2024 has been a year full of new movies, both good and bad. With all the films released this year, it almost feels like there is a never-ending stream of new films to choose from. But out of all these movies, which ones were so bad that they were good?
“Upgraded” (Amazon Prime)
Though Amazon’s “Upgraded” may try to convince you this is just a cute rom-com about an art-loving intern going to London for the first time and finding love, do not be mistaken into thinking that this movie is anything short of disastrous. At its core “Upgraded” is all about one thing: lying. Ana (Camila Mendes), an intern at an art auction house in New York, gets the opportunity of a lifetime when she is invited to go on a work trip to London. While at the airport, a ticket agent takes pity on the struggling intern and upgrades Ana’s flight from economy to first class. It’s in first class where Ana meets William (Archie Renaux) and accidentally leads him to believe that she is the art director of her company's New York office.
Now, if I were her and I’d just realized the cute guy I like thinks I’m the art director of an extremely successful auction house in New York, I would make sure to fix that mistake before things go too far. Not Ana though; she spends the entire movie taking things too far. Not only does she lead on the incredibly sweet William, who spends the entire movie being both a fantastic guy and the coach of an at-risk youth soccer league, but she convinces his incredibly famous mother and his mother’s friends that she’s some important New York art director. I spent the entire film anxious out of my mind because the longer the movie went on, the deeper of a hole Ana got stuck in. But if you just want a happy ending and don’t mind how you get there “Upgraded,” available on Amazon Prime, is a good option.
“Uglies” (Netflix)
Based on Scott Westerfeld’s young adult series “Uglies,” Netflix’s 2024 film “Uglies” gained a lot of attention on social media before its release because of the film’s star Joey King. In the movie, King, who is most well known for her role in Netflix’s “The Kissing Booth,” plays main character Tally Youngblood, a teenage girl who’s waited her entire life to be pretty. In this futuristic dystopian society, citizens are forced to undergo cosmetic surgery when they are 16 in order to match crazy beauty standards, which they are told will uphold peace within society. Everything changes for Tally when she is introduced to a group called The Smoke and their leader David (Keith Powers). She begins to learn that the government has other motives behind the cosmetic surgery than to make everyone pretty.
One of what I would consider the funniest issues with this movie was how they differentiated the “Uglies” from the “Pretties.” To start off, nobody in this movie would be considered “ugly,” which I feel would make for great commentary on how society upholds unnecessary beauty standards — except the “Pretties” are so ridiculous that they undercut any real point this movie is trying to make. The “Pretties” look like someone with an Instagram filter over all of them and feel completely unrealistic and, honestly, a little hard to take seriously. If you haven’t seen “Uglies,” available to watch on Netflix, and think I’m exaggerating, I recommend checking it out. You’ll believe it when you see it.
“Bagman” (Amazon)
I have seen a lot of bad horror movies over the years. I even saw the first Winnie the Pooh horror movie, “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” despite its truly insane plot after it came out last year. But I don’t know if there is anything that compares to “Bagman,” a horror film available to rent on Amazon. The plot for this film is a little convoluted. I sat through the entire thing and never fully understood what was happening, but for the most part it follows Patrick McKee (Sam Claflin) and his family when the horrifying monster from his childhood called the Bagman returns to threaten Patrick’s young son, Jake (Caréll Vincent Rhoden).
One thing is for sure though, this film does not hold back on the gore. There are several disturbing scenes of the tall and decrepit Bagman, as well as his creepy doll-like minion who I’m almost certain is a little girl from the start of the film that the Bagman attacks — a plot point that is never talked about. There’s also a couple of long and detailed scenes of the Bagman stuffing people in his bag, bones cracking and all. It’s almost as if the writers of the film knew ahead of time the plot wasn’t going to be any good and just stuffed a bunch of gruesome scenes in there to make the Bagman appear scarier. Overall “Bagman” has a confusing plot wrapped in a bloody bow so the filmmaker could call it a horror movie and get away with it. But if I had to give one prop to the makers of this film, it would be for casting Claflin in the leading role. Even with nothing to really work with he gives it his all and plays the role of a rugged, protective father well.
