✯
I didn't think this was possible, but I actually found an action film worse than Taken 3 this year (sans Fant4stic.) Big Game has a plot that is so unbelievably convoluted that you won't know what's going on half the time, and the other half you'll be riffing what happens on screen, MST3K style. If there's one new release that's already primed for Rifftrax, it's definitely Big Game.
This film could easily be mistaken for a comedy, but even if it was it failed in that respect. It's laughably awful, but if its aim was to make the audience laugh through its stupidity, it didn't achieve it. The worst bits were more cringeworthy than laughable, and I had more fun mocking what happened in the film with my dad than watching the film itself. At one point, Samuel L. Jackson survives a lethal drop from a helicopter inside of a deep freezer, Indiana Jones style. This film is so bad that I can't even be original about its awful impossibilities, it has to take them directly from other well-known American films.
Big Game is set up as an explosive, action packed adventure, yet I promise you that all of these explosions are horrible, horrible CGI effects. I don't normally complain about CGI, but when there are ridiculously sized explosions that blatantly look like they were produced through a computer program, I have a few questions of my own. Not to mention some of the most ridiculous Deus Ex Machina moments in film history, complemented by- you guessed it- even more awful CGI. I would have been able to forget about the terrible CGI, but the nonsensical plot kept getting in the way and making me angrier.
Big Game is flat out one of the worst films of the year. Not even Samuel L. Jackson can save this disaster from self-destruction. It may seem like a good idea putting him in the role of a cowardly president, but it just comes out ridiculous and stupid. Even the kid was awful, and I usually tend to be lighter on child actors' performances. But I couldn't stop being irked at his annoying face and pubescent voice- it seemed so unbefitting for an action film like this. I can't believe I wasted a Redbox birthday coupon on this trash instead of Good Kill. First bad choice of my adulthood, I suppose. Live and learn, right?