My Least Favourite 10 Movies of 2021

The great Norm McDonald once thought of Carrot Top in the same way I think of these movies – ‘box office poison’. I don’t mean in a monetary sense, like he meant it, no; but in the way that watching these movies again will surely make me sick. With 82 movies in my bank for 2021, there were countless others out there, and at least these movies to follow, had enough allure to tempt me into watching them in the first place, so that’s a tick in their favour. Before getting down to business, as I always say, this is my personal list of my least favourite movies for 2021. If you saw any of these movies and walked away feeling satisfied, then I envy you – consider yourself fortunate you had a better time than me. Because, I don’t go to the movies to have a bad time, but sometimes, it just happens, and all I can do is save it, stew on it and bitch about it on the internet for a few people to see at years end. Unlike my reviews, I plan to keep SPOILERS as MINIMAL AS POSSIBLE here, so don’t be afraid to peruse, viewers and non-viewers alike.

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My Least Favourite 10 Movies of 2021

10.   Chaos Walking

What’s worse than landing on the Planet of the Apes? Planet of the Creeps! Literally, fuck that noise. This dystopian teen novel adaptation seems like an interesting tale – a colony from Earth have settled on a distant planet where men’s thoughts are broadcast aloud, driving the women crazy and causing the males embarrassment. The male-only tribe wear women’s clothing as a sign of power, which is kind’ve unique. But I’d heard that the first turn-in of Chaos Walking was unwatchable, and reshoots cost the movie another 15 million dollars in preproduction. So, when this movie was released in cinemas at the start of the year, it was always going to be a question of ‘how bad is it?’ over the possibility to uncovering a masterpiece. The most disappointing aspect of the movie is a squandered opportunity with a great bankable cast – Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley and Mads Mikkelsen. But through dull characterisation, particularly for the few female characters, and an uninventive way of filming the forest landscapes, Chaos Walking lands with a thud. Daisy Ridley is so entrenched in our minds as Rey ‘Skywalker’, and this movie does her little favour stretching her registry, as she plays a fish-out-of-water ‘space girl’ who must find a fallen ship and go spelunking. She even steals Tom Holland’s dog in one scene, like it was BB-8 – that droid was Poe Dameron’s, damn it, you overpowered thief.

9.   Fear Street

I’m combining the Fear Street trilogy as one big movie (YOLO), although, if you want to be picky, I liked the middle movie the best, and it’s the third movie that failed to bring the story all the way home. And to be honest, I didn’t hate this spooky teen experience for what it is, but I think it’s just my knowledge of Stranger Things and American Horror Story that meant Fear Street had to do a bit to set itself apart, making it worthwhile, and it falls short. I remember I was really enthusiastic about the novelty of having a trilogy released within weeks of each other on Netflix, and it’s one of the gimmicks a streaming service can offer, excitingly. Yet, it was really muddled having the same actors play their own ancestors in Fear Street Part 3: 1666, and the conclusion to the story is quite bland. But again, these movies weren’t terrible, perhaps for preteens; just pedestrian in my eyes, compared to other trendy horror alternatives on the market.

8.   The Little Things

Oh, The Little Things. The Little Things was one of my first ventures to the cinema after the award season ended and the contrast was stark! I found the movie really boring, building to consequences that were a letdown. Through the years, you see a few movies where their winning blow isn’t as impactful on you as the movie may like, and The Little Things was the worst of the bunch for 2021. Considering the calibre of talent on show – Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto – The Little Things was extremely disappointing. And I left the theatre that day convinced that Rami Malek should never play a good guy ever again; but I’m open to being proved wrong.

7.   Don’t Breathe 2

Well, what a mountain this movie had to climb to make me want to sympathise with the blind man from Don’t Breathe. This is the first of a few movies on this list where I feel like I couldn’t get on board with what the movie wanted from me, morally, and it heavily affected my interpretation of the movie. Not every movie has to be for everybody, and that’s okay; because Don’t Breathe 2 isn’t that bad – it’s very gory and sets out to make you squirm, and for the number of great action movies out there this year, I just don’t need to be disgusted by violence to have a good time. I’m so surprised this movie got made in a way where the old blind guy gets to be some sort’ve anti-hero, and if you’re not rooting for him to save the day, then you’re not rooting for anybody. Don’t Breathe was an unexpected success, hence the sequel, but I think I’ll be happiest if there isn’t a Don’t Breathe 3.

6.   Old

M. Night Shyamalan; ugh. I love your determination, but just ugh. Old holds in its hands a brilliant concept, of a beach where seasiders mystically age at an accelerated rate, but its technical execution is just awful – perhaps deliberately, keeping us at an arms-length, but I found the whole thing visually grading, like hearing nails on a chalkboard. At least with Shyamalan, you know you’re going to get a very individualised style, and occasionally, it makes for a film so far out of the box it’s fantastic, so you have to let him try. But the more I thought about Old afterwards, the more I found I could pick holes through it. I don’t know; maybe you liked Old, maybe I was in a bad mood when I saw it. Maybe I’m being too harsh, but I thought it was gross.

5.   Dear Evan Hansen

Dear Evan Hansen; poor Evan Hansen – his awkwardness is heavy, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. The guy needs some love, but he ain’t going to get any from me, fabricating a friendship with an angry boy who commits suicide. This movie is so unimaginably awkward, it must be seen to be believed. Amy Adams is the most scary-crazy she’s ever been, and she’s supposed to be a sweet grieving mother. I know that musicals can shed new light on heavy thematic material; Dear Evan Hansen is trying to do something to help teenage depression and anxiety, and it’s occasionally touchingly raw. But the movie is more a guide to bad situations – the songs actually make it worse, and I think, merely give the writers a story-breaking licence to communicate what Evan is trying to say, perpetuating this nonsense narrative, when he realistically cannot get the words out – it’s unbelievable, and not in a good way. Dear Evan Hansen is one of the cringiest things I’ve ever seen! I’ve actually had food poisoning less painful than this, and Tommy Wiseau would be jealous. To Kaitlyn Dever, and her character Zoe Murphy, you poor girls; you have my sympathies, but I had a genuine LOL at your line, ‘take that, trees.’

4.   Home Sweet Home Alone

Yeah, so I wasn’t overly offended when I saw Home Sweet Home Alone, but as I went down my list of movies for 2021, constructing this list, this movie kept sliding and sliding as I said to myself, ‘worse than that…, worse than that…’. Actually, perhaps Dear Evan Hansen is worse, but at least that movie’s editing and performances were on point, even if the content was tragic, where Home Sweet Home Alone is the cinematic definition of cheap-and-nasty. It seems like there was no ‘presh’ on Home Sweet Home Alone to be a quality production. There should have been a some ‘presh’, a lot of ‘presh’, because there’s a giant fanbase out there for the original Home Alone, one of the greatest Christmas movies ever made, who won’t accept anything less. Yes, someone tried to revamp the script, so at least this wasn’t a carbon copy, but ‘trying’ to get creative while messing with a classic isn’t going to get you off this list, now is it? But, I’m sure there’ll be another cash-grab hunk of junk on this list next year because it works; IPs get eyeballs, and some greedy little producer out there will settle for that being enough.

3.   The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard

Hey, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard isn’t the number one worst movie of the year! Mazel tov! That’s a shock, and an improvement on this movie’s predecessor, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, which I despised. I reckon I did enjoy this movie a little better, just for bringing in Selma Hayek’s loud-mouth lover for a more prominent role, but this is still a redundant franchise; cheaping out on plot and purpose for a silly shoot-’em-up that just wants to look cool doing it. Bah, I just don’t like it. And don’t cast Ryan Reynolds as a whiner when the opportunity is there for him to be snarky and confident. I bet I appreciated Red Notice way more because this franchise is terrible.

2.   Music

Sia suggests the antidote to real serious problems is colour and pulling funny faces. Seeing Maddie Ziegler portray an autistic girl made me uncomfortable; I won’t pretend to be up to date with all things PC, and I don’t want to be outraged on someone else’s behalf (perhaps someone out there is just happy with the representation), but considering how charming Zack Gottsagen was with his genuine affliction in The Peanut Butter Falcon, Ziegler’s mimicry made me uneasy from the outset. Then as the plot unfolds, the uneasiness never goes away, as there’s nothing(!) happy about this movie. The arty musical numbers feel like Oompa Loompa jingles through middling-to-horrific occurrences, and I’m sure the movie sets out to be more profound than it is, getting it very wrong. I think Sia’s music video for ‘Chandelier’ – the first to feature Maddie Ziegler – is one of the greatest music clips of all time, and I suppose it has led to this; but we don’t usually pay for a movie’s worth of music clips in a row, and they don’t sow together this feature film’s narrative to produce a movie worth watching; in fact, they break the tension. The movie ends with Ziegler’s character pushing the button for ‘I Am Happy’, and she’s on her own there.

1.   Buddy Games

But the worst movie of 2021 is Buddy Games, by a mile. If this movie had come out in 2005 it would have been outdated. It’s just blokey nonsense, and Josh Duhamel, as writer and director… oh boy, needs to work very hard on keeping his characters interesting, if there is to be a next time. This concept could have worked – Buddy Games is not too dissimilar to Tag from a few years before, and as the ante keeps ramping up, and the buddy games get more intense, it’s the closest thing to a mid-western Squid Game that I’ve seen yet. But the games are few and far between, with the movie’s main focus on this sad bunch of old friends, reflecting on how they’re all depressingly useless. I feel sorry for Olivia Munn; she has a few scenes in the beginning and then she’s completely absent until the final moments where her ‘concerns’ are dropped like a hot tamale. Too much testicle talk and jizz drinking for this guy. Buddy Games: bomb.

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There you have it! And guys, coming in at number 11 for me, would have been James Bond’s No Time to Die, but rules is rules, so count yourself lucky that I won’t be complaining about that again. That’s my only dishonourable mention worth bringing to your attention in what has been another weird and wonderful year of cinema. Go, movies!

Below, I’ve attached a list of all the movies I’ve seen this year, so you can see exactly what I had to pick from. What awful movie did you see that I can be glad I missed? What movies do I have on my top ten list that insult you to your very core? What movies did you hate, yourself, and what movies did you love? Let me know in the reply box below and wait for my Favourite 10 Movies of 2021 in the next couple of days. Happy New Year!

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Cinema Releases and VOD

A Quiet Place: Part II

Ammonite

– Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar

Black Widow

– Boss Level

– Breaking News in Yuba County

– Buddy Games

– Chaos Walking

Cruella

– Dear Evan Hansen

Don’t Breathe 2

Dune

Encanto

Eternals

Free Guy

French Exit

Godzilla vs. Kong

– Gunpowder Milkshake

– High Ground

In the Heights

Judas and the Black Messiah

Jungle Cruise

Last Night in Soho

Malignant

Minari

Mortal Kombat

– Music

No Time to Die

– Nobody

Old

– Pig

Promising Young Woman

Raya and the Last Dragon

Shadow in the Cloud

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Space Jam: A New Legacy

Spider-Man: No Way Home

Spiral

Supernova

– Synchronic

– The Dry

The Father

The Forever Purge

The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard

The Little Things

The Nest

The Night House

The Suicide Squad

The United States vs. Billie Holiday

Those Who Wish Me Dead

Tom & Jerry

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Wonder Woman 1984

Wrath of Man

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Netflix Original Releases

Army of the Dead

– Army of Thieves

Don’t Look Up

– Fear Street Part 1: 1994

– Fear Street Part 2: 1978

– Fear Street Part 3: 1666

He’s All That

Love and Monsters

Malcolm & Marie

Moxie

News of the World

Pieces of a Woman

Red Notice

Run

The Dig

– The Guilty

The Harder They Fall

The Michells vs. the Machines

The Power of the Dog

The Unforgivable

The Woman in the Window

Things Heard & Seen

tick, tick… Boom!

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Disney+ Original Releases

Home Sweet Home Alone

Luca

Soul

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HBO Exclusive Releases

Let Them All Talk

Zack Snyder’s Justice League

* A dash (-) in front of a movie title indicates I did not write a review.