When an action movie really works, there's nothing quite like it. On the occasion a gifted filmmaker presents us with characters we care about on top of high-octane, technically adroit filmmaking and stunt work, it's armrest-gripping, heart-pounding stuff in the extreme. There are such superb examples of the filmmaking craft: Mad Max: Fury Road, Aliens, Speed and even this year's mega-hit John Wick: Chapter Four come to mind as among the finest action films ever made.
Then there are plenty of so-so shoot'em-ups out there, too, that are totally acceptable or even endearing, "dad movies" that are inoffensive and predictable like The Expendables franchise and other middling fare that seeks to entertain, not break ground, in the same vein as formulaic, comforting chick flicks. As with any genre, there are also some thunderously awful action pictures that fail on every level. According to critics on the Tomatometer, these are the most lamentable and fruitless attempts to raise the pulse in movie history.
10 'Rollerball' (2002)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 3%
John McTiernan is a name you'll see on virtually every list of the best action movies of all time, as he's helmed some of the finest action pictures in history. Surely you've heard of The Hunt for Red October, Predator... Die Hard?!
It's disheartening, but true: the director of many a genre masterclass helmed this chaotic, anemic wannabe blend of sports film, sci-fi, and action. Rollerball is based on a superior, still flawed 1970s film about a dangerous sport in a future where corporations run everything. The original at least had some ideas, though they were half-baked. The remake is a vapid nuisance.
9 'Alone in the Dark' (2005)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 1%
In the infamous adaptation of the video game (it's hard to remember in the shadow of the movie, but the game was damn good), Uwe Boll attempts to weave action and horror. The result is neither exciting nor scary. The only real way to spin this movie as having any value is that it's a great cautionary tale for aspiring filmmakers. As in, don't make any of these choices.
Alone in the Dark stars Christian Slater (the talented actor who's been good elsewhere but looks like he's sleepwalking through this) as a paranormal investigator who takes on demons. Tara Reid plays an archaeologist. Somehow, a direct-to-video sequel happened (though it had a different cast).
8 'Simon Sez' (1999)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 0%
Despite the critical and box-office failure of his Razzie-winning 1997 action picture Double Team alongside Jean-Claude Van Damme and Mickey Rourke, Dennis Rodman returned to the big screen as a would-be action hero in another stinker, about an Interpol agent who must defeat an arms dealer and rescue a kidnap victim in the French Riviera.
Featuring the big-screen debut of Dane Cook, Simon Sez is ostensibly an action comedy, though the only really mirthful laughs you'll find here are unintentional. Simon Sez grossed just over $250,000 against a $10 million budget. Yikes.
7 'Precious Cargo' (2016)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 0%
It's important to mention that Bruce Willis' status as an action icon, and one of the most beloved movie stars of a generation, is written in stone. No movie is bad enough to change that, not even the awful, [mostly] direct-to-video Precious Cargo.
A technical shambles whose $10.5-million reported budget was surely mostly above-the-line, Precious Cargo stars Willis as a murderous crime boss who flexes his influence over rival gangs. A box-office disaster relative even to its modest budget, Precious Cargo is now streaming for free across various digital platforms.
6 'Max Steel' (2016)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 0%
According to critics on the Tomatometer, this adaptation of Mattel's toy line is the worst superhero movie of all time—in a reality where Catwoman and Supergirl exist. Mario Bello does what she can in a side role, but Max Steel is chaotic and unsure of its self from start to finish.
Max Steel is so bad it makes Batman and Robin look like a filmmaking course. Suddenly, bat-nipples seem like such a negligible offense.
5 'Highlander 2: The Quickening' (1991)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 0%
Sean Connery, Christopher Lambert, Virginia Madsen and Michael Ironside are all wasted in an incomprehensible follow-up to the successful swordplay-heavy adult fantasy Highlander. Pretty much nothing in the sequel measures up to making any kind of sense.
Roger Ebert famously named Highlander 2: The Quickening the worst movie of its year, noting its historically dumb title. There can only be one... worst movie of 1991.
4 'Redline' (2007)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 0%
If you like car chases and races on film to be comprehensible, you'll take issue with this top-to-bottom disaster about a beautiful aspiring pop star who also races cars illegally and then gets kidnapped. Redline's most enduring legacy is in journalistic mentions as a prime example of excesses of the pre-crash loan market of the mid-aughts. The mishandling of money (so many crashed cars amounted to zero on-screen excitement) by producer Daniel Sadek is so calamitous it's worth studying. The producer filed for bankruptcy in 2009.
Redline has also garnered a reputation as quite possibly the worst car movie ever. This is the French Connection of inadequate. It makes even the goofiest Fast and Furious movie look like Seven Samurai. To add insult to injury, co-star Eddie Griffin wrecked and totaled a $1.5 million Ferrari Enzo in a promotional stunt gone wrong at a 2007 charity race.
3 'Stratton' (2017)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 0%
Dominic Cooper covers for Henry Cavill (who exited five days prior to shooting due to "creative differences") in a British action thriller about an MI6 agent whose team is at war with a madman with chemical weapons. It's easy to see why the original star had "creative differences," as pretty much nothing in Stratton works.
Stratton received a beat down across the board from critics, who were stunned that even Connie Nielsen (who's always reliably brilliant in everything from Wonder Woman to Gladiator) delivered a questionable performance in an unnatural accent. When a good actor doesn't deliver, the fault lies with the enterprise.
2 'The Last Days of American Crime' (2020)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 0%
Michael Pitt and Édgar Ramírez star inTaken 2 and Taken 3 helmer Olivier Megaton's adaptation of a crime story from a graphic novel. It's almost three hours long, and yet it's remarkably low on substance.
The Last Days of American Crime is little more than screaming, shooting, then more screaming and shooting. For three hours. It's a grueling watch, and one of Netflix's worst-reviewed releases ever. Best of luck finding any defenders of it.
1 'Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever' (2002)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 0%
Spy movies can be a lot of fun in capable hands. Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is a remarkably incompetent movie, though. Lucy Liu and Antonio Banderas play opposing spies who must join forces; they're given nothing to work with.
According to critics on the Tomatometer, this is the worst movie, from any genre, ever made. Is it worthy of that? It's a meritless film, so perhaps it's at least not unworthy of the distinction.