Top 20 Worst Summer Blockbusters
July 26, 2011



20. The Last Airbender (2010)


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Winner of five Golden Raspberry Awards and the ire of hundreds of thousands of fans of the original Nickelodeon animated series "Avatar: The Last Airbender", M. Night Shyamalan's 3D travesty might prove to be the nail in his directorial coffin (but, knowing Hollywood, probably not).

Although distributor Paramount Pictures spent nearly $130 million in marketing alone, scathing reviews kept audiences largely at bay. Complaints centered on bad dialogue, bad acting, a confusing plot, and poor use of tacked-on 3D, making an already dark film practically unseeable in parts.

The Sun Times' Roger Ebert summarized the critical response best when he wrote, "'The Last Airbender' is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented. The laws of chance suggest that something should have gone right. Not here."












19. Knight and Day (2010)


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Despite impressively combining many summer movie tropes — explosions, mysterious secret agents, a multiplicity of plot twists, technological nonsense, a huge star and a pretty girl — Knight and Day did not inspire any of the excitement normally associated with blockbusters.

Perhaps it was the absence of any spark, comedic or a romantic, between the two leads: as Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz run through everywhere from desert islands to Austrian cities, the dialogue becomes increasingly banal.

Yet even though the film only grossed $76.4 million domestically, it killed at the international box office (some reports attributing this to a relatively wide China release).












18. Hudson Hawk (1991)


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Although it was undeniably a Bruce Willis vanity project, Hudson Hawk's tale of a charming cat burglar-turned pawn-turned unlikely hero isn't nearly as terrible as reviews might indicate.

The problem was that most critics interpreted the flick as a spectacularly boring attempt at box-office excitement — likely influenced by Willis' success in two, action-packed Die Hard films — when it was probably never supposed to be particularly high-octane.



Instead, Hawk is more of a smart-ass riff on spy movies starring the ultimate smartass (just look at Bruce Willis's smirk), a mute David Caruso, Andie McDowell as a nun and Sandra Bernhard and Richard E. Grant as oddball billionaires.

In a classic case of too-high expectations, Hawk bombed at the box office with just over $17 million U.S. gross.












17. The Avengers (1998)


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Even James Bond himself couldn't muster enough secret agent nostalgia to save this droll adaptation of the 1960s British television show.

When mad scientist Sean Connery tries to rule the world by controlling its weather, stylish British agents Emma Peel (a lithe Uma Thurman) and John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) snap into rather sluggish action.

Fans of the original series claimed that the movie stumbled in misunderstanding its British heritage, but worldwide audiences simply found it boring.

Owing to bad early reviews, the film only grossed $49 million against a $60 million budget.












16. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)


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Like its predecessors, the third Transformers film is loud, explosive, and somewhat satisfying in a hate-yourself-to-admit it kind of way.

Director Michael Bay and screenwriter Ehren Kruger obviously took note of the criticism heaped upon the second film — namely that the storyline was confusing if not incomprehensible — and responded by having characters restate the central plot points in scene after scene.

That is, until the second half of the movie, which is composed of one long, endless, loud, quick cutting, fireball-filled action sequence. At some point, the spectacle fades and exhaustion sets in.



Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune called the movie "A work of ineffable soullessness and persistent moral idiocy."

As of July 21 the film has made $303 million.












15. Stealth (2005)


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Starring the beautiful Jessica Biel, a fresh off of an Oscar win Jaime Foxx, and Josh "that guy" Lucas, Stealth had no reason to be this bad, especially with proven action film director Rob Cohen (xXx and The Fast and the Furious) at the helm.

But for some reason the "artificial-intelligence stealth fighter jet" fanboys did not come out in full force: with a $135 million budget, the total worldwide gross was an astoundingly-low $77 million.

It couldn't even excite Stephen Hunter, the Washington Post's military and gun-obsessed film critic, who wrote, "It's not new. It's not interesting. I wish it would go away."












14. The Haunting (1999)


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The original 1963 horror film is regarded as a genre classic and regularly appears on "Scariest Films of All Time" lists.

The 1999 remake, directed by Jan de Bont (then, of Speed and Speed 2: Cruise Control fame) and starring Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Owen Wilson, could not recapture any of the original's fright.

Despite the star-studded cast, audiences were reportedly reduced to laughter at the overuse of horror cliches and not quite believable special effects. All of the subtle ambiguity over whether main character Eleanor (played in this version by Lili Taylor) is haunted or insane is written out of this version.

The film grossed over $175 million against an $80 million budget, but garnered almost no positive reviews.












13. Howard the Duck (1986)


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Howard the Duck is based on a cult satirical Marvel comic from the 1970s. In the source material, Howard is an anthropomorphic and ornery misfit in an otherwise ordinary world.

From that well regarded, if minor, source material, producer George Lucas (seriously, did he just lose all his mojo after coming up with the story for the Indiana Jones films?) and director Willard Huyck created one of the most hated characters of all time.



Howard is a live-action duck played by several actors in animatronic suits, and there is not a single person who thought it looked good.

Audiences simply could not connect with the creepy main character (or the light hint of sexual tension with star Lea Thompson), resulting in an impressively low gross of $37.9 million.












12. Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997)


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Speed was a surprise hit, but it shouldn't have been: Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, and a bus wired to explode if it slowed down made for a surprisingly compelling summer flick.

Yet despite Speed director Jan de Bont's reported insistence that there was no potential for a sequel, 20th Century Fox disagreed. What resulted was a painfully generic action movie that featured a slow moving cruise ship on a collision course with an oil tanker.

Reeves stayed away from the production and was replaced by Jason Patric. Not only did the film lack a compelling leading man, but the villain was also worse than in the first movie: Willem Dafoe paled in comparison to Dennis Hopper's bombastic terrorist mastermind.












11. Green Lantern (2011)


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Though criticism of this movie was all over the place (some thought it a cluttered mess, others a derivative cash-grab), but the general consensus was that Ryan Reynolds' verdant hero just could not deliver the same magic as more well-known heroes like Batman.

What may be a familiar storyline to comic book geeks and fanboys fell flat with the general public.

(Also, where's the fun in a superhero that has no vulnerabilities? Through his magic ring, Green Lantern Hal Jordan can summon any object he thinks of. Like Superman without the allegorical subtext.)



Although Green Lantern is supposed to be a thrilling origin-story, most felt there was too much of a focus on special effects and not enough effort put into explaining why anyone should care about the characters.

As of July 21, the film still had not made back its $200 million budget.












10. Pearl Harbor (2001)


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Coming off the Bruce Willis/Ben Affleck Armageddon, director Michael Bay was primed for another big summer hit.

So, you know, why not combine one of the greatest tragedies in U.S. history with leaden dialogue, a lame love triangle and one of the stars from your last flick?



In the July 2011 issue of GQ, K.C. Hodenfield, an assistant director on several Bay films, recalled that the initial idea was to give Pearl Harbor a different feel.

"Michael was saying he was going to go about this movie differently — This was going to be like a classic movie ... By lunchtime, we're making a Michael Bay movie, in the Michael Bay style."



As with all of the auteur's films, however, the film made plenty of money. It grossed nearly $450 million against a $140 million budget.

9. Catwoman (2004)


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An attractive cat burglar in a tight leather suit should have made this one easy. Yet Catwoman is regularly named one of the worst Hollywood films ever made.

Halle Berry's titular character and her terrifically inappropriate-for-fighting suit were simply not able to meet the high expectations set by promotional images of said catsuit.



Featuring the predictable tale of loss and revenge, and a brief foray into Egyptian mythology, Berry's antihero uses her newfound powers to take down an evil cosmetics company.

Whether it was this seemingly trifling struggle, or the fact that the feline hero bar was simply set too high by Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman in 1992's Batman Returns, ticket sales were poor.



Although the film reportedly lost nearly $20 million for Warner Bros., it did not discourage the studio from making more terrible movies from second-tier D.C. comic characters. (Green Lantern)












8. Wild Wild West (1999)


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Audiences were confused by the film's steampunk-y Western setting and the odd pairing of perennial summer juggernaut Will Smith (fresh off of Men in Black and Independence Day) and Academy Award-winner Kevin Kline.

In what is essentially a buddy cop film set in the Double Wild West, Smith and Kline chase after wheelchair-bound mad scientist Dr. Arliss Loveless (Kenneth Branagh), to stop him from destroying the United States with an army of robots.

Smith has publicly apologized for the film, which he acknowledges as a slap in the face to the 1960s television show on which it was based. All told, it made approximately $50 million.












7. Waterworld (1995)


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Kevin Costner was producer, uncredited director, and star of this 1995 post-apocalyptic blockbuster.

The movie tells the story of a half man-half fish antihero called "The Drifter" who leads a search for land in a world covered in water.



Plagued by a budget of $175 million (when will people learn that filming a movie on water will never be cheap), a 70-day filming overrun and fighting between Costner and director Kevin Reynolds — who officially quit the film during post-production, saying "In future Costner should direct all his own movies. That way he can work with his favorite director and his favorite actor."

Waterworld was doomed at every turn.



Bad advance press set up American audiences to expect a major flop. And it was. The movie bombed at the domestic box office, bringing in only $88 million.

Foreign box office sales, however, netted an overall gain for Costner and Universal Pictures.












6. Godzilla (1998)


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Very loosely based on the 1954 Japanese classic, this film, directed and co-written by disaster movie maven Roland Emmerich (of Independence Day fame), was marketed extensively.

Released on Memorial Day, it was originally projected to break the holiday weekend's then-record of $90 million. Instead, the tale of a mutated reptile's destruction of New York raked in a paltry $55 million.

Ultimately grossing $380 million, the movie was only a critical failure: most reviewers thought it lacked the spirit of earlier Godzilla films.

Emmerich later admitted regrets — blaming a rushed filming schedule spurred by the desire to make a Memorial Day release.












5. Batman & Robin (1997)


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What director Joel Schumacher started with Batman Forever, he finished with Batman & Robin.

This is the movie that killed the franchise for eight years (necessitating the talents of Christopher Nolan to bring it back to life) and put a serious crimp in George Clooney's early film career.



The dialogue was painfully punny, the plot was insipid, the acting was plastic, and the costumes and set design were campier than a John Waters musical.

There are too many villains (Uma Thurman's Poison Ivy and Arnold Schwarzenegger's ceaselessly corny Mr. Freeze) and too many heroes (Alicia Silverstone's Batgirl joined the Dynamic Duo.)

Despite its faults, the movie grossed over $238 million, a spectacular-seeming amount that was still less than any of its three predecessors.












4. Battlefield Earth (2000)


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Based on one of the many pulp novels written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, this film was a labor of religious love for John Travolta — a devout member of the celeb-heavy church.

Travolta went to great lengths to get this movie made, shooting on the cheap in Canada, and even drastically reducing his then-$20 million asking fee.



In the film, Forrest Whitaker and Travolta play "Psychlo" overlords ruling over the human race, who are eventually overthrown by their own slaves. Travolta had high hopes for the movie, remarking at several pre-release events that "we could be next summer's Star Wars."

The New York Times' Elvis Mitchell called the film "beyond conventional criticism" and posited that it was the Showgirls of science fiction.



Audiences did not like the movie any more; it grossed less than $30 million.












3. Sex and the City 2 (2010)


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Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda head to the Middle East, where they proceed to act closed-minded and condescending.

During one scene in which the women discuss the traditional Arab Muslim niqab, Sarah Jessica Parker says that it "freaks her out" and that it is "like they don't want them to have a voice."



Cultural relativism this is not.

Critic Lindy West, writing in Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger viciously wrote that "SATC2 takes everything that I hold dear as a woman and as a human — working hard, contributing to society, not being an entitled c___ like it's my job — and rapes it to death with a stiletto that costs more than my car."



The film grossed nearly $300,000,000, which is like 8 pairs-worth of Carrie's stilettos.












2. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)


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This is the story of a man with too much power and the terrible things he did.

No, not Emperor Palpatine. We're talking about George Lucas, whose 1977 film Star Wars was a cinematic milestone that, along with 1975's Jaws, ushered in the era of the Hollywood blockbuster.



Almost two decades passed before Lucas' next project as writer-director — Episode I: The Phantom Menace. In that time, he amassed an incredible amount of wealth and leverage.

Therefore no one could stop him when he came up with the ill-advised idea of making a trilogy of prequels focused on young Anakin Skywalker's rise into Darth Vader.



No one could stop him when he tried to explain the mystical, magical Force away with a quasi-scientific rationale; no one could stop him when he decided to cast a young child as the protagonist and feature a floppy eared character named Jar Jar Binks (the standard to which all corny sidekick characters are now compared).

No one could stop him when he decided to film much of the film with computer generated backgrounds, thereby leaching the movie of any sense of vitality.

No one could stop him from including an absolutely lifeless performance from Natalie Portman.

No one could stop him!












1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)


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Online plot summaries for this Michael Bay-directed sequel are pretty long, as plot summaries go. But it is entirely possible to read them several times, watch the movie with subtitles, and still be hard pressed to describe exactly what happens.

So that's a problem.

(Also, there are racist, jive-talking robots named Skids and Mudflaps.)



Though fans of the hugely successful first film — based on the 80's Hasbro toy line — eagerly awaited ROTF's release, even the most die-hard Optimus Prime partisans were disappointed by Bay's willingness to sacrifice any semblance of story in favor of more and larger explosions.

Rolling Stone's Peter Travers put it best when he wrote, "Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen is beyond bad, it carves out its own category of godawfulness."



The movie grossed $836,297,228 on the backs of confused moviegoers.


http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2084801_2084599_2084633,00.html

I heard about "Wild Wild West" being sucky...and many people sneaking out of that film to watch "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut".

Nice list. I will however, maintain that "Batman Forever" was a MUCH better film than "Batman and Robin" and shouldn't always be lumped in together with it.

I heard about "Wild Wild West" being sucky...and many people sneaking out of that film to watch "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut".

They also snuck out for Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.

Nice list. I will however, maintain that "Batman Forever" was a MUCH better film than "Batman and Robin" and shouldn't always be lumped in together with it.

I actually enjoyed Batman Forever.

I love Howard The Duck.

I heard about "Wild Wild West" being sucky...and many people sneaking out of that film to watch "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut".

I can vouch for that - I was working at a movie theater at the time. A lot of teens got kicked out. :lol:

I'm shocked that Speed 2 wasn't in the top (or should that be bottom? :lol:) five. I'm also surprised that From Justin to Kelly didn't make the list. :crazy: