10 Worst Megan Fox Movies On Rotten Tomatoes Ranked By Watchability
Megan Fox is an actress with a remarkable amount of range and sensitivity whose bombshell looks have often landed her in films that don't make use of her talent. In the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "Transformers" franchises, she's mostly there just to provide eye candy in these films that are filled with CGI effects and explosions. Her parts are frequently underwritten in comparison to the male leads she works with, and Fox herself has long criticized the ways she's been over-objectified and underused in the industry (via Glamour).
However, not all of her films that have been rated poorly on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes are that bad. In fact, some of them range from quirky to downright bizarre to over-the-top awesome. While she's usually cast as a femme fatale, a love interest, a potential victim, or a mean girl, Fox always give a convincing and committed performance, even if she's not given a lot to work with script-wise. Just how many of these films are worth your time? Let's take a look at the ten worst Megan Fox films on Rotten Tomatoes, ranked by watchability. The list is in order from least watchable to most watchable. You may be surprised at how good some of these films truly are!
10. Jonah Hex is incoherent
This 2010 DC adaptation of "Jonah Hex" follows the supernatural Western hero Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) whose brushes with death give him the ability to speak to the dead and track anyone down. He's charged by the army to hunt down his arch-enemy, Quentin Turnbull (played with the usual scenery-chewing relish by John Malkovich), before Turnbull opens the gates to hell. Fox plays Lilah, Hex's gun-toting, prostitute love interest. Lilah is in a skin-exposing bustier for much of the film, and director Jimmy Hayward seems to focus on her skin glistening with sweat as much as he does on the actual action.
It's the rare comic-book action movie that could have benefited from being longer, as it's under 90 minutes. "Jonah Hex" has close to single-digit ratings on Rotten Tomatoes thanks to its incoherent direction. While the basic plot is sound, "Jonah Hex" suffers from having very little structure outside of its basic idea, as it lacks interesting b-plots and other devices to hold viewers' attention. Most of the final third of the movie is just made up of a series of bigger explosions and hellfire, which makes this short film feel like it's stretched out way too thin.
Both Brolin and Fox's characters are severely underwritten, relying entirely on the charisma of both performers, who don't have much to work with. Of her role in "Jonah Hex," Fox told The Washington Post, "While I shouldn't have been nominated for an Oscar for it, I'm definitely not bad in it" and we agree. Unfortunately, the movie itself is just hard to watch.
9. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: too much April, too few Turtles
There have been a number of incarnations of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." The original comic book was a gritty parody of comic books like Frank Miller's "Daredevil," the X-Men, and the Teen Titans (via Rolling Stone). That evolved into the much goofier television show of the late '80s and the films of the early '90s. In most every iteration, the four green guys were the focus of the action.
For some reason, in the 2014 live-action movie reboot of the series (produced by Michael Bay), a decision was made to focus much of the action on the Turtles' sidekick April O'Neil, played by Megan Fox. April has been a journalist, a lab tech, and a computer genius in various Turtles vehicles, but in Fox's form, she returns to her journalist roots.
The movie got almost all negative reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and one reason why the film may have done so poorly is that it was rewritten around O'Neil's character, whose researcher father mutated her pet turtles into the mutant ninja ones we all know and love. A film with Fox as a crusading reporter is not a bad concept in and of itself. However, a movie purported to center around righteous, hard-shelled pizza-eating ninjas that focuses on their friend instead makes for a "shockingly boring, endlessly unimaginative" experience, according to The Irish Times.
8. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is more of the same
2007's big-budget "Transformers" was not exactly a work of high art and scored mixed reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. However, its sequel 2009's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" was considerably worse, and scored only half as high as its predecessor on Rotten Tomatoes. Director Michael Bay more or less made exactly the same movie, only louder and with more explosions. Coming in at a punishing 2 hours and 29 minutes, the plot is thin and the character development is even thinner.
Roger Ebert described it as "a horrible experience of unbearable length," which he later used as the title of a collection of reviews about movies he hated. Scott Mendelson of The Huffington Post was one of many who condemned the racist depictions of Mudflap and Skids, saying, "To say that these two are the most astonishingly racist caricatures that I've ever seen in a mainstream motion picture would be an understatement."
Fox herself was unsparing in her opinion of Bay's directorial style, comparing him to Hitler and Napoleon in a 2009 interview with Wonderland Magazine. According to The Guardian, these comments led to Executive Producer Steven Spielberg firing her from the next "Transformers" movie, which set her career back considerably. At the time, Fox also noted to Entertainment Weekly that "People are well aware that this is not a movie about acting" (via Glamour). While it was problematic to liken Bay to Hitler, Fox wasn't wrong about the acting part of it, as she's just in "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" to be eye candy.
7. Fox was the best thing in the cliched Midnight in the Switchgrass
2021's "Midnight in the Switchgrass" is interesting for reasons that don't have much to do with the film itself, which was a critical bomb that holds a single-digit rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It's where Megan Fox met her self-described "soul mate," rapper and actor Colson "Machine Gun Kelly" Baker (via The Washington Post). This also was Bruce Willis' final role before his retirement from acting for health-related issues.
Fox plays FBI agent Rebecca Heller, and Willis plays her partner. Heller is a competent agent, who pretends to be a prostitute in order to bait killers and abusers. Baker plays a pimp, who threatens Heller, but this hard-bitten agent quickly turns the tables and thoroughly beats him up to force information out of him. Despite these displays of strength, however, Heller gets drugged, kidnapped, and tied up by a serial killer, which turns this self-sufficient character into a damsel in distress.
Paste's Jesse Hassenger praises Fox's pulpy performance in "Midnight in the Switchgrass". Referring to her as an "avenger of exploited girls and women," Hassenger argues that among her well-regarded cast members — Willis, Emile Hirsch, and Lukas Haas — "Fox is the one who comes across as too good for this movie ... because she has a standoffish spark." In a film that other critics on Rotten Tomatoes described as sleazy, formulaic, and clichéd, Fox stands out thanks to her commitment to the role and the life she breathes into this otherwise lifeless film.
6. Passion Play is a bizarre mess
"Passion Play" is the lowest-rated of any of Megan Fox's films on Rotten Tomatoes with near-universal negative reviews. However, it's much more watchable as a curiosity than some of the loud, clichéd genre movies on this list. It debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011, and critics didn't hold back (via IndieWire). Variety noted "the near-painful hipness of the production will yield poisonous word of mouth," while Screen Daily called the film "little more than a whimsical curio." It didn't help that the movie's star Mickey Rourke trashed it to Vulture prior to wider release, calling it "another terrible movie," which may have doomed it at the box office.
The cast is perfect, with Rourke right at home as Nate, a grizzled trumpet player who's seen better days. He's running from a mob leader named Happy Shannon, played with deadpan menace by Bill Murray. Fox plays a sideshow attraction named Lily Luster: a woman with wings sprouting from her shoulders like an angel. Nate rescues her from her sadistic carnie taskmaster and they fall in love. It's hard to discern real events from metaphorical weirdness, so scenes like Nate being rescued from execution in the desert by a band of Native Americans leave the viewer perplexed.
Rourke was impressed by Fox, calling her "probably the best young actress I've ever worked with" in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. While Fox is mostly in the film to display her ethereal beauty in noir-style lighting, there's no question she makes the most of the role in an ambitious movie whose reach exceeds its grasp.
5. Fox is an awesome mean girl in Confessons Of A Teenage Drama Queen
2004's "Confessions Of A Teenage Drama Queen" is interesting not because it's great cinema — it has mostly negative reviews on Rotten Tomatoes — but because it has two iconic young actresses working opposite each other. The movie was a Lindsay Lohan Disney vehicle, and Fox plays the mean girl who competes with her. It also features Allison Pill in one of her first major film roles.
Lohan plays Lola, an aspiring actress and singer, whose dreams of stardom get crushed when her parents move her from New York City to New Jersey. At her new school, she becomes best friends with the smart but unpopular Ella (Pill) and immediately finds herself at odds with mean girl Carla (Fox).
This was Fox's first film, but she more than holds her own against the more experienced Lohan, thanks to her perfect embodiment of a sneering, arrogant mean girl. She's also quite adept at the physical comedy of the role. While it's fun to watch Fox and Lohan's chemistry on-screen, Fox noted in a 2007 interview with Maxim that she didn't get along all that well with Lohan. However, she further explained the context of their relationship, "You have to consider that we were 16-year-old girls. I haven't seen Lindsay since then, but I imagine she's grown and become a different person. I know I have." Ultimately, it's amusing to see two significant talents chew on a fairly formulaic role and bring it to a more exciting place.
4. Zeroville: Megan Fox in a James Franco vanity project
James Franco wrote and directed "Zeroville," which was loosely adapted from the book by Steve Erickson. It follows the 1970s Hollywood journey of ex-seminary student Vikar (Franco), who arrives in Los Angeles on the same day the Manson family murders Sharon Tate. He gets mixed up with all sorts of Hollywood weirdos, including an eccentric producer known only as Viking Man (Seth Rogen). Vikar gets hired to edit the film of starlet Soledad Paladin (Megan Fox), and the film alternates between their romance, Vikar's obsession with a "secret film" encoded in the entire history of Hollywood, and a "Forest Gump"-like set of encounters with famous actors, director and producers of the '70s.
Released in 2019 — five years after it was filmed — the final result of "Zeroville" is difficult to parse, much less process. It's a psychedelic comedy-drama-romance told in a choppy style meant to emulate the experimental films of the '70s. The critics on Rotten Tomatoes were not enthusiastic, as the film has predominately negative reviews. Fox's character is drawn to Vikar's passion as a way of breaking through her own ennui and depression. Not surprisingly, she fits right into the '70s aesthetic and adds depth to a role that once again could have easily just been her looking beautiful on-screen and not doing much else. "Zeroville" is not for all tastes and isn't entirely coherent, but it's fascinating and the galaxy of cameos alone makes the film worth a watch.
3. Fox is a snooty celebrity in How To Lose Friends And Alienate People
2009's "How To Lose Friends And Alienate People" is based on the memoir by Toby Young about Young's journey from working at a small publication in England to writing for Vanity Fair. Along the way, he makes all sorts of hilariously awful decisions, which makes much of the book one long cringe humor bit. Simon Pegg plays him in the film version as Sidney Young, who impresses the editor of world-famous magazine Sharps enough to hire him.
Sidney is the most boorish character imaginable, making David Brent of the original "The Office" look like a considerate gentleman in comparison. Fox plays Sophie Maes, a vapid movie star whose dog Sidney kills by accident, but whose approval he eventually wins. Sidney makes enemies of co-workers and celebrities alike, until he compromises all of his values by buying into insipid celebrity culture and reporting on it favorably.
Sophie Maes' narcissism comes back to haunt her in the end, and it's the type of mean girl role that Fox is quite good at playing. Her character provides a fun contrast to Pegg's antics. Although the film got a few decent reviews, the critics mostly weren't fans of this adaptation on Rotten Tomatoes. Ultimately, it's Sidney's buffoonery that's most worth watching, even if the tone of the film becomes sentimental in a way that doesn't make much sense or feel earned.
2. Fox is a femme fatale in the quirky Big Gold Brick
How much one likes "Big Gold Brick" will depend on one's tolerance for self-consciously quirky films. This movie written and directed by Brian Petsos has echoes of David Lynch, the Coen Brothers, and Wes Anderson, although the film's rating on Rotten Tomatoes doesn't reflect the acclaim of these other filmmakers. It follows a young writer named Samuel Liston (Emory Cohen), who's almost accidentally killed by an eccentric tycoon named Floyd Devereaux (Andy Garcia). Floyd tries to make it up to Samuel by offering him a deal to write his biography and live in his mansion.
Fox plays Jacqueline, Floyd's second wife and lawyer. In an interview with JoBlo, Petsos enthusiastically described working with Megan Fox: "I know obviously Megan is very versatile," and continued on to say, "she's a total pro ... again, very thankful to have her in this." The film has a lot of magical realist elements, and part of the riddle is figuring out what's real and what's in Samuel's head, as he encounters a menagerie of weirdos in Floyd's mansion. That includes Jacqueline, who at one point may or may not be trying to seduce him.
Fox's mix of genuine weirdness combined with her status as a bombshell makes her an ideal actress for this role. As always, she puts her all into every aspect of the character, alternating between seductress and buttoned-up lawyer. "Big Gold Brick" is deliberately obscure and avoids easy interpretation, but it's fascinatingly off-beat and features a number of worthwhile performances.
1. Fox astonishes as the villain in Jennifer's Body
Karyn Kusama's 2009 horror "Jennifer's Body" got mixed to negative reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, but in the years following its release, it's been widely reevaluated as a lost feminist classic (via Vulture). The film is about the relationship between popular teenager Jennifer Check and her bookish best friend, Anita "Needy" Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried). Jennifer drags Needy to see a band at a dive bar, and goes off with the band at the end of the night. When Needy next sees her, Jennifer is covered in blood and almost bites her. Needy discovers that the band sacrificed Jennifer to Satan to get famous, but the ritual went awry. Now, Jennifer is a flesh-eating succubus, who seduces and eats boys in their school to survive.
Written by Diablo Cody following her hit "Juno," this movie has funny, rapid-fire dialogue, and its violence metaphorically represents the violence that's inflicted on women all the time. It's a brutal satire in which the friendship between Jennifer and Needy is crucial, but unfortunately, it was marketed to only emphasize Fox's appearance, which made many dismiss it outright.
Speaking with Vulture, Fox described how the horrifying scene of her being sacrificed represented her relationship with Hollywood, "because on almost a daily basis, I felt like I was being sacrificed for their gain with almost no concern for my physical well-being." Fox shines in the role, and balances vulnerability with humor and popular girl tropes. Fox later explained to The Washington Post that she has turned down similar scripts because "'Jennifer's Body' is iconic, and I love that movie. I didn't want to do that movie an injustice by doing something that was similar but not as good."