Summer Movies 2015: The 6 Worst As Selected By Critics

The summer movies 2015 season is almost at a close, so it’s only natural to look back on how things turned out.

While the summer has had its share of pleasant surprises — Mad Max: Fury Road and Jurassic World, to name two — it’s been mostly inundated with one stinker after another, as a quick stop by critic aggregator tool Rotten Tomatoes will remind you.

Looking over the selection, it appears as though six films in particular have really struck the wrong kind of chord with critics and audiences alike. Here are the ones to avoid.

6. Pixels

Wait, an Adam Sandler movie that people hated? Surely you jest! For video game nuts, this was truly the biggest disappointment, as it had some really fun Donkey Kong-PacMan stuff in the previews. Unfortunately, that’s about as funny as the film got, sputtering out at a disappointing $68.5 million domestic take. Box Office Mojo reports that the film did manage to pick up another $105.3 million overseas, but there hasn’t been any word on what it took to market the $88 million comedy. The RT rating: 16 percent “rotten.”

5. The Gallows

Audience reaction trailers are always a bad sign for horror movies. Almost every time you see people watching the movie, jumping, and screaming instead of snippets of compelling footage, you know you’re in for an overhyped disappointment. That was the case with MTV’s big screen foray into found footage horror. With a micro-budget of $100,000 and an impressive $37 million worldwide take, though, you’re likely to see The Gallows 2 sometime in the near future. The RT rating: 16 percent “rotten.”

4. Sinister 2

Another sequel that failed to connect with critics is the follow-up to 2012’s surprise hit Sinister. The original did $77.7 million worldwide on a $3 million budget. Part two is off to an okay financial start with $10.6 million U.S. It hasn’t rolled out internationally yet, and no budget numbers have been released, but it’s probably going to turn a profit. Still, critics on RT have given it a paltry 12 percent “rotten” rating.

3. Fantastic Four

How is this not higher on the list of worst summer movies for 2015? Good question. The 8 percent critical reception at Rotten Tomatoes is bested (or perhaps “worseded”) by an extremely disappointing box office take of $130.4 million worldwide. No word on what it’s taken to produce and market this thing for worldwide audiences, but let’s just say Sony stands to lose a lot of money.

2. Hot Pursuit

Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara proved they’re not ready for the action buddy comedy just yet with this critical disappointment that garnered only 8 percent from the film critics of Rotten Tomatoes. The film almost made its $35 million budget back domestically. International gate of $11 million pushed it over the top, provided Warner Bros. kept the marketing budget under control.

1. Hitman: Agent 47

Anyone who watched the original Hitman was well aware this thing wouldn’t be any good. Critics trashed it to the tune of a 7 percent on the Tomatometer, and audiences were pretty unimpressed looking at the opening worldwide numbers of just $16.7 million. Fox has not released numbers on what it cost to make and promote, and you probably shouldn’t wait for them to.

So as far as the summer movies for 2015 go, do you think these are the worst of the worst, or have you seen something else that should have been included? Sound off in the comments section.

[Image via Bleeding Cool]