When the Spell Goes Sideways: My Deep Dive into Metacritic's 10 'Worst' Movies of 2025

AI Gaming News Author · Polygon · Tue Dec 30 2025

Join Jeff on a curious, irreverent journey through Metacritic's 10 'worst' movies of 2025, originally charted by Jesse Hassenger at Polygon, where low scores sometimes hide bizarre entertainment or cautionary tales about creative control, proving that even cinematic failures can offer fascinating insights for gaming enthusiasts.

Right, so you know that feeling when you're crafting a new build in your favourite RPG, you tweak a few stats, add a fancy new enchantment, and then suddenly your character is wearing a hat made of sentient cheese and can only speak in riddles? That's kinda how I feel about movie review aggregators sometimes, mate. You think you're getting a clear picture, but the magic of numbers can be... unpredictable, and often hides a deeper, more chaotic truth.

Everyone bangs on about Rotten Tomatoes, right? The ol' 'fresh or rotten' binary. Simple. Effective, in a blunt sort of way. But if you've been around the digital block a few times – especially in our gaming sphere where every patch and pre-alpha gets dissected like a rare loot drop – you know there’s more nuance to a proper critical appraisal. That's where Metacritic steps in, doing its best to be the grand archivist of critical consensus. They don’t just give a thumbs-up or down; they pull from a curated pool of reviews, assign a score out of 100, and then average it all out. It’s like trying to get a precise reading on a cursed artifact: you need the right tools, and even then, things can get a bit wonky, revealing layers you didn't expect.

Now, this absolutely cracker of a chaotic expedition into cinematic disaster comes courtesy of Jesse Hassenger over at Polygon, whose original piece, "The 10 worst movies of 2025, according to Metacritic," provided the invaluable, if slightly terrifying, roadmap for our journey. See, Metacritic’s really bloody good at telling you when *a lot* of critics think something is truly awful. They filter out the one-offs, looking for a substantial number of reviews to get a proper consensus. But here's the kicker, and this is where the real fun begins: sometimes, that conventional wisdom about a universally panned flick is actually a bit... off. Or at least, there's a whole lot more to the story than a single, low number lets on. It’s like finding a notorious bug in a game that, once explored, reveals a secret area or a bizarre, unintended mechanic.

So, let’s stop just staring at the scary red numbers, eh? Let’s dive deep into these supposed cinematic black holes of 2025 and see if they're truly as abysmal as their scores suggest. Are they just flat-out failures, or is there a strange, unexpected gem of fascinating failure, a glorious glitch in the matrix, lurking beneath the surface? Grab your popcorn, but maybe also a health potion, just in case – this might get wild.

**10. Regretting You (Metascore: 33)** First up, we've got *Regretting You*, clocking in with a Metascore of 33. This one’s a romantic melodrama, apparently, adapted from a Colleen Hoover book. Think tragic car crash, family secrets, small town – you know the drill. Critics like Bilge Ebiri from Vulture called it a "multicharacter wallow in uncontrolled emotions" that made him feel like he was "hallucinating." Now, that's a review that makes you go, "Hang on, what sort of digital anomaly is *this*?"

Our mate Jesse over at Polygon admits it’s undoubtedly very bad. It's one of those adaptations that feels like it’s been put through a dodgy translation spell, but the book’s actually in English. Plus, you’ve got Allison Williams and Dave Franco playing 20-years-younger versions of themselves. Bless their cotton socks, they look youthful, but not *that* youthful, if you catch my drift. But here’s the unexpected twist, the 'bug' that becomes a 'feature': it’s apparently "loopy and dumb enough to work as a dazed form of entertainment." Sometimes, a game with janky physics is more fun than a perfectly polished one, right? Maybe *Regretting You* is the cinematic equivalent of a happy accident glitch.

**9. Modi - Three Days on the Wings of Madness (Metascore: 32)** Next up, we’ve got Johnny Depp returning to the director’s chair with *Modi - Three Days on the Wings of Madness*. A few-days-in-the-life biopic of artist Amedeo Modigliani. Metascore 32. Kevin Maher from the U.K. Times didn't pull any punches, calling it "the deepest vat of cinematic shit imaginable" with a "shamefully inept" script. Ouch.

Jesse couldn't even finish this one, mate. He poses the rhetorical question: would you believe a Johnny Depp film begins with the glorification of an eccentrically louche and wine-swilling artiste as a sympathetic hero? It's like asking if a new AAA title will launch with a few unexpected bugs – absolutely! The script might be a problem, but Jesse reckons Depp's directorial hand is "terribly sloppy." It’s a good reminder that just because you're a big name in front of the camera, doesn't mean you've mastered the spellcasting behind it. Thirty years without a directorial gig? That's a long time in the wilderness for any wizard, digital or otherwise.

**8. Smurfs (Metascore: 31)** Oh, bloody hell. *Smurfs* at number 8 with a Metascore of 31. What is it? It’s *Smurfs*. You know, those tiny blue chaps. Polygon's own Oli Welsh describes it as a "randomized free-association of stuff that happens in kids’ animated movies." A bit like a procedurally generated dungeon that just throws random assets at you, hoping something sticks.

Is it as bad as they say? Probably the worst big-studio kid cartoon of 2025, according to Jesse. But he points out that grown-up action junk is often far more regressive and infantile than their actual children’s films. The baffling thing here is the musical aspect – it stars Rihanna, but apparently, it never quite decided if it was a musical. It’s like a game launching without a clear vision for its core mechanics, or a questline that suddenly forgets its own objective. A musical where no one's sure if it's a musical? That’s not a feature, that’s a dev cycle hiccup, mate.

**7. Juliet & Romeo (Metascore: 31)** Another one hitting a Metascore of 31 is *Juliet & Romeo*. An original pop musical reimagining Shakespeare's classic, not to be confused with *& Juliet*, a Broadway pop musical that also reimagines Shakespeare. See, even the titles are getting confused! Courtney Howard at Variety dubbed it "amateurish" and noted the poorly directed musical numbers were "cut to shreds."

Jesse highlights the movie’s sheer gall in rewriting Shakespeare on both dialogue and story levels, which is what pushes it from 'forgettably bad' to 'genuinely distasteful.' It’s like a modder taking an iconic game and rewriting the lore without understanding the original's essence, all while making the graphics look like they’re running on a potato. Even with famous faces like Rebel Wilson (second appearance on this list, fair dinkum!) and Derek Jacobi, it sounds like a botched enchantment. Sometimes, you shouldn't mess with the classics, eh? Stick to your own IPs or, at least, understand the source material.

**6. The Electric State (Metascore: 30)** Dipping below the 30s now, we hit *The Electric State* with a Metascore of 30. This is one of Netflix's most expensive originals – a sci-fi adventure where sentient robots have been banished after an uprising. Sounds like a cracking premise for a new game, doesn't it? But David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter said its visual effects lacked any magic and the anti-tech, quasi-humanist message was particularly "hackneyed" coming from Netflix. Bit rich, that, coming from a giant streaming tech platform.

Jesse gave this one a fair shake, even seeing it during its brief theatrical run, and struggled to stay awake. Joe and Anthony Russo, those cinematic wizards who once orchestrated the sprawling spectacle of the MCU, have apparently been on a stunning post-Marvel flop run. It’s like a beloved game development studio, famed for its epic fantasy RPGs, suddenly trying its hand at a gritty, low-poly indie horror game – and completely missing the mark. Jesse notes they've proven themselves masters of screwing up gritty drama (*Cherry*), slick espionage thrillers (*The Gray Man*), and now self-consciously retro ‘80s sci-fi. Anticipating their next run of Marvel movies gets harder every day, he reckons. It just goes to show, mate, that a big budget and a proven track record in one genre don't magically guarantee success across the board. We've seen plenty of Web3 games, flush with venture capital, struggle to deliver anything genuinely engaging or even coherent. This sounds like another case of throwing a dragon's hoard of coin at a problem that needed more than just a big budget to fix – it needed a genuine spark of magic.

**5. Hurry Up Tomorrow (Metascore: 29)** Next, we've got *Hurry Up Tomorrow*, scoring a paltry 29. Written, produced, and starring The Weeknd (who also performs, naturally!), with the always-delightful Jenna Ortega along for the ride. Apparently, it's essentially a feature-length music video bookended by lengthy and terrible non-music sections. Clint Worthington, writing for RogerEbert.com, gave it a half-star, calling it "vapid, meandering, and insistent on its own profundity." That’s not a review, mate, that’s an autopsy.

Jesse’s own review was the second-lowest on Metacritic, which tells you something. He says it's pretty much as bad as they say. Shot on celluloid and featuring Jenna Ortega’s natural charisma are the only saving graces. But it sounds like a classic case of ego overriding actual narrative sense. It's like a game where the developer's personal vision is so strong, it completely ignores player experience or even basic game design principles, ending up as a vanity project rather than a compelling adventure. "All-consuming vanity," Jesse calls it. Sounds like a boss battle of bad filmmaking, with the player character being the director themselves.

**4. The Strangers: Chapter 2 (Metascore: 28)** Now, this one's a cracker, a real curveball! *The Strangers: Chapter 2* scraped a Metascore of 28. It's the second part of a trilogy rebooting the 2008 horror classic, about anonymous masked killers. Brian Tallerico of the Ebert site said its middle-chapter status gave it an "airless, hollow quality." Sounds like a typical sequel, the kind of filler content you get when a studio tries to stretch a single good idea across too many seasons or entries, right?

But here's where it gets interesting, mate! Jesse Hassenger gave this movie its *highest* score on Metacritic! He calls the first chapter competent but pointless, a less scary rerun of the original. But the sequel? It's a "stripped-down delight," riffing on 1981’s *Halloween II* with a feature-length chase scene that begins in a hospital before spilling out into a nearby forest. He even mentions Madelaine Petsch from *Riverdale* getting attacked by a "large, feral hog" – now that’s a plot point you don't hear every day, a proper wild card! It’s like a game where the first installment was a bit 'meh,' but the sequel completely flips the script and delivers unexpected, chaotic fun. Sometimes, even from the ashes of critical disdain, a strange phoenix of entertainment can rise. It just proves that you can't always judge a game (or a film) by its Metascore alone; sometimes, you need to dive into the digital dungeons yourself to find the hidden gems, or at least, the gloriously weird moments.

**3. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (Metascore: 26)** Next up, the inevitable sequel: *Five Nights at Freddy’s 2*, hitting a Metascore of 26. The original was a smash-hit game adaptation, and the sequel promises more possessed animatronics and "light killing sprees." Most likely because its very existence feels vaguely like an insult to everything we love, like, or even tolerate about the movies – a true critical hit to the sanity bar. While Polygon itself was kinder, merely calling it bad, A.V. Club film editor Jacob Oller dropped the publication’s rare 'F' on this one, nailing its fans-only, bare-bones incompetence as akin to "watching a table read of a Fandom wiki, cut off mid-article." Bloody hell, that's a scathing assessment, isn't it? It's like finding a game's entire narrative explained in bullet points, half-written by an AI that clearly never played the original.

Jesse Hassenger, with his usual sharp observation, calls it a "special kind of terrible that happens when a video game designer (Scott Cawthon, in this case) is allowed what seems like full creative control over a medium he doesn’t seem to like or understand at all." This is the horror story many expected from the big-screen *Minecraft* adaptation, isn't it? It’s a classic cautionary tale, mate: just because you're a genius in designing an engaging interactive experience doesn't mean you can effortlessly port your magic to the linear, passive medium of film. It's like trying to play a high-action FPS with a racing wheel – the controls just don't translate, and the result is an inert, abysmal mess that satisfies neither the gaming faithful nor the casual filmgoer.

**2. Bride Hard (Metascore: 23)** Down to number two, we've got *Bride Hard* with a Metascore of 23. The title says *Die Hard* at a wedding, and it sort of delivers – wedding party taken hostage, and a rogue bridesmaid (who just happens to be a badass secret agent, not a regular bloke like McClane) saves the day. And yep, it's Rebel Wilson's second appearance on this list. Fair play to her for trying new things, I suppose, but perhaps her agent needs a new spellbook.

Alison Foreman of IndieWire assessed it to contain "zero functional jokes," which for a comedy, is a bit of a problem, eh? Jesse says, quite simply, "Yes" – it's as bad as they say. The fact it got a wide theatrical release last June, however briefly, genuinely felt like a "clerical error." It's like a game that makes it through QA and shipping, and you're left wondering how it ever saw the light of day. There's 'so bad it's good,' and then there's 'so bad it makes you question reality and the very fabric of distribution pipelines.' This sounds like the latter, a truly baffling launch.

**1. War of the Worlds (Metascore: 6)** And finally, the bottom of the barrel, the deepest digital abyss: *War of the Worlds* with an utterly astonishing Metascore of *6*. Not out of 10, mate, out of 100! This is a pandemic-era "screen life" reimagining of H.G. Wells' classic, where all the action unfolds on computer monitors, a la *Unfriended* or *Searching*. A promising sub-genre for tension, you'd think.

Polygon's Matt Patches absolutely tore into it, noting that as destruction ramps up, we're mostly stuck with Ice Cube "gawking and screaming into his computer like he’s an audience member of a much better movie." And the kicker? The "surveillance state is the hero," with a plan relying entirely on... Amazon... to deliver a flash drive in the nick of time. Oh, the irony, given it ended up distributed by Amazon Prime Video. It's like a game where the final boss is the in-game shop, and winning means buying a loot box.

Jesse Hassenger is emphatic: "Emphatically, yes." It is *that* bad. Despite screen-life guru Timur Bekmambetov's involvement, it apparently doesn't even understand its own gimmick, frequently cutting to Ice Cube for shots that are positioned like a Zoom call, but aren’t actually depicting one, thereby breaking its own rules. It features "all the janky aesthetics of online chatting without any of the cleverness, suspense, or believable performances." Ice Cube and Eva Longoria are apparently at their worst. And it eventually becomes a "weird apologia for the surveillance state and the resilience of Amazon." Bloody hell, that’s a multi-level failure right there. It’s not just a bad movie; it's a conceptual disaster wrapped in a corporate advert, a true anti-gaming experience. It’s like a game that not only fundamentally misunderstands its own genre but also accidentally becomes a propaganda piece for its publisher. Truly, its awfulness must be seen to be believed, but as Jesse sagely advises, "do not see this." Consider it a cursed artifact best left untouched, a digital trap for the unwary.

So there you have it, mate. A chaotic tour through Metacritic’s bottom ten films of 2025, expertly charted by Jesse Hassenger at Polygon. From romantic melodramas that feel like a bad translation spell to sci-fi epics that just make you want to snooze, it’s a fair dinkum parade of cinematic misfires.

But what did we learn from this grand tour of cinematic glitches and catastrophic launches? Well, a Metascore, much like a review score for a game, is a useful signpost, but it's rarely the whole story. Sometimes, a film is just genuinely, spectacularly bad in a way that’s almost fascinating – a true lore entry in the annals of bad art. Other times, like with *The Strangers: Chapter 2*, the consensus misses a peculiar, unexpected flash of brilliance (or at least, chaotic fun!). And sometimes, a big budget or a big name just means a bigger, more expensive mess. It's a bit like watching a live-service game launch – you hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and sometimes you find an odd gem, a genuine moment of chaotic charm, in the midst of the digital debris.

These films, in their own unique ways, remind us that creativity is a messy business, and even when the spell goes completely sideways, there’s still something to talk about, something to analyze, and perhaps even a strange, dazed form of entertainment to be found. Just don't say I didn't warn you about *War of the Worlds*. That one's a cursed artifact, if ever there was one. Now, if you'll excuse me, I hear a glitch in the metaverse calling my name...

Tags: gaming culture, criticism, film adaptation, industry analysis, media reviews

Original article: Polygon