The Worst Action Movies Ever Made

Although they're often sneered at by critics, action movies can make for some pretty excellent cinema. Even if you exclude superhero and sci-fi flicks, "Die Hard," "John Wick," "The Raid," "Oldboy," "The Matrix," and "Mad Max: Fury Road" are some of the best movies of their respective eras, filled with shootouts and chase scenes, tightly choreographed hand-to-hand combat, quick wit, memorable characters, and villains you love to hate. Seeing an action movie that really works for the first time can be an unforgettable cinematic experience.

But of course, it's not exactly a hard genre to screw up, either. An uncountable number of filmmakers seem to have learned all the wrong lessons from the great action flicks that inspired them. Namely, that audiences will forgive lousy writing as long as there are pretty explosions to look at, or that what makes great action movies great is how many bullets are fired during the runtime, and not the characterization, themes, and craftsmanship of the movie. 

So what are the all-around worst action movies ever made? From "Abduction" to "Hitman: Agent 47" to "Alone in the Dark," we've got them all right here for you. Warning: Spoilers Ahead. Not like anyone cares.

Bruce Willis has starred in some all-time winners like "The Sixth Sense," "Die Hard," "Unbreakable," and "Pulp Fiction." But he's also made some serious losers. "A Good Day to Die Hard," "Reprisal," "Look Who's Talking Too," and "North" come to mind. Luckily for his career, most of those are either obscure, direct-to-DVD flops or foreign language entries that haven't gotten much attention in the US. But those are cold, small comforts for a filmography bearing the unremovable stain of "The Prince."

We have to imagine that Liam Neeson turned down the lead role in this irredeemable schlock-fest, in which Willis is supported by fellow big-timer-who-should-know-better John Cusack. Willis stars as a former assassin who comes out of retirement to take down an old rival and rescue his kidnapped dalksdjg09908g.

Oops, sorry, we meant "daughter." Fell asleep on the keyboard typing out that uninspired logline. Anyway, skip this movie, please. It was sent to direct-to-streaming purgatory for a reason, and the reason is, well, actually there are several. Unconvincing performances. Lousy writing. Boring action sequences. Take your pick.

All the ingredients were there for Taylor Lautner to break out of the "Twilight" series as a Hollywood superstar. And yet, it didn't happen. We're not sure why and we won't waste time trying to find out. But we do know that his first attempt to legitimize himself as a bankable action hero, with 2011's "Abduction," went hideously awry and did far more damage to his career than good.

The movie follows Lautner as Nathan Harper, a troubled Philadelphia high school senior, who learns he was abducted as a child while researching for a school project. Like many other movies on this list, the premise isn't the problem. If done correctly, it could have been a perfectly recommendable action thriller.

Unfortunately, it was done very, very incorrectly. On Rotten Tomatoes, where the movie enjoys an Arctic approval rating, the Critics Consensus reads, "A soulless and incompetent action/thriller that not even a veteran lead actor could save, let alone Taylor Lautner." That pretty much sums it up. Lautner simply didn't have the credibility, the acting chops, or the support of competent writers and directors to salvage this miserably misguided dud of a film.

This might sound mean, but there are certain movie stars who almost exclusively make terrible films. John Travolta and Nicolas Cage come to mind, but their hit-or-miss filmographies are at least partially balanced out with some classics. Beneath even them are the kind of names that make you wince when you see them gracing the cover of a "6 Explosive Action Thrillers" DVD set in a Wal-Mart bargain bin, or a dust-covered VHS tape in the back of Goodwill that's stuffed neglectfully between two copies of "Don Knotts Presents: How to Clean Your Inflatable Outdoor Pool, Part 2."

What were we talking about again? Oh right. Bad actors. Yeah, Milla Jovovich is one of those actors. Sorry, Milla. "The Fifth Element" is great, but between "Resident Evil: Extinction" and "Return to the Blue Lagoon," she's put out enough stinkers that her inclusion in a cast should set off every alarm. But none are quite as embarrassing as "Ultraviolet."

The movie follows Jovovich as Violet, a martial artist infected with a kind of vampirism in a dystopian world where such a diagnosis lands you a death sentence. With her sword and friends by her side, she leads a revolution against the tyrannical government that wants her and her kind dead. Sound inspiring? It is. For bad filmmakers who can tell themselves, "Hey, at least I didn't make 'Ultraviolet.'"

Nothing is more '80s than ruining the legacy of a surprise one-off hit movie with half a dozen increasingly lousy and unnecessary sequels. And one of the worst offenders is the "Robocop" franchise. The original, about a nigh-indestructible crime-fighting cyborg, is a disarmingly sharp satire of American culture run amok that absolutely bleeds glorious '80s schlock. The sequel, however, was a significant step down, pulling in less money and nabbing a notably lower Tomatometer score compared to the beloved original.

And it was only downhill from there. Unwilling to accept that the first movie said everything the franchise was capable of saying, even after the original star and director wisely turned down the opportunity to do a second sequel, new director Fred Dekker proceeded to beat an already-dead horse into a pile of rancid, unrecognizable meat with 1993's "Robocop 3." In this movie, our increasingly silly hero tries to avenge his former partner while fighting to save Detroit, Michigan from falling into the clutches of an evil mega-corporation.

As evidenced by its placement on this list, the movie was a critical and commercial flop. On the Tomatometer, where it enjoys an appalling score, the consensus reads, simply, "This asinine sequel should be placed under arrest." Between the hokey, ham-fisted messaging, the outrageous-but-witless action sequences, and the feeling that the franchise had essentially run its course, we can't help but agree.

The Kirk Cameron-fronted "Left Behind" movies, based on the novels of the same name by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins (which were themselves based on Biblical end-times prophecies), weren't much to write home about. But they almost look like award-season contenders at this point, because the 2014 Nicolas Cage-fronted reboot was bad. Really bad. Historically bad. Bad enough to rank among the worst movies that Nicolas Cage has ever made. And as anyone familiar with his career can tell you, that's saying a lot.

The movie only used the source material sparingly and focused more on action than theology. Maybe that approach could've worked in more competent hands, but it certainly didn't pan out here. In this movie, Nicolas Cage plays Rayford Steele, an airline pilot who's in the air when the Biblical rapture occurs, taking the souls of Christians to heaven and leaving behind billions of grieving, dumbfounded survivors. Meanwhile, Rayford's daughter Chloe tries to navigate a panic-stricken city in search of her brother, who is among the countless missing. It actually sounds like a great premise for a movie.

But the filmmaking decisions made throughout the story, which are never short of baffling, ruin whatever potential the movie might have had. The result is a calamitously, hysterically incompetent action-drama-disaster-thriller-Christian movie that doesn't come close to succeeding in any of those genres. It's a wonder why there haven't been any sequels.

And here we are, at the top (bottom?) of the list. "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever," about two rival special agents (Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu) who eventually join forces to take down a common foe, was based on a video game for Gameboy Advance. And in typical game-movie fashion, the game was a whole lot better than the film.  

Thing is, "Ballistic" is not just a bad movie. It's not even just the worst action film ever made. It is literally — get this – the worst reviewed film in the history of Rotten Tomatoes. We're not kidding. Not a single one of its 118 reviews was positive. The Critics Consensus puts it thusly: "A startlingly inept film, 'Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever' offers overblown, wall-to-wall action without a hint of wit, coherence, style, or originality." It's true. The 118 vicious critical takedowns are leagues more entertaining than this incomprehensibly dull drivel. "Ballistic" indulges in every imaginable cliche and choreographs its reveals so clumsily it makes you wonder if the movie meant to keep anything a secret from you in the first place. Maybe it should've started with the entire plot.

Unacceptably, "Ballistic" also fails to grab the last branch available to bad movies: being unintentionally hilarious enough to live on in "so-bad-it's-good" territory. And that cannot be forgiven.