LOS ANGELES, Dec. 20 (UPI) — The worst movies of 2024 include seven unacceptable franchise entries that either forgot what their series were about or didn’t understand why they were starting one.
The three so-called “originals” had no sense of humanity or narrative to qualify them as truly original, and one of those was still a baffling interpretation of a pre-existing product.
Of course, it is impossible to be completely comprehensive and some worse films may have slipped under the radar. Links go to UPI’s full reviews, but many of this year’s worst movies snuck out into theaters without reviews. Nevertheless, once released they earned their spots on this list.
This list also sticks to movies released to theaters or on prominent streaming services. They had every resource available and in many cases their indulgences sank them.
10. ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence forgot who their characters were in Bad Boys II. Now they’re just making sequels to the worst sequel.
9. ‘Rebel Moon – Part 2’
Part 1 of Zack Snyder’s sci-fi saga may have been derivative but it moved. Part 2 slows down so much to reveal backstories that are just basic tragedies. Now you’ve got a derivative story with a full hour before action resumes.
8. ‘Moana 2’
Die Hard 2 got grief for putting Bruce Willis in the exact same situation (he even joked about it), but like Moana 2 it didn’t hurt that sequel financially either. Since this was supposed to be a Disney+ streaming series, it is so rushed in movie form that it’s hard to keep track of all of Moana’s new missions. If Disney had only known fans and families would accept this, they could have made just as much money releasing straight-to-video sequels like Return of Jafar or Lion King 1 1/2 in theaters.
7. ‘Argylle’
For whatever appeal the action comedy could have, Argylle ruins all the action. CGI is a fact of life in modern visual effects, but when it doesn’t even look like actors are in a real hallway, what is the point? Big ideas like skating through an oil spill or a car straddling two rooftops don’t look like real humans or vehicles, so there’s no excitement. The CGI cat looks fake too and Captain Marvel got that right before Argylle. The story of an author caught up in a real adventure is overly convoluted. Actually, a post-credits scene tries to connect this to director Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman franchise, so it can’t even commit to being an original.
6. ‘Borderlands’
Video games continue to confound screenwriters, as in this loud, obnoxious video game movie that’s all exposition about finding three keys to a space vault. The plot wouldn’t matter if the adventure was fun, but it’s not either.
5. ‘The Crow’
This remake may make more sense than Borderlands but it’s boring. What it tries to add to the Crow legend just makes it take longer. In trying to make different choices it loses the simple poignancy of the comic and its first tragic adaptation.
4. ‘IF’
A movie about imaginary friends sounds fun, but IF never creates a logical mythology for its imaginary creatures. Worse, it contains outright harmful messages about families coping with health crises. The film encourages its young heroine not to worry about having lost one parent and having another in the hospital. This is toxic positivity. Hospitalizations and mourning are appropriate times for people of any age to feel sad or anxious. Denial only does more damage.
3. ‘Unfrosted’
Writer/director Jerry Seinfeld was interested in what Kellogg’s to create Pop-Tarts, but not so interested that he told the true story. If the actual story wasn’t interesting enough to be a biopic like Air or Flamin’ Hot, then Seinfeld’s farcical historical fiction does not make a case for the alternative. In many cases, Unfrosted relies on outdated stereotypes, the opposite of his perceptive observational comedy.
2. ‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’
There was a perfectly funny Ghostbusters movie in 2016 but a bunch of trolls freaked out that it was women being funny. Now they’ve got two joyless legacy sequels so hopefully, they’re happy.
1. ‘Madame Web’
This is probably the most incompetence you’re likely to see in a studio movie. Dialogue that doesn’t sound real, spurious connections to Spider-Man, lack of character relationships, boring action and losing sight of Madame Web’s power are among this film’s offenses.
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