Every 2023 Movie To Earn A 0% Rating On Rotten Tomatoes
Is it all that bad for a movie to earn a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes? In a way, the designation can be seen as a badge of honor: the film in question is part of an elite club, one composed entirely of features that have earned a reputation and even a following of sorts. Not a good reputation or a supportive following, to be sure, but thousands of high-quality, critically acclaimed movies slip past viewers' radar each year without any sort of broad notice. Those handful of 0% titles, however, remain in focus forever, their designation preserving them as negative classics, prompting some curious viewers to check them out to find out how bad they are.
Among the films currently at the bottom of the green splat roster on Rotten Tomatoes are such notorious failures as "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever," "The Ridiculous 6," and most recently, the animated movie "The Queen's Corgi" and the Bruce Willis-starring "Hard Kill." Each year, new movies join their ranks, and 2023 is no exception. Join us as we dive into the 2023 movies that earned a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Black Noise
Sheer terror meets stark hilarity in "Black Noise," a derivative action, sci-fi, and horror hybrid about commandos battling an invisible menace that uses sound to incapacitate its opponents. Despite its 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes – from both audiences and critics — there's an interesting premise at work in "Black Noise." The film's trio of writers (which includes director Philippe Martinez) shrewdly refer to Havana Syndrome, a real-life incident in which U.S. government personnel in Cuba were injured by what appeared to be sonic weapons. That's about as inspired as "Black Noise" gets, and the rest of the running time is devoted to poorly orchestrated shoot-outs and the cast acting out variations on "scared silly."
Said cast includes Alex Pettyfer ("Magic Mike") and Jackson Rathbone ("The Twilight Saga"), who do what they can with tough-guy characters who would fit right in with the special-ops yahoos on the Netflix TV series, "Obliterated." The enemy they're fighting is ill-defined and rendered in sub-par CGI, which reduces any attempts at suspense or thrills. What's left is endless scenes of the actors running around and freaking out over the eponymous noise, and this gets repetitive after a while. In short, "Black Noise" is the umpteenth take on "Predator," but without any of the elements that earned that film its enduring franchise.
Confidential Informant
Mel Gibson's slow march back to a screen career after torpedoing it in the mid-2000s has resulted in a smattering of solid titles — "Get the Gringo" and "Dragged Across Concrete" being among them — and a wealth of forgettable genre movies currently loitering in the lower reaches of most streaming services. Among these is "Confidential Informant," a dull police thriller that wastes a premise full of grit and a cast that could have delivered it, including Kate Bosworth and Dominic Purcell alongside Gibson.
Unfortunately, director Michael Oblowitz – a former avant-garde filmmaker who toils largely in B-pictures like this one — invests none of the energy required to hold audience interest, which largely accounts for its 0% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes. He takes what might have been a watchable neo-noir, with Purcell as the terminally ill cop, Tom Moran, who crafts a scheme to die in the line of duty and generate a huge insurance payoff for his wife, Anna (Bosworth), but dwells endlessly on Moran and partner Detective Michael Thornton (Nick Stahl) in brooding overdrive while Anna wrings her hands helplessly. Say what you will about Gibson, but he brings a degree of intensity to any production — and that is the case with his role in "Confidential Informant" as Lieutenant Kevin Hickey – but Oblowitz decides that the best use for his top-billed player is to sit him behind a desk for the majority of the film.
Dead Man's Hand
If the natural by-product of Taylor Sheridan's "Yellowstone" TV franchise and big-screen Westerns like "Django Unchained" is a gunfighter story as poorly made as "Dead Man's Hand," we'll gladly allow the Western to fade back into obscurity. The low-budget actioner, currently riding the 0% trail on Rotten Tomatoes, actually features a "Yellowstone" actor in its cast, with Cole Hauser as a U.S. Marshall assigned to stop Stephen Dorff's ex-Confederate colonel turned bad guy, Mayor Clarence Bishop
Both Hauser and Dorff are secondary elements of "Dead Man's Hand." The majority of the action belongs to Jack Kilmer — the son of Val Kilmer — as gunfighter and card sharp, Reno, who runs afoul of Clarence Bishop. Jack Kilmer has a bit of his father's roguish charm but still seems adrift as a deadly pistoleer. The real problem with "Dead Man's Hand," however, is the amateurish quality of the production. Director Brian Skiba has little to no idea how to frame, pace, or light an action film, and the dialogue is risible. Taylor Sheridan and Quentin Tarantino have nothing to worry about from "Dead Man's Hand." The only harm the film can do is to the viewers unfortunate enough to watch it.
The Donor Party
A movie featuring a likable and talented cast of comic performers like Malin Akerman, Rob Corddry, and Ryan Hansen sounds like a good thing, doesn't it? Unfortunately, the movie in question here is "The Donor Party," a frantic and unfunny mess that puts its roster of actors — which also includes the likes of Erinn Hayes, Jerry O'Connell, and Cedric Yarbrough — through a gauntlet of logic-free scenarios that wouldn't fly on the lamest sitcom. "The Donor Party" is desperate for laughs yet can't generate a single one, which helped earn its 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
At the heart of "The Donor Party" is Akerman's character, Jaclyn, who is desperate to become a mother but lacks a male partner to make it happen — with it worth noting that a number of excuses are given for why alternate methods like adoption aren't employed. Her solution is to round up a trio of potential candidates at a party for her friend, Geoff (Corddry), and let nature take its course. This does not go according to plan, which leads to more mugging and immature behavior more befitting of hyperactive children than adults. A clever and thoughtful film might find the humor in the challenges women (and especially single women) face in becoming mothers, but "The Donor Party" isn't that movie, and as such it falls completely flat.
Johnny & Clyde
If you try to avoid egomaniacs in real life, you're probably going to avoid a movie populated by such types. That is, unfortunately, what you get in "Johnny & Clyde," a painfully "cool" fantasy-thriller that desperately wants viewers to label it as a cult film. Whether that will eventually happen remains to be seen, but what those who did bother to see Tom DeNucci's film did pin on "Johnny & Clyde" was a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Avan Jogia ("Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City") and "Skate Kitchen" star Ajani Russell are the titular duo, a pair of serial killers and thieves in love with each other and their outlaw reputations — much like the Bonnie and Clyde that this film is so keen to deride. This duo's latest target is Alana Heart (Megan Fox), a casino owner with an apparent allergy to clothes and a crew of demons on her payroll. Sensing that they need bigger guns to bring her down, Johnny and Clyde hire three equally unhinged (and ridiculous) criminals to back them up. And maybe make her put on a shirt.
It's possible that "The Suicide Squad" convinced DeNucci and co-writer Nick Principe that happy homicidal maniacs have the key to an audience's heart. What they didn't realize is that obnoxious behavior alone does not a successful movie make. It also needs a cohesive script, tolerable characters, and decent special effects. However, none of those are evident in "Johnny & Clyde," and the 0% is richly deserved.
Mercy
"Competent but unremarkable" is the best way to describe the action-thriller "Mercy," but please don't mistake that for a compliment. Competent but unremarkable are the words you use to describe the sandwich you make with the last piece of cheese and the heels of the bread because they're the only things left in your fridge. Quite simply put, it'll do. That's not how you should describe what is supposed to be a taunt crime film that pits an ex-military doctor (Leah Gibson) against Irish mobsters played by Jon Voight and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. But the shoe fits, as the 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes illustrates.
The competent part of "Mercy" is Gibson as the resourceful doctor, who also has to keep her son alive during the gangsters' assault on her hospital. The unremarkable part is, unfortunately, the rest of the picture: The action scenes are simplistic, the performances range from over-the-top (Rhys Meyers and Voight) to middling (everyone else), and the dialogue is perfunctory. Like that cheese sandwich, "Mercy" passes the time in an inoffensive way, but don't expect to come away satisfied.
Righteous Thieves
Put together a charismatic cast in a caper film, load the script with smart, funny dialogue, add a priceless object and no possible way to attain it, and what do you have? Well, if you're Steven Soderbergh, you get an enduring and popular franchise from "Ocean's 11." But if you're the makers of "Righteous Thieves," you get a project with none of the wit, charm, and suspense of the "Ocean's" films, but a firm belief that adding attractive actors to a heist story will yield 100% success. In reality, the sum of "Thieves" is zero, which is also its current score on Rotten Tomatoes.
The team in "Righteous Thieves" are a smarmy, high-gloss bunch that, while looking great, are totally unconvincing as strategic masterminds or anything other than the waitstaff at a high-end restaurant (call them Vanderpump's 5). Their target is a quartet of paintings looted by the Nazis (hence the "righteous" part of their moniker) and held by a cartoonish bad guy, played by Brian Cousins, with designs on creating his own version of a new Reich. The heist itself comes together with minimal planning and appears to require none of the team's alleged special skills. No suspense, no laughs, no stylish direction — no thanks.
Shrapnel
Once upon a time, Jason Patric was an in-demand and bankable leading man and a magnetic presence in major Hollywood releases like "The Lost Boys" and "Rush" and indies like "After Dark, My Sweet." Somewhere along the line, Patric fell out of favor with studios and audiences and now seems to work solely in direct-to-video or streaming titles, all of which gain a degree of dramatic grit from his presence. But even those qualities can't save some of his recent projects, as "Shrapnel" illustrates.
The 2023 film, directed by low-budget warhorse William Kaufman, earned a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes thanks mostly to its forgettable plot. Patric and another faded star, Cam Gigandet (in his second 0% rated film of 2023), play former soldiers who team up once again to fight the drug cartel that kidnapped Patric's daughter. The action that follows is rote bang-bang material that hinges on all the usual tropes: Do-nothing law enforcement and government figures, sneering villains, and heroes whose primary mode of expression is pulling a trigger. You've seen this movie done better before, and unfortunately, Patric probably starred in it.
Through My Window: Across the Sea
It's a rare feat for a movie to achieve a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but rarer still for two movies in a series to both reach the bottom of the barrel on the site. But such is the case for the 2023 Spanish film "Through My Window: Across the Sea," which attained some kind of negative fame by repeating the 0% Tomatometer score achieved by its 2022 predecessor, "Through My Window." It's not surprising, since the "not-rom-com" (to borrow Movie Nation's description) simply extends the barely existent plot of the first film and adds a few more picturesque locations.
Oh, and "Across the Sea" also continues the chief selling point of the first movie: Lots and lots of sex. Most critics noted that "Across the Sea" is simply a retread of the hormonally supercharged adventures of its impossibly attractive main characters — Raquel (Clara Galle) and Ares (Julio Peña) — and their equally appealing (and equally horny) friends. Since that approach generated a big goose egg for "Through My Window" on Rotten Tomatoes, it stands to reason that the follow-up would do similar business. The real question is: Will the upcoming third film, "Looking At You" — tentatively scheduled to be released in 2024, unless the filmmakers make the entirely understandable decision to cut their losses — deliver a 0% three-peat?
My Fault
Did the producers of "My Fault" watch "Through My Window: Across the Sea" and ask themselves, "Can we make a movie that's exactly like this, only with kids that are even more privileged and sexually frustrated? And maybe add an extra layer of ick to the story?" If such a conversation took place, consider "My Fault" a rousing success in every way except on the Tomatometer, where it currently holds a 0% critical rating. Like "Through My Window," "My Fault" hails from Spain, draws upon a Wattpad story for its source material, and features two absurdly perfect-looking stars (Nicole Wallace and Gabriel Guevara) locked in what can only be described as carnal combat.
"My Fault" adds a few wrinkles to the formula, although all are of the double-cheese variety: Guevara and Wallace's characters wow each other with illegal street racing skills, which in the context of a hot romance, seems like the weirdest foreplay ever imagined. They're also step-siblings, and while the idea that they can't keep their hands off each other is perfectly acceptable in media you might find on sites you don't want in your browsing history, it's just gross for what's intended as YA-friendly fare. Critics clearly agreed.
The Engineer
The single believable element of director Danny A. Abasecker's political thriller "The Engineer" is its source material: The drama is inspired by the Israeli intelligence forces' hunt for Yahya Ayyash, the mastermind behind a cell of suicide bombers who carried out devastating attacks during the Israeli-Palestine conflicts of the mid-1990s. Ayyash's skill with munitions, which earned him the moniker "The Engineer," lends tension to the film, but any degree of suspense is undermined by a cartoonishly broad script and poorly executed action sequences. These, along with other elements, contributed to the film's 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Abasecker gets a name with some marquee value by casting Emile Hirsch as Etan, the American-born intelligence agent pursuing Ayyash. But Hirsch is wholly unconvincing as a hard-bitten soldier of war, and Abasecker himself (as Etan's partner) and character actor Robert Davi (as a vengeful U.S. senator) are sketched as stereotypical tough guys. Writer Kosta Kondilopoulous is the real culprit here: His script refashions a complicated (and, as recent events show, still intense) conflict into a blunt action movie, complete with '80s-style action hero dialogue ("You gotta start making sense, or I'm gonna start breaking bones"). Small wonder that such inspired words failed to connect with the few viewers who crossed paths with "The Engineer."