The guys at RiffTrax specialize in terrible movies. So when they compile a list of the 10 worst movies of any given year, it makes sense for us to pay attention.
The editors of the site RiffTrax.com isolated this year’s top offenders, and they included several expected duds. Michael Bay takes a bit of a beating. Nic Cage continues to be the butt of the joke. And there’s at least one high-profile superhero movie on this list. Can you guess which one?
Here, then, are the 10 Worst Movies of 2014, according to the people who get paid to heckle bad movies all year long.
10. 300: Rise of an Empire
Box Office: $106.6M
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 42%
What RiffTrax Said: Finally, a 300 prequel to answer the question: what happened to all the shirts? Favorite scene: when all the guys start chanting "THIS IS SPARTA!!...WELL IT ISN’T QUITE SPARTA YET, BUT IT’S WELL ON ITS WAY TO BECOMING SPARTA, LOOK WE’RE DOING OUR BEST, OKAY?"
What We Said: "All in all, 300: Rise of an Empire is just not strong enough to stand up to 300."
9. Noah
Box Office: $101.2M
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 77%
What RiffTrax Said: How do you zazz up the most cataclysmic story in the Bible? Easy! Add fallen angels who become battlin’ rock monsters! It’s a knock-down drag out stone-fisted Genesis Retcon, and this time it’s heretical. Starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Green Alligators, Long-Neck Geese, Humpty-back Camels and some Chimpanzees.
What We Said: "This is not your father’s version of the Noah tale -- and certainly not the Holy Father’s version. That’s the reason why I appreciate Noah as much as I do."
8. Sex Tape
Box Office: $38.5M
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 18%
What RiffTrax Said: An adorable suburban couple try to revive their romance by making a video of themselves having sex, because that always works. They manage to shoot eleven different angles of themselves from a single iPad. But oh no, their sex video got up on the cloud and now they can’t get it down! What are they gonna do?! Surprisingly little happens. Features eleven thousand Apple products and a dog getting injured.
What We Said: "What the film can’t overcome, however, is a broken approach to its own plot that, at the end, comes across as small, uneven, and, at times, lazy."
7. Ouija
Box Office: $50.8M
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 7%
What RiffTrax Said: According to Rotten Tomatoes, Ouija was "definitely a movie" that "came out in theaters" and "not just something you guys made up to mess with us." Hey, why not take a minor prop used in dozens of B movies and make that prop the whole movie? Only the spirits know the answer.
What We Said: "A satisfyingly scary movie could be made from a Ouija board's inspiration. But this one isn't it."
6. The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Box Office: $202.9M
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 53%
What RiffTrax Said: A thrilling summer popcorn flick that critics have described as "performing satisfactorily in overseas markets" and "providing an adequate return on investment firms’ money." This year, the catchphrase on everyone’s lips was "Huh...Guess they made another one..." when they saw that boxes of Frosted Flakes came with a free Spider-Man yo-yo.
What We Said: "Had a great deal of promise and certainly shows an awareness of its own genre’s growth, [but] it ultimately doesn’t live up to that expectation."
5. Left Behind
Box Office: $14M
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 2%
What RiffTrax Said: Unjustly derided by critics upon its release, Left Behind is one of the all time greatest films that people did not watch but still rated one star on IMDB, asked us to riff, then promptly forgot about. Nicolas Cage reprises his role as Jack Left for the third movie in the trilogy after the equally derided Left Ahead and Left In The Middle. Chad Michael Murray co-stars as "No, I wasn’t the third son on Home Improvement. Yes, I’m sure."
What We Said: We didn’t send a critic to Left Behind, because we aren’t that mean.
4. A Million Ways To Die In The West
Box Office: $42.6M
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 33%
What RiffTrax Said: Seth MacFarlane’s relentless juggernaut of pop culture dominance is delayed oh-so-briefly by a movie that pretty much died, in the West and elsewhere. A Millions Ways to Die in the West II: The Quickening will NOT make the mistake of omitting a drunken, lecherous teddy bear. For a li’l change of pace, Liam Neeson plays a guy who is good with guns.
What We Said: "Perhaps the only thing worse than featuring bad jokes in a comedy, however, is completely forgetting to actually make the audience laugh – and this is a sin A Million Ways To Die In The West is surprisingly guilty of."
3. Dumb and Dumber To
Box Office: $83.7M
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 28%
What RiffTrax Said: The pompous speech-giving anchorman from HBO’s The Newsroom falls back into the dimensional portal he escaped through years ago, and is sucked back into his former parallel-universe life: Jim Carrey’s low-IQ sidekick with constant explosive diarrhea. They wear wigs, too!
What We Said: "Too much time is left dedicated to both bad jokes and funny jokes that are allowed to overstay their welcome and ultimately implode."
2. Transformers: Age of Extinction
Box Office: $245.4M
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 18%
What RiffTrax Said: If you’d like the experience of seeing this movie but prefer not to give any portion of your income to Michael Bay, just have a screaming lunatic beat you into unconsciousness with small engine parts.
What We Said: "The fourth entry in this franchise is bloated with plotlines, characters, and action sequences that push its running time to 165 minutes of nonsensical madness."
1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Box Office: $191.2M
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 22%
What RiffTrax Said: Finally, advances in CGI technology and film wizardry are able to create a Megan Fox so lifelike you’d swear she was actually human.
What We Said: "So catastrophically awful in both story and presentation that it practically exists as an insult to anyone who would be considered as a fan of its cherished franchise."
