Stinkers of 2018: Mile 22 + Peppermint

February 5, 2019 | By

Part of my Xmas was spent catching up on some of 2018’s releases, and I chose to kill time with two of the worst action productions of the year.

Why?

Because Peter Berg’s Mile 22 (on Blu from VVS) almost enraged a colleague, and I needed to know Why. Several years ago What Dreams May Come (1998) caused a colleague to react in a similar fashion, and after I sampled it for myself, I agreed that while a beautiful production, it was treacly, manipulative rabbit rubbish that didn’t honor the tone of Richard Matheson’s novel.

I also sampled Forrest Gump (1994), the much-lauded drama about a simple man who manages to steer through important historical events and nudge iconic figures. I didn’t hate it as much as said colleague – it’s a meandering, vapid, time-wasting homage to an amiable idiot spouting folksy nonsense -but his trouncing in print resulted in an outraged reader shoving him in a music store.

Now, neither Berg’s Mile 22 nor Pierre Morel’s Peppermint (on Blu via Universal) are attempts at sensitive, drippy dramas inflated with stale Wonderment Gas, but these two disasters of 2018 share wholly amateurish scripts, with the former boasting an expletive-packed bark that would’ve won a Golden Turkey Award had the Medved Bros. resuscitated their tally of cinematic awfulness.

The strange thing is, the stories in each film aren’t awful, but no one seemed to care about logic and quality, and where Mark Wahlberg seemed to have tasted contemporary Shakespeare in Mile 22, Garner filled out her character as best as possible, saving a complete banality to a slight degree.

Coming next: producer Walter Wanger’s fanciful colour fables set in the expansive desert – Arabian Nights (1942), still restricted to DVD via Universal, and Adventures of Hajji Baba (1954), new on Blu in a gorgeous release from Twilight Time, and sporting one of Dimitri Tiomkin’s most ridiculous theme songs.

 

 

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

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