The more a film is over-hyped, the more of a chance it has to underwhelm — and nothing underwhelms fans more often than the concept of a Summer blockbuster. These large, loud, and action-packed films are built to raise the energy of their audiences like any roller coaster or high-intensity experience.
The largest movies of the year usually arrive during the Summer, with the term "blockbuster" rising ever since the production of franchise films increased in the 1980's. While Christmas season usually has more "feel good" films revolving around the holiday spirit, Summer blockbusters tend to include more larger-than-life fantasy action flicks, and if there's anything that rings true about these kinds of over-saturated franchise films, it's that they don't always live up to the hype.
Full of horrible premises and even more awful sequels, we've rounded up the worst Summer blockbusters of all time and ranked them based on their critical scores from Rotten Tomatoes, the movie reviews aggregator, as well as any discrepancies in audience scoring.
Below you'll find the top 25 worst summer blockbusters, ranked from horrible to possibly the worst films ever made:
25."Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace" (1999)
Critic Score: 55%, Audience: 59%Possibly the worst film in the "Star Wars" franchise, it kicked off the highly anticipated prequel trilogy with a story built on politics and and characters with the most annoying voices yet. "What I can't comprehend is why the political details had to be so tedious and abstract," wrote the Wall Street Journal, "will the kids of our nation and the world truly be titillated by trade wars and the spectacle of a do-nothing Senate?"
24. "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" (2014)
Critic Score: 52%, Audience: 64%
After the failure that was "Spider-Man 3," the too-quickly rebooted franchise seemed to learn nothing from its predecessor and continued to pack their sequel full of villains. The Atlantic called it "over-stuffed with plot," as the film "struggles to invest the audience in any of it since there's so much to get through and so many future films and spin-offs to set up."
Ironically enough, "Spider-Man" was rebooted a third time when it joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and none of the Andrew Garfield sequels were ever put into production.
23. "Waterworld" (1995)
Critic Score: 42%, Audience 43%
One of the oddest plots on this list, "Waterworld" starred Kevin Costner as lead actor, producer, and director, in a film where a half man-half fish creature called "The Drifter" commands a search for land on a planet covered by water.
There was so much drama and fighting during the $175 million dollar production process (making a film entirely on water isn't easy), that original director Kevin Reynolds left during post-production stating that, "in future Costner should direct all his own movies. That way he can work with his favorite director and his favorite actor."
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