It shouldn’t be this hard to make a good Predator film.  That is especially true when you take into consideration that The Predator is written and directed by Shane Black, who directed the vastly underrated The Nice Guys and who actually had a small role in the original Predator film.  You would think he’d have a pretty good feel for where the franchise should go. Yeah, so much for that. The biggest problem with the film is that it can’t make up its mind as to whether or not it wants to be a comedy or a serious action film. You can’t have characters cracking jokes when they are about to get destroyed by an alien warrior. If these things were making Arnold shake in his boots back in the day, then so should every character in this film. The plot is also a mess when you boil it down to the fact that The Predator essentially came to Earth to steal the autism from a little kid. Give me a break. The Predator is one of the coolest movie creations of all-time. He deserves better.

I’m not a huge fan of the original Cloverfield film, but I adored 10 Cloverfield Lane with John Goodman. Once I heard they were making a Cloverfield film that takes place on a spaceship, I was sold. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Paradox, which was bought and distributed by Netflix, is easily one of the biggest disappointments of the year for me. In fact, it ranked all the way up at #3 on my My Most Anticipated Films of 2018 list.  There’s a really terrible trend going around Hollywood right now and that is taking a script that has been sitting on a shelf and retrofitting it for a certain property. In this case, they took a screenplay about space and sprinkled in some Cloverfield seasoning.  The result is a half-baked plot with terrible dialogue as a side dish. Apparently, 10 Cloverfield Lane was also retrofitted, so it can be done, but Cloverfield Paradox is an absolute trainwreck of a film.

Thankfully, I got to go to a free screening of Action Point and didn’t have to actually pay for a ticket.  I’ve been a fan of Johnny Knoxville and his merry band of morons for years now, but the choice to make an actual film revolving around their hijinks was probably a bad one. Action Point isn’t enough of a real film to be enjoyable to general audiences, and it’s not enough of a Jackass film to be enjoyable for fans of Jackass films. The only thing I can think of is that Knoxville has been hit in the head one too many times and just wasn’t thinking clearly.  Stick to what you know - getting hit in the groin without having to worry about a storyline.

I’m a huge fan of Steven Soderbergh. The man has been making great films for decades now.  Even after he said he was retiring from filmmaking he continues to put out quality material evidenced by 2017’s Logan Lucky.  I’ve also always applauded his knack for experimental filmmaking, but Unsane just didn’t work for me. The entire film was shot on an iPhone, which gives the film a really flat, hollow feel to it.  The biggest culprit for me was the plot. Some of the twists were predictable and I found myself not able to play along with what was going on because of the unreliable nature of the main character whom we were following.  I understand that was part of the point of the film, but it just kind of muddled things up for me. I also think some of the setup for the film is unrealistic and implausible.

So, here’s the thing.  My taste for film is so dialed in that I don’t see a lot of bad movies.  It’s literally impossible for me to find 5 films I would consider bad this year.  Since making a list of just 4 films is weird, The Front Runner drew the short straw.  To be clear, The Front Runner is not a bad film. It’s just kind of… meh. Early reports had this film competing for Oscars, so I had high hopes going in, but it was clear to me as the credits were rolling that we did not get that kind of film. Hugh Jackman is fantastic as always as Gary Hart, a one-time presidential hopeful whose chance at the Oval Office evaporated because of a sex scandal. The Front Runner is also directed by Jason Reitman, who directed Tully this year, which you might just see on another one of my lists this year.  Both Jackman and Reitman couldn’t prevent The Front Runner from puttering out at the end. The fact that we know that Hart doesn’t become president kind of steals some of the thunder from the finale of the film. That said, it’s a very timely film for our current political climate. We live in a world where journalists are being questioned about how much research and fact checking goes into a story before they run with it.  The case could be made that The Front Runner shows the beginnings of the ethical erosion of the news media.