Worst2First: Ranking the 138 Films I Saw in 2021 Part 2: The Worst Ten of 2021

 

Worst2First:
Ranking the 138 Films I Saw in 2021
Part 2: The Worst Ten of 2021

While 2021 was a big year for films in both the theater and streaming, there was your share of stinkers as well. Films that were highly anticipated but fell short of expectations, those that were lacking that special something, and those that literally just stunk.

So here are my top ten worst films of 2021...

**THERE WILL BE NO SPOILERS**

#10

6:45

The idea of a time loop has been done to much better effect and covering a wide range of genres, from comedy ("Groundhog Day") to horror ("Happy Death Day"), and while "6:45" tried to be the best of both worlds, it failed severely on every angle. The film follows a couple on vacation who finds themselves living out the same day over and over with the same effect - the boyfriend witnesses his girlfriend dying, and he seems to be the only one who remembers it. The performances were subpar, the characters were wholly unlikable, and the twist ending made absolutely no sense and turned the whole exercise into a pointless endeavor.

#9

The Boss Baby: Family Business

Somehow the original "Boss Baby" won an Oscar, and it's been coasting on that accolade (and somehow managing to become a box-office hit) since then, releasing a television series and ultimately this sequel that absolutely no one asked for. This time, the brothers are all grown up, but after the daughter of one of them is revealed to be the new boss baby, she turns them back to their child states in order to help solve a mystery. While the film tries to incorporate family forgiveness, fun musical numbers, and an undercurrent of raunchy comedy, it utterly failed to impress on any level, and hopefully this franchise will receive its pink slip.

#8

Things Heard and Seen

Sometimes novels should stick to the page and never see the light of the big (or in this case small) screen. Amanda Seyfried tries her darndest to make something out of this dragged-out story, but by the hour mark you see you still have a little over an hour to go, and you wonder where it's supposed to go. The film follows a young couple who move to a house in the middle of nowhere that's haunted by spirits, and the wife suspects her husband is up to something nefarious. The result is a long string of cliched haunted house tropes that culminate in a big ole sigh.

#7

Tom & Jerry

It's never been a good idea to take a sketch animated comedy and elongate it into a big screen spectacle, but no one told that to the makers of the "Tom & Jerry" movie, a film that's supposed to center on the lifelong love/hate relationship between the iconic cat and mouse duo, but instead they play second fiddle to their non-animated counterparts as they prepare the hotel they're working at for a huge, famous wedding - as Tom and Jerry keep getting in the way. Not even Chloe Grace-Moretz's attempts at humor can make you chuckle, and the animation isn't anything to write home about either.

#6

Locked Down

Kudos for making a movie in the middle of a pandemic, but if you're going to do that, at least make it make sense. Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor star as a couple who are confined to their London flat due to the pandemic lockdown, and their relationship is strained to say the least. Their love is long gone, and they're forced to live together until the lockdown ends, and with finances tightening and jobs being threatened, they decide to pull off an "Ocean's Eleven" style heist. The film is tonally all over the place, not to mention trying to be a romantic dramedy mixed with a crime caper that doesn't make sense - along with the wasted talent of these A-list actors - and you've got a highly forgettable and regrettable film.

#5

The Ice Road

Do you remember pining for that movie where Liam Neeson plays a grizzled trucker with a heart of gold who embarks on an adventure across the ice road in order to save a group of trapped miners while the corporation that accidentally trapped them there try to stop him before their lies and deceptions were exposed? Neither do I. While Neeson does these types of films in his sleep, what makes this so unforgivably bad is the cheap, SyFy Channel Original-style effects used, making it look extremely cheap, haphazard, and curious as to why Neeson and Laurence Fishburne would lend their names to such a terrible actioneer. Best to put this film on ice, forever.

#4

After We Fell

Even the "Divergent" series knew when to call it quits, but no one has apparently told the makers of the utterly terrible and irredeemable "After" series that they should've stopped before they began (but at least each of their three outings have occupied my worst films each year they're released, so at least they're consistent). This time around, we follow our most dysfunctional couple as they break up, make up, break up, get jealous, make up, and have PG-13 rated sex in an R rated film that feels needlessly rated for that fact, and once again you just groan at the worse-than-soap-opera theatrics, but since you've been in it this long, might as well watch for this slow-moving trainwreck to finally, gracefully, crash and burn.

#3

Home Sweet Home Alone

Whatever Disney exec pitched the idea to take a beloved family Christmas classic and essentially remake it and turn the kid into the villain and the burglars into nice guys should be fired...out of a cannon, into the sun. "Home Sweet Home Alone" is another mindless sequel to the iconic original (and decent first sequel), but this time instead of lovable scamp Kevin McAllister protecting his home against bumbling, villainous burglars, the kid in question is trying to prevent a married couple down on their luck from retrieving a wealthy doll they think the kid stole, leading to a bunch of unnecessarily brutal slapstick comedy that's not too funny considering the fact that we spend a lot of time with the wannabe burglars and know that they're not bad people. The kid, on the other hand, is incredibly insufferable, much like the film.

#2

Rumble

The only good thing about this film is that it's short, but it's so terrible it feels like you're sitting through the extended version of "The Lord of the Rings" as told by Alvin and the Chipmunks. It's intriguing to think why anyone would make an animated film about giant kaiju monsters who wrestle for sport alongside their cheering human counterparts, because the most logical reason would be to profit off it with a slew of toys and merchandise - but there's none to be seen. It seemed like the people behind the project knew it would be a major dud - with its awful animations, back-and-forth story, and its entirely soulless interior - and decided to dump it on Paramount+ quietly and forget it ever existed. Too bad anyone seeing this crap can't do the same thing (trust me, I've tried).

#1

Earwig and the Witch

When this film started, and I saw the title screen for Studio Ghibli, I was beyond the moon. The company has never produced a dud, and have supplied some of the most thoughtful, powerful animated films in history, like "Spirited Away" and "Princess Mononoke." Plus this was directed by the son of the great Hayao Miyazaki, so I was all in. Then I saw it was computer animated, and not the iconic 2D animated wonders that came before it. I gave it a shot, but almost immediately I was repulsed by the God-awful animation that made it look like something out of "Cocomelon." Then there was the story - if you call it that. An orphaned girl who's headstrong and stubborn is adopted by a witch and forced to work with her, while she tries to learn magic herself in order to...do something...and then it delves into more nonsensical paths that culminate in a surprise cliffhanger ending that, I assume, is supposed to lead somewhere eventually down the line, but hopefully it just dies and uses its magic to wipe our minds of its existence.