Rottentomatoes Worst of the Worst (OK, admit it, you've seen a few of these)

[murlough23]

According to the critical concensus as logged at rottentomatoes.com, here are the 100 Worst Movies of All Time (well, actually, more like the last 10 years, since I'm assuming there's not much in their database from before the website was around). They range from about a 9% rating at #100 to somewhere around 2% at #1. How many have you seen?

1. Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever (2002)
2. Alone in the Dark (2005)
3. Crossover (2006)
4. Pinocchio (2002)
5. King's Ransom (2005)
6. Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004)
7. National Lampoon's Gold Diggers (2004)
8. Twisted (2004)
9. The Master of Disguise (2002)
10. Half Past Dead (2002)
11. Zoom (2006)
12. Godsend (2004)
13. Epic Movie (2007)
14. Battlefield Earth (2000)
15. Deuces Wild (2002)
16. The Covenant (2006)
17. Baby Geniuses (1999)
18. Christmas with the Kranks (2004)
19. The Whole Ten Yards (2004)
20. Rollerball (2002)
21. Bless the Child (2000)
22. Son of the Mask (2005)
23. Fear Dot Com (2002)
24. Happily N'Ever After (2007)
25. Down to You (2000)
26. House of the Dead (2003)
27. The In Crowd (2000)
28. Darkness (2004)
29. My Baby's Daddy (2004)
30. The Mod Squad (1999)
31. Soul Survivors (2001)
32. BloodRayne (2006)
33. Texas Rangers (2001)
34. Because I Said So (2007)
35. The Perfect Man (2005)
36. Serving Sara (2002)
37. Corky Romano (2001)
38. Swept Away (2002)
39. Code Name: The Cleaner (2007)
40. Big Momma's House 2 (2006)
41. Supercross: The Movie (2005)
42. The Fog (2005)
43. Yu-Gi-Oh: The Movie (2004)
44. Material Girls (2006)
45. Universal Soldier: The Return (1999)
46. The Forsaken (2001)
47. Extreme Ops (2002)
48. The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002)
49. Summer Catch (2001)
50. Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005)
51. Glitter (2001)
52. Johnson Family Vacation (2004)
53. Yours, Mine & Ours (2005)
54. Envy (2004)
55. Gigli (2003)
56. Doogal (2006)
57. I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)
58. The Order (2003)
59. Gray Matters (2007)
60. Stay Alive (2006)
61. Jawbreaker (1998)
62. Undiscovered (2005)
63. Ultraviolet (2006)
64. Chill Factor (1999)
65. Deck the Halls (2006)
66. Date Movie (2006)
67. Boat Trip (2003)
68. Lost Souls (2000)
69. The New Guy (2002)
70. The Reaping (2007)
71. Surviving Christmas (2004)
72. Dragonfly (2002)
73. Premonition (2007)
74. Basic Instinct 2 (2006)
75. Out Cold (2001)
76. The Wash (2001)
77. See No Evil (2006)
78. My Boss's Daughter (2003)
79. Venom (2005)
80. Man of the House (2005)
81. Underclassman (2005)
82. The Skulls (2000)
83. A Sound of Thunder (2005)
84. Stealing Harvard (2002)
85. Kangaroo Jack (2003)
86. Gods and Generals (2003)
87. Darkness Falls (2003)
88. White Noise (2005)
89. Elektra (2005)
90. The Number 23 (2007)
91. Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000)
92. First Daughter (2004)
93. Juwanna Mann (2002)
94. I Dreamed of Africa (2000)
95. Taxi (2004)
96. Say It Isn't So (2001)
97. Slackers (2002)
98. Norbit (2007)
99. A Man Apart (2003)
100. Catwoman (2004)

I've seen exactly four of these: Happily N'Ever After, Down to You, Premonition, and Taxi. Out of those four, I'd say that Happily N'Ever After was the only one that was astonishingly bad. Taxi was just mildly disappointing given the potential - I liked Jimmy Fallon on SNL and Queen Latifah is usually a hoot in comedy films. Down to You wasn't memorably bad, but then it wasn't memorably anything. I probably just watched it because I was briefly infatuated with Julia Stiels after seeing 10 Things I Hate About You. And you can visit the Premonition thread for my thoughts on that movie - I'm in the minority of people who actually liked it.

I came close to seeing Epic Movie, Date Movie, Dragonfly, and The Number 23, which all sounded interesting on first glance, but I was rescued by the fact that no one else I knew wanted to see them.

I can think of worse movies that aren't on this list - Nothing but Trouble and Japanese Story come to mind.

You can read the full feature at http://www.rottentomatoes.com/features/special/2007/wotw/.

NP: "Fly Farther", Jars of Clay feat. Alison Krauss

[AldaForPresident]

The only one on the list I've seen is Godsend. It is horrible, but of the pair of films De Niro's done with creepy little kids in the past few years, Hide and Seek is far worse.

I tried to watch Gods and Generals but fell asleep after about twenty minutes, so I guess it does deserve a slot on such a list.

A couple that should be on there, off the top of my head: The Island, Keeping Up with the Steins, Fun with Dick and Jane, The Weight of Water.

[murlough23]

A couple that should be on there, off the top of my head: The Island, Keeping Up with the Steins, Fun with Dick and Jane, The Weight of Water.

I'm actually surprised that The Island wasn't there given how it was critically savaged, but I didn't think it was that bad.

[enemy anemone]

I've only seen Elektra and Catwoman.

[murlough23]

I've only seen Elektra and Catwoman.

Were they as bad as they're famous for being?

I LOVE your new avatar, BTW.

[Aaron]

I've seen 2: The Whole Ten Yards (which I didnt think was terrible) and Juwanna Man (that was terrible)

[Wildcatblue7]

Ha, only one: The Master of Disguise.  Only funny because I love Dana Carvey.

[enemy anemone]

Were they as bad as they're famous for being?

I LOVE your new avatar, BTW.

hehe, thanks.

the movies weren't good, but I had been prepared for the worst and ended up not having a strong reaction to either one. I think I just wished they had been better.

[murlough23]

the movies weren't good, but I had been prepared for the worst and ended up not having a strong reaction to either one. I think I just wished they had been better.

Yeah. Sometimes when you go in with really low expectations, you almost find yourself wanting to believe that there's no way it can really be that bad. So you're determined to find the good in it and come out feeling like it was mediocre rather than totally appalling most of the time.

That probably explains why I had a much more negative reaction to Happily N'Ever After than to the others on this list that I've seen. I actually expected it to be good. The others, I didn't expect greatness from, but figured they'd at least be amusing, and to some extent, they were.

[Josh Powell]

Zoom and Norbit

[bloop]

I haven't seen a single one.  I must be good at avoiding shite movies.

[murlough23]

I haven't seen a single one.  I must be good at avoiding shite movies.

You must have seen a few that sucked, though. They just didn't have as much of a solid critical concensus that they sucked. Either that or they were made before 1998.

NP: "Spitting Venom", Modest Mouse

[bloop]

Yeah, of course I have, but very few that I went in expecting it to be good.

[Brenden]

Christmas with the Kranks
Darkness
Yu-Gi-Oh: The Movie (technicaly an abridged parody of the movie, but whatever, I watched three full seasons of the show recently, so...)
Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (my sister was watching it and I was in the room on my laptop)
Yours, Mine & Ours (ditto)
Gods and Generals (I actually didn't think this was all that bad)
White Noise (bad, very bad, the sequal would have been worse if not for nathan fillion)

Are we at all suprised? I am a known masochist when it comes to movies and music.

[Vlad!]

Like bloop, I have seen none of these. Before I spend 2+ hours of my time on something, I like to make sure I'm not going to regret it afterwards. Which isn't to say that I haven't seen crap movies, but at least I haven't seen these particular crap movies.

What's surprising is how many of these I recognize. I would expect a true list of the worst movies of all time to be comprised mostly of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fodder that wasn't really hyped all that much, didn't air in very many theaters or for very long, and has few or no names I know. This is more of a list of large flops in the last decade.

Brenden, Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Movie kicks ass and definitely does not count. However, if you watched three full seasons of the show...ouch, man. Just ouch.

[murlough23]

What's surprising is how many of these I recognize. I would expect a true list of the worst movies of all time to be comprised mostly of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fodder that wasn't really hyped all that much, didn't air in very many theaters or for very long, and has few or no names I know. This is more of a list of large flops in the last decade.

I had never heard of about 1/3 of the list myself. I'm assuming that they only counted movies in their database that had a significant enough number of reviews on file. An obscure movie that only has 2 reviews, both of which give it the worst grade possible, would automatically come out at #1 otherwise.

And they'd have probably found much worse if they included older films, but like I said, this appears to just be the worst from the data that they have to work with. Either way, what they've found is bad enough for the list to serve its purpose as fair warning to the rest of us (with maybe one or two exceptions, but it was still good to be warned ahead of time that those films wouldn't be awesome).

There are probably some more recent releases that were very limited that might have made the cut if more people had seen them - the Left Behind films and stuff like that.

[Vlad!]

Right. I'm not calling into question the utility of the list, only its title. I think 'popular movies that suck' is more useful than 'unpopular movies that suck', since I am in no danger of seeing Hercules Against the Moon Men or The Brain that Wouldn't Die but, without fair warning, I might at some point have been tempted into seeing Catwoman or The Order.

[Brenden]

Brenden, Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Movie kicks ass and definitely does not count. However, if you watched three full seasons of the show...ouch, man. Just ouch.

Yeah, my brain hurt. On the plus side, I get more of the jokes in the abridged series now, so, it all evens out.

[dgp11776]

Christmas with the Kranks (not as horrible as the reviews - probably a C-)
Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (I don't mind the CbtD movies.  Steve Martin is almost always funny)
Johnson Family Vacation (really bad)
Surviving Christmas (rather wretched)
Premonition (I liked it, except for the ending - I'm a happy ending kind of guy)
First Daughter (predictable, but one of the 100 worst movies of all time??)

[Brenden]

Christmas with the Kranks (not as horrible as the reviews - probably a C-)

I mainly thought the movie was horrid because the book was horrid. And it was boring.

[RedcoatJones]

I've seen 4:

Beacause I Said So (more boring than truly awful)
Premonition (ditto)
My Boss's Daughter (so forgettable ... I really can't remember much about it)
The Skulls (perfect movie to mock the entire time)

[ajyouthguy]

i don't think i've seen any of them, which surprises me somewhat.

[murlough23]

Steve Martin is almost always funny

Except for when he's serious, which I think he's only attempted a few times. Once was Shopgirl. The other time that I can recall was The Spanish Prisoner, a film which I'm sure got its share of negative reviews because it's a slow-paced David Mamet "thriller" with some amusingly cumbersome dialogue and really bad acting by his wife, Rebecca Pidgeon. But it's also a hell of an interesting con game - I rather enjoyed it, actually. And Steve Martin is an excellently understated "grey hat" character in that one.

Anyway, I think Rottentomatoes' list establishes that it's really easy to make a film that does nothing remarkable and is totally mediocre, but more difficult to make one that is actually so bad that people across the nation will go out of their way to sing its (whatever the opposite of praises are). I haven't seen Ballistic (thank God), but I'm sure it must be a cinematic achievement of frightening proportions.

[bloop]

Hercules Against the Moon Men or The Brain that Wouldn't Die

These kinds of things wouldn't be on a list of worst of the worst because they sound very much like they would be in the "so bad it's good" category.

[Vlad!]

I've never been a believer in "so bad it's good". Maybe "so bad it's funny", but while I admit I watched the 1960's Batman for a laugh at its camp rather than for any merits the actors and directors actually put into the movie, watching a train wreck of a terrible plot, terrible acting, and terrible writing has never been something I enjoy (I guess I'm not into the whole schadenfreude thing).

While I'm sure most (if not all) of the movies on this list are not worth the price of admission, I have trouble getting behind a "worst of the worst" claim. If the worst thing you can say about a movie is that it was a ten-million-dollar "meh", well, I expect "worst of the worst" movies to be so spectacularly bad that even having their names in the credits ruined the reputations of everyone associated with them. I would hope that the #1 movie in a "worst of the worst" list would be experimentally linked to early-onset vision loss in children and would lower your property values just because you own the DVD. But "Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever"? I'm sure it was crap, but the gripe I've been airing all along is that there is no way that it is the worst movie either of all time or even of the last decade.

[bloop]

"so bad it's funny"

"Funny", even if unintentional, is a form of "good", IMO, but that just may be where we see things differently.

[murlough23]

I've never been a believer in "so bad it's good". Maybe "so bad it's funny", but while I admit I watched the 1960's Batman for a laugh at its camp rather than for any merits the actors and directors actually put into the movie, watching a train wreck of a terrible plot, terrible acting, and terrible writing has never been something I enjoy (I guess I'm not into the whole schadenfreude thing).

I usually don't watch such things intentionally myself, but once I'm partway through a movie and starting to realize how much it sucks, I'll take what I can get in terms of entertainment value. But I guess that's "good" in the sense of "you got some sort of enjoyment out of it", not in terms of actual quality of the film. I'd assume the laughs would have to be intentional in the latter case, or maybe it could be something like the latest Tarantino film that is supposed to imitate the old grindhous films, grainy film quality, incoherent plot, missing scenes and all.

While I'm sure most (if not all) of the movies on this list are not worth the price of admission, I have trouble getting behind a "worst of the worst" claim. If the worst thing you can say about a movie is that it was a ten-million-dollar "meh", well, I expect "worst of the worst" movies to be so spectacularly bad that even having their names in the credits ruined the reputations of everyone associated with them. I would hope that the #1 movie in a "worst of the worst" list would be experimentally linked to early-onset vision loss in children and would lower your property values just because you own the DVD. But "Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever"? I'm sure it was crap, but the gripe I've been airing all along is that there is no way that it is the worst movie either of all time or even of the last decade.

Well, I think understanding how a certain movie ended up at or near the bottom requires understanding how rottentomatoes works - there's no one person who compiled that list and said "I deem this one to be the worst ever." They simply looked at the average ratings for each film that they had on file. It could be that each individual critic would rank some other film far lower than Ballistic, but it was balanced out by others who said, "Eh, it's OK", or even thought it was genius - some films are very polarizing and get a lot of scathingly negative reviews because of risks they take that turn a lot of people off, rather than just an all-around display of ineptitude. I may have a far more violently negative reaction to a film that pushes the boundaries of poor taste as we know it, but is otherwise well-done in the cinematic sense, but as a critic I might still feel compelled to give a "safe" film that didn't turn my stomach, but was just generally pretty stupid, a lower grade.

[bloop]

I usually don't watch such things intentionally myself, but once I'm partway through a movie and starting to realize how much it sucks, I'll take what I can get in terms of entertainment value. But I guess that's "good" in the sense of "you got some sort of enjoyment out of it", not in terms of actual quality of the film. I'd assume the laughs would have to be intentional in the latter case, or maybe it could be something like the latest Tarantino film that is supposed to imitate the old grindhous films, grainy film quality, incoherent plot, missing scenes and all.

Tarantino's half isn't so easy to reduce to mere imitation - I doubt he'd even be interested in sticking that close to expectations.  "Planet Terror" comes closer, I thought, and it did it with some flair, but Tarantino ended up making a Tarantino film that is very clearly inspired and influenced by grindhouse pictures, but does it better (not that doing better than B-movies is hard, but still). 

The plot is simple, it coheres, but it is maybe a little open to interpretation if you think about what he's trying to communicate as a message.  I remember the quality of the picture being generally pretty good, with the apparent nod to the concept in the "missing reel" and a few more subtle touches (again, Rodriguez's half had more of the obvious graphic nods to the grindhouse of yore).  This is all from seeing it once.  I'll check it out again when the cheap bastards double dip on the DVDs.

[murlough23]

Tarantino's half isn't so easy to reduce to mere imitation - I doubt he'd even be interested in sticking that close to expectations.  "Planet Terror" comes closer, I thought, and it did it with some flair, but Tarantino ended up making a Tarantino film that is very clearly inspired and influenced by grindhouse pictures, but does it better (not that doing better than B-movies is hard, but still). 

The plot is simple, it coheres, but it is maybe a little open to interpretation if you think about what he's trying to communicate as a message.  I remember the quality of the picture being generally pretty good, with the apparent nod to the concept in the "missing reel" and a few more subtle touches (again, Rodriguez's half had more of the obvious graphic nods to the grindhouse of yore).  This is all from seeing it once.  I'll check it out again when the cheap bastards double dip on the DVDs.

I remember reading an interview with Tarantino about the movie, and he said that he was intentionally paying homage to some of those old films, flawed elements and all. So while I'm sure he did better, what I was trying to say is that in his case, what was made to look inept was probably actually intentional, as a nod to the kind of movies he enjoyed in his younger days, and therefore you wouldn't judge it in the same way as you would judge a film where things were missing or of poor quality because somebody goofed.

[bethany]

I've never seen any of them, either.