Five Worst Films of 2021
- Heather German
- Jan 21, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated: Jan 22, 2022
It’s that time of year again; the transition from the old into the new. 2021 was a rough year. I don’t feel nearly as hopeful going into 2022 as I did 2021; my only real goals are to take care of myself best I can, and maybe to get back into the swing of things when it comes to my hobbies and creative pursuits. Depressing stuff aside, though, the one thing I can still reflect on without complication is the films that came out in the past year. 2021 was an interesting year as we saw the release of genre films and Blockbusters once again, as well as the much awaited release of several films that had been previously delayed indefinitely. This brought some much needed variety to the film, scene but it also brought with it the same old soulless cash grabs and charm-less celebrity vehicles that we’re all used to. Beyond that, there were some absolute stinkers released in the realm of political cinema, be they vacuous satire, offensive commentary, or both.
Before we begin, I’d like to clarify that the bottom two films on this list I didn’t actually finish. I can’t leave them out because I just have to talkabout them, but they were so bad I had to stop watching them because I just couldn’t take it anymore. I made sure to do my due diligence and research the parts of those films I didn’t watch to make sure none of my criticisms were addressed later on.
So without further ado, I’d like to look back on the worst films that I had the displeasure of seeing in the past year.
5. Godzilla vs. Kong
Director: Adam Wingard
Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall
Synopsis: The epic next chapter in the cinematic Monsterverse pits two of the greatest icons in motion picture history against one another - the fearsome Godzilla and the mighty Kong - with humanity caught in the balance.
Genre: Action, Science Fiction, Thriller
I will never understand these new Godzilla films or their absurd popularity. If I have to hear one more time that this film only wanted to showcase Godzilla and King Kong fighting and did so spectacularly, I’ll go insane. If that’s all they wanted to showcase, why on earth do they continue to insist on bloating these things out to obscene lengths with beyond-flat characters and utterly inane drama? Godzilla 2014 had the same problem but at least that was trying something. These films really capture the scale of these monsters but completely drag them down with an uninspired mythology and a seemingly endless legion of awful human characters. Also, this one in particular gives an uncomfortable amount of legitimacy to crackpot conspiracy theorists in a way I didn’t like at all. The sheer waste of money here is extraordinary.
4. Willy’s Wonderland
Director: Kevin Lewis
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Emily Tosta, Beth Grant
Synopsis: A quiet drifter is tricked into a janitorial job at the now condemned Willy's Wonderland. The mundane tasks suddenly become an all-out fight for survival against wave after wave of demonic animatronics. Fists fly, kicks land, titans clash -- and only one side will make it out alive.
Genre: Action, Comedy, Horror
My initial review of this was actually fairly positive with regards to Nicolas Cage’s performance, and while I still stand by that particular aspect of this film, I had the chance to watch it again and realized… this is really, really shit. Everything about it is incredibly cheap and miscalculated and it’s filled with bizarre choices, boring exposition and awful characters. This has got to be some kind of money laundering scheme cause I’m honestly not sure why else this was made.
3. Earwig and the Witch
Director: Gorô Miyazaki
Cast: Jazmín Abuín, JB Blanc, Tom Bromhead
Synopsis: An orphan girl, Earwig, is adopted by a witch and comes home to a spooky house filled with mystery and magic.
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Fantasy
Hey, Studio Ghibli? What the hell happened here? I defended you when you announced you were experimenting with 3D animation, and this is how you repay me? Jokes aside, to say this film is a mess is an understatement. There are films from 2005 that look better than this, and there’s almost no plot or theme to speak of in this film. It feels like a tech demo that realized it had to be a marketable product at the last moment. I’m not even sure what went wrong here, just that it’s easily the worst thing Studio Ghibli has ever done.
2. Run Hide Fight
Director: Kyle Rankin
Cast: Isabel May, Radha Mitchell, Thomas Jane
Synopsis: 17-year-old Zoe Hull uses her wits, survival skills, and compassion to fight for her life, and those of her fellow classmates, against a group of live-streaming school shooters.
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Run Hide Fight is a tasteless, shameless film so cruel in its exploitation of a recurring national tragedy that I couldn’t make it past the thirty minute mark. What would have normally just been a fairly bland, by the numbers action flick has tried to make up for its mediocrity by wielding its political influences on its sleeve, and the result is something truly unsightly to behold. This supposed “die hard in a school shooting” does nothing to honor the victims and instead exploits their tragedy to sensationalize the perpetrators and make hamfisted and out of touch social commentary. Utterly disgusting.
1. 2025: The World Enslaved By a Virus
Director: Joshua Wesely, Simon Wesely
Cast: Joshua Wesely, Antonia Joy Speer, Matthew Dougan
Synopsis: It's 2025, The world as we have known in 2020 does not exist anymore. The Virus changed the world, and communism is all over the place. A global world language developed, meetings are illegal, traveling is illegal, and Christianity is illegal. A group of Christians is trying to fight back
Genre: Adventure, Science Fiction
I’ll admit, I watched this to make fun of it, but I couldn’t even do that because this possibly the most boring, lifeless and utterly lazy piece of filmmaking I’ve ever seen. Next to no effort was put into any aspect of this film’s production, and everything about it is incredibly embarassing at the best of times. Seriously, words cannot describe how much nothing is in this film. It’s just people talking to each other in ways no human being ever would with the worst cinematography I’ve ever seen. Avoid this one like the coronavirus.
And there you have it; the worst films I saw this year. Fortunately, there were far more good movies than bad released this year. I’ll be releasing my top fifteen films of 2021 soon, so stay tuned!
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