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By now, in the wake of the Golden Globes, this week’s Oscar nominations, a raft of smaller sized movie awards and a flotilla of top 10 lists, a consensus has actually started to harden around the quote-unquote finest films of 2022, with “Whatever All over All at Once,” “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “Tár,” “Aftersun” and “Elvis” leading the pack of last year’s most honored films.
But not so quickly. Keep reading, and you’ll notice that a person of those titles– I’m taking a look at you ,”Elvis “– likewise appears in the list below, a compendium of the bottom tier of reviews by The Post’s critics: movies that couldn’t summon up more than 1 1/2 stars out of 4.
It’s often more fun to check out a bad review than a good one. And sometimes it can be more enjoyable to see a bad movie– or at least a polarizing one– than something that has gathered universal praise. In the spirit of service journalism, here are 22 stinkers to place on your watch list (or your hate-watch list).
“The breathless energy begins to feel tremendously more forced(and, frankly, undesirable)the more difficult [writer-director Damien] Chazelle works to sustain it. [Margot] Robbie provides a courageous portrayal of a female trying to outrun the forces seeking to domesticate her, but she’s deserted by a story that totals up to little more than a mash-up of moments that, for all their high aesthetic and production value, feel shallow and not terribly original. Even ‘Babylon’s’ final moments– meant to be Chazelle’s crowning paean to cinema at its most meaningful and transferring– can’t bring the hazy stuff-for-stuff’s-sake into focus.” (In theaters) — Ann Hornaday
“At nearly 3 hours, director Matt Reeves’s most current model of the unlimited Batman cycle appears determined to outdo even the most self-consciously glum visions of Christopher Nolan and, more just recently, Todd Phillips. Unfortunately, Reeves– best understood for ‘Cloverfield’ and wise adjustments of the ‘Planet of the Apes’ movies– has actually fully bought into the darker-equals-deeper myth, providing a movie that’s as ponderous as it is complicated and, ultimately, lacking significant stakes.” (HBO Max) — Ann Hornaday
“It’s all really salacious, with [writer-director Andrew] Dominik staging thought of chapters of his heroine [Marilyn Monroe]’s life with gobsmackingly crass detail, whether he’s offering us a speculum’s-eye view of her vaginal area or cutting away to her unborn kids, here provided as fetuses in utero, one of whom asks not to be terminated in a little-girl voice that echoes [Ana] de Armas’s carefully practiced Monroe whisper.” (Netflix) — Ann Hornaday
“Fans of’Call Me By Your Name ‘will remember [director Luca] Guadagnino’s first cooperation with [Timothée] Chalamet; they are hereby warned that, although permeated with minutes of shocking beauty, this is quite not that movie. Positioned on the scuzzy outskirts of American society, ‘Bones and All’ is a graphic, often off-putting travelogue that seems to utilize the ultimate anti-social behavior as a hassle-free stand-in for each modern social problem from otherization to addiction. That metaphorical aspiration feels lightweight at best in a movie that savor shock worth, as its 2 attractive lead players slurp, crunch and gorge on their latest hapless victims.” (Multiple streaming platforms) — Ann Hornaday
” When they return from holiday to truth, Sara’s former enthusiast and Jean’s best friend, François(Grégoire Colin), suddenly shows up, providing Jean [Vincent Lindon] a task at the sports management firm he’s beginning– and Sara [Juliette Binoche] an opportunity to choose things up where they ended when he discarded her 10 years back and disappeared. ‘When you like someone, it never ever really disappears,’ she says. Oh, actually? Perhaps in the 16th arrondissement, it doesn’t.” In French with subtitles. (AMC Plus) — Michael O’Sullivan
“The result is a motion picture that is nearly continuously two things simultaneously: breezily lighthearted and overwrought; hyper-energetic and lazy; bracingly fresh and drearily acquired. Directed by David Leitch, who has actually evinced impressive action chops with such movies as ‘Atomic Blonde’ and the first John Wick installation, ‘Bullet Train’ is reverse-engineered to satisfy an itch consistently met by the similarity Ben Wheatley, Matthew Vaughn, Person Ritchie and Edgar Wright. If you’re yearning one more variation on the well-worn style of promiscuous bloodlettings accompanied by glib verbal filler, Leitch has actually dished out a presentable piece of grist for an increasingly creaky mill.” (Netflix) — Ann Hornaday
“As’Clerks III’gets underway, with the franchise’s hallmark mix of incompetent acting, sophomoric humor and inane, pop-culture-riffing discussion to get the game going, Randal (Jeff Anderson) is having an enormous heart attack, just as [writer-director Kevin] Smith did in 2018. That close call motivates him to make a no-budget, black-and-white movie narrative based upon the retail experiences of Dante (Brian O’Halloran) and him. That movie ends up being really ‘Clerks’-like, with actual video footage from the first film passed off as video shot in this film. (It’s a little weird and difficult to swallow that the now-middle-aged O’Halloran and Anderson somehow look 28 years younger whenever the video camera is on them. Possibly that’s the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia.)” (Multiple streaming platforms) — Michael O’Sullivan
” With its outré images and pulsating shots of human viscera,’Criminal activities of the Future ‘is clearly meant to shock, along with reference extremely real stress and anxieties about innovation, genes and environmental destruction. But as the complicated plot wears on, [filmmaker David] Cronenberg’s transgressive kink looks more and more played out. He establishes an irritating habit of explaining his significance through characters who invest a lot of time spouting dialogue that’s expository without illuminating much.” (Hulu) — Ann Hornaday
Do not Worry Darling (R) “The advance hype for’Don’t Worry Beloved’ has actually been so relentless– from director Olivia Wilde’s location-turned-relation-ship with her leading guy, Harry Styles, to a Kabuki-like feud with her lead starlet, Florence Pugh, and something including Chris Pine and Styles at the recent Venice Movie Festival– that it’s simple to forget there’s a real movie at the center of everything. A movie that’s not a disaster, but not particularly identified; a motion picture that, in the end, will wind up being as forgettable as its own bizarre publicity.” (HBO Max) — Ann Hornaday
” The outcome is a dizzying, almost imaginary experience– comparable to being thrown into a washing maker and mercilessly churned for 2 1/2 hours. That isn’t to say that ‘Elvis’ does not offer moments of insight, or even genuine motivation; it’s simply that they take place fitfully, when the audience is briefly pasted up against the window prior to being plunged into the barrel of [writer-director Baz] Luhrmann’s lurid sensibility as soon as again.” (HBO Max) — Ann Hornaday
“I can’t state all that much about the nuance of [writer-director Rosalind] Ross’s screenplay, due to the fact that a great deal of what’s spoken, a minimum of by [Mark] Wahlberg, is imperfectly intelligible, thanks to a mumbling delivery by the film’s star. It’s a performance that takes the character from a buff, cocky, mustachioed young fighter turned wannabe actor to a passing away male.” (Netflix) — Michael O’Sullivan
“Directed by the Danish filmmaker Tobias Lindholm, film writer of the Oscar-nominated 2013 movie’ The Hunt’ and the 2020 Oscar winner’Another Round, ”The Great Nurse’stars Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne, prestige performers who between them have been nominated for five Oscars. (Chastain won [in 2021] for ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye,’ as did Redmayne in 2015 for ‘The Theory of Whatever’– both times, it ought to be kept in mind, for portraying genuine people, as they do here.) Based Upon Charles Graeber’s 2013 nonfiction book by the exact same name about serial killer Charlie Cullen, a medical facility nurse who in 2004 admitted to murdering multiple clients while on responsibility, ‘The Good Nurse’ was adapted for the screen by Krysty Wilson-Cairns, herself an Oscar candidate, with Sam Mendes, for the World War I drama ‘1917.’ That’s a boatload of pedigree for what ends up being very little more than the type of dime-a-dozen true-crime tale that generally goes straight to streaming, where an eager audience is waiting.” (Netflix) — Michael O’Sullivan
Jurassic World Dominion(PG-13)
” [Director Colin] Trevorrow has conserved his most monstrous amalgamation for last: a bombastic movie that shows the classic wonder and simmering suspense of 1993’s’ Jurassic Park ‘have gone extinct in favor of an ungodly smash hit mix. Although the return of that classic’s stars– Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, gamely giving it their all– provides some welcome fond memories, there’s only a lot they can do to salvage an ill-calculated, algorithmic misfire that awkwardly evokes the remarkable ‘Objective: Impossible,’ ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ and ‘Don’t Look Up’ simultaneously.” (Peacock) — Thomas Floyd
“The CGI animation is not especially enjoyable to look at, with [primary character] Sam resembling a life-size Bratz doll and the other characters, in general, appearing like they were produced on a 3D printer. Pardon the pun, but there’s a stiff ‘Soul’-lessness to the animation.” (Apple TV Plus) — Michael O’Sullivan
“It’s fantastic to see older females on-screen. It’s fantastic to see aging provided as something a younger woman wants to do, even if she does not actually understand what includes it: knee discomfort, weird pokey hairs on your chin, getting those tablet organizers with ‘AM’ and ‘PM’ composed on them– and more knee discomfort. But ‘Mack & & Rita’ simply can’t sell that message. [Diane] Keaton, who can be so, so amusing, appears at a loss as to what to do. The brief script by Madeline Walter and Paul Welsh is packed with filler.” (Hulu) — Kristen Page-Kirby
“There’s lighthearted escapism, and then there’s insult to the audience verging on the contemptuous:’Marry Me,’which has been adjusted from Bobby Crosby’s graphic novel by film writers Harper Dill, John Rogers and Tami Sagher, never ever quite recuperates from the brain-numbing suspension of disbelief it requires from otherwise sentient viewers.” (Prime Video) — Ann Hornaday
“Adapted by screenwriter Ron Nyswaner, with plodding predictability, from Bethan Roberts’s 2012 unique, ‘My Policeman’might have been salvaged by someone with the type of transcendent screen presence that periodically lifts a stodgy duration piece from the depths of convention. Instead, [Harry] Designs’s flat efficiency provides the deadly blow to the film’s uninspired depiction of mid-century homophobia, forbidden love and long-simmering bitterness.” (Prime Video) — Thomas Floyd
“At a current preview screening of the new installment– co-directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, from a screenplay by James Vanderbilt and Man Busick, in a manner that is so insufferably self-conscious that viewing it seems like it’s watching you back, awaiting your reaction– one audience member signified his annoyance at the heavy-handedness of its humor by loudly specifying, not chuckling, ‘Ha. Ha.'”(Paramount Plus) — Michael O’Sullivan
” [The cast, members of the band Foo Fighters,] are a pleasant bunch, in what encounters as a kind of home motion picture about a group of dudes trying to make an album while their band leader is pestered by author’s block and the spirit of a deceased former homeowner who, before he killed himself, opened a website to a demonic underworld.” (Numerous streaming platforms) — Michael O’Sullivan
3 Thousand Years of Longing(R)”However at the end of the day, and regardless of its metaphysical aspirations and air of impressive love,’3 Thousand Years of Longing ‘is basically 2 people in a space conversing, with occasional breaks for illustration. There are moments in the film when audiences could be forgiven for thinking that if they wished to see two preternaturally appealing people chat in their bathrobes, they could enjoy ‘All the best to You, Leo Grande’ for a third time.” (Several streaming platforms) — Ann Hornaday
“In the 1995 film ‘Leaving Las Vegas, ‘Nicolas Cage played a man figured out to drink himself to death. Here, [Brendan Fraser as] Charlie is on the same course, except that he’s drowning his existential sorrows in buckets of fried chicken, sweet bars, pizza and whipped cream. The eating scenes in ‘The Whale’ are staged with horrified detail, the sound style tuned to accentuate every gloppy slurp. [Director Darren] Aronofsky and [screenwriter Samuel D.] Hunter leave little to the imagination, emphasizing at every graphic turn that, for Charlie, food isn’t the things of life-giving nutrition, however a vector for obsession and self-annihilation.” (In theaters)— Ann Hornaday
Whitney Houston: I Wan na Dance With Somebody(PG-13)”Regardless of clocking in at almost 2 1/2 hours, “I Wan na Dance’ barely scratches the surface of its celestial subject and the figures in her orbit. If you have a preferred Houston performance, expect it to be immaculately re-created on-screen. The tabloid headings that pestered her are dutifully dealt with as well. But even if ‘I Wan na Dance’ commemorates Houston’s stirring performance of the nationwide anthem at Super Bowl XXV– as she slows the pace and luxuriates in the spectacle– [director Kasi] Lemmons and screenwriter Anthony McCarten clearly didn’t soak up that showmanship lesson while speeding through the pop icon’s life story at a mad speed.” (In theaters) — Thomas Floyd