As we've celebrated the greatest movies of the year, and even the decade, it's only right that we set aside time for the worst.
So, what kind of year has it been at the cinema for terrible, awful movies? Well, for one, 'Cats'. Do we need to say more? 'Cats'. That's the kind of year it's been. Need more? '6 Underground', a movie that had Ryan Reynolds in it and it somehow managed to be crap.
It doesn't end there, either. You had piss-poor efforts like 'BrightBurn', a 'Hellboy' reboot nobody asked for, not to mention... 'The Queen's Corgi'.
Abandon all hope, ye who scroll down. These are the worst movies of 2019.
10. 'The Current War'
It's shocking how bad this movie was. There was no electricity in any of the performances. It wasn't current in its story structure or how it approached itself. The batteries on this thing went flat long ago. More electricity puns. It's crap, OK? It's awful. Next.
9. 'The Queen's Corgi'
If you paid money to see this and you're an Irish person, you are bringing shame and disgrace down on your ancestors who fought, starved and died so that we may be free at last of the yoke of British imperialism and tyranny. The only thing worse than this movie is 800 years of brutal subjugation.
8. 'Charlie's Angels'
Elizabeth Banks, bless her, didn't have a good year. She had 'BrightBurn' and 'Charlie's Angels', two well-meaning efforts but both so bland, needless, and truly devoid of anything remotely interesting that they'll simply fade into the pop culture flotsam, only to return a couple of years later when you're reminded of its existence by passing it on Netflix on your way to another season of 'The Crown'.
7. 'BrightBurn'
If you're thinking to yourself, what would 'Man of Steel' be like if it was a horror movie, we'll point you in the direction of 'Justice League' because that was a horror. (badum-tish) No, 'BrightBurn' was just a painfully obvious, deeply stupid attempt to try and play with the conventions of horror and superhero storytelling. It just didn't work. Forgettable crap.
6. 'Men In Black International'
So many of the choices on this list speak to one recurring theme - pointlessness. Some of the worst movies ever made are pointless. It's not just that they're aggressively bad movies, or that they're made with poor intent and lack substance. They do, and they are, but what you feel when you walk out of these movies is a hole. It's two hours of your life gone down the Swanee on something that you paid money for as well.
Christ, if you spent two hours of your life picking your toenails, you'd come back with clean toenails and maybe a sense of satisfaction. Watching 'Men In Black International' for two hours, on the other hand, leaves with you the sense that Chris Hemsworth can't do what Ryan Reynolds does. More pointedly, did we really need another 'Men In Black' movie? Do we need any of this? The answer is no. Make a neuralyzer joke if you want.
5. 'Hellboy'
Nobody asked for this remake. Let's say that again, so it sinks in. Nobody, but NOBODY, asked for this remake. There was no concerted effort by comic-book fans to see 'Hellboy' remade with the guy from 'Stranger Things'. There was no groundswell of buzz or hype for this. That it came and went from cinemas like a fart in the wind tells you all you need to know about this movie and how truly needless it was.
4. 'The Dirt'
A movie about Motley Crue is one thing, that's... fine? It's another thing to try and position yourself into the mix when there are movies like 'Bohemian Rhapsody', 'Rocketman', 'Walk The Line' and dozens more doing it far better and doing it with far less shittiness. Plus, sorry to say this, but Motley Crue are a fucking terrible band who had one good song and it was 'Kickstart My Heart'. In fact, we're not even putting a trailer for 'The Dirt' in this because fuck that movie.
3. 'X-Men: Dark Phoenix'
The sad truth of 20th Century Fox's fate was that they so often put out incredibly beautiful, fascinating and breathtakingly brilliant movies - but their failures were equally spectacular. For every 'The Favourite', 'The Shape of Water' or 'Ford v Ferrari', they had 'X-Men: Dark Phoenix' sinking them down.
Jennifer Lawrence's character literally died in the trailer - why put that there? Why even have her in the movie in the first place? Why even make this movie again? They did it in 'X-Men: The Last Stand' and they made a balls of it then. First-time director Simon Kinberg's the man for the job, is he? Come on.
2. '6 Underground'
You might think that this and the final choice of the list are recency bias. What's that, you're asking? Recency bias is essentially the phenomenon of a person most easily remembering something that has happened recently, compared to remembering something that may have occurred a while back. Now, you're thinking, that's a psychological term and wouldn't really have anything to do with movies.
That's sort of correct, but really, all we're doing is filling up text so we don't have to talk about terrible '6 Underground' is and how it's one of the worst movies Netflix has ever been involved in. It really is a steaming pile of utter, contemptible shit that has no place in this world.
Think of how much money was wasted on this. It could have done so much good, and instead, it came back... with this. And don't give us the "oh, just switch your brain off" argument - our brains were switched off long ago, and this still registers as absolute tosh.
1. 'Cats'
We actually held off writing our Worst Movies of 2019 list because we had to wait for 'Cats'.
We'd like to write some more about how awful 'Cats' is, but we're too busy stabbing our eyes out of our head, pouring salt in the sockets, and wandering the earth with a stick and preaching endless doom on the house of Oedipus and how awful 'Cats' is.
In time to come, we will look back on the fall of human civilisation and there will be markers as clear as day. The encroachment and mainstream approval and tolerance of fascism and racism. The rise of social media and the ambivalence of governments to combat disinformation when it suited their purpose. The rejection of facts and scientific truth in the face of ecological disaster. A major studio thinking 'Cats' was worth spending close to $100 million.
Did we know all these things were wrong? Yes. Did we do anything to stop them? No. That is why we are facing into the final days of modern civilisation, because we failed to act decisively and now, we can only accept our fate and our end - knowing that some people with enough power, money and lack of awareness thought that 'Cats' was a good idea for a movie and went out of their way to make that a reality. We all stood there and let it happen.
