MY LEAST FAVORITE FILMS OF 2018

Whenever I go to see a movie, I am filled with excitement and optimism for the story I'm about to be completely immersed in. Yet sometimes I leave the movie annoyed, resentful or discouraged. Any movie that created those emotions for me in 2018 had a very good shot at making this list of my least-favorite movie of the year:

"ANNIHILATION"

The movie that was the biggest disappointment for me last year, without a doubt, was "Annihilation".  Alex Garland's follow-up to his excellent 2014 directorial debut, "Ex Machina" sounded intriguing; Natalie Portman plays Lena, a military professor whose soldier husband (Oscar Isaac) is the only person who has ever returned from investigating a growing, intergalactic force-field caused by a meteor that crashed on Earth. But her husband doesn't remember what happened and then mysteriously falls very ill. Lena volunteers to join an all-female crew of scientists and soldiers (which includes Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson and Jennifer Jason Leigh) on a research expedition to get some answers on what they call "the Shimmer". While investigating, the women experience several trippy visions and dangerous, mutated animals while losing their grip on reality. However, this journey moves at a sluggish pace and concludes with a jumble of sci-fi incoherence. I know there were some critics who really loved this movie and even had the nerve to place it on their best-of-the-year lists. But the only list I would put "Annihilation" on would be "Movies to Avoid".

"A WRINKLE IN TIME"

Another disappointment I'm sad to say was Ava DuVernay's big-budget adaption of Madeleine L'Engle's 1962 sci-fi children's novel, "A Wrinkle In Time". While the film impressively features a positive message on diversity and female empowerment, DuVernay seems to spend too much time focusing on the colorfully extravagant visual effects and not enough on capturing a satisfying emotional connection. The screenplay by Jennifer Lee ("Frozen") is surprisingly flat and overloaded. Our story involves Meg (Storm Reid), a bright thirteen year old who is struggling due to the unexplained disappearance of her scientist father (Chris Pine). She lives with her mother (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and younger brother, Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) and one day he lets a strange woman named Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon) in to their home. The children are soon introduced to her friends, Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling) and Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey) and they reveal themselves to be supernatural travelers. Meg, Charles Wallace and Meg's classmate, Calvin (Levi Miller) are whisked off on a magical journey through time and space in order to save the world and find the children's missing father. The biggest problem is that DuVernay seems restrained by the Disney movie-making machine and "A Wrinkle In Time" comes across as lifeless and generic. The film really needed more of the innovative, personal touch that the director has given to her indie films.



"BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE"

"Bad Times at the El Royale" is the latest film as a director by celebrated screenwriter, Drew Goddard ("The Martian", "World War Z") and he fills the screen with an impressive line-up of actors. Yet they are not enough to distract from this clunky, rambling and unnecessarily bloated mystery-thriller. The El Royale is a hotel situated between the California and Nevada borderlines. Set in 1969, we see the arrival of some of the guests which seems like a set-up for a bad joke. There is a salesman (Jon Hamm), a singer (Cynthia Erivo), a couple of hippie chicks (Dakota Johnson and Cailee Spaeny) and a priest (Jeff Bridges) who all check in with the hotel's only employee (Lewis Pullman, son of character actor, Bill). They are each keeping a dark secret and none of them are actually who we think they are. And the punchline comes in the sexy form of Chris Hemsworth who plays a cult leader that seems unable to button his shirt and adds more weirdness and violence to our story. Mr. Goddard's screenplay ventures in to Tarantino territory but his script lacks the wit and bite you would find in even a modest effort from our man Quentin.



"VENOM"

First let me say that I am sick to death of these super-hero movies that don’t aspire to be anything more than a cash grab, filling the screen with monotonous, CGI-enhanced battles that are barely held together with a flimsy plot to create an illusion of an engaging story. And that leads me to "Venom", a poorly executed, mess of a movie. Based on the Marvel Comics anti-hero character, Tom Hardy plays Eddie Brock, a journalist who is investigating a bio-engineering company, run by Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), that is rumored to be doing human trials by injecting people with an extraterrestrial life-form in order to create a super-human. It turns out to be true and none of these unwilling human subjects survive. But one of the alien specimen escapes, latching on to Brock. He becomes a super-powered hybrid of two separate forms sharing one body. This makes him very appealing to Drake and he sets out to capture "Venom". The director Ruben Fleischer ("Zombieland") seems unsure of exactly what type of movie he's trying to make. He has elements of comedy, action-adventure and science-fiction yet none of it is done well. Poor Michele Williams, who appears in the woefully underwritten role of Brock's fed-up girlfriend, is unable to shake the look of "No paycheck is worth having to do this shit" off of her face throughout the movie. But at least Mr. Hardy seems to be having a great time here. The British actor gets the chance to do some physical comedy while delivering an exhausting, manic performance. Too bad he’s the only one having fun.