The 5 Worst Movies of 2014
We’ve already provided you with a list of must-see films from what overall was an impressive year at the movies. Now, it’s turkey time. Here are the five worst movies we had the misfortune of sitting through in 2014.
5. Ouija
A board game adaptation so dire, it makes Battleship look like a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, Ouija packages terrible writing, stiff performances, and clunky direction in one bland box. The only frightening thing about this so-called “horror” movie is that it somehow managed to scare up $70 million at the box office, all but guaranteeing Ouija 2: Ouija Harder. —Ethan Alter
4. Tammy
Need more proof that Melissa McCarthy is a genuine movie star? Here’s Exhibit A: Tammy actually did all right at the box office this summer. In other words, lots of hard-working people paid good money to see this incoherent mess about an unhinged slob (McCarthy) on a car trip with her boozy, floozy grandmother (Susan Sarandon). First-time director Ben Falcone makes so many wrong turns and wastes the talents of so many grade-A actors (Toni Collette, Dan Aykroyd, and Mark Duplass among them), that by the end you’re left wondering how any of them ended up on this road to nowhere. —Kerrie Mitchell
3. Need for Speed
While I appreciated that this movie seemingly starts up right where Breaking Bad left off (seriously, think about that very last shot of Jesse Pinkman), this asinine Fast and Furious knockoff was otherwise a hot mess on every level. For his first starring film role, Aaron Paul deserved better than this slice of car porn that’s overwrought, dumb, unsurprising at every turn, and at times utterly irresponsible. Slow your roll. —Kevin Polowy
2. The Giver
It took Jeff Bridges nearly 20 years to bring to the big screen an adaptation of Lois Lowry’s Newbery Medal-winning dystopian YA novel, by which point the market had been way oversaturated with dystopian YA novel adaptations. In comparison to its action-packed contemporaries, The Giver was downright boring, with a climax that involved a wild bike ride (and while E.T. made that work, this movie didn’t). Bridges helped director Philip Noyce assemble an all-star cast that also included Meryl Streep and Taylor Swift (in a glorified cameo), but those talents went to waste in an uninspired production that looked like it was made in front of a lousy green screen. —Jordan Zakarin
1. This Is Where I Leave You
In his shrill, stupid ensemble — about a grumpy brood forced to sit shiva for their dead patriarch — director Shawn Levy takes an enviable cabal of great actors (including Tina Fey, Jane Fonda, and Kathryn Hahn, all wasted here) and forces them into a cartoonish kabuki of modern-day familial dysfunction. Leave You veers between mawkish melodrama and high-volume comedy so frequently and tactlessly, it’s like watching a shouty showdown between a second-stage emo band and a third-rate improv troupe. What does that last sentence mean? We have no idea! But at least it’s shorter than this joyless mess of a movie. —Brian Raftery
Related: The 40 Best Movies of 2014
