For a lot of film fans, the ‘90s was one of the very best decades for films. After all, movies weren’t overly reliant on CGI then as they are now, and we had a kind of subtlety in films that isn’t seen today. However, you’d be wrong to think all films from this era were great.
In fact, the last year of the century had a bunch of stinkers that almost everyone has forgotten about, but Rotten Tomatoes never forgets. Being the main source to gain film reviews, the site has scores even for films two decades old that critics hated. In case you want to watch any movies from that time, here are 10 that you sorely need to avoid so as not to tarnish your viewing experience.
End Of Days - 11%
Here’s one film you definitely won’t find in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s best movies, and it’ll come as a surprise to most that the Terminator star was in the lead role of a supernatural horror film. Arnie himself would want you to forget End of Days, which featured a muddled plot.
Following a former NYC detective, the story spirals into his adventure protecting a girl from a religious cult who wants to use her to conceive the Antichrist. It’s even more bizarre to watch than its premise lets on, and it’s easy to get why the film was such a critical failure.
Virus - 10%
Comic book adaptations really took off in popularity by the mid-2000s, yet here was Virus that came out before the turn of the millennium. It’s better off left in the past, though, as the film hacked off a bunch of tropes in science fiction to bring together a jumbled final product.
In what was the norm for film genres at the time, Virus had a familiar setting of evil aliens out to apprehend humans for their sinister means, with these jumping on board a ship to turn people into slaves. It was silly and unrealistic, and the awful critical and commercial returns confirmed audiences felt the same way.
Wing Commander - 10%
Remember the days when you wouldn’t go long before there would be yet another movie starring Freddie Prinze Jr and Matthew Lillard? Well, one of the many films in those credits was the very awful Wing Commander. Based on the game of the same name, this movie was as cartoonish as you’d imagine.
There’s no point in recapping its story either, as Wing Commander threw out any attempt in having a plot in favor of delivering cliche-ridden tropes, laughable effects, and dialogue so cheesy you would want to talk to the chef for a refund.
The Bachelor - 9%
We’ll have to hand it to Batman Forever for aging pretty well, but Chris O’Donnell continued his rotten streak in movies by appearing in the lead role in this less-than-original romantic comedy about a bachelor who’s in a race against time to get married.
There’s not much quality any director could inject in a plot where the lead is chased around by hundreds of brides because he’s up to become a millionaire, and the only thing interesting about The Bachelor is how Oscar-winning actress Renee Zellweger was somehow nabbed to play the main romantic interest.
The Omega Code - 8%
If there’s one thing to take from this list it’s that making films about the Antichrist isn’t the best idea, seeing as we’ve gotten our second entry with a story along those lines. The Omega Code manages to make things even weirder by showing that the bible had codes in it that would allow the Antichrist to take over the world.
Its direction also has to bear a certain amount of criticism, as the attempts to make the film seem like an indie stroke of genius are too blatant to ignore. We see strange camera work, jumbled sequences, and overall devil-may-care elements that try to make The Omega Code look like an acquired taste. Too bad barely any critics wanted to have any of it.
Friends & Lovers - 7%
Before Robert Downey Jr was entertaining us with his mannerisms as Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he was starring in several different genres to find his true niche. In this film, he played the supporting role of a German ski instructor.
The other characters all had their own brand of kookiness to show for, with the premise revolving around a ski trip where everyone has something to hide. Ensemble romance movies more often than not land bad reviews, and Friends & Lovers received horrendous ones, with most considering it as an example of how bad films truly can get.
Universal Soldier: The Return - 5%
The Universal Soldier series is a long-running franchise starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, although almost all of these films have been flops both critically and commercially. And yet, The Return managed to exceed even these low expectations by being one of the worst movies ever made.
It has such a bad reputation that the series itself has gone on to consider the film as non-canonical to avoid bringing up this ill-fated attempt. Let’s be honest, though, how original can a story about a resurrected soldier get?
The Mod Squad - 3%
Maybe if this had a younger cast of preteens then it would’ve been able to pull off being a cute attempt at a film, but The Mod Squad’s trio of actors who were in their twenties only served to make them look like immature fools.
The story was juvenile, comprising of three good-for-nothing young people who cut a deal with the cops to go undercover to avoid their own jail terms, and then become embroiled in a bigger mystery than they anticipated. The film was bad to the point where it scored Golden Raspberry nominations in all major categories.
Baby Geniuses - 2%
It would take a real genius to figure out how this critically lambasted film not only turned out to be a hit at the box office but also sparked a franchise comprising of sequels and a TV series. The plot literally has to do with babies being geniuses, and watching even a few minutes is a real task.
It was considered to be the worst film ever released at the time and was easily the worst-reviewed film that was widely released in 1999. Its bad reputation played to the film’s benefit, as viewers arrived just to check out why it garnered such horrid reviews.
Foolish - 0%
It was packaged as a drama about a man trying to deal with his criminal connections while helping his brother establish himself as a comedian, but Foolish lived up to its title by being a sorry excuse for a stand-up special.
Most of the scenes involved awful comedy bits on stage by the guy called Foolish, with canned laughter clearly in place to make him seem like a legit comedian. The scenes that didn’t involve terrible stand-up jokes had equally awful acting, needless objectification of women, and dialogue which ended up being unintentionally funny - the only time you might let out a small chuckle.
