The Worst Movies of 2014 (So Far)

2014, the year in which some of your favorite actors have done some ridiculous and, yes, embarrassing shit. Neil Patrick Harris, the lovable showman and the only reason most people stuck with How I Met Your Mother for so long, unleashed some gross diarrhea into a couple of old-timer guys’ hats. Colin Farrell, who, prior to this year, was on a roll with underseen but solid flicks like Seven Psychopaths, rode a horse into the sky and became a star. Olivia Wilde, one of the world’s most beautiful women and an underrated actress, ran around a Parisian hotel’s hallways buck-naked after being sexually rejected by Liam Neeson. And Aaron Paul… Well, Jesse Pinkman he wasn’t while trying to look hardcore in a poor man’s Fast & Furious ripoff.

And that’s barely scratching the surface. We’re merely at the halfway point in 2014 and there’s already been an influx of terrible cinema. Earlier this week, we singled out the year’s 30 best movies so far to remind everyone that, in the grand scheme of things, film buffs had it quite good from January through June, but now it’s time to bring the pain. These are The Worst Movies of 2014 (So Far), home to all those shameful moments described above and so many more fails.

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20. The Monuments Men

Director: George Clooney
Stars: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, Cate Blanchett

George Clooney has certainly proven himself to be a more-than-capable filmmaker in recent years, but this war film featuring all-star cast members Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, and John Goodman is a less-than-favorable attempt at a heartwarming story about a group of American soldiers in WWII who'e been tasked to preserve various pieces of Western art from being destroyed by Nazis. The only way this film could've been saved is if it were directed by Wes Anderson. —Ramy Zabarah

19. Palo Alto

Director: Gia Coppola
Stars: Emma Roberts, James Franco, Jack Kilmer, Nat Wolff, Zoe Levin, Keegan Allen

Based on the James Franco's short story collection of the same name, Palo Alto is a movie that tries to be earnest and contemplative about suburban American youth but ultimately ends up becoming another flick about bored, over-privileged kids. A stellar performance by Nat Wolff can't make up for how grating it is to watch spoiled brats ooze seemingly unfounded teen angst. —Tara Aquino

18. Million Dollar Arm

Director: Craig Gillespie
Stars: Jon Hamm, Lake Bell, Aasif Mandvi, Suraj Sharma, Madhur Mittal, Bill Paxton, Alan Arkin, Pitobash Tripathy, Allyn Rachel

Or, as it should be called, Jon Hamm's The Blind Side.

The white man rules in Disney's Million Dollar Arm, a based-on-a-true-story sports flick about a super-cool sports agent (played by Hamm) whose career reignites when he discovers two baseball prodigies in India, a pair of aspiring pitchers he relocates back to the United States in hopes of turning them into major league players. Notice how that previous sentence is all Hamm's character's POV—that's what renders Million Dollar Arm both reprehensible and pedestrian.

Rather than focus on the fish-out-of-water narrative of two Indian youths trying to make it in America, this Disney-fied misfire is dedicated to Hamm's self-awakening—the arrogant douche learns to be selfless, a change that's helped greatly by his romance with a likable hottie (Lake Bell, the film's lone spark plug). His young Indian co-stars, meanwhile, have little to do other than farm in ethnic stereotypes, watch The Hills, and facilitate Hamm's not-Jerry-Maguire character arc. —Matt Barone

17. In Secret

Director: Charlie Stratton
Stars: Elizabeth Olsen, Oscar Isaac, Tom Felton, Jessica Lange, Matt Lucas, Shirley Henderson, Mackenzie Crook

It's no secret how difficult this movie is to sit through. Almost two hours of unrelenting melodrama, In Secret tells the story of a sexually repressed orphan (Elizabeth Olsen) who marries her sick cousin (Tom Felton)—and, consequently, his overbearing mom (Jessica Lange—only to fall in love with his former best friend (Oscar Isaac). But happy endings be damned, there's no respite from this tired, humorless tale of infidelity, deception, and other feisty words that are supposed make the film sound more compelling than it actually is.

Thankfully its stars, namely Avengers: Age of Ultron's Olsen, Star Wars' Isaac, and American Horror Story's Lange, have many more projects in the works to erase the memory of this one. —Tara Aquino

16. Labor Day

Director: Jason Reitman
Stars: Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin, Gattlin Griffith, Tobey Maguire, Clark Gregg, Brooke Smith, James Van Der Beek, Maika Monroe, Alexie Gilmore

Prison escapee-at-large Frank Chambers (Josh Brolin) and depressed single mom Adele Wheeler (Kate Winslet) fall in love and plan to flee to Canada with her son Henry, but not before making a mushy peach pie with all the ripe fruit in the house. We mean this both figuratively and literally. Like our deputy editor Ross Scarano has said before, it's the most hilarious pie sex movie ever made. —Ramy Zabarah

15. Vampire Academy

Director: Mark Waters
Stars: Zoey Deutch, Lucy Fry, Olga Kurylenko, Danila Kozlovsky, Sarah Hyland, Gabriel Byrne, Dominic Sherwood, Cameron Monaghan, Sami Gayle

Where do we even begin with this one? Well for starters, its box office revenue only made back half its budget. Vampire Academy stars Zoey Deutch as a human-vampire hybrid who endures the average high school struggles in a private school for vampires. Someone should do this film a favor and drive a stake through its heart. Didn't someone tell them the Twilight era was over? —Ramy Zabarah

14. Blood Ties

Director: Guillaume Canet
Stars: Clive Owen, Billy Crudup, Mila Kunis, Zoe Saldana, Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenarts, James Caan, Noah Emmerich, Lili Taylor

Blood Ties, a remake of the 2008 French film Les Liens du Sang (Rivals), is cut from multiple worn-out clothes. It's a wannabe old-school Sidney Lumet crime flick, a lethargic mishmash of the brother-against-brother scenario explored more successfully in We Own the Night (2007) and Pride and Glory (2008), and an exercise in '70s pulp fiction that's more concerned with jamming that decade's most recognizable pop songs into people's ears than it is developing any sympathetic characters.

You've been here and watched it before, though none of director Guillaume Canet's superior forbearers can take credit for making classy Oscar nominee Marion Cotillard play a reprehensible druggie/pimp or having a miscast Mila Kunis talk in an at times hilariously put-on Brooklyn accent. As Kunis' character would put it, Blood Ties is a laughing "mattah" for all the wrong reasons.

Which is all the more sad when you look at the film's cast. In addition to Cotillard and Kunis, Blood Ties stars the once-great Clive Owen, the underrated Jason Patric, Lili Taylor, Bullhead star/brute Matthias Schoenarts. That's a dream cast for any filmmaker —it's just a shame that they joined forces for Canet, who also co-wrote the script with James Gray, who, considering that he penned and directed We Own the Night, should have known better. —Matt Barone

13. The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Director: Marc Webb
Stars: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Colm Feore, Felicity Jones, Paul Giamatti, Sally Field, Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidtz, Chris Cooper

This messy web of a sequel to the 2012 reboot finds Peter Parker swinging between too many plotlines as he fights villains Electro and the Green Goblin, while working on his relationship with Gwen Stacy. They say you shouldn't multitask, and Spider-Man really, really shouldn't—he only gets caught in his own web. —Brooke Marine

12. Maladies

Director: Carter
Stars: James Franco, Catherine Keener, David Straithairn, Alan Cumming

James Franco seems like a shrewd guy, someone who's aware of what he's doing with any given project. One can only hope that his intention for making Maladies was to star in an artsy version of Tommy Wiseau's The Room with real actors. If so, the film is a rousing success. Until that's confirmed, Maladies will exist as a vapid, not-as-smart-as-it-thinks exercise in self-stroking, made occasionally tolerable by some preposterously funny scenes, whether intentional or not.

Franco plays, yes, James, "an actor who is no longer acting," but instead working on a novel. He's prone to giving overlong, bizarrely simplistic monologues, like one about how pencils work and another that expresses his wonderment over the fact that Moby Dick actually wasn't written at one point. His friend, Catherine (Catherine Keener), draws pictures and enjoys dressing up as a man. Their neighbor, Delmar (David Straithairn), has an infatuation with James' stint on the soap opera General Hospital. And James' antisocial sister, Patricia (Fallon Goodson), sits around and stares confusedly.

On more than one occasion, Franco's character serves up this: "Everything needs to be made, and it needs to be made by someone." One time with Maladies should finitely disprove that theory. —Matt Barone

11. Tammy

Director: Ben Falcone
Stars: Melissa McCarthy, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, Sandra Oh, Mark Duplass,Gary Cole

Setting aside its obvious star power, Tammy is one of those movies that makes you question why so much money was wasted on making that movie in the first place. A road trip buddy comedy about a reckless basketcase, Tammy (Melissa McCarthy), who journeys to Niagara Falls with her alcoholic grandmother (Susan Sarandon), the movie is essentially a vehicle to see how many one-liners you can fit into a given scene.

Despite earning chuckles every now and then with a couple gems—this is a Melissa McCarthy movie after all—Tammy is an uncompelling comedy that catches a flat tire about 10 minutes in and rides on a donut for the rest of movie. —Tara Aquino

10. Walk of Shame

Director: Steven Brill
Stars: Elizabeth Banks, James Marsden, Gillian Jacobs, Sarah Wright, Ethan Suplee, Kevin Nealon, Willia Garson, Oliver Hudson, Bill Burr, Larry Gilliard, Jr.

Elizabeth Banks finds herself stranded in downtown L.A. after a one-night stand with James Marsden. Sure, she can bus it home, but wait! She must make it to an important job interview in less than eight hours. This is the one that could change her life, everyone. The only thing more humiliating than Banks' character is the movie's low worldwide box office gross of less than $60K. —Brooke Marine

9. Transcendence

Director: Wally Pfister
Stars: Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Morgan Freeman, Paul Bettany, Kate Mara, Cillian Murphy, Cole Hauser, Clifton Collins, Jr., Cory Hardrict, Josh Stewart

Johnny Depp plays a scientist who attempts to create the ultimate artificial intelligence machine that can also experience human emotion. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers accused Depp of "Skyping in his performance" as his character downloads himself into a computer in this silly sci-fi cautionary tale. Maybe Depp should stick to whimsy Tim Burton fare—or actually try harder to make a decent movie. —Brooke Marine

8. Need for Speed

Director: Scott Waugh
Stars: Aaron Paul, Dominic Cooper, Imogen Poots, Scott "Kid" Mescudi, Ramon Rodriguez, Rami Malek, Michael Keaton, Dakota Johnson

Written by the same guy who brought you one of the best worst films of the century, Hardball, Need For Speed stars Breaking Bad actor Aaron Paul as a street racer who zooms cross-country to avenge his best friend's death. Clocking in at over two hours long, this explosion-filled flick is more of a Fast and the Furious knockoff with a crazed Jesse Pinkman behind the wheel.

If you've ever played any of the Need for Speed games, don't watch this movie. If you haven't played them, still don't watch this movie. There's no point anyway, considering the original games don't have a plot to base a film on to begin with. —Ramy Zabarah

7. Pompeii

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Stars: Kit Harington, Emily Browning, Carrie-Anne Moss, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Kiefer Sutherland, Jessica Lucas, Joe Pingue

There's no denying that Paul W.S. Anderson makes nice-looking movies. Particularly in his endless stream of Resident Evil films, Anderson stages visual bombast that's pitched somewhere between Michael Bay's enormity and Zack Snyder's video game sensibilities. And Pompeii, Anderson's attempt to merge a sword-and-sandals gladiator epic with a full-scale disaster movie, delivers the superficial grandeur its target demographic expects.

Except there's a major problem: Pompeii characters make those in Anderson's Resident Evil franchise seem Shakespearean. As the hunky hero, Game of Thrones star Kit Harington rehashes Jon Snow's brooding side without any of the Stark bastard's empathy; as the beautiful damsel-in-distress, Emily Browning is doe-eyed blankness; and as the villain, Kiefer Sutherland embarrassingly overacts. The only likable character in Pompeii is Mount Vesuvius—once it erupts and turns everyone into ash, you'll stand up and cheer. —Matt Barone

6. A Million Ways to Die in the West

Director: Seth MacFarlane
Stars: Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson, Giovanni Ribisi, Sarah Silverman, Neil Patrick Harris

The year's worst movie scene so far? Neil Patrick Harris taking diarrhea shits into a couple of guys' hats in A Million Ways to Die in the West.

And, no, it's not an Adam Sandler movie, though most of the jokes in director/co-writer Seth MacFarlane's hugely disappointing follow-up to Ted wouldn't be out of place in Grown Ups 3. Usually a master of oddball wit and clever subversion, Family Guy mastermind MacFarlane dumbed himself down to fart-humor idiocy in this painfully unfunny western, about a sheep-herding simpleton (MacFarlane himself, unfortunately) who learns how to man up thanks to a gorgeous bad-girl-gone-good played by Charlize Theron, who's obvious joy at comedically playing against type is the film's sole redeeming factor.

Otherwise, A Million Ways to Die in the West is a lazy and unfocused mishmash of sexual innuendo and flatulence that's not even on The Cleveland Show's level. —Matt Barone

5. I, Frankenstein

Director: Stuart Beattie
Stars: Aaron Eckhart, Bill Nighy, Yvonne Strahovski, Jai Courtney, Miranda Otto, Nicholas Bell, Kevin Grevioux, Caitlin Stasey

Remember that emo, crying Frankenstein's monster in the awful 2004 film Van Helsing? He's Lou Ferrigno compared to Aaron Eckhart's Adam (yes, that's the monster's name here: Adam). Figuratively defecating all over Mary Shelley's classic creation, the makers of this humorless and altogether inept Underworld knockoff treat Boris Karloff's ghost worse than Robert Pattinson did Bela Lugosi's.

Had director Stuart Beattie and screenwriter Kevin Grevious embraced the concept's silliness, I, Frankenstein could've been a fun diversion, a sort of Penny Dreadful for Expendables fans. Playing everything as if they're trying to turn Eckhart into the next Charles Bronson, though, they only cast a brighter light on the film's rampant cheesiness and dollar-bin visuals. Because of I, Frankenstein, Van Helsing's filmmakers deserve an apology from all of that movie's haters. —Matt Barone

4. The Legend of Hercules

Director: Renny Harlin
Stars: Kellan Lutz, Gaia Weiss, Scott Adkins, Liam McIntyre, Roxanne McKee, Liam Garrigan, Jonathan Schaech

Sorry, Twilight's Kellan Lutz, but "Kellan Lutz, leading-man action hero" isn't going to happen anytime soon, especially not when he stars in straight-to-video-quality junk like The Legend of Hercules that somehow opens in 2,000 theaters. In a time when TV shows like Spartacus: Blood and Sand are bringing cinema-level visuals to television, films as cheap-looking as this collection of wannabe Gladiator cliches and paint-by-numbers storytelling are all the more inexcusable.

Looking like a girl in a Michael Bay movie, the bronzer-covered Lutz struggles to convincingly emote while even less believably hacking and slashing his way through a big-screen video game with SNES graphics. All Dwayne Johnson has to do is not sneeze to make this month's more credible Hercules reign supreme in the mythical Greek hero universe. —Matt Barone

3. Third Person

Director: Paul Haggis
Stars: Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde, Mila Kunis, Adrien Brody, Moran Atias, Kim Basinger, James Franco, Maria Bello, David Harewood

No one's ever described Crash writer-director Paul Haggis as being "subtle." But with the laughably heavy-handed Third Person, Haggis reaches new levels of absurdity. Worst of all, he's an Academy Award-winning filmmaker.

And, boy, does he really want to win another one. The worst kind of prestige drama, Third Person squanders the central quartet of Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde, Mila Kunis, and Adrien Brody in an overcrowded, multi-plot narrative that grows more ludicrous with each new reveal, twist, and overheated moment of all-the-feels melodrama. The story's anchor is Neeson, playing a writer working through a new manuscript while going through the emotional ringer with his mistress (Wilde) in Paris; in Italy, an American businessman (Brody) tries to play Captain-Save-a-Dame for a beautiful woman (Moran Atias) whose daughter is being held for ransom; and in New York, an unstable woman (Kunis) is in a heated custody battle with her ex-husband (James Franco) over their young son.

Each one of Third Person's three storylines is uninspired enough, but when they all congeal together in the film's overwrought climax? It's as if Haggis is bashing his themes into his Word processor with that Oscar statue he never should've won in the first place. —Matt Barone

2. A Haunted House 2

Director: Michael Tiddes
Stars: Marlon Wayans, Jaime Pressly, Essence Atkins, Cedric the Entertainer, Gabriel Iglesias, Ashley Rickards, Missi Pyle, Affion Crockett, Dave Sheridan

Look, Marlon Wayans can be funny. One only needs to revisit reruns of The Wayans Bros. and the first two Scary Movie films to remember just how hilarious the man can be when he's working with good material. But these A Haunted House movies, though, are shamefully bad. Produced and co-written by, as well as starring, Marlon Wayans, both of the Haunted House spoof films make the case for Vampires Suck and Stan Helsing being unfairly ridiculed.

Mistaking mania for acting, Wayans tears through A Haunted House 2 like a force of insufferable nature, screaming at the camera (it's a "found-footage" movie), yelling at his co-stars, and generally overselling every punchline and sight gag. Not that the jokes are worthy of better performers—with The Conjuring's creepy doll and Sinister's Goth-looking demon as the main targets, A Haunted House 2 offsets its on-the-nose racial humor with the most obvious tweaking of recently popular horror movies.

That doll from The Conjuring? Wayans makes it masturbate before he eats it out. No amount of The Wayans Bros. reruns can forgive that. —Matt Barone

1. Winter's Tale

Director: Akiva Goldsman
Stars: Colin Farrell, Jennifer Connelly, Jessica Brown Findlay, Russell Crowe, William Hurt, Eva Marie Saint, Will Smith, Matt Bomer, Lucy Griffiths

Colin Farrell, Jennifer Connelly, Russell Crowe, and Will Smith—what do all these world-famous actors have in common besides being world-famous actors? They were all in a really bad film called Winter's Tale. Based on the 1983 novel by Mark Halprin, Winter's Tale has all the characteristics of a romantic fantasy failure: immortality, cheese, tuberculosis, cheese, an epic white magical horse, and more cheese. We can't summarize it any better than the movie's sharp cheddar tagline: "This is not a true story. It's a love story."

Oh, and another thing those actors have in common? They all seemingly mailed in their performances for the money. Money's money, but crap is also crap. —Ramy Zabarah