SPECIAL: The Worst Movies of 2013

By Chris Luckett

2013 hasn’t had as many great movies as recent years, but it’s certainly had its share of stinkers. A Bottom Ten list doesn’t even do justice to some of the rotten pieces of cinema that have come audiences’ way in the last 12 months. As bad as Paranoia, Safe Haven, and Identity Thief may have been, they all at least had some redeemable value. The following movies did not. If you have the choice to watch one of these, refrain.

Dishonourable mentions: Pain & Gain, G.I. Joe: Retaliation

10. 21 & OVER

A tired re-tread of The Hangover – which, let’s be honest, was already a re-tread of Dude, Where’s My Car? – with three teens that feel like first-draft rejects from Project X. The plot is dumb, the jokes are puerile, and the characters are incredibly racist. If 21 & Over achieves anything, it’s leaving you with a stupidity-driven headache to rival the hangovers contained within.

9. HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS

Photo: Paramount Pictures

After The Hurt Locker, The Town, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, and The Avengers, Jeremy Renner was on an unbelievable hot streak. That ended with a loud thud when this stinker limped into theatres in January. Dealing with the fairy-tale characters as grown-ups had potential, but turning them into witch hunters for hire was an incredibly bone-headed move that reeks of desperation. Jeremy Renner deserved so much better than this.

8. THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES

The post-Harry Potter era is stuffed with YA adaptations, from The Hunger Games to Beautiful Creatures, but even the worst of the Twilight sequels is better than this horribly derivative and boring mess. Even when the movie occasionally gets mildly interesting, the horrendous CGI takes you right out of the experience. The Mortal Instruments book series has six entries in it. Based on this first movie, there likely won’t be five sequels.

7. MOVIE 43

A great cast does not necessarily make a great movie. DVD bargain bins are littered with dreck starring gargantuan casts of solid actors, like Valentine’s Day, North, and Rat Race. After the filmmakers managed to get Hugh Jackman and Kate Winslet to film a scene for it years ago, they tricked two dozens other famous faces to film scenes and stitched them together into a horrible movie. Almost all the actors have denounced their involvement in Movie 43. If you let it eat 90 minutes of your life, so will you.

6. RIDDICK

Pitch Black was good, but not great. The Chronicles of Riddick was worse, but wasn’t completely awful. Riddick is the absolute worst of the trilogy. Every scene is derivative of scenes from much better movies, like Aliens, Jurassic Park, The Road Warrior, Starship Trooper, and even the first Pitch Black. It’s the worst movie Vin Diesel has made – and in the shadow of Babylon A.D. and The Pacifier, that’s saying something.

Photo: The Weinstein Company

5. SCARY MOVIE 5

The Scary Movie franchise has one of the worst track records in modern cinema. Even the first one, which was the best, was pretty bad. The sequels have all been terrible, but usually each had at least one or two mildly funny moments. Scary Movie 5 is the new low point for the series, with all the jokes aiming at the ground and still missing the landings.

4. GETAWAY

Remember when, as a kid, you’d go over to a friend’s house and they wanted to show you their new video game, but wouldn’t let you play and you just watched them race around and shoot without getting to participate yourself? That’s what watching Getaway feels like. Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez are ordered to commit countless crimes by an evil mastermind whose ultimate motives turn out to be so stupid, the already brainless racing movie sputters to an absolutely moronic end.

3. A HAUNTED HOUSE

It’s a truly bad year when the worst Scary Movie sequel still isn’t the worst horror-genre parody of it. After the atrocious Scary Movie 2, White Chicks, Norbit, and Little Man, Marlon Wayans’s A Haunted House continues his streak of making some of the worst excuses for comedies in the medium of film. Not a single “joke” can elicit even a smile from anyone with an IQ higher than that of a six-year-old’s. And even a six-year-old would probably find its humour too immature.

2. BATTLE OF THE YEAR

Dance movies are Guitar Hero/Rock Band games of modern cinema. They’re all basically the same, regardless of the franchise or the number at the end of the title. Battle of the Year is a new low for the sub-genre, cramming every clichéd character and plot development into a story about a breakdancing contest that involves students society has given up on, a alcoholic has-been who comes out of retirement to train them, and a climactic dance-off with every stake on the line. The movie works best as a party game, competing to guess what hackneyed line will be said next.

1. GROWN-UPS 2

Photo: Columbia Pictures

The Waterboy. Little Nicky. Eight Crazy Nights. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry. You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. Grown-Ups. Just Go with It. Jack and Jill. That’s My Boy. Grown-Ups 2 is worse than pretty much all of them. The first five minutes includes a deer urinating on Adam Sandler’s face, a teenage boy being caught masturbating in the shower by his mother, and the said deer urinating all over the naked son while his mother watches. And the other 95 minutes are even worse.