What if Santa was buff and had a paramilitary safety group? What if imaginary buddies had been actual? What if somebody gave… another person scars… like, out in house? On a rebellious moon?
These are all nice questions, they usually can all be answered just by watching among the most critically panned films of 2024. Yes, we’re looking again on the yr that was in films that had been discovered wanting. Here you’ll see flicks that IGN rated a 4 out of 10 or decrease. And 4 means “Bad” so – sure – you’re going to see what lies past simply being plain dangerous and it’ll be as much as you to resolve the true distinction between the marginally hyperbolic “Awful” (3), “Painful” (2), and “Unbearable” (1).
(Hopefully) The Last Dance
Getting raked over the coals by critics doesn’t essentially imply you’re gonna be a complete monetary bomb, so we’ll kick off our 4’s with Venom: The Last Dance. It was a cinematic colonic in most facets, certain, but in addition a humble winner on the international field workplace. When all is alleged and completed Venom 3 could have garnered near $500 million, which isn’t too shabby for a film IGN’s Tom Jorgensen mentioned had “two left ft.” Furthermore, regardless of just a few moments of enjoyable, Tom mentioned in his evaluate that this third Venom entry was “torn between its tasks to big-budget comedian e-book moviemaking and a more-focused style story of a boy and his alien,” finally delivering a lackluster Lambada (well timed dance reference!)
Other 4’s embrace the newly released-to-streaming Dear Santa, which marked a reunion between Jack Black and the Farrelly Brothers whereas additionally marking, in response to Jesse Hassenger’s evaluate, a misguided mess filled with “deeply questionable story decisions.”
Blumhouse’s Afraid proved which you can’t simply do M3GAN with out M3GAN. This preposterous sensible home thriller was Zillow Gone Mild. And what else isn’t scary? Ice. But that’s what the Ghostbusters – each generations of Ghostbusters, that’s – squared off in opposition to in Frozen Empire. Everyone is aware of you don’t struggle ice, you simply bolt from it. Like Jake Gyllenhaal did in The Day After Tomorrow when he outran chilly.
Both The Garfield Movie and Argylle proved that this was not the yr for animated cats, whether or not they had been staunch Monday haters/lasagna lovers or simply horrible trying CGI caught up in a “sluggishly paced idea-dump” of a spy caper, as our evaluate put it.
And in the event you’re eager for extra computer-generated critters, then look no additional than John Krasinski’s IF, which A. A. Dowd wrote in his evaluate was filled with “trite platitudes,” missing “any actual perception into the adventures of rising up.” So not even the all-star forged – together with Ryan Reynolds, who had a blockbuster yr in any other case – may win us over. IF nearly did as poorly on Rotten Tomatoes as 1996’s Bogus, which had Gérard Depardieu as the child’s imaginary buddy. So in case your $100 million youngsters film isn’t any higher than a movie the place Haley Joel Osment mourns his useless dad or mum by palling round with an invisible French magician, then it is advisable take all the pieces again to system.
More 4’s right here than you may shake a stick at: Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, Kevin Costner’s dream venture, in all probability had its producers considering Chapter 11 (amirite?), whereas Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate, My Spy: The Eternal City, The Union, My Oni Girl, Role Play, A Family Affair, and Wicked Little Letters all received blammo’d with the “Bad” label.
Meanwhile, Brad Pitt and George Clooney had been unable to good-looking their method out of Siddhant Adlakha calling their John Watts streaming film, Wolfs, “half-baked” with “little humor or coronary heart” in his evaluate.
This vacation season you had been unlikely to see Rebel Moon toys on retailer cabinets. Not like final yr once they had been, mainly, overstocked as a result of nobody shopping for them. That’s as a result of Zack Snyder’s two-part sci-fi epic not solely did not resonate on a pop-culture degree but in addition, , critics s*** throughout it. And the second half of the story, The Scargiver, which landed in April, received a 4, similar to Part 1 did earlier than it. As Hanna Ines Flint put it in her evaluate, “The Scargiver delivers a half-baked conclusion to a well-trodden story with flimsy character research and lackluster motion.
Crisis on Infinite Ughh
Warner Bros. Animation additionally contributed closely to our 4 rankings, dropping each Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part Two and Three in 2024. Both launched on digital, 4K UHD, and Blu-ray, these two films concluded this specific adaptation of the well-known ‘80s DC Comics storyline, Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Part Two, reviewed by Jesse Schedeen, was known as “a lackluster follow-up to an already flawed opening act” whereas Part Three, reviewed by Hayden Mears, was stamped with “messy,” “forgettable,” and a “poor send-off for Kevin Conroy’s Batman.” Damn, that’s harsher than when Joker known as Batman “Fatman.” Honestly, I’d by no means recuperate.
BLANDora… nope. Wait! PanSNOREa! (Nailed it!)
The Borderlands film didn’t get the lowest rating right here at IGN, because it kicks off our 3’s, nevertheless it’s gonna get the highlight right here for certain. Not simply at IGN the place stalwart troopers have been overlaying the sport franchise for a whopping 15 years, however in Hollyweird normally, the place it now stands alongside well-known flops that may be known as out by identify. Yup, it’s Waterworld ranges of catastrophe.
And that simply sucks as a result of a good-ass film might be mined from Borderlands. You wouldn’t even want A-listers and/or Oscar-winners to star in it (although that was a very odd cherry on high). You simply have to hold the Vault Hunters as Vault Hunters and have them run round capturing all the pieces whereas cracking sensible and taking lives. Not the overcooked lore-blunder we received, that includes a miserably Frankenstein’d script, weeks of reshoots, two years of sitting on the shelf, and Cate Blanchett sounding like she’s in a unique film than everybody else. Or is she in the appropriate film and everybody else is incorrect? Who can say? If there was ever a time to do a kind of hypothetical “one character is human and each different character is a Muppet” films, this was it.
“An abysmal waste of a beloved franchise that takes a kooky band of murderous misfits and drains the life out of their first journey collectively,” is what Matt Donato wrote in his evaluate. The franchise’s trademark gallows humor will get steamrolled whereas its “uniquely deranged themes are changed by recycled blandness geared towards mass marketability.” Borderlands tried too laborious to be Guardians of the Galaxy however that’s by no means what the video games had been, regardless of some similarities on paper. And now we’re left with a “catastrophic disappointment that performs like hacked-to-pieces studio slop.”
Red Three
Speaking of studio slop… Red One. The Rock’s massive vacation dud that, properly, might get forgotten and forgiven shortly due to how HUGE Moana 2 is. So whereas Red One – which was initially imagined to be a streaming film for Prime Video (and positively feels prefer it) – is underperforming, Dwayne Johnson’s massive animated sequel is kicking ass and taking names.
Still, Red One, our second 3 right here, options “mismatched stars with a complete lot of shockingly inconsistent particular results, preaching a sentimental yuletide message even because it appears like the peak of soulless commercialization.” A.A. Dowd additionally talked about, in his IGN evaluate, that “solely those that discover the considered Santa needing a bodyguard or the North Pole changing into a high-tech compound inherently hilarious are assured many laughs from this largely charmless vacation blockbuster.”
By the way in which, by the point this text goes up Red One will in all probability be on Prime Video. Where it ought to’ve entered the world to start with.
The different 3’s from 2024 had been Netflix slog Damsel, the haphazard Harold and the Purple Crayon, and horror prequel The Strangers: Chapter 1, which Lena Wilson known as in her evaluate a “mind-numbing reboot” with silly essential characters that pales compared to 2008’s The Strangers (and even 2018’s The Strangers: Prey at Night).
The Power of Christ Compels 2
Nothing was given a 1 this previous yr (fingers crossed for an “Unbearable” in 2025) however there are a pair 2’s, each coming from the world of horror. Tarot wound up making a pleasant revenue regardless of being a “lazy Final Destination knockoff” and The Exorcism, starring Russell Crowe, was gentle on frights and excessive on “bewildering edits.” As Jarrod Jones wrote, “The Exorcism is compromised by its unlucky postproduction saga” producing “undercooked style crud.”
But let’s not overlook, simply final yr Russell Crowe was in The Pope’s Exorcist, which was shlocky however enjoyable, in a limiteless breadsticks sort of method. So in the event you merely should watch Maximus Decimus Meridius vanquish demons, that’s the way in which to go. Plus, he rides a scooter whereas Faith No More’s “We Care A Lot” blasts within the background and never rather more is required for true cinema.
What had been the worst films of 2024 in your opinion? Let’s talk about within the feedback!
