Looking at Hollywood’s best and worst of 2013

The worst are films that should have been good, or at least better than they were. Identity Thief was probably the most egregious offender, squandering the talents of Jason Bateman (playing the same character he always plays) and Melissa McCarthy (playing the same character she always plays, but just more unpleasant). The premise was just stupid, some of the characters’ behavior and actions were appalling and ridiculous, and the movie never knew if it was a black comedy, slapstick or a superhero movie (what was with McCarthy’s ability to endure any physical damage to her body with nary a scratch?). It was just an unpleasant experience all around.

Speaking of a character becoming a superhero, what they did to John McClane in A Good Day to Die Hard was just baffling and offensive. In Die Hard, he’s an average Joe who uses his police skills to thwart a terrorist takeover of a skyscraper where his wife also happens to be. Now he’s impervious to bullets, knives, explosions and a car tumbling down a highway about 73 times. Never gets a scratch! It was an offense to the fans of the series, and that the plot made little sense or had any direction didn’t help. One of the worst sequels ever committed to film.

Speaking of bad – or just disappointing sequels – there were the three that should have been good, but just weren’t. Star Trek Into Darkness insisted on teasing the fans throughout its production by saying Benedict Cumberbatch was not playing Khan. And the worst kept secret in the world just made people angry when it was revealed that he was. The first film in the rebooted franchise took familiar characters in some new directions while paying tribute to the original. Into Darkness cribbed way too much from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and did little to advance the new Trek universe that had such a good foundation to build on.

The Wolverine had nowhere to go but up after X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which successfully scuttled any future X-Men Origins movies. The Wolverine took everyone’s favorite mutant to Japan to face his past and his possible future. The film has some good action sequences, and the casting of actors mostly unknown to US audiences helped serve the fish out of water story. The major fail was Tao Okamoto, who came off as the Japanese Kristin Stewart. The problem with a superhero movie like this is that you know the star is never going to be in danger of dying or losing his abilities (unless its absolutely the last movie of the franchise), so that dampens any tension the story tries to build. Saying it was better than its predecessor is faint praise indeed.