#5: Maze Runner: The Death Cure

This was probably the best film of the Maze Runner series, but that’s not saying much when it’s a bland, generic YA franchise. The film was very exciting in parts with lots of great set pieces. However, this movie fails for me by following a trend that many Hollywood films follow these days: the frustratingly ambiguous ending to a franchise. I’m really tired of movies with no definitive end – either because the director wants to be artsy or they’re setting up for a sequel. This one was particularly bad because the filmmakers set up the story fairly brilliantly and there was no real payoff.

#4: The Post

Steven Spielberg’s The Post was a good historical drama, and I probably won’t see it again. There was amazing attention to detail and historical accuracy (well, for the most part). But where the film went wrong is twofold. Spielberg kept the tension up consistently, but blew the third act, making the whole story anti-climactic. Second, the timing of the release of this film was very cynical and purely political – intended to draw a parallel with what’s going on with the press and the current presidential administration. This cynicism and anger taints every frame of the film and makes parts of it eye-rolling and unwatchable.

Click here for my full review.

#3: Ocean’s 8

There’s a strange trend in Hollywood these days to make all-female versions of previously-established brands because…feminism. The first real step (or should I say stumble) was the execrable 2016 Ghostbusters reboot. Ocean’s 8 follows this trend, but unlike the aforementioned Ghostbusters, there were parts of this film that were interesting and stylistically clever. Overall, the movie was…fine. The problem was these girls were so good, so smooth, and so confident that virtually nothing went wrong with the heist itself—taking any dramatic tension out of the equation.

#2: Ralph Breaks the Internet

The original Wreck-It Ralph was fun, clever, had a heaping amount of logic to its world-building, and contained some very important themes about life and purpose. Its sequel, Ralph Breaks the Internet, failed at almost every aspect of what made the first film great. This film sucked the heartful soul and sound internal logic from the original film while galavanting aimlessly in a bright, shiny world of non-stop pop-culture gags and one-note jokes that won’t be funny in five years. Bringing in modern cynicism and identity politics didn’t help this film, either. This was very sad for me to report, as I am a big fan of Disney animation and loved the first film.

Click here for my full review.

#1: The Grinch

Watching Illumination’s The Grinch made it painfully clear that feature-length adaptations of this venerable Dr. Seuss story (or perhaps any Dr. Seuss story) just don’t work. But the 1999 Jim Carrey adaptation surpasses this one because director Ron Howard at least got the spirit of the story correct. This new Grinch is not Seuss’ Grinch. All the clever wordplay is gone and the entire point of the story is muddled in an annoying existential quest by the filmmakers to figure out why the Grinch hates Christmas. It then devolved into Illumination’s wheelhouse of gags and jokes – none of which are particularly full of Seussian whimsy. On top of all that, Benedict Cumberbatch’s voice performance was flat and devoid of character. One of the few things the film had going for it was a great score by Danny Elfman, which it didn’t deserve.