2023: 23 Worst Rated Films Of The Year We Watched So You Don’t Have To – From The Archies, Animal, Gadar 2…( Photo Credit – IMDb )
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2023 is over, and so are the thoughts of the bad films we watched throughout the year. Forget Adipurush, The Archies, Ganapath, Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan because those anyway got trolled for the exploitation they caused on us; we bring you 23 worst-rated films (Bollywood, South, Hollywood) from 2023 that we watched, so you don’t have to.
Remember how Katrina Kaif was always shown this NRI in her films so that the makers could justify her accent? Here we have the Anglo-Indian kids who talk exactly like SoBo gurlz talk to their cab wale bhaayaa. Both Suhana Khan & Khushi Kapoor would need a lot of polishing before making their big-screen debut. The flaws in the performance are glaringly visible owing to the portrayed laidback attitude in the act. Everything in their performance comes across as borderline lazy.
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2. Adipurush
Still From The Adipurush (Picture Credit: YouTube)
More than this being a bad film, I’m disappointed at a lost opportunity that was right there with all the funds in the world to retell the heroic tale of the victory of truth over evil. Still, the entire crew decided to infuse it with dialogues like “Jo hamari behno ko hath lagayenge unki lanka laga denge!” & “Ek sapore ne shesh naag ko lamba kardiya” ruining everyone’s Ramayana. Probably one of the worsts of 2023.
Yes, the frames visibly lag and repeat in the award-winning VFX work done by the team. Because, so what it lags, the makers want the jerk to be there so everything shouldn’t look too clean and perfect. There are some blemishes here and there because ‘kuch lag ache hai.’ Most Ganapath makers have worked is to find a stylized font for the ‘Disclaimer’ screen at the start.
4. Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan
Still From Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan (Picture Credit: YouTube)
Farhad Samji makes the crowd in the film to call/inspire Salman Khan by whistling at him, and I think it’s only because he knew the star wouldn’t be getting any seetis from the real-life audience. He also makes Bhaijaan end many dialogues rhyming with Vande Mataram, taking jingoism to another level. He makes random girls drool over Salman Khan while he’s walking with the lead actress Pooja Hegde on the road. He convinced Salman to do a scene in which he makes fun of Bhaijaan’s single-expression acting, an irony, and a hidden joke many won’t get (Salman didn’t). Farhad Samji is the gift that would never stop giving. He makes Salman Khan grab the stick, beating the Turkish ice cream trick. 2023, what have we done wrong?
The funniest thing in the film has to be a character asking “Tum vegetarian ho?” to Pearl V Puri’s Bajju while they’re sitting in a ‘Shudh Shakahari’ (Pure Veg) hotel and PVP has a book with him titled ‘How To Go Vegan.’ Nice question.
A fun fact: Bangalore Days was also remade in Tamil as Bangalore Naatkal with Rana Dagubatti in it, who apologized to everyone after its release and said, “I wish we hadn’t remade such a beautiful film, but I was just greedy to play the role of (actor) Fahadh Faasil in the original film.” This was just fun trivia for the producers of Yaariyan 2.
This Sandeep Reddy Vanga film celebrates manhood in a way that Sanjay Dutt would come out from his ‘Mardaangi’ ad and say to the director: “Yeh MANLY hai yaar!” I’m all in for a toxic character because it’s a trait any human can have, but when you show it with a weaker motive, you lose the whole point, weakening the connection viewers could have with the character. Yes, it’s not necessary to consistently connect with your lead, but at least join us with the world around him. How can one tolerate an alpha male in a beta world? The whole ‘papa papa’ obsession suddenly gets sidelined only to show how Ranvijay can consummate with the fiance of the dead guy who donated him the heart, leading to a plot twist you can see coming from a mile away.
Out of 8 characters in this story, seven are suffering from some medical/mental condition – Navjot (Paresh Rawal) is absent-minded, forgetting everything he just heard; his older son Harbhajan Singh (Sharman Joshi) cannot hear; his younger son Yuvraj (Abhishek Banerjee) who stammers; his daughter-in-law Billo (Divya Dutta) who keeps asking Billo Bagge Billeyan Da Ki Karengi… Okay, that was a joke (better than what’s in the film). Billo has the condition to mix two Hindi proverbs like “Kaam ke na kaaj ke daadhi me tinka?” that makes zero sense, just like the story of this film.
We also have Navjot’s daughter Paro (Mrunal Thakur), who cannot see at night, whose marriage gets fixed, and Rohit (Abhimanyu Dassani), who cannot see in the day. NAHI YEH MAZAAK HO RAHA HAI? MAARO MUJHE MAARO! This doesn’t end here; Rohit’s family has his father (Darshan Jariwala), who has the condition to ask for a high five for everything he says. Till now, the writer ran out of all the conditions, so he decided to keep Rohit’s mother (Grusha Kapoor) as totally normal. So, all these people come together to do something and call it a film in 2023.
This could’ve easily been a short film, a documentary, or a boring book, but it had no reason to be a feature film asking people to pay and go through the things already known to them through the daily newspapers.
Yes, we know there are food quality issues in certain jails, there’s no space for prisoners to sleep correctly, and there are no amenities to enjoy life inside; what’s even the purpose of the film? Because if it’s to have some sympathy for the lead character, it falls miserably flat on the face.
The story is so messy that it’s hard to decide what’s darker – the cinematography by Tristan Nyby or the BS that the story does while attempting to scare you. Though some scenes genuinely have jumpscares, they’re so low that even you forget you’re watching a horror film. You’ll not only see the jumpscares from miles away but also predict every twist & turn as the film follows the age-old typical horror genre cliches.
It’s a stylish debut by director Abilash Joshiy (son of Joshiy, the catalyst to some swanky actioners in Malayalam cinema). Still, it’s restricted heavily by Abhilash N. Chandran’s run-of-the-mill story. You’d love to watch what’s happening, not for what’s happening in those scenes but for how everything is executed, and that’s the main problem of this Dulquer Salmaan starrer.
Director Anil Sharma leaves no stone unturned to make you feel that it’s a sequel to Gadar, so much so that it feels like it’s nearly 22 years late with its release in 2023. With the kind of efforts put in by the filmmaker & the team, this should’ve been released in the next week of its prequel in 2001 & even then, many would’ve asked the same question: “Why?” Sharma brings back Shaktimaan Talwar, best known for writing Gadar and Veer, Singh Saab The Great, Hero: Love Story Of A Spy, and Ghayal Once Again. He uses every frame to make you feel like you’re watching a sequel to Gadar. That’s no problem in doing that, but by being so much ‘at your face’, it’s like: Sakeena (breathes), and the scene would cut to how Sakeena used to love breathing in Gadar: Ek Prem Katha.
The same trio responsible for the prequel has handled the story and the screenplay here: Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber. They reach a position where you start feeling that you can’t probably milk every film’s success. Its predecessor, Meg, standalone, is a fun film that you’d watch and forget it ever existed.
The idea of milking it with a sequel and ruining it so bad that you make a book from 1999 look cooler is where the makers lost the chance of any redemption. Okay, let’s, for a moment, think that some production house thinks it’s a great idea and starts looking for people who will support this, at least find a good creative team that would sugarcoat this sour casserole, making it into something edible.
It suffers from The Kerala Story & Kashmir Files syndrome of “important topic but lackluster execution” with its narrative. The screenplay of the 90-minute film, which was shot in 28 days, was written by Anil Pandey and Junaid Wasi. The decision to include a whole lot of CGI to portray the story’s theatrics doesn’t work in its favor. At the cost of making the narrative look more dystopian & hard-hitting, the final product comes across as shabbily unnerving.
15. Insidious: The Red Door
Still From Insidious: The Red Door (Picture Credit: IMDb)
A dialogue in the film says, “Everything gets riskier as you go further,” & upon decoding it, I understand they meant it for the film’s story in general because “everything gets sh*ttier as things go further.”
16. 1920: Horrors Of The Heart
Still From 1920: Horrors Of The Heart (Picture Credit: YouTube)
What’s Good: It’s a horror film from Bollywood, which means you won’t be able to see anything anyway because everything is so dark
What’s Bad: It claims to be a horror film but the only time it’ll scare you is during the interval the fact that you’ll have to go through sixty more minutes of this
Loo Break: Whenever you want, you’ll still be able to get the story
Watch or Not?: The song starts and ends with the theme ‘Lori Sunau’ (Singing Lullaby), which ironically is what you’ll need when this film bores you to sleep
17. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
Still From Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (Picture Credit: IMDb)
Michael Bay did this for five movies & pretty much exhausted the ways of “how to sell this without a story?” Five minds, Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber, and Jon Hoeber, came together to pen the screenplay, which is confused between what to serve fans and what is good.
Story writer Joby Harold ‘gets inspired’ by iconic movie characters like Kong, Dinosaurs, and Dragons & slaps a layer of metal on them to call it ‘creativity’ of introducing ‘new’ creators. There’s also a Rhino-bot, and I was just wondering how much more to watch before cat & dog bots. The routine “Our planet is in danger from these otherworldly powers, and we have a group of good otherworldly powers to save us” storyline never excites you enough.
18. August 16, 1947
Poster From August 16, 1947 (Picture Credit: IMDb)
N.S. Ponkumar manages the script, screenplay & direction of the film, making sure to ruin every department equally. The whole movie seems to be designed after a one-liner development of “A village unaware of Independence because of its brutal British rulers.” To all my aspiring writers, read the one-liner and think of the worst probable story you can get around it; it’d still be better than it’s shown here.
A scenario reenactment of what NS Ponkumar was asked to do:
Makers: How much drama will you add to dramatize the situation of the film?
NS Ponkumar: Yes.
19. Selfiee
Still From Selfiee (Picture Credit: YouTube) | 2023: 23 Worst Rated Films
Okay, this may sound insane, but hear me out. The comical relief of the film also comes from Akki cracking self-deprecated jokes; why didn’t they take it a step ahead? When you can talk about his ‘masoode’ ruining his smile, joke about his commitment to do millions of projects every year and make a doctor criticize his ‘massy’ script sense, why did you restrict the story only to the source material available beforehand?
Why can’t this be a story of a story who somehow forgets to renew his passport & fails with extreme difficulty in renewing it owing to his dual citizenship (India & Canada, maybe?)? Why not completely redesign the project, retaining the narrative’s soul of a public war between a superstar and his die-hard fan? I know it’s easy to pen and challenging to execute, but isn’t that the same as remaking an already-loved movie?
Even in 2023 Trivikram Srinivas’ story remains as mediocre as it was in the original, solely saved by the charm of the stylish Allu Arjun and blockbuster music. The film starts as a Tik-Tok video and remains one sprinkled with songs that will also just trend on social media for as short as the attention span of today’s ‘reel-watching’ Audience. Rohit Dhawan’s screenplay retains the same style as Trivikram Srinivas’ film.
21. Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania
Still From Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania (Picture Credit: IMDb)
It’s 2023 and t’s just a confusing amalgamation of some trippy elements with a Star Wars meet Dune kind of world with beings resembling Broccoli. The extremely heavy VFX panning overshadows William Pope’s cinematography, as hardly any sequences boast decent camera skills. The stretched-out transition to the Quantum realm scene in this one can’t hold a candle to Multiverse Of Madness jumping through the universe’s sequence.
22. Mission Majnu
Still From Mission Majnu (Picture Credit: YouTube) | 2023: 23 Worst Rated Films
This Sidharth Malhotra, Rashmika Mandanna starrer is full of stereotypes & we’re in 2023. When I say stereotypes, it’s down to the level of wearing skull caps, doing ‘adaab, janab’ at every given opportunity, gobbling Biryani & everything you’ve ‘heard’ about a Muslim living in Pakistan. This is Shantanu Bagchi’s debut film; apart from this, he has made an ad for Nycil Cool Shower (as per IMDb) & I knew he had some connections with the bathroom to keep a ‘western toilet’ espionage trick in the film.
23. Varisu
Still From Varisu(Picture Credit: IMDb) | 2023: 23 Worst Rated Films
Letting the story stand tall on the heroic presence of Vijay, script-writers somehow tend to forget to make things intriguing & take shortcuts like relying solely on the lead actor charming his way in. It’s 2023 & after a point of time, even Salman Khan failed to achieve the same in Bollywood, and it seems Vijay has taken the same route. Vamshi Paidipally, Hari, Ashishor Solomon’s story is a poorly rehashed and mashed-up version of every 90s family drama ever. The major issue about Vijay’s family drama is it misses two important things: interesting family and impactful drama.
