Ten worst movies of 2021!

Making a ranking with the worst films of the year is even more complicated than doing it with the most successful ones. When deciding which film is bad or good, whether you let yourself enjoy or not, the personal factor of each one comes into play, not to mention that behind each production there is an immense work by a large group of people.

Therefore, when bringing our list of the most failed films of 2021 we have chosen to assess the averages of criticism or public opinion in well-known websites of compilation of reviews and scores such as Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes.

In this way, we have found ourselves before a ranking headed by films defenestrated by many, such as the adolescent phenomenon 'After We Fell”, Sia's directorial debut 'Music', failed Netflix films such as 'Kissing Booth 3' or the infinitely delayed science-fiction film 'Chaos Walking' starring Tom Holland, among others.

10. Dear Evan Hansen

2021 has been an important year for the musicals. Acclaimed films such as 'West Side Story' by Steven Spielberg, 'In the Heights’ by Jon M. Chu or 'Tick, Tick... Boom!' by Lin-Manuel Miranda, among many others. But not all of them have succeeded. One of these cases has been that of 'Dear Evan Hansen', the successful Broadway musical starring Ben Platt that in its film adaptation has not raised the same passions.

9. Chaos Walking

Tom Holland has once again been one of the actors of the year. The success of 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' has once again consolidated us as one of the most successful stars of the moment that causes furor wherever he appears. Although the truth is that this is not entirely true, since films like 'Chaos Walking' became one of the most notorious failures of 2021. But it is not only that it did not work at the box office, but few came out convinced to see this science-fiction adventure that has been suffering countless delays in recent years. "The characters are not interesting, there is no emotional involvement and the physical action promises more than it offers," they wrote from The Hollywood Reporter.

8. The Unholy

After the blockade of premieres caused by the pandemic, this 2021 we have had overdoses of genres such as horror. However, beyond expected and successful returns such as those of 'The Conjuring: The  Devil made Me do it’ or ‘The Quiet Place 2' there has also been room for many disappointments, as has been the case with 'Demonic' by Oscar nominee Neill Blomkamp of 'Spiral: Saw' or the production sponsored by Sam Raimi ‘The Unholy’.

The three position as three of the worst rated films of the year on websites such as Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes, but especially the latter, which has a 36/100 and 26% of positive reviews on these platforms. "Satan continues to inspire the worst movies," Benjamin Lee wrote for The Guardian.

7. Kissing Booth 3

That a movie is called ‘Kissing Booth 3’ is already thought-provoking, unless it deals with time travel, of course. But since this is not the case, it seemed clear that this third installment of Netflix's teen franchise based on the novel by Beth Reekles had little to offer, and so has qualified with critics and viewers with averages as low as 36/100 or 1.6/10 on Metacritic. "Disgusting writing, loose direction, gruesome pace, horrible green screen and terrible jokes" are some of the qualifiers that can be read in reviews such as Kate Erbland's for IndieWire.

6. Home Sweet Home Alone

A reboot of a film as mythical and beloved as 'Home Alone' was not a good idea, even if the franchise had already been exploited ad nauseam with several sequels for the market. And both critics and audiences seem to agree on it, since Disney+ 'Finally Home Alone' has obtained one of the worst scores of 2021 with a 35/100 on Metacritic by the specialized media and a 1.8/10 by the public. "The problem with Home Sweet Home Alone isn't that they’ve had the temerity to invade a Christmas classic. It's that they ruined everything," wrote Clarisse Loughrey of The Independent.

5. Hitman’s Wife's Bodyguard

Its predecessor also wasn’t a box office success per se, so it's no surprise to see ‘Hitman’s Wife's Bodyguard’  among the worst-rated films of the year. This action comedy starring Salma Hayek, Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson has a 27% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 32/100 on Metacritic with reviews that spoke of "one of the most sleepy and boring summer films in history", such as the one Michael O'Sullivan wrote for The Washington Post.

4. The starling

Melissa McCarthy hasn't had a good year in film. The two films she has starred in for Netflix, 'The Starling' and 'The Thunder Force’, were an absolute critical setback, especially the first, which on review-gathering platforms such as Metacritic is positioned as one of the worst productions of 2021 with a score of 31/100. It is a tragicomedy about how a woman finds in a bird that has nested in her garden a way to give way to a tragedy that she has just faced, a film that is described as "bland", "predictable" or "exhausting", as media such as Screendaily, The Hollywood Reporter or Deadline point out.

3. Infinite

This year we had director Antoine Fuqua triple. We watched 'Guilty' on Netflix with Jake Gyllenhaal, the documentary 'The Day the Sport Stopped' about the world of basketball in America during the pandemic and the sci-fi thriller 'Infinite' for Prime Video. The latter, starring Mark Wahlberg and Chiwetel Ejiofor, was a Paramount production that the director sold to Amazon due to the difficulty of releasing in theaters due to the COVID-19 crisis. And of course it was a wise move, because the film was destroyed on all sides.

Media such as Collider spoke of "a bad, silly and derisory film", others such as IndieWire described as logical Paramount's decision to send it to streaming as it is a very forgettable "disaster" .

2. Music

Lady Gaga is not the only music star who in recent years is trying to become a major film icon. Sia, the well-known singer of Chandelier or Unstoppable who has been composing non-stop songs for Hollywood films for years, debuted as a director this 2021 with her film 'Music'. The film managed to sneak among the nominees for the Golden Globe for Best Film in the category of Comedy or Musical, but after its premiere on platforms last January neither critics nor the public responded well to it. What's more, it's one of the worst rated films of the year.

On Rotten Tomatoes it barely reaches 7% of positive reviews and on Metacritic it has a very poor collection of 23/100. In addition, 'Music', when dealing with the issue of autism, generated a strong controversy among associations of autistic people for considering it offensive by promoting harmful stereotypes.

1. After We Fell

The film adaptation of Anna Todd's literary phenomenon does not fail to its annual appointment with its fans, who since 'After’ arrived in theaters in 2019 live for every sequel wishing to enjoy Hero Fiennes Tiffin and Josephine Langford playing Hardin Scott and Tessa Young on the big screen. However, critics still do not receive this teenage saga with illusion.

Just look at 'After We Fell’, the third installment of the franchise that hit theaters in September, has 0% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest possible score that places it as one of the weakest productions of 2021. It is described as "painfully boring", of being a non-stop of "clichés and stereotypes", that it is only able to "keep its fan base satisfied" and to have sex scenes that do not provoke more than yawning. And the public does not seem to disagree, because among the reviews of Rotten Tomatoes users the film barely achieves 38% of positive reviews.

All of them barely touch scores of 3 or 4 points on Metacritic, while on Rotten Tomatoes, some even have 0% positive reviews. Although such low ratings are not the only thing that shocks, since reading in depth it is easy to find criticism full of hurtful words or that completely destroy the movies.

Qualifiers such as "appalling", "horrible" or "boring" abound, although as we say, in the end whether a film is good or bad depends more on the taste of each person than on what a critical current or the public itself can dictate.