Even though it was a commercial failure and essentially lead to the collapse of Sega as a formidable rival to Nintendo and Sony in the console wars, the Dreamcast wasn't ALL bad. Crazy Taxi was dope. And the Dreamcast also gave us the birth of NBA2k, arguably one of the greatest sports video game franchises of all time. So that's why we've chosen to categorize these lackluster films, that aren't complete failures - but still kinda suck - in the Sega Dreamcast Tier.
#80. Somewhere in Queens
Everybody Loves Raymond is one of my favorite sitcoms of all time and Ray Romano's directorial debut unavoidably feels like an R-rated extension of that series. Hell even Gianni (Jon Manfrellotti) is along for the ride again. But rather than marriage and in-laws - this story is centered on offbeat, meddling parents who have good intentions of pushing their kids to be the best versions of themselves while taking the cringiest measures imaginable to do so. Which makes Ray's character really hard to root for, especially when he inexplicably almost cheats on his wife (who's dealt an out of place breast cancer subplot that feels flagrantly tacked on). But even though the parents are a mess, it's newcomer Jacob Ward that really feels in over his head here with a clunky performance of an intentionally awkwardly-written character. Ultimately there's just no one here to empathize with and the scarcely placed comedic beats are more uncomfortable than anything else.
#79. Good Burger 2
You know you're scraping the bottom of the legacy sequel barrel when you're being served new installments of Good Burger, Chicken Run and The Expendables all in the same year. Oddly enough though, this was the only one that enticed me enough to check it out and while it's definitely unnecessary - I didn't hate it. It really made me question what the hell I ever liked about the original but in my defense, I was 9. If you didn't grow up watching All That or have a low tolerance for intentionally stupid humor like pets that are named "Don't" and "Attack", there's no reason for you to ever watch this. It has one of the most unexpected villainous AI story lines I came across (of which there were way too many this year) and the belligerent barrage of cameos this thing buries you with is exhausting. Especially the lazy facetime sequence where everyone from Nicole Ritchie to Andy Samberg to Zoe Saldana phoned in as themselves; which is no longer forgivable in the post-lockdown era, I'm sorry.
Check out our list of the Best Comedy Sequels of All Time Here
#78. Shotgun Wedding
This movie really should have leaned into it's R-rating a lot more than it did and just embraced the potential for an over the top action comedy. Instead it comes off like a PG-13 rom-com Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher would have made in 2008, walking right up to the edge of danger but still placating to the safe "date night" audience. There's just so much missed opportunity here, particularly when you look at the incredible supporting players like Jennifer Coolidge and D'Arcy Carden who get left on the sideline in favor of more screen time for the abysmal performances from Lenny Kravitz and Josh Duhamel. And a movie like this didn't need to force a bunch of dumb plot twists. Nice to see J-Lo taking on an action-adjacent vehicle again though. She's definitely been underutilized as an action heroine and it'd be cool to see her pivot into more of these kind of pictures going forward.
#77. Sympathy for the Devil
Is it too early to call it on Joel Kinnaman as a viable leading man? I keep rooting for this guy to breakthrough but it just isn't there. You can't help but want for more charisma from Kinneman who feels about invested in this story as your uber driver who avoids any contact with you whatsoever for the entirety of the ride. Which is problematic given that the entire story focuses exclusively on the interactions between Nic Cage and Kinneman and try as he might, Cage can't do it on his own. This movie does ask a lot of it's leads though and without Nic Cage's signature over the top performance, it'd be a total snooze fest. It takes way too long to get to the big reveal and the dialogue is written by someone who thinks they are substantially more clever than they really are. Even Nic Cage rambling about nonsensical "mucus men" in a shaky Bostonian accent can't save this meandering road trip to nowhere.
#76. Asteroid City
It's really sad to see somebody who was once revered as a generational voice in the industry have his signature aesthetic become so overtly limited that it can be condensed into a parody TikTok video. But that's where we are with Wes Anderson. And lest you think he might be aiming to shake the ornately twee storytelling devices that wore thin on audiences with his last picture, The French Dispatch, don't worry because this movie opens with Bryan Cranston talking directly to the camera in black and white explaining the stage directions that Edward Norton is about to read to you for 4 minutes. That's how up his own ass Wes Anderson is at this point. It's the most Wes Anderson movie ever, in the most frustrating ways. Preciously quirky (yet meaningless) dialogue, unnecessarily convoluted story structure and incoherent, directionless narratives stymie this beautiful looking film from amounting to anything more than a quirky rich Brit playing with the most extravagant, life-sized train set imaginable. But it does look incredible. So there's that.
#75. Infinity Pool
Brandon Cronenberg's follow up to Possessor was one of my most highly anticipated releases of the year but I damn near rage quit this fucker after hearing Mia Got yell "JaAaAaAaAaAaAaAmes" for what must have been 43 minutes straight. And it takes a lot for me to say anything negative about queen Mia Goth. She's spectacular. But so much of this film just felt provocative for provocation's sake. Like a bad, experimental acid trip movie from the late 60's where you're basically just watching some dude stoned out of his mind playing with all of the different camera settings to distort the color and focus. Incredibly boring, ultimately pointless and one of the biggest disappointments of the year for me considering everyone involved.
#74. 65
I wonder what the reaction to this film might have been if they'd done a better job at hiding the prehistoric twist in the marketing? Either way, the movie isn't great. It toes this strange line of trying to appeal to hard edge sci-fi fans while maintaining a kid friendly PG-13 tone but rather than establishing a detailed plot or environment for this story to take place in, a lot of the film rides on the shoulders of the familiar lone wolf and cub trope we've seen way too often as of late. It doesn't help matters that the relationship at hand here between Adam Driver and the little girl is hard to invest in with the language barrier between them preventing you from feeling any real connection or bond taking place. The entire film feels frustratingly confined, particularly with how little dinosaurs we get in our dinosaur movie.
#73. VHS 85
With the series now 6 entries deep, you kinda know exactly what you're gonna get from the VHS franchise at this point. Impeccable recreations of the style of the time, occasionally innovative premises and almost always subpar execution of said premise. And that's the case with VHS 85, whose strongest attribute is the glitchy analogue 1980's effects that recreates the look of early VCR/camcorder days incredibly well. But the segments themselves are all pretty underwhelming. Even from Sinister/Black Phone/Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson; whose snuff film fever dream segment goes on wayyyy too long. The standout for me is probably the opener "No Wake", which features the all too real, first person POV of being involved in an anonymous public shooting. But like most of the segments in this series, after the promising setup, the payoff is a twist that reaches a little too far and kinda neuters the potential established with the effective opening. Bummer. But don't worry, they've already announced another VHS film for next October so we'll get another attempt soon enough. If they just keep making these things, eventually one of em's gotta be great, right?
#72. Flamin' Hot
We got a lot of product origin stories in 2023 and even though I didn't expect a ton of substance from diving into the mythos of Flamin' Hot Cheetos, I was curious to see why Eva Longoria chose this as her directorial debut. But unlike Flamin' Hot Cheetos, this was a pretty bland rags to riches story perpetuating the fallacy of "grind" culture paving the way to success. Apparently it isn't all that factually accurate either, as this guy didn't actually invent Flaming Hot Cheetos. So maybe instead of mythologizing dudes like this with fictionalized versions of their story told from their own perspective, we stick to documentaries where we can see who's telling their versions of the truth instead of presenting one person's retelling of their experience as if it's the only definitive account of events? But speaking solely on the quality of the movie, not it's content, it's not terrible. It just feels wholly unnecessary, all things considered.
#71. Knock at the Cabin
It's nowhere near M. Night Shyamalan's worst film but it's not all that remarkable either. Perfectly middle of the road fare that unfolds pretty casually given the apocalyptic setting. But this isn't really an M. Night Shyamalan movie as much as it's a Dave Bautista movie. I've been saying for years now that Bautista's the best wrestler turned actor in the industry and his performance here only serves to elevate his stance as one of Hollywood's most promising up and coming leading men. He absolutely anchors the entire film with his career best performance. Dude is a star. Now let's get him in some more prominent roles in better movies.
#70. Next Goal Wins
Like any foreign resource I suppose, it feels like the American film industry has swooped in and extracted every usable ounce of creativity that New Zealand born filmmaker Taika Waititi has to offer and discarded him like a cow they've milked dry. The dude is seemingly running on fumes here after being plugged into the MCU to write/direct and act in 2 Thor movies, co-create 4 new tv series, and be imported into lesser comedic efforts like Free Guy and The Suicide Squad to act as a sort of lazily-outsourced comedic relief. Needless to say, the novelty of Taika has worn thin. And with so much work being churned out in the last 6 years, you'd think he'd choose a project that's a little more exciting than adapting a 10 year old soccer documentary. Even still, I was hoping that his unique voice would be capable of elevating even the most basic of premises but nope - this is the same underdog sports comedy about an underachieving team of misfits being put through the ringer by their hard nosed coach in doofy training montages that we've seen a kajillion times before. The Bad News Bears, The Mighty Ducks, Hardball, Kicking and Screaming, The Bad News Bears remake, etc. It's just caked in the most diluted version of Taika's cutesy brand of PG humor, which is starting to feel reminiscent of Jared Hess' drop-off in the wake of his post Napoleon Dynamite career. Yikes.
#69. Evil Dead Rise
The progression of the Evil Dead franchise has been pretty wild. You'd think the cursed Necronomicon would sit at the center of this series but up until the 2013 remake, the lynch pin has been Bruce Campbell's portrayal of the reluctant anti-hero Ash. But that character was run that into the ground with the Ash vs the Evil Dead series and now we're left to grow the lore out with some new characters in Lee Cronin's latest installment which re-prioritizes the over the top gore and violence prevalent in the original film above all else. But that's not enough. None of the characters here are worth investing in and as much as it wants to stand on it's own, the gratuitous call back lines like "Come Get Some" attempting to hearken back to the personality of the original are nonsensical and only serve as a reminder of the personality this film lacks in comparison to the Sam Raimi trilogy. The spider-deadite was kinda cool though. Overall, it's easily the worst film in the series, even though we've seen the majority of horror franchises hit much lower rock bottoms than this.
#68. Napoleon
I'm not saying that you have to mythologize the subject of your biopic in a way that glorifies their strengths and glosses over their shortcomings but with Ridley Scott's Napoleon, it seems odd that this was sold as an IMAX-scale historical epic about the life of a battlefield genius when the majority of the film is centered on Napoleon's marriage and how much of a bumbling fool he was away from the battlefield. There's like 3 battle scenes, most of which you saw in the trailer and the most prominently featured is his March to Moscow which ended with the Russians choosing to burn their own city rather than have it taken by Napoleon. Yet, Bonaparte marched on, costing the lives of nearly 500,000 French soldiers and ultimately leading to his exile from France. It treats him as if leading armies was just this side hustle that he kinda sucked at while being cucked by his wife was his primary claim to fame. To that end, Vanessa Kirby (who plays Napoleon's wife) is so prominent in the film, why give her character an off-screen death? The film completely deflates without her presence. There are so many puzzling decisions made here but none more confounding than Joaquin Phoenix as the only actor in the film speaking without any old English affectation. Obviously Napoleon was French, so the film isn't going to be 100% historically accurate with everyone speaking English, but the way that Phoenix speaks so bluntly in this picture with unintentionally hilarious lines like "Why aren't you pregnant!" stick out as if you dropped Ted Lasso into an episode of Downton Abbey.
#67. The Flash
Putting all of Ezra Miller's personal baggage aside, in the 7 years since introducing us to Barry Allen in Batman vs Superman, I had all but completely lost interest in a standalone Flash movie. That is until Warner Brothers completely exploited my nostalgia for Michael Keaton's Batman to manipulate me into giving a shit about the DCU once again. But all of the shameless cameos in the world (including the cheap punchline of George Clooney appearing as Bruce Wayne, the hideous CGI rendering of Nic Cage's unrealized Superman project and an ugly video yearbook of DC characters from the past showing up in some demented, in-memoriam/legacy flex) can't distract you enough from how unbearable it is to spend two and a half hours with not one - but TWO Ezra Millers. Underneath the wretched special effects and desperate fan service multi-verse bullshit, there's kind of an endearing emotional core centered on the mother and son relationship Barry has to reckon with and ultimately let go of in order to restore balance to the universe. Which is kind of a fitting metaphor as the film serves as one of the final entries in the interconnected DC Universe before it's stripped back down to the foundation and rebuilt from scratch. Sometimes you just have to let go and move on. Sorry (not sorry) Znyderverse zealots.
Check out our full Flash-centric podcast episode HERE
#66. Creed III
What Ryan Coogler was able to accomplish in extending the Rocky universe with the original Creed film was sensational. But in the sequel, I found myself rooting against the protagonist. He's kind of a spoiled nepo-baby. He didn't deserve his title shot. And even more so here, I really didn't want Creed to win. The character kinda stinks. It's a total waste of Michael B. Jordan, Tessa Thompson and even Jonathan Majors' talents. And without Rocky Balboa in the picture anymore, there's no emotional core to the series. I was intrigued to see Michael B. Jordan working as the director with this outing but there's some straight up goofy creative decisions made, most egregious being the CGI jail cell that falls around Creed in the final fight in one of the most heavy handed visuals I've ever seen. Total cornball shit. Let's put this series to bed already.
Check out our list of the Top 10 Three-quels of All Time HERE
#65. The Adults
Let me be clear, this is not a good movie. But I love the three actors that lead this film soooooo, so much. The chemistry between Michael Cera, Sophia Lillis and Hannah Gross is spectacular. I could spend an eternity with this trio, especially if they're going to be doing weird ass Marge Simpson and Tony Soprano impressions. But Cera's inexplicable poker addiction added absolutely nothing to the proceedings. It just didn't mesh with the rest of the film at all. If the story had focused more on the mumblecore family dramedy about siblings growing apart, I'd be all here for it. But it doesn't. It takes all kinds of unnecessary detours, including a lot of quirky theater kid stuff that was incredibly cringey. But Hannah Gross and Sophia Lills are incredible, we need them in more quality films, ASAP. Michael Cera too. These three are too good to trap in this limited of a movie.
#64. The Marvels
As we're currently somewhere near 30 movies and 20 tv series deep into the MCU, it's quite an on-boarding process to get up to speed with all of the interconnected nuances of where the present phase is at. And thus, it's easy to see how these films all bloat into 2+ hour undertakings when you have to integrate a character that's making her film debut (Ms. Marvel, who's been featured only in her own streaming series before this), remind the audience of what happened in the last Captain Marvel movie (which was released over 5 years ago) and introduce some new alien villain at the center of this film. It's a lot. And tying this much into a simple action comedy isn't really necessary as the film works best when we're spending time with Ms. Marvel's parents who still prioritize their daughter's teenage responsibilities over any superhero duties she might have. It's a great dynamic that we haven't seen before, where the parents are in on the kids' secret identity but still treat them as any parent would treat their child, making sure that they're doing well in school and not staying out past curfew - superhuman abilities be damned. But the team-up angle of the film feels entirely unnecessary when you consider their team-up power is the ability to teleport and Captain Marvel already has the ability to fly. But the entire thing feels incredibly minor in the grand scope of Marvel and it's as if they just dumped as many characters in as they could to make it feel more important than it is. Also, it feels a little pandering to feature an arranged marriage and an out of place Bollywood dance sequence on a planet called "Aladna" in one of the first MCU movies with a middle-eastern lead actress, no?
#63. The Mill
This latest in the long line of subpar Jordan Peele inspired, social commentary horror replicas might have made for an okay Black Mirror episode but there's not nearly enough meat on the bone here to fill out an entire full length feature film. The "grind" culture symbolism is spot on but to sit there with that and nothing else progressing the story is pretty tiring. Although I will say, Lil Rel Howery does a much better job than I would have anticipated in his first leading dramatic role, shouldering more than 90% of the screen time as the only actor seen. He's incredibly compelling, even if the story isn't. And trying to convince him to become a "Mallard Man" just made me think of the "McMillan Man" device from Patriot, which had a little more depth to it than this did. The premise just needed to be fleshed out a little more. I'm all in on more serious roles for Lil Rel Howery though, he was great.
#62. Nyad
The true story of open water marathon swimmer Diana Nyad conquering a 60 hour swim from Cuba to the Florida Keys at 60+ years of age is truly remarkable. But the documentarians behind Free Solo (Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi) absolutely bungle the delivery of this story in such dramatic fashion that it's nearly unsalvagable. It seems the filmmakers were so intent on distinguishing this from their documentary work that they take way too many unnecessary and ultimately crude creative risks that don't pay off in the slightest. There's a puzzling integration of subpar CGI, which feels entirely out of place in a sports biopic like this. From the Disney-esque sequence of technicolor stars falling out of the night sky to illuminate the water around Nyad to the hallucinogenic underwater temple she discovers to some truly horrifically rendered common elements like fish, sharks or storm effects - it's all embarrassingly bad. But even more jarring is the indelicate way that Diana's life story is inter-cut into the film, including flashbacks depicting her memories of being sexually molested by a swim coach at a young age. It's incredibly sensitive subject matter and the way this it's just dropped nonchalantly in between PG-13 feel good training montages doesn't necessarily give this traumatic event the proper decorum it deserves. But again, the story on it's own is enthralling enough to invest in so add in some superb performances from Jodie Foster and Annette Benning and this isn't a total miss. But it nearly was.
#61. Saltburn
I've gone back and forth on how I feel about this film more than anything else I've watched this year and the most fitting way I can describe it is "challenging". Not only because of the intentionally vulgar shock value liberally deployed throughout this tale of incestuous socialites, but also because it challenges what a movie can be and what you as the viewer are looking to take away from a movie going experience. Are you just looking to be entertained and enjoy unwinding for a relaxing 90 minutes on the couch? Or are you seeking out something you've never seen before to stimulate you intellectually, that you don't necessarily ever plan on revisiting? If you're more interested in the latter and looking for more of a video art installation experience - Saltburn might be for you. The disgusting imagery captured with first rate cinematography here is irrefutably powerful in it's stunning depiction of a cold-blooded opportunist social climber obsessed with the fame and fortune of an aristocratic family. But it's also not the most fun thing to take in either. Well, admittedly the grave fucking scene tickled me a bit and it definitely sold writer/director Emerald Fennell's message of just how gross this kind of status obsession can be. But when you spend 2 hours focused on a bunch of boring, superficial people doing gross shit - it's hard not to feel like you've just watched a boring, superficial, gross movie. There have been countless "eat the rich" stories castigating grotesque wealth in the last several years and sadly Saltburn isn't saying anything we haven't heard before. It's just doing it in an excessively brash fashion. And Fennell's style is on point. But she's got to develop some more substance to her stories to warrant this kind of extreme aesthetic. The torturous journey is not worth the final destination we reach. As excellent as the execution is in nearly every technical aspect and the stunning level of the performances given, watching Barry Keoghan's dick flapping choreographed dance sequence at the film's close just doesn't really add anything to the conversation around class disparity and wealth inequality.
View the Rest of the 2023 Year in Tiers Here:
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