It’s that time of year – time to cringe at the top cinematic disasters that disappointed us the most in the last 12 months. These are the films that made us want to burn down the movie theatre and never look back. We highly recommend avoiding these at all costs, unless you’re a psychopath with a fiery love for burning money.
10- Jurassic World Dominion ★★½☆☆
Four years after Isla Nublar was destroyed, dinosaurs now live—and hunt—alongside humans all over the world. This fragile balance will reshape the future and determine, once and for all, whether human beings are to remain the apex predators on a planet they now share with history’s most fearsome creatures.
Review: The movie is a lifeless corporate excuse for a poorly written nostalgia comeback of the original cast. Filled to the brim with worthless exposition and failed stabs at building ANY emotion. The dialogue is atrocious, the characters are shallow and the plot is boring.
9- Uncharted ★★½☆☆
A young street-smart, Nathan Drake and his wisecracking partner Victor “Sully” Sullivan embark on a dangerous pursuit of “the greatest treasure never found” while also tracking clues that may lead to Nathan’s long-lost brother.
Review: The film adaptation of Uncharted seems like it should be a no-brainer – full of action, adventure, and treasure-hunting. However, the execution of this movie leaves much to be desired. The CGI is unrealistic, the dialogue is uninspired, and the action scenes feel cheap. It’s a shame that this attempt at a movie is now attached to such a loved franchise.
08- The Menu ★★☆☆☆
A couple travels to a coastal island to eat at an exclusive restaurant where the chef has prepared a lavish menu, with some shocking surprises.
Review: I had high expectations for this film, but it ultimately fell short. While it had a fresh premise, the execution was flawed and the events depicted made no sense. Luckily Anya Taylor Joy and Ralph Fiennes’s performances made this pretentious mess tolerable. Honestly, I was really disappointed by the lack of effort put into the horror aspect of this thing. It was like they were too afraid to go all in and just ended up with a tame and unimpressive result. After almost two hours, it just fell flat and left me feeling underwhelmed.
07- Amsterdam ★★☆☆☆
In the 1930s, three friends—a doctor, a nurse, and an attorney—witness a murder, become suspects themselves and uncover one of the most outrageous plots in North American history.
Review: This film is a mess from start to finish. The plot is confusing and the director’s attempts to address serious themes like racism and fascism are shallow and misguided. The film can’t even decide what genre it wants to be and fails to deliver. The only redeeming factor is the strong performances from the cast that make this movie barely watchable.
06- Don’t Worry Darling ★★☆☆☆
A 1950s housewife living with her husband in a utopian experimental community begins to worry that his glamorous company may be hiding disturbing secrets.
Review: I don’t know what I was expecting from this film, but it certainly wasn’t a complete disaster. It was like a white-washed live-action of an Isekai anime. Florence Pugh seemed to be the only one trying to salvage this mess, but even her performance couldn’t do shit. The cinematography was probably the only redeeming factor, but it’s not enough to make up for the incoherent plot and completely ridiculous character motivation.
05- Samaritan ★½☆☆☆
Thirteen-year-old Sam Cleary suspects that his mysteriously reclusive neighbor Mr. Smith is actually the legendary vigilante Samaritan, who was reported dead 20 years ago. With crime on the rise and the city on the brink of chaos, Sam makes it his mission to coax his neighbor out of hiding to save the city from ruin.
Review: While this superhero film may try to present itself as deep and introspective with its themes… the execution is a complete disaster. The storyline is twisty for the sake of being twisty, and the acting is barely tolerable. The cinematography may be well-oriented, but the editing is messy and the visual effects are laughably bad. The dialogue feels like it was taken from 8-mile and the antagonists are one-dimensional and annoying. To top it off, the conclusion is lacking and makes little sense. All in all, this film is a complete mess and a complete waste of Sylvester Stallone‘s talent.
04- Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore ★☆☆☆☆
In an effort to thwart Grindelwald’s plans of raising pure-blood wizards to rule over all non-magical beings, Albus Dumbledore enlists his former student Newt Scamander, who agrees to help, though he’s unaware of the dangers that lie ahead. Lines are drawn as love and loyalty are tested, even among the truest friends and family, in an increasingly divided wizarding world.
Review: This is just another example that we can’t have nice things, this feels like an insult to what the source material established years ago and a slap to the fans of the Harry Potter franchise. One can only hope that Warner Bros. stops milking the franchise and that JK Rowling stops pretending that she cares about her creation as both parties seem keen to green-light projects that have no care nor love for what they’re part of.
03- Spiderhead ★☆☆☆☆
A prisoner in a state-of-the-art penitentiary begins to question the purpose of the emotion-controlling drugs he’s testing for a pharmaceutical genius.
Review: Two hours of pure chaos, filled with poor writing and even more subpar acting. It disappoints me that such a growing and talented actor like Miles Teller would dive head first to be the protagonist in this mess with Chris Hemsworth whose acting has been decaying in recent years by just doing the same character over and over again… at least this time he managed to portray a less annoying version of Thor. This is just a reskin low-budget-looking copycat of Black Mirror.
02- Pinocchio ★☆☆☆☆
A wooden puppet embarks on a thrilling adventure to become a real boy.
Review: It’s just another soul-sucking attempt of Disney to rehash the Disney Vault classics to a fresh and younger generation with nightmare-inducing CGI that would make the frozen head of Walt Disney actually cringe.
01- Thor: Love and Thunder ★☆☆☆☆
After his retirement is interrupted by Gorr the God Butcher, a galactic killer who seeks the extinction of the gods, Thor enlists the help of King Valkyrie, Korg, and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster, who now inexplicably wields Mjolnir as the Mighty Thor. Together, they embark upon a harrowing cosmic adventure to uncover the mystery of the God Butcher’s vengeance and stop him before it’s too late.
Review: Being a big Taika Waititi fan, this movie really broke me. Love and Thunder is not only a clear step down from Thor: Ragnarok but also a painfully mid experience. On paper, this seemed like a good idea but it ended up being a complete mess with some ok moments tossed in. They literally wasted Christian Bale acting skills for no reason.
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These movies left a lot to be desired. However, as we move into the new year, we can only hope for better and more enjoyable films in the future. Happy New Year to all, and here’s to a brighter and more successful 2023 in the world of cinema!
