Top 10 Worst Films of 2023
Hello, readers! As Andy Williams once said, “it’s the most wonderful time of year” when January provides me that final opportunity to give one more, well deserved beatdown to the absolute worst of the worst that 2023 had to offer. This year may not have been as bad as other recent years, especially 2022, but it still put out its share of abominable stinkers. Of course, today, it’s become a bit taboo to do top worst lists. Some say it’s punching down. It’s bullying. It’s petty and disrespectful of all the hard work the filmmakers put into creating these films.
Annnnd to that I quote Reverend Philip Shooter from Hot Fuzz when I say, “Fuck off, grasshopper!” The only hard work these celluloid dumpster fires had anything to do with was the hard work I sweated out just trying to endure through to the end credits.
Y’all don’t say a peep when you make the top 10 best list. Well, the door swings both ways, just saying.
So before we dive deep into this unholy landfill of cinematic abortions, let’s first go through some dishonorable mentions…
About My Father, Book Club: The Next Chapter, The Devil Conspiracy, Fast X, Fool’s Paradise, House Party, Hypnotic, Joy Ride, Knights of the Zodiac, Lady Ballers, The Little Mermaid, Love Again, Mafia Mamma, Magic Mike’s Last Dance, Marlowe, Shotgun Wedding, Sweetwater, We Have a Ghost, Wish and Your Place or Mine.
Well, with that out of the way, let’s now take out the trash, starting with…
10) Saw X
Apparently, I’m in the minority with this one, as countless viewers and critics praised the horror series’s tenth installment as a franchise best, using such phrases as “character depth” and “emotional weight”. So, I’m convinced that either I was screened a completely different movie, or theaters should quit impairing viewers’ judgment with alcohol. Attempting to watch Saw X all the way to the end is an even deadlier, more insufferable contest than any of the death traps these characters find themselves in. Despite franchise mainstay Tobin Bell trying his damnedest to spin gold out of shit-covered straw here, the film (which serves as both a direct sequel and prequel to the first and second films, respectively) is littered with horribly unlikable characters not even worth our time, much less our rooting interest, and writers Peter Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg’s ill-advised attempt to turn Jigsaw from cold-calculating, death contraption-rigging serial killer to sympathetic savior falls completely flat on its face. It all culminates in a franchise standard big climactic reveal that is so preposterous and unintentionally hilarious that they might as well have thrown out composer Charlie Clouser’s iconic “Hello Zepp” score and replaced it with the “Yakety Sax” Benny Hill Show theme song.
9) Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey
Upon first hearing about a horror film centered on murderous recreations of the now public domain characters from A. A. Milne’s timeless Winnie-the-Pooh stories, I’ll admit that I was intrigued. For sure, the animated sequence that kicks off Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey initially had me, and I was ready for one hell of a bloody fun time… annnnd then the rest of the movie happened. I’m not sure how writer/director Rhys Frake-Waterfield managed to fuck this up. You can’t even say the concept of a psychopathic, knife-wielding Pooh Bear without giggling at the insane ludicrousness of it all. This is a movie tailor-made for dark satire, yet it takes itself soooooooo fucking seriously, resulting in a wholly unpleasant experience that’ll render you more clinically depressed than Eeyore. Containing neither the twisted humor just begging to be mined from its concept nor the exploration of its characters and their world to justify the earnestness its aiming for, Blood and Honey is nothing more than a slapdash experiment that seems simply content to coast only on the shock value of taking a beloved children’s character and turning him into a gruesome monster.
But hey, it made money, so here come the sequels and shared universe.
…
Hooray for us.
8) Anyone but You
2023 was most definitely a banner year for shitty rom-coms, and Anyone but You is just one of the prime examples of said shitty rom-coms that lacks both the rom and the com. This is a timeless tale of love. Boy meets girl. Boy hates girl. Girl hates boy even more. Uh-oh, they’re in the same wedding, and have to pretend to be a couple! And three-two-one – hey! Look at that!! They’re fucking now!! Both Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell are attractive leads that could bring quite a bit of charm and appeal to a much better rom-com, but the shit-heap of eye-rolling cliches they have to wade through instead do them no favors whatsoever.
The adorable meet cute? Check.
The fallout over a misunderstanding that could easily be fixed? Check.
The awkward selling of their fake relationship to the family? Check.
The big climactic rush to finally declare your undying love before she gets away for good? Check.
Somebody punch me in the face.
You could maybe forgive the film’s predictable, by-the-books nature if Sweeney and Powell generated even the slightest bit of chemistry, but this pairing sizzles with all the spark and sexual tension of a sad, flaccid dick.
Spoiler alert: they end up together… ’cause of course they do.
7) Maybe I Do
From Boy Meets World/Girl Meets World creator Michael Jacobs, Maybe I Do stars Academy Award winners Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, Academy Award nominee William H. Macy and Richard Gere, yet even with all this acting talent, a better title would’ve been Maybe I Do Walk Out of This Movie. But I didn’t. No, I stuck it out like a masochist. This is another timeless tale of love. Richard Gere’s cheating on Diane Keaton with Susan Sarandon. William H. Macy’s cheating on Susan Sarandon with Diane Keaton. Meanwhile, Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey are looking to take their relationship to the next level, so they get their families together for a dinner and then – WHOOOOOOOOAAAAHHHH!!!!
Who saw that coming?! Cue the wacky shenanigans!!
This is a dull, failed sitcom premise stretched out into a sluggishly-paced feature film that offers little to no insight on love, marriage or infidelity, despite all the non-stop talking from the characters. No other movie in 2023 jawed their ass off this fucking much while still providing nothing of substance in return. I swear to God, at one point, it felt like two whole hours had passed and the movie was about to be over, but when I checked my phone, I was totally disheartened to see that it had only been thirty minutes. Ultimately, this rom-com is overwhelming evidence that just ’cause something works as a stage play, doesn’t mean it’ll translate to the screen. But you at least get to see Diane Keaton at her wackiest, most frazzled, most Diane Keaton-iest since every other role she’s had since 1991.
God, what happened to the Kay Adams/Annie Hall Diane Keaton? I miss her.
6) My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3
Another rom-com? Thank you, sir! May I have another?! Over two decades have past since 2002’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding hit the screen and became a box office smash. Nearly a decade has past since we got its 2016 sequel that no one asked for. Now, we’ve gotten this third film subjected on us ’cause the Lord Almighty is a God of great vengeance and furious wrath. Any of the charm and sharp humor found in writer/star Nia Vardalos’s first film is removed entirely and replaced with stale one-liners and gags that will elicit more groans than laughs. Vardalos (who also directed here), anchors the narratively incoherent rom-com through a central storyline involving the dying wish of Toula’s father and a family reunion overseas in Greece that carries with it no emotional weight beyond just being an excuse for the cast and crew to vacation in the Portokalos’s motherland. That makes perfect sense when you realize all the scenes play more like sloppily patched together tourism ads for Greece than a cohesive story.
Just like the ashes of Toula’s late father, I hope this franchise too is buried for good.
5) Ghosted
One day, someone went to Apple TV+ and said, “I bet that you can’t take Chris Evans and Ana de Armas, two of the most charismatic, attractive people in the whole entire universe, and make them so tragically unappealing together.” Apple TV+ then said, “Oh, yeah? Well, hold my beer.” And thus, Ghosted was born. This two hour long Valium pill starts at generic and then plummets even further down from there. Yep, it’s another timeless tale of love. Boy meets girl. Girl ghosts boy. Boy then stalks girl all the way to England only to find out that girl isn’t ghosting him but is a super spy. Nobody farmers’ market vendor not even worth the majorly hot spy’s time now has to help super spy bring down international arms dealer and his big, generic MacGuffin blow-up thing.
I think that’s what happens. I spent about as much time and effort giving a shit about this movie as the writers did… all four writers.
I know what you’re thinking. Hey, wait a minute. Bring down the big, generic MacGuffin blow-up thing? You just described the plot to pretty much every Mission: Impossible movie. True, but those movies at least have great performances, energy, pace, tension, style – hell, a fucking pulse even. Ghosted, on the other hand, is nothing but an empty exercise in action comedy hampered by leadenly dull action sequences and a shocking lack of chemistry between Evans and de Armas. Even something just a tick above lifeless would’ve been a far more explosive improvement. Considering what we’ve seen from both Evans as Captain America in the MCU and de Armas in No Time to Die, I expect way better from them.
4) After Everything
After Everything marks the fifth film of the After franchise, a romantic film series so oppressively dreamy, shallow and unrealistic when it comes to love and relationships it makes the Lifetime and Hallmark romances look like Blue Valentine. It’s another timeless tale of love. Boy meets girl. Boy is a dick to girl. Boy goes away and broods over how much of a dick he is. Boy comes back, says I’m sorry and gets the girl, ’cause… well, ’cause God must hate nice guys.
And that there is After Everything’s most damning flaw. It asks – no, demands – that we viewers root for this irredeemable dickbag to win love. Okay, if it meant ending the movie, I would’ve cartwheeled into that theater with pom poms and a full marching band. But the fact is that this Hardin character is such a manipulative, gaslighting prick who treats the women in his life like shit, then has the fucking balls to act all moody and “whoa is me” when those women wise up and dump his ass. Sorry, not sorry, not rooting for this brooding ass-hat no matter how many false, unearned attempts at redemption you try to give him.
But wait! It gets better!! ‘Cause then the final act shows up and with it Hardin’s one true love, fellow franchise mainstay Tessa. After making the best man speech at his brother’s wedding all about himself, a very humble Hardin finally reunites with Tessa. They’ve been apart for two very long years, but Hardin’s such a big dick energy boss that he, literally, only needs 30 minutes to fuck her and then propose to her. Of course, she says yes, ’cause Hardin always gets what he wants and she clearly doesn’t know any better. I try to keep quiet throughout the entire movie, but this is the one time where, surrounded by an entire theater room filled with starry-eyed, love-struck women, I actually blurted out, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
I hope their love goes down in flames.
I swear to God, readers, I’m normally not this cynical. Really, I’m not.
3) Meg 2: The Trench
2023 wasn’t exactly the best of years for action star Jason Statham, who you may or may not see pop up again on this list. 2018’s The Meg was, by no means, Jaws, but it still was a passable, mildly entertaining creature feature. I mean, it’s Jason Statham kicking sharks in the face. The excitement should write itself, right? Well, it would if the shark had more than just a cameo appearance in this sequel that’s part comedy, part horror, part action and entirely dog shit.
It’s titled Meg 2, so why exactly are we not getting more of – I don’t know… the Meg?
Instead, Statham and Co. spend most of the film stuck in a dull, uninteresting squabble with backstabbing crew members and stock mercenaries ripped right out of central casting stereotype headquarters. Where’s the shark? We want the shark? We viewers paid to see that fucking shark!! This movie is so fucking dull that there actually came a point where I just gave up on the shark altogether and would’ve exuberantly settled an easy A+ for Statham starting a fight with the goldfish section at a PetSmart store. By the time all the horrible CGI creatures did finally arrive to the creature feature party, I stopped giving a shit. Most disappointingly, this comes to us by way of director Ben Wheatley, a fantastic filmmaker whose trademark wit and style is shockingly absent from this bland, convoluted mess of a movie.
Meg 2 is the epitome of “you had one job” films, and it couldn’t even get that right.
2) Fear
Low-budget horror film Fear was shot in only 17 days. Incredible feat, huh? Well, it would be if you’re response after seeing this incoherent shit show was more “that is impressive” and not “that makes sense”. Fear can’t decide whether it wants to be pandemic commentary or just a straight-up haunted house flick. Not content with simply being a shoddy attempt at either, this films ends up saying fuck it to both and morphs into a half-baked faith-based movie where characters who have already well-established themselves as complete and utter dumb-asses are still somehow genius enough to look at a bunch of random numbers in a book and deduce from that the exact chapter and verse in the Bible needed to defeat the evil ghosts. Come the end credits, when you see that they couldn’t even get the title card right by having the film’s original title “DON’T FEAR” pop up on the screen in giant, all-caps letters, you just sit there and, again, say to yourself, “… Yeah, that makes sense.”
But major kudos to this film for one very unintentionally hilarious moment – among many others – when a group of guys are taking a now infected Tip Harris downstairs to be quarantined in the basement. They walk the entire way down – from his room, through the hallways and down the stairs – completely unmasked and practically hugging this lung-hacking leper. They should be soaked all over in this virus. Once at the bottom of the stairs, though, they stop, nod at each other and then finally place their masks on.
Looks like a slow day at the office for this demon.
Well, readers, we’ve finally made it to the very bottom, the lowest of the lows, the ninth circle of hell, the very, absolute worst of 2023. God bless it, Fear admirably hung on to that bottom spot for the longest time, beginning in January, and moving its way through spring and summer… then September rolled around and…
Drum roll, please…
1) Expend4bles
Almost a decade after The Expendables 3, Expendables – oops, excuse me – Expend4bles finally arrived, squatted itself right above the viewers and took a giant, steaming, corn-infested shit all over them. Starring Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Andy Garcia, Iko Uwais and Megan Fox’s See-Through White Tank Top, Expend4bles is exactly the type of film you get when everyone involved, top to bottom, from the director to the producers to the headlining stars and all the way down to the most random, insignificant extras, lets out a giant, exasperated sigh and collectively groans out “fuck it”. Admittedly, I actually like the previous Expendables movies – even the third one, which wasn’t as well received. This one, however, is just one puzzlingly moronic decision after another. Plot turns can be seen coming from a mile away. The worst green screen $100 million can buy is featured so prominently it should’ve received top billing in the cast. Somewhere around the third act, Andy Garcia must’ve checked his bank account when the check cleared and got excited ’cause he goes from looking bored out of his fucking mind to screaming erratically.
Need I go on? Well, I will.
This is yet another shitty American action film to waste the immense talents of both Iko Uwais and Tony Jaa. Megan Fox plays the kind of laughably bad CIA operative who still manages to have her hair and makeup styled chef’s kiss perfectly while going on dangerous covert missions. The dialogue is so juvenile, it must’ve been written by not only a toddler, but a vegetative toddler. And on the romance front – ’cause nothing says romance quite like an Expendables movie – Megan Fox’s nipples are more on-point than her chemistry with Jason Statham.
I know that because… well… I mean, someone should turn off the on-set AC. It’s starting to become a distraction.
No wonder Stallone wanted to be killed off at the beginning. Just kidding, he survives and reappears at the end, and the explanation for how Barney survives is not only dumb as fuck, it actually makes Barney a sociopathic murderer willing to knock off obnoxious bar patrons he gets into a petty bar tiffs with.
Expend4bles may have brought back the R-rating to the franchise, but this time the “R” stands for Retarded.
Well, there you have it, readers. Those are my picks and I’m sticking to them. Next week, I’ll have the top 10 best films of last year. Until then, what are some of your picks for the worst of 2023? Feel free to comment below and let me know.
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