PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Santa, spiders, safaris, and symbiotes: what do these words have in common besides the alliteration? Well, they’re all things that appear in some of the worst movies of 2024!
While those words may imply the movies listed below are an eclectic bunch, they’re really all your standard big studio rubbish. However, this year, there was one studio in particular that reigned supreme above all. Well, maybe “supreme” isn’t the right word.
Normally I only list 5 movies for my worst of the year, but I just couldn’t let Red One escape unscathed. It is so insultingly lacking in any cheer or joy that calling it a “Christmas movie” should be grounds for legal action. If you’re one of those people who’s sick of the commercialization of the holidays, then Red One just may officially push you to check into the ER. It’s the kind of movie that makes you wish Santa existed just so he could give everybody involved with this dreck a massive lump of coal. I guess we’ll just have to send them to the mines instead.
Up until about the last 15 minutes, Arthur the King was just some lame, boring movie about Mark Wahlberg selfishly abandoning his family to dangerously trek across the jungle and become friends with a dog. Then the last 15 minutes happen, with the filmmakers disgustingly manipulating the audience’s emotions by faking them out with the dog “dying” not once, not twice, but three times! I don’t often describe films as “cruel”, but the definition certainly fits here. Good boys deserve good movies and Arthur the King is anything but.
The first installment of Sony’s Universe of Spider-Haves and Have-Nots to make the list, Kraven the Hunter was the perfect end to Sony’s pathetic 100th-year anniversary celebration for Columbia Pictures. Aaron Taylor-Johnson sleepwalks through this slog of an action film, acting as a void of charisma as he lumbers from one nonsensical plot point to the next. The R rating allowing for over-the-top violence and gore is the only thing Kraven the Hunter had going for it and even that move reeked of desperation. Let’s be real, though, “Desperate” is practically Sony Pictures’ middle name.
Hey, look! Another installment of Sony’s Universe of Spider-Haves and Have-Nots! That was fast, but not surprising. Madame Web kicked off Columbia’s centennial celebration not with a bang, but with a thud. Dakota Johnson is so awful in this, that I’m still convinced she acted this poorly on purpose, performing some sort of acting clinic that shows how people can tank their own movie. Madame Web came out almost a year ago at this point, but it’s one of those movies that’s so terrible that no matter how early it’s been released, you know it’ll make many “Worst Movies of the Year” lists. Well, here it is.
Video game movie adaptations have rarely been good and the same goes for movies directed by Eli Roth. Well, we get the worst of both worlds here with an adaptation that understands practically nothing about what made the original source material such a hit in the first place. It’s not really all Roth’s fault, though, as the project was fraught with various production issues that did nothing more than emphasize just how incompetent film executives can be. The characters in Borderlands are “vault hunters”, but when they’re stuck in this mess, that vault may as well have belonged to Al Capone. Too bad nobody here is named Geraldo.
I always expect some big stinkers to come my way every year, but it was legitimately shocking just how atrocious Venom: The Last Dance was. I certainly wasn’t expecting much, as the Venom movies have never been big bastions of quality, but the third (and hopefully last) outing is cacophonous, incoherent nonsense of the worst variety. Even Tom Hardy couldn’t save this mess, if he even wanted to, considering he also acted as producer and story writer.
I would say that Sony and everybody else involved in 2024’s installments of their Universe of Spider-Haves and Have-Nots should be ashamed of themselves, but to put out three all-time terrible movies in the same year and all during an iconic studio’s 100th anniversary, no less? Now that deserves some praise. Happy 100th, Columbia Pictures. Sony made sure 2024 belonged to you but, unfortunately, gave you nothing but trick candles.
2024 wasn’t all bad. Be sure to check out The 10 Best Movies of 2024!
Check out more movie reviews by Hunter
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