Within the world of cinema, there’s a whole lot of garbage. But no matter how reviled a movie may be, there’s always at least a few people out there who will consider it at least enjoyable enough. But what about the worst of the worst? What about the films that nobody likes? Films that even the most generous critic hated?
This has led me on a quest to find what are considered some of the worst movies ever recorded. More specifically, films that were given the rare 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. As an aggregate site, Rotten Tomatoes compiles multiple critics and publications. So in that sense, there are plenty of movies that will garner at least a handful of positive reviews, even if the common consensus is garbage. So in that sense, a movie would have to be a real stinker if not a single professional critic found anything good out of it.
So, I decided to brave the waters and check out just a sample of the worst-reviewed movies. Partly because there’s a surprisingly large amount of 0% movies, and partly because sifting through so much garbage was trying my patience. Going through them by release date:
Wagons East! (1994): This Western comedy’s only notable feat is its star, John Candy. Focusing on a group of pioneers going back East after having issues with the Wild West, Candy actually passed away during filming of the movie. This resulted in massive rewrites, a stand-in and special effects for Candy’s last few scenes. But even if Candy was still alive and well after production, this film would still be a stinker.
While Candy gives his all, and the supporting cast do bring in a couple smiles, the film is a chore to get through. The jokes aren’t funny, the acting from co-star Richard Lewis is weak, the music is awful, and there’s no real sense of direction. Scenes feel aimless, subplots come out of nowhere and abruptly end, and by the time this is over, you’re left with a “that’s it?” conclusion. But again, this being Candy’s last movie really stings, as a man with such talent and charisma couldn’t even go out on a high note. It just makes the film even more depressing.
Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star (2011): This is a gross-out comedy so awful, it killed star Nick Swardson’s career before it even started. A young, buck-tooth manchild from Iowa, Bucky Larson discovers his parents were porn stars in the 70s. And so, he decides to leave his small town and go to Hollywood and become the biggest adult film star in the world, despite being an idiot and having a small penis. Yes, this is the plot.
Produced by Adam Sandler and his production company Happy Madison, pretty much everything wrong with this movie is with its star. Nick Swardson, known for his work on Reno 911! and cameos and supporting roles in several Sandler vehicles, wrote, produced and starred in this turkey. The problem is that he’s just not funny. He wasn’t funny in bit parts in Sandler movies, and he’s certainly not funny here. Bucky Larson’s just a boring hick archetype, and there’s no laughs with him.
But with that said, while still far from good, there are some elements here that did make me laugh, if only because of how awkward the film is. The supporting cast, including Don Johnson, Kevin Nealon and Christina Ricci all try their hardest, and do once in a while elicit a chuckle. But the laughs come from the fact at how obvious none of them want to be in this picture. And to say nothing of the cameos. Keegan Michael-Key, Pauly Shore, and even Jimmy Fallon all appear in the movie for a few seconds, adding into this bizarre world.
Trust me, it’s still far from a masterpiece, but after sitting through so much dreck, at least this made me elicit ironic laughs.
A Thousand Words (2012): The one thing people love about Eddie Murphy is what comes out of his mouth. His fast speech and witty delivery helped him become a powerhouse on Saturday Night Live and at the movies. But A Thousand Words dared to take Murphy’s greatest asset, his voice, and remove it entirely.
Directed by Brian Robbins, whose career ranges from Nickelodeon sitcoms to other Murphy duds like Norbit and Meet Dave, the film focuses on a literary agent, played by Eddie Murphy, who through supernatural contrivance, has a tree magically grow in his backyard. Murphy soon discovers that the tree loses a leaf every time he says a word. And when all the leaves fall off the tree, Eddie Murphy dies. So with only a thousand words left to say, he has to find a way to stop the tree’s magic while saying as little as possible.
Many critics noted the film was like the Jim Carrey comedy Liar, Liar. But there’s a reason why that film succeeded while A Thousand Words failed. Jim Carrey’s character, a lawyer who is magically unable to lie, works because the curse and lesson go hand-in-hand. Carrey lies to his family throughout the movie, so the curse helps him become aware to say the truth and be closer to his family, which he was becoming more and more distant towards.
A Thousand Words almost has that idea. Eddie Murphy uses the gift of gab to land book deals and to get out of situations. But there’s no real conflict or strong tension because of his talking. The biggest issue with his family is whether or not they should move to another house. That’s it. If anything, his successful career and steady, if mildly conflicting relationship with his wife got significantly worse because of the curse. And while there’s an attempt at a lesson here, it just feels hackneyed and contrived.
Also not favorable was when the film was shot and released. The movie was filmed in 2008, and was supposed to come out in 2009. However, due to executive shape-ups and bad test screenings, the film was pushed all the way to 2012. That four-year gap already made the film’s Shaq and Hannah Montana references dated and considering the state of the print industry even back in 2012, the idea of an ultra-successful literary agent just didn’t exist at that time.
But the worst thing of all is the script. The rules for how Eddie Murphy can communicate change as they go along, and most scenes are just Eddie Murphy in business meetings trying to avoid talking to not-so-hilarious results.
It was a humongous dud for all, but especially for Murphy. He took a four-year hiatus from acting until 2016’s Mr. Church, another critical and commercial flop. But since last year, things have turned around. Murphy starred in the Netflix original Dolemite is My Name to rave reviews and a Golden Globe nomination, and Murphy also hosted SNL to great success. And this year, he has the sequel to Coming to America and Beverly Hills Cop 4 is in the works over at Netflix.
And while it is debatable whether these sequels will be any good, they should certainly be better than this trainwreck.
The Ridiculous 6 (2015): Before the days of Roma and The Irishman, one of Netflix’s first major deals when it comes to film was with Adam Sandler. While king of the comedies during the 2000s, despite consistently bad reviews from critics, Sandler was starting to lose his box office mojo. Films like Jack and Jill and That’s My Boy were reviled, and people were starting to tire of Sandler’s act.
So in 2014, Sandler, and his production company Happy Madison made a four-picture deal with Netflix to produce and develop films specifically for the streaming service. In a way, it makes sense. Sandler’s movies were waning at the box office, but he still has enough of a fanbase that Netflix would see benefits from that audience checking it out on their service. And since people were getting it for free, they weren’t being ripped off. Their first film together was The Ridiculous 6, and…man, was it a bad start.
Focusing on a group of six men who all have the same father, The Ridiculous 6 was a spoof of Westerns, kind of Wagons East. And like Wagons East, this movie is not funny. But while Wagons East was largely corny, this one is just uncomfortable. From a running joke about a donkey with diarrhea, to insensitive jokes about Native Americans (which even led to some extras walking off the set), to a four-minute sequence that is literally just the characters playing baseball, it becomes a chore to sit through. And at two hours, it feels like the movie is never going to end.
Despite the stacked cast, including Vanilla Ice and Blake Shelton, among Happy Madison’s usual cast, everything about this film is just abysmal. While I never expected high art, I at least thought one joke might have landed.
However, it was still a hit for Netflix, hitting #1 in every territory the service operates in when it was released. And that four-picture deal has expanded, as Sandler continues to work with Netflix, with his most recent film, Murder Mystery, becoming one of the most-watched Netflix originals last year. So I guess Sandler found his way out of rock bottom…kind of.
Gotti (2018): This gangster movie about famed mob boss John Gotti went through years of development hell. The film was a passion project for producer Marc Fiore, and went through several directors, actors, and even producers, with even an arrest for investor fraud. Finally, Kevin Connolly, or Eric from Entourage, was the film’s director and John Travolta was its star. The film was supposed to be released by Lionsgate in December 2017 but was pulled two weeks before release and was sold back to the producers. The film would later be picked up by no-name distributor Vertical Entertainment, alongside Moviepass Ventures, a subsidiary of the infamous subscription service that allowed people to purchase movie tickets for free.
The film was a critical and commercial failure, resulting in an infamous last-minute resort from the production studio. As a way to clap back against the haters, Gotti’s production studio not only accused Rotten Tomatoes of hiding good reviews for the film, but also that the actual critics who dissed on the film were nothing more than “trolls behind a keyboard”. The studio was also facing claims that they were creating phony user ratings to help boost the movie’s audience score on Rotten Tomatoes to show that audiences are loving the movie and critics went out of their way to trash a random gangster movie.
As somebody who has seen it, let me assure you that this film is a complete disaster. While the film does have horrible acting and confusing music choices (Pitbull did the music here), the biggest problem is the story. The film props up John Gotti as this incredible mob boss, but there’s no real sense of importance to him. The film jumps from time period to time period throughout Gotti’s life, making the whole thing confusing to sit through. And when new characters get introduced, it’s hard to care or get invested in their stories. The editing is so hyperactive and convoluted that there’s no real pace, direction, or even tension, which is the worst thing you could want in a crime movie like this.
What’s also interesting is that Travolta is not a stranger to the 0% rating. In addition to Gotti, Travolta also starred in the Saturday Night Fever sequel Staying Alive and Look Who’s Talking Now, the last installment in the Look Who’s Talking series. Alongside other disasters like Battlefield Earth and last year’s The Fanatic, I guess Travolta doesn’t really have the best luck when it comes to picking good projects.
And that’s just a tiny sample of 0% films. Needless to say, there’s a reason why there’s so much negativity on these films. And quite honestly, it’s terrifying to think that this only scratches the surface.
