I've had multiple ideas about how to celebrate one-hundred reviews, and I settled on the idea of going through and listing the five worst movies from each quarter. Then I decided to just to a traditional top 20. It was a fairly last minute choice, but I like writing lists, and this felt less convoluted than the other option. If I had to pick one word to describe this batch of one-hundred movies, I would use the word... challenging, a lot of the movies I reviewed were movies I probably would not have watched if I wasn't doing this blog, movies that I had to find something new to talk about, and of course, movies that were just unwatchable trite. After one-hundred movies, one is bound to come across some distinct varieties of garbage that you probably never thought were even possible until you actually saw them. Some aren't so bad, like a used dryer sheet or a crumpled newspaper, and some are even unique pieces of garbage that you almost want to admire, but at the end of the day, I didn't really care for any of these movies, and I'll be happy to not really think about them afterwards. These are the worst movies I've had to review for this blog.
Also, please enjoy the new thumbnails I made, I have updated every one of my previous reviews with these thumbnails and I wanted to use them here.
20. The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie
Of all the movies on this list, this one is probably the one I want to put here the least. There was a time when a movie like this was an ingenious idea, compiling some of the best shorts and tying them together in a narrative, a little more involved than the original Disney Package Films, no? Ultimately, watching this movie made me really wish I was just watching the original shorts, cutting pieces off of the ends, putting them in a not so great order, it really made this movie suffer. You can find complete collections of every Looney Tunes short by era, character, animator, I mean you can probably find compilations for what title cards the shorts have, so the base question becomes if the new animated content is worth it, and frankly... I don't think so.
19. The Transformers: The Movie
Oh... this one is not going to make me any fans. I ultimately couldn't put Fun and Fancy Free on this list, despite being the worse movie, I've grown an attachment to it, there was a reason it was the first movie I reviewed on this blog, so I have to appreciate it on some level. The same can't be said for The Transformers movie though, it's just a sloppy movie with a messy plot that only existed to bring us to some admittedly alright action scenes, overly detailed designs, and a wildly out of place centerpiece single for the soundtrack. Plus, not every vocal performance was the best, sorry Orson Welles, but this was not the great curtain drawn for your career was one would hope. I know this movie is nostalgic for a lot of people, but that is the thing about nostalgia, it betrays you more than you think it does.
You know, the funny thing about this movie is, it's so uninspired and dull that as I was writing my review of it, I actually began to second guess myself. Not because this movie is secretly brilliant, but because I genuinely could not remember if the problems I brought up were genuine problems or if I was just blowing stuff out of proportion, and that was literally seconds after I watched the darn movie. One of the most shameless attempts to steal Disney's thunder, the movie had poor pacing, awful songs and animation that was... meh at best. I don't see why this movie needed an endless amount of sequels, but I'm glad they all went straight to DVD.
17. Open Season
Picking the fifth worst movie from the fourth quarter of reviews (Reviews 76-100) was a toss up between this, an uninspired and generic kids movie, and Silver Circle, a poorly made, mediocrely written movie that was a political statement before it was entertainment. In the end, I'm kinder to smaller scale productions, and Sony Pictures is not a small production. Honestly, I said this was one of my favourite movies as a kid, but even then I remember realizing that the movie wasn't that good when I was still young, maybe early teens, don't quite remember when. This is just not a movie that sticks with you, and frankly it is the perfect movie to begin an animation studio with. Like I said with Mummies, bad gets forgotten but mediocre at best movies that are inoffensive and not too challenging stick around, because they're perfect for doing something as a family, anything as a family. Open Season is not the worst example in this regard, but it's up there.
16. Robinson Crusoe (Otherwise Known As: The Wild Life)
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Speaking of uninspired, mediocre at best movies that are inoffensive, unchallenging and just perfect for watching when you want to watch a movie, but not necessarily any movie. Absolutely bland, forgettable schlock that you only put on to entertain the kids while you do anything else. It's an agonizingly dull sit through and easily in the list of worst "That Kind of Movie" films, yeah, I'm gonna start calling movies like this, Open Season, Mummies, UglyDolls "That Kind of Animated Movie", the kind that you think of when you think of "Animated Movie". Anyway, there really isn't much else to say about Robinson Crusoe, it's such a forgettable experience, I only remember one scene where Crusoe just stared at a Tapir's waving butt for a couple seconds... like what were they doing with that shot?
15. Space Jam
Of all the movies that don't work, the one I'm most perplexed about is Space Jam. What is it about this movie that didn't work? Was it the writing? Was it the directing? or was this just an idea that was dead on arrival? I guess it's a combination of the writing and directing, because it is a fairly uneven movie, the good elements are not good enough to distract from the bad elements surrounding it including the dated CG integration, the humour that is trying but just isn't that funny, the subpar acting of Michael Jordan, the subpar character of Lola Bunny. Honestly, this is one of those movies where the soundtrack is ten times better than the actual movie, let's just be real.
14. Wonder Park
I was initially kind to this movie, because while it was a generic, bland, and not very well written movie, I thought the creativity was good and would maybe inspire some kids. I was much kinder to it than other reviewers were, then I gave it a rewatch and found that those reviewers were actually right. Honestly, Cellspex and MrEnter both have done better jobs at explaining why this movie doesn't work than I could, and most of the points I could bring up would just be their words, or Animated Antic's words. Well, at the very least I can say... I'm not budging on Detective Pikachu.
What a strange way to make a movie based off of two beloved animation icons. Giving them the benefit of the doubt that the orphaned girl looking for her father, the evil family members, awful songs, characters that were mute suddenly speaking, Rip Taylor, the thrilling chases and around the country adventures were all necessary for this movie to be made, that the only way they could have made a Tom and Jerry movie was to have all of that stuff put into it, at least make the comedy good. This movie had some of the worst slapstick I've ever seen. Nothing felt right, nothing felt like there was any weight to it, the reactions didn't feel right, it just didn't feel like a Tom and Jerry movie. Take this plot and replace Tom and Jerry with, Mickey Mouse or Felix The Cat, and that would solve a good twenty percent of the issues with this movie, not enough to make it good, but enough to make it... less bad.
12. Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams
I mean, what is there to say about this movie? If we can even call it that. It's two stories that really don't understand the morals they're trying to teach, with mediocre animation and voice acting. This was one of, if not the last of the Disney direct-to-video movies and it has been rightfully forgotten. They were actually planning a whole series of these movies, and there is a trailer for the second one on the DVD, which would have featured stories with Mulan and Cinderella. Someone get that to the Lost Media Wiki, might be the only thing talking about in regards to this movie.
11. Hercules & Xena - The Animated Movie: The Battle For Mount Olympus
Oh direct-to-video awfulness, there is a reason most critics ignore direct-to-video nonsense in favour of the stuff released cinematically. Though there are some excellent movies released straight to video, this one clearly isn't one of them. Awful animation that uses budget stretching tricks from animation in the sixties, some of the worst facial expressions in animation, and some of the lousiest songs ever in a pseudo-musical, it makes sense why Hercules and Xena were never featured heavily in animation, since this attempt was so misguided and awful, it actually enters "So bad it's good" territory, seriously, if you love movies like Birdemic, The Room, or Plan 9 From Outer Space, give this movie a watch, it will make you laugh.
You would think the feature film debut of one of animations icons, one of the earliest animated characters to grace the silver screen and a major figure in animation history, would be a little bit more respectful of all of that history. Annoying, poorly written, nonsensical, it truly is amazing how badly you can mess up an idea as "Movie with animation icon", it would be like making a Mickey Mouse movie, but instead of having him go on an epic adventure, he sits at an office desk and does tax filings all day. Actually that movie would probably be better than this, solely for being less annoying. Honestly, I should have given this movie an Avoid rating, just for being a slap in the face to animation lovers, but then again, I don't think that many people are really upset that a Felix the Cat movie ended up being this awful.
I wanted to give this movie a fair chance. I am a former Brony, I had some fun with the 2017 movie, I love me some animation history, I thought at the very least, this movie couldn't be an agonizing watch. Well boy howdy was I wrong! Not only was this movie an insufferable sit through, it was also everything I hoped it wouldn't be. Shameless marketing, pandering to the target audience, and the usual amount of disrespect to the actual voice actors whom we would actually watch this movie for if we were fans of the original show. Poor Charlie Adler, Nancy Cartwright and Russi Taylor, among others, were not given opening credits, but the awful performances by Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn and Rhea Perlman were warranting of opening credits. At least The Transformers movie had some good action scenes, this movie couldn't even get a decent filler scene.
Okay, forget the fact that this movie had a production nightmare and ended up being taken from the hands of the original creator, let's just look at what this movie is. It is a gorgeously animated pile of garbage that was re-edited in a manor to better befit that of a Disney movie and completely ruined what could of been a great magnum opus of animation. However, let's add that production nightmare back into this equation, because not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven, not eight, not nine, not ten, but eleven people who worked on this movie died before it saw the light of day, and poor Vincent Price died only a month after this movie got a major release. I repeat what I said about Paws of Fury, there are some movies I'd rather not have than have in as a sorry state as this. Thankfully, the Recobbled Cut exists, and it is leagues better, so find that online and give it a watch.
7. Storybook Classics: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The best thing I can say about this movie, is that I found it for dirt cheap, but even then I think I spent too much on it. One of the most befuddling movies I've ever seen, befuddled by how the managed to boil any complexity down to plain, flat and boring characters. I am especially befuddled by the video and audio quality of the movie, as the DVD I purchased looked and sounded no better than a standard VHS, it even had that background hiss that VHS Tapes have. Add to that annoying voice work, and some admittedly good visuals absolutely ruined by the lack of any upscale in quality, and you have a movie that I am... honestly surprised I managed to write a review for, even one that was rather phoned in.
6. GoodTimes Entertainment's Cinderella
Why is this one of my most viewed blogs? Either way, with the vibes of "We only made this movie because Disney was in the midst of a renaissance and we wanted some of their pie", this movie was easily prime material for this list. Honestly, it's not even the fact that it's clearly a poor attempt to take some of Disney's video release money from deceived elderly relatives that puts it on this list. It's on this list by being an even worse knock off than one could imagine, ruining the moral of the Disney version, adding in a bunch of cartoony crap that makes the movie even worse, and such poor animation that it gives direct-to-video animation a bad name. Why is it not in the top 5? Honestly, I'm kinder to direct-to-video movies than theatrical ones, but make no mistake, this is still avoid rating territory here.
Usually, when ranking my worst list, a big part of my decision making is this one thought, "Would I rather watch this movie, or that movie?". Of course there is a lot more that goes into it than that, but when the ranking becomes tricky, that is usually what settles it. Would I rather watch The Magic Voyage over the next movies on this list? Yeah, yeah I would, because even though it's obnoxious, poorly written, bizarre, filled with unnecessary scenes, a complete disregard to actual history, and one of the worst dub jobs I have ever watched, honestly I can't even say it's well put together, it at the very least wasn't a painfully agonizing experience that could be equated to Vogon poetry.
I would normally hold a spot in the top five for a movie that had a major release. A bad movie, I find, is so much worse when it hits the cinemas. Like, yes it is partly an elitism thing, but straight-to-video and television movies are so much easier to ignore than a movie that is released theatrically or released on a major streaming platform. In the scale of ignorable, you have Theatres, Major Streaming Release, Minor Streaming Release, Television Movie, Direct-to-Video, and then you have movies only released on YouTube or something. The Barbie Diaries actually managed to be so bad, I would call this movie an insult to Television movies. Holy crap, the animation of this movie was so primitive, even by the standards of 2006, when actual TV shows from earlier years and for lesser properties, managed to look way better. The plot was vapid, the characters were bland, it was an amalgamation of everything I hate about High School movies. No, I don't hate this because it's a Barbie movie, I hate this because it is a terrible movie, and I'll bet it's also terrible by Barbie movie standards. I can't even call this movie "So bad it's good", it's not entertaining, it's infuriating. If someone makes you watch this movie, they want you to atone for something you did. This movie certaintly is not Kenough.
3. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
I... can't muster the hatred for this one as much anymore. Don't get me wrong, it's still a really bland and boring, poorly written waste of a promising license, and I absolutely can't stand it for all those reasons. This movie was so phenomenally boring that I don't think I'm using the word improperly for the purposes of hyperbole, I genuinely think that the boringness of this movie is a phenomena that needs to be studied. How does a Final Fantasy movie not only have nothing to do with Final Fantasy, but also manages to be an absolute dull as a butter knife snore fest? Are we sure this isn't like... an SCP that escaped the laboratory and disguised itself as a movie to feed on the souls of the people it bores to sleep? So yeah, this is a boring movie, but the worst I've watched for this blog? Bland, boring, poorly written and wasting a promising license is pretty bad, but it ain't really infuriating.
2. Ferngully: The Last Rainforest
I know this movie has its fans, but I honestly don't get it, this movie is awful. It's one of the blandest, most boring, preachiest movies I have ever seen. "But it was about saving the environment", yeah and? Just because the intention is good doesn't mean the end product is any good. "but Robin Williams!" Yes, but this was not one of his better performances, I miss him too, but that doesn't mean everything he did was gold. "Tim Curry, and the songs", look, you can keep throwing out excuses, but nothing actually changes the fact that this movie is a boring, formulaic, preachy, and shameless product of the 1990s, easily one of the worst movies I ever had to sit through for this blog. It was so close to being number one, but I do have to relent that on some level, it was made with good intentions, I think you know where I'm going with this.
I mean, you probably saw this one coming. A movie does not earn the title "Worst animated movie of 2018" by being mediocre, though mediocrity is easily one of the biggest flaws of the movie. With some of the worst comedy I've ever seen in an animated movie, this was the movie that made me realize that Netflix would stick their name on any old garbage and hope enough people watched it to make a profit. Unlikable characters, wasted voice talent, this movie almost makes me regret getting into animation, and I'd say Jim Gaffigan could do better, but considering he went on to do Playmobil: The Movie, maybe that would be wrong. Ferngully was a bad movie that was at least intended to have good intentions behind it, I can't think of any other intentions behind Duck Duck Goose than making a movie that will keep children quite, and I have zero respect for movies like this.
Despite all the garbage I watch, I am still really thankful for this blog. For every Duck Duck Goose or Ferngully, I'll get the chance to check out something that would genuinely surprise me, or a movie that is just a comfortable viewing experience. These past one-hundred reviews have really let me explore the medium I love, and really let me step out of my comfort zone. Honestly, even though these movie have been really bad, I can't say I regret starting this blog, or continuing on with it. These past few years have been an interesting experience, and I wouldn't want to trade it in for anything else. So, to all of you who have read this, even if this is your first time reading, thank you, because knowing that someone reads this makes the experience just that tiny bit more worth it.
Honourable Mentions:
- A Christmas Carol 2009 - So close to being one of the worst, but the stuff that is good just keeps it from being on here.
- Once Upon a Forest - I mean... it's better than Ferngully.
- Monster High: 13 Wishes - If this were a proper movie and not a TV Special repackaged as a movie, it might have been okay.
- The Three Caballeros - Frankly, I wouldn't be on America's side after a movie like this.
- Cats - Honestly, this movie is over hated.
- Rock-A-Doodle - Don Bluth... why?
- A Christmas Carol 1997 - Yeah, they're both on this side of the list, not even Tim Curry could save this one.
- Silver Circle - Not every piece of lost media needs to be found.
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