Almost there...
One day more! Today is character day. We are ranking the worst characters of 2022 over here. I hate writing these rankings (I don't actually) because I have to be really negative. There were some characters this year that pissed me off. Especially my number one. Overall, there weren't an overwhelming amount of awful characters, but I was very frustrated by a lot of them. Be sure to check out my best characters of 2022 and look out for my final end of year rankings coming tomorrow and the first.
SPOILERS AHEAD FOR
Halloween Ends
Turning Red
Barbarian
Black Adam
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Thor: Love and Thunder
The Adam Project
Hustle
Jurassic World Dominion
The Fabelmans
(DIS)HONORABLE MENTIONS
Spider (Avatar: The Way of Water)
Tyler (The Menu)
Priya (Turning Red)
Meilin Lee (Turning Red)
Emperor Zurg (Lightyear)
Simon Doyle (Death on the Nile)
Linnet Ridgeway-Doyle (Death on the Nile)
Kimberly (Spirited)
Vince Merrick (Hustle)
Kermit Wilts (Hustle)
15. Allyson Nelson (Halloween Ends)
I don't really like talking about Halloween Ends because I despise it. Now, I'm gonna complain about the destruction of Allyson's character. Instead of being the really cool protagonist that she was in Halloween and Halloween Kills, Allyson becomes a love-infested idiot that TURNS ON LAURIE to defend her crazy ass boyfriend that's turning into Michael Myers. It's so dumb. She was a badass in the first two. Now, she's just stupid. And lame. And annoying. Like this movie.
14. Tyler Nguyen-Baker (Turning Red)
I still say that Turning Red was a good movie, but it had some really awful characters. The first is Tyler, the bully. Turning Red took itself seriously enough where this character felt over-the-top and cartoonish. He felt like a character that would come from Despicable Me or something like that. And that's not a good thing, because Pixar doesn't usually make characters that have low-brow humor or characters that are just over-the-top and dumb, and that's what Tyler is.
13. Teresa Sugerman (Hustle)
I put Queen Latifah on my worst performances of 2022 list as well for this character, because I just think she was too cushy and cartoony for Hustle. She felt like she was in a much more childish movie than Hustle was. They wrote her as this extremely stereotypical mother/wife that is worried, motivational, supportive, and all that. Her lines are cheesy and don't fit the movie that she's in. The way she acts just feels too soft for this film. She was not a good character. And she barely had any screentime, which just made her feel underdeveloped.
12. Baron Karl Mordo (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness)
I was so disappointed with the usage of this character in Multiverse of Madness. Doctor Strange sets up Mordo to be a major villain in the sequel. The initial plot synopsis that Marvel released for this movie teased Mordo being a major villain. And what do we get? We get a multiverse variant of him that just acts as a henchman for the Illuminati. He's not that much of a villain. He's not that much of a character. He isn't even the same character that we got in Doctor Strange, because he's from the multiverse! It was so frustrating. It's one of the many reasons I was disappointed with Multiverse of Madness.
11. Abby Park (Turning Red)
Like Tyler, Abby was just too dumb for a Pixar movie. She's way too loud and over-the-top to feel right inside of this movie. She makes these incredibly cartoonish faces that you'd find in an Illumination or Sony animated movie. Everything she says, she screams. They don't give her a personality besides just being loud and annoying. She doesn't even feel like a character. She just feels like she's there to annoy the audience.
10. Bo Cruz (Hustle)
Bo Cruz acts as our pseudo-Rocky in this movie, and, oh boy, is he a step down from the Italian Stallion. Sure, there are times where he's fun, but because of the way he's written, he basically has no personality, so it's hard to like and root for him. It's not that he's unlikable, it just feels like he's a cardboard cutout of Rocky with all of the charisma taken away. Adam Sandler's character is the star that gets all of the personality and likability, so it feels like Bo is kind of just there
9. Sabbac (Black Adam)
The most generic superhero movie villain in years, Sabbac was a terrible character. He starts off as Ishmael Gregor, a friend of Amon and Adrianna, but he's actually leader of the Intergang. We are never given a true motivation. His plan is basically just to take this magical evil crown and become really powerful so that he can be ruler of Kahndaq. There's nothing original in there. There's nothing interesting. He's so bland. And so bad.
8. Ming Lee (Turning Red)
Ming Lee was the worst character in Turning Red. I get it. This movie is about the relationship between a mother and her daughter while the daughter is going through puberty. But everything Ming does makes you hate her more and more and more. She's so insanely stupid. No mother would ever run to the window of their daughter's classroom with tampons. She does so many annoying, stupid things like that that will just have you planting your face in the palms of your hands.
7. The Mother (Barbarian)
I think this was Barbarian's biggest downfall. This movie is nuts, and when you first see The Mother, it's terrifying. But as you learn more about her and see her more, she becomes less terrifying and just more disgusting. I get this is a niche horror film, but do we really need a deformed ten-foot tall woman running around fully nude throughout? Do we really need her to literally BREAST FEED one of our characters? No! That's repulsive! She also has this weird thing where she acts as a mother towards our characters, and I don't really understand why she does that. It makes her less scary and more disturbing, but I don't mean that as a good thing.
6. Laura Shane (The Adam Project)
The award for most underdeveloped character of the year goes to Laura Shane. The Adam Project is a good movie, but it's a complete mess. And this character is a result of that mess. Adam Reed, our main protagonist, lets us know very early on that he has a wife. And, when she comes in, she seems incredibly generic. They set up plot points about her that never get paid off, because she's in the movie for about ten minutes and then disappears. We almost learned things about her, but we didn't, because she doesn't get enough screentime or development for us to be interested in her.
5. Mitzi Schildkraut-Fabelman (The Fabelmans)
I think Mitzi single-handedly wrecked The Fabelmans. She's not a good character. Throughout the film, it's shown that she has some clear depression and anxiety, but that eventually seems like it turns into insanity. There are times where she's talking to her dead mother on the phone. There are times where she is just breaking down crying randomly. So that already makes her terrible. What makes her even worse is the fact that she cheats on her husband and leaves him for his best friend...and they make that seem okay. The way the movie plays out, they want you to be happy that she's leaving her husband who she's miserable with to go to his best friend, who she'll be happy with. By doing this, she nearly destroys the Fabelman family and leaves her husband in a very sad state. I hate this character. So, so much.
4. Zeus (Thor: Love and Thunder)
Zeus is every problem with Love and Thunder summed up into one singular character. He's so GOOFY. Why?? Zeus is presented as the king of the gods. He is the ruler of the Omnipotent City. And what does he do in this movie? He flicks off Thor's clothes. He talks about god orgies. And he brags about his cartoony lightning bolt. Really, Taika? This is the Thor 4 that you decided to make? C'mon, man.
3. Lewis Dodgson (Jurassic World Dominion)
The evil Bill Gates character has been done a gazillion times. I just never thought I'd see it in the movie where dinosaurs are roaming free on the Earth. Lewis Dodgson is our main antagonist for Jurassic World Dominion. What does he do, exactly? I don't really know. He releases some locusts that cause the atmosphere to be in danger. Dominion was one of the stupidest movies I've seen all year, because it's the finale of the Jurassic Park franchise, and it isn't about dinosaurs. This guy just makes me so mad, because he's such a terrible final villain for a movie that uses such a terrible concept as the final chapter of this franchise.
2. Maya Sorian (The Adam Project)
Maya Sorian sucks. She's the main villain of The Adam Project. I can't remember a single thing that she does. All I remember is that she is chasing Ryan Reynolds across time and space, and I never figured out why. She gets no motivation. She just wants to take over this company and he's threatening her position. At least, I think that's what it was. I don't know. She is introduced as a somewhat reasonable person, and by the end, she's willing to murder a child in front of his father. Like, what? It makes no sense. She's awful.
1. Corey Cunningham (Halloween Ends)
Oh, boy. I don't know where to start here. The main character of Halloween Ends isn't Laurie Strode. It isn't Michael Myers. It's this b*tch. Corey Cunningham is this character that gets bullied by the town of Haddonfield because he accidentally killed a kid in the dumbest way possible. Because he's bullied, he becomes Michael Myers's apprentice. Yes, you read that right. There's a point in time where he runs into the sewer, TACKLES MICHAEL FRICKIN' MYERS, and steals his mask. Then he goes on a killing spree. Then he gets shot and killed by Laurie. WHAT??? That's so stupid. I can't believe that's the direction they chose with Halloween Ends. It's horrible. Everything about this character makes me mad. He wrecked this movie and killed this trilogy. Bleh.