2019 Movie Rankings: 130 through 121

Jeff D Lowe1/22/2020 7:28 PM

Well, Day 6 of the 2019 Movie Rankings Countdown is here. Over the course of the next 13 weekdays, leading up to the 92nd edition of The Academy Awards, I will be revealing my rankings for all 185 new movies I watched this year.

RANKINGS SO FAR:
Bottom 15 (171-185)
170-161
160-151
150-141
140-131

We have reached movies with a score of 50/100 or better! There are a lot of mainstream releases in this crop of movies and some that people might disagree with in terms of score. All but one of these nine movies have a big-time movie star, but none of them ended up being all that great. Let's get it on, here are movies 130 through 121...

130) Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (47/100): While it isn't the worst Disney cartoon-to-live-action movie, it is right at the bottom of the list. While it might be filled with a solid, recognizable cast, the second Sleeping Beauty movie is dull and unimaginative, a recurring problem with the live-action concept from Disney.

129) The Laundromat (48/100): A huge disappointment, 'The Laundromat' was nowhere near as clever or fun from the likes of Steven Soderbergh.

Were my expectations high? Probably, he created my favorite movie of all-time with 'Ocean's Eleven' and the recent hit 'Logan Lucky', but I still thought there'd be more to offer with this based-on-a-true-story movie. The common complaint with 'The Laundromat' has been the tone of the movie, it never finds the proper balance that movies like 'The Big Short' were easy to nail down.

128) The Sun Is Also a Star (48/100): I was surprised a bit with this movie, the lead actors, who I didn't know much about, are pretty damn solid.

On top of that, 'The Sun Is Also a Star' is beautifully shot with some fantastic editing. It has plenty of appeal, but the story, based on a teen drama novel, does not have a strong footing in terms of story strength. It's a common problem, but these young adult-style stories do not translate all that well from book to script and then to screen.

127) Rambo: Last Blood (48/100): Another large disappointment, everything that made Stallone so incredible in the 'Creed' movies was not replicated for the Rambo reboot. While I do not think it was quite as terrible as critics made it out to be, we've seen the formula for how to make these reboots successful… and this was not… it…

126) X-Men: Dark Phoenix (49/100): Why in the fuck did they cut this line from the movie?

Colossal error! I went into more detail with my full review of the movie, but, to put it simply, 'Dark Phoenix' is every bit of the mess it was made out to be during the movie's production.

125) Gemini Man (50/100): A glorified tech demo from Ang Lee, 'Gemini Man' was dead on arrival following a strange marketing campaign that drummed up little-to-no excitement for the Will Smith movie. Lee, being the pro that he is, saves the movie from awfulness with some great action moments. The biggest issue is the script, which is an unmitigated disaster. Re-written many times over two decades, 'Gemini Man' would barely pass for an amateur TV-movie script. As for the de-aging, it's pretty solid for most of the movie has issues looking good when there are scenes with daylight.

124) Charlie's Angels (51/100): Great cast. Reboot. Bad screenplay. Rinse, lather and repeat. A poorly directed movie, 'Charlie's Angels' is sloppy with all of its technical elements. Having a more focused story and a script would have done wonders with a cast that had fantastic on-screen chemistry.

123) The Addams Family (51/100): The animation is nice to look at and you'll recognize the voice cast, but my goodness is this a mediocre movie. When it comes to 'The Addams Family' there are plenty of other things to watch that better service the source material.

122) Isn't It Romantic (52/100): Honestly, I enjoyed the premise and story idea that 'Isn't It Romantic' offered…

A lot of the movie worked, but it was still weighed down the formulaic, cookie-cutter structure that has become the norm with rom-com movies. What's a bigger shame is that it felt like a waste of a solid outing from Rebel Wilson, who has starred ('CATS') in some rough ('CATS') movies ('CATS') with bad performances as of late.

121) Noelle (52/100): Ah fuck man, this movie was such a huge letdown. One of the premier releases from Disney+, the Anna Kendrick-Bill Hader Christmas movie was empty in terms of magic and holiday spirit. There are enough fun moments to make it fairly enjoyable, but I thought we might have a classic on our hands! The biggest problem? The music, classic Christmas songs have to be sprinkled into any movie about the holiday and we just didn't get that with 'Noelle'.

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Here are the rankings so far in picture form…

Did you like any of these movies, or agree that they are rather shitty? Tomorrow we will look at movies 120 through 111 and, in the meantime, you can still rate all of the movies released on a scale of 0-100 below. Make sure to subscribe (click here) to Lights Camera Barstool to enjoy our twice-a-week movie podcast…

Give your rating for all 2019 movies:
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December: https://forms.gle/uCYmh7uMtxE99Vj88