fifth Estate (3/10) Sorry, but I thought that this movie was really boring and uninteresting. With the exception of one character and his motivations, there was nothing really that good about this. Not the story or even the supporting characters. The only redeeming quality is Benedict Cumberbatch, who while he looked a little weird with white hair, delivers a really good performance Julian Assange. But his work in this is hardly worth sitting through something like this. But at least he has two much better movies coming later on this list. 100. Broken City (3/10) Broken City is what you would get if you took any crime classic like The Godfather, Pulp Fiction and GoodFellas and take away everything that made them such great movies. It had a good cast, but the script isnt that great and the cast feel kind of bored. While Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe do try a little bit, there isnt much worthwhile in this movie. 99. The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (4/10) While not quite as bad as those before, this comedy is still missing a lot. Steve Carrells character is a world class jerk and Steve Buscemi, another good comedic actor, is given little to do. The good parts of the movie come from Jim Carrey, who seems to be enjoying playing a magician who is much like those you see on TV doing crazy stunts, and Alan Arkin, who plays the magician that inspired Burt to become a magician. But besides those two actors, the comedic elements are lacking and theres not much here to like. 98. Identity Thief (4/10) The casting of Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy should have made this a really good comedy. However, while the two actors have good comedic chemistry, the scripting and other jokes really brought this down. If this had been given a much better script and put a little heart into this, Identity Thief could have been something really funny. 97. 47 Ronin (4/10) This is one of the box office bombs of 2013 (only more than $140m on a $175m budget). While this looked like it would be the last blockbuster before the end of the year, due to competition from other movies and bad press, it failed. 47 Ronin is just a samurai movie mixed with Matrix-like action in it. Keanu Reeves is just playing Neo again, which is getting old, and the other characters dont do much better. But I will give this movie credit for its effort for its good Japanese setting and costume designs. Its not quite as bad as reviews might suggest, but your money is better off spent elsewhere if your searching for a good samurai movie. 96. The Lone Ranger (4/10) The Lone Ranger is another one of those big budgeted failures. There are numerous problems with this movie. First off, its too long. It lasts for about two and a half hours when I think it should have lasted for less than two hours. The special effects werent that great (Im baffled it got nominated for Best Visual Effects) and Johnny Depp was just playing Jack Sparrow again. While I will always enjoy that pirate character, he shouldnt be using it in every movie. There are a few fun action scenes (the ladder scene was priceless), this is just a generic action movie that was thirty minutes too long. This tries so hard to be another Pirates of the Caribbean, but turned out to be another John Carter. The only difference is that John Carter was actually a fairly decent movie that got overlooked due to people overlooking the history the books it was based on had such a huge influence on sci-fi classics. Like Jonah Hex (another box office bomb), this felt like a sequel to 1999s Wild Wild West, though at least marginally better. 95. The Internship (4/10) I know, I know, another comedy. How do these keep coming up? People just keep making bad comedies with little effort put into them. The Internship isnt terrible, but its humor was sparse and a lot of times it felt like it was just advertising Google (which do they really need to do that since most people these days use it for the Internet these days?). While Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn do have some chemistry together and there are a few funny moments, one being a crazy night out, there isnt much worthwhile. Part 4 coming tomorrow.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Feb 2014 04:59:27 +0000