After highlighting the best films of the year, let’s look back at the worst.
5. Mea Culpa
Rotten Tomatoes score: 18% (critics), 37% (audience)
Streaming on: Netflix
Tyler Perry has enjoyed a successful career as a media mogul and has helped to empower Blacks in the entertainment world. However, you cannot ignore his questionable decisions as a director. Of all the bad Perry films, Mea Culpa might be the worst. This legal thriller is so awful that it resembles a soap opera parody. Mea Harper (Kelly Rowland) is a hotshot defense attorney whose client is an artist accused of murdering his girlfriend. The narrative tries to keep you guessing, but Perry goes over the top with a plot twist that’s just dumb. Mea Culpa isn’t even worthy of being a guilty pleasure.
4. Brothers
Rotten Tomatoes score: 42% (critics), 40% (audience)
Streaming on: Prime
Brothers is proof that it takes more than an excellent cast to make a good movie. Just based on actors Josh Brolin, Peter Dinklage, Taylour Paige Brendan Fraser, Marisa Tomei, and Glenn Close, you figured this crime-comedy would be decent. Brolin and Dinklage are twins (yep, that’s right) and they’re less believable siblings than Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. Still, Brothers might have succeeded if the jokes were funny. This tale of estranged brothers with an estranged relationship with their mother (Close) is tedious. When the high point of a movie is an orangutan committing assault, you know it’s a turkey.
3. The Crow
Rotten Tomatoes score: 22% (critics), 63% (audience)
Available for rent on: YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon
The Crow was fighting an uphill battle from the start. Doing a reboot of the 1994 cult classic felt blasphemous, especially since its star Brandon Lee was accidentally killed on set. The 2024 version is even worse than we could ever imagine. The leads are flimsy. You won’t care what happens to Eric (Bill Skarsgård) and Shelly (FKA Twigs), and you don’t buy them as a couple. Where’s the character development? Eric isn’t likable, so you empathize with his grief. Plus, the villain (Danny Huston as Vincent Roeg) isn’t interesting, so it never seems like he’s a serious threat. No one asked for this. Shame on Lionsgate.
2. Joker: Folie à Deux
Rotten Tomatoes score: 31% (critics), 32% (audience)
Streaming on: Max
Available for rent on: YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon
When Todd Phillips first described this sequel to his 2019 blockbuster and critical hit, that sparked our curiosity. How ambitious. Applaud him for taking a risk. Criticize him for the execution. Joker: Folie à Deux doesn’t work as a jukebox musical, nor as a traditional film. The songs aren’t memorable, and the drama is stale to the point of boredom. Watching Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga converse, sing, and dance is unexpectedly and unbelievably dull. There’s no chemistry. The only good scene in this movie is due to the performance of Leigh Gill as Gary Puddles on the witness stand. By the end, the joke’s on us.
1. Borderlands
Rotten Tomatoes score: 10% (critics), 50% (audience)
Available for rent on: YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon
Let this be a warning to all studio executives who overvalue intellectual property. Not all IP needs to be a movie. Borderlands is based on the video game series, and because of that connection, there was a belief that it had a built-in audience just dying to see it. How wrong they were. Imagine Guardians of the Galaxy without the charm or humor. Borderlands is so lousy that not even two Academy Award winners (Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis) and two accomplished funny men (Kevin Hart and Jack Black) could save it. Blanchett looks lost in a trash dump of clichés. Hart, who always brings energy even when the movie stinks, seems to have mentally checked out. The most intriguing thing about this clunker is that one of its cowriters may not exist.
