The 5 Worst New Netflix Movies Released in 2024

While my last article, 5 Best New Netflix Original Movies Released in 2024, may have been full of superlatives about Netflix’s film slate, sometimes you have to acknowledge the missteps that are made along the way.

But, hey, when you give your subscribers a new movie or three every week, you’re bound to have some bad mixed in with the good. Of course, many of these films had big viewing numbers, so maybe we’re all a little to blame.

While you can check out all my weekly reviews here, let’s look at my list of the worst Netflix Original Films had to offer in 2024.

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Even for YA, this seems … subpar.

Based on the young adult novel by author Scott Westerfeld, Uglies is adapted from the first novel of the original trilogy and focuses on the exploits of 15 year old Tally Youngblood in her post-apocalyptic future society.

In a world where war over our remaining natural resources took out a large portion of the population (and, of course, more resources), Tally is stuck in a lower station in life: a young girl awaiting “The Transformation,” a medical procedure conducted upon your 16th birthday that creates your perfect, most beautiful self and allows you to join the rest of the post-op “Pretties” in the heart of the city. This surgery was created by the best-remaining scientists to make the population so happy as not to start another war. Tally, along with her best friend Peris aka “Nose”, are so close to having everything, but currently live in the “Uglies” dorm until they are of age.

After Peris (yes, it still sounds like Paris, much like the always annoying Peeta from The Hunger Games who just COULDN’T be named Peter because it’s the future) turns 16 and has the surgery, Tally tries desperately to reconnect with him to no avail as he seems distant and different in his new life. In his absence, Tally connects with a new friend, Shay, who introduces her to many new and exciting things (reading “Walden”, futuristic skateboarding, etc.); chief among them, the existence of the rumored alternative society “The Smoke,” a group of individuals who opted out of the Transformation and started a new life outside of the city’s reach.

While Tally may have been intrigued by “The Smoke,” she was still looking forward to having the surgery and joining back with Peris once more. On the day she and Shay (yes, they have the same birthday) were set to have their surgeries, Shay did not show. Convinced by city leader Dr. Cable that Shay and the whole city could be in grave danger, Tally sets out to find “The Smoke” and bring her friend back home. However, once she finds “The Smoke” and lives among them, Tally may find out more about her home than she ever thought possible.

Directed by the enigma that is McG (Terminator: Salvation, The Babysitter) on a script by Jacob Forman, Vanessa Taylor, & Whit Anderson, Uglies is the hope for another trilogy success story for Joey King in her post-Kissing Booth career. The creators of Uglies sure think they have multiple movies to make as this one ends on a cliffhanger of sorts, but if quality is what matters in moving forward on Part 2, then I’m not sure if that will happen.

The story is a simple allegory for our current tech-controlled, social media-driven, phone-obsessed culture that is always striving to make itself perfect and blocking out the world around them that could use a little attention itself. While I think that is an admirable message to send to all of us, let alone our current crop of tweens & teens, this film does NOT make it easy to ingest without scoffing or the occasional eye roll. Pretties? Uglies? “Nose” & “Squint”? Was this written by an 8-year-old? Whenever they called the older generations “Rusties,” my occasionally balky knee would cry out in disgust.

The story is also incredibly basic with on-the-nose (no pun intended, Peris) terms, motivations, & characters that deliver the thinly veiled crusade against screens, socials, & obsession with beauty. To add to the film’s struggles, poor VFX & production design filled with heavy CGI that doesn’t rise above bad sci-fi TV and a largely bland color palette make this film hard to ingest from the jump (though I do empathize with the team that had multiple delays and hangups in the grueling two-year edit process due to various strike-related stoppages).

Uglies does not match its more appealing message with a style, subtlety, and tone that would better suit it. King, Cox, & its cast of young stars cannot rise above the middle school level world-building and poor sci-fi production. Only if its target demo of 10-15-year-olds who haven’t read “Walden” yet for themselves watch and relate to its simplicity will this survive to the next film in the trilogy; however, this much older parent/critic won’t be anticipating those creations in the future.

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Trigger Warning is as ineffective and awkwardly political as its title.

In her first leading film role in several years, Jessica Alba takes center stage – for better or for worse – in this action-forward thriller that has taken quite a while to get to the small screen. Beginning principal photography in New Mexico on September 1st, 2021, the film went into reshoots in the fall of 2022 before being mired in post-production for an extended period of time.

Helmed by director Mouly Surya (Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts) on a script from the trio of Josh Olson (A History of Violence), John Brancato (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator Salvation), and Halley Wegryn Gross (Westworld), the film focuses on Parker, a Special Forces commando on active duty overseas, who is called back to her hometown with the tragic news of her father’s sudden passing during a cave-in accident on their property.

Now the owner of the family bar, Parker reconnects with her former boyfriend-turned-sheriff Jesse (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World’s Mark Webber), his hot-tempered brother Elvis (It Follows’ Jake Weary), and their powerful father Senator Swann (80’s superstar Anthony Michael Hall), as she looks to understand what actually happened to her dad.

Parker’s search for answers quickly goes south and she soon finds herself at odds with a violent gang running rampant in her hometown. Unsure of who she can truly trust, Parker draws on her commando training and proves herself a force to be reckoned with as she hunts down the truth and attempts to right what has gone wrong in Swann County, with the help of her covert ops partner and hacker Spider (Survival of the Thickest co-star Tone Bell) and connected local dealer Mike (The Night Agent star Gabriel Basso).

Trigger Warning wants to be Walking Tall or season 1 small-town Reacher, but has none of the skill, charm, humor, or lead actor presence that those more successful projects had. Instead, the film feels far too self-serious, awkwardly political (correct pronunciation of “Latinx” and several racial slurs UGH), and lacking any emotional or physical impact from its A-plot or Alba in the lead.

Even though her CV has plenty of action, from her start on Dark Angel to Fantastic Four and the Machete films, Jessica Alba seems wildly miscast, even if she had very little to work with and few moments to prove herself. The best examples of female action stars have a similar set of skills to their male counterparts: commanding presence, general athleticism, and believability when they’re on the warpath. Modern examples – Charlize Theron, Michelle Yeoh, and most current female superheroes – all have some level of these qualities. Jessica Alba is slight in stature, robotic in her fighting approach, and lacks a level of “dog” that I’m willing to follow into the fight.

However, none of this truly matters if the pages don’t give us what we need. For a movie that tries to sell an emotional bond between father and daughter that makes this revenge plot work, it doesn’t even end with any final goodbyes or solemn gestures; instead, we get Parker leaving town with her partner and talking to Mike about picking out paint colors. The movie doesn’t even believe in itself, so why should we?

Trigger Warning is a watered-down copy of a tired action trope with a lackluster lead in Alba. As a character, Parker seems to have no vision, no logic to her actions, and always a step behind. It’s hard to believe Alba or her character as a leader, a badass, or an intelligence officer. With no plot twists, no nuance, and a lead character who doesn’t seem to care much for the town she is saving, it’s hard for anyone to latch on and enjoy the basics of modern action conventions.

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A movie about trusting a better AI to help defeat the previous AI who ruined our trust & almost destroyed all of humanity. Sounds like a movie only an AI could write or love. I sure didn’t.

Directed by action film director Brad Peyton (Rampage, San Andreas), the film follows Atlas (multi-hyphenate megastar Jennifer Lopez), a top military intelligence officer who has spent years pursuing Earth’s first AI terrorist Harlan, a renegade robot created by Atlas’ mother and raised alongside Atlas in her youth. Brought in on a mission to pursue & capture Harlan on a nearby planet, she is forced to confront her deep distrust of artificial intelligence, her lack of field experience, and her emotional trauma after Harlan’s destruction of her family and our world as we knew it.

However, when plans go awry, Atlas has to don an AI driven mechanical armored suit and work with the AI program known as “Smith” in order to survive. Faced with enemy hostiles and limited resources, she has to bond with “Smith” to gain their full potential and take on Harlan before time, and her oxygen, runs out.

The film takes implausible lengths to try to establish a bond between Lopez’s Atlas & the “Smith” AI. Using her reluctance to expose her past with Harlan as an excuse why the synching system won’t work is simply a pathetic manipulation. Essentially, using “Smith” as a therapist to achieve full sync and escape Harlan’s clutches is poor writing & scientifically ridiculous. Forced flashbacks & exposition often replace genuine realizations & relationship-building.

Director Brad Peyton noted that their pitch was that they thought of the film as Castaway if Wilson could talk back. I can’t express enough how naive that thought is. Wilson was an expression for Tom Hanks’ character slowly becoming more desperate, lonely, & mentally unstable over a long period of time. Wilson was a lifeline and a need for connection that could not be reached until he gave it a face. The hubris to think that the level of connection to Wilson can be achieved by an AI asking a few questions over a short period of time is as thin and short-sided as the script itself.

Nothing epitomizes how ineffective this movie’s construction is more than the final moments of the story. Even though they use chess matches & cerebral tactics as the link between Atlas & Harlan, the film ends up in a basic CGI fight that barely engages in advanced thinking. And of course when the fight is over and the emotional shift focuses on the bond between Atlas & “Smith” once more, they force one more conversation based on the most rudimentary things we know about Atlas like how she likes her coffee. As the two are forced to part, I felt absolutely nothing and would love to hear from anyone who actually felt something.

This is a tough beat for Jennifer Lopez, who continues to show her dedication to roles that don’t deserve it. She may be looking to branch out to more action-centric films as she evolves her career, like Charlize Theron or Kate Beckinsale before her, but she seems to be dumpster diving for the scripts to do it in. For an actress/artist who seems to pour everything into what she does, I hope she finds better soon.

Atlas is a sci-fi action/adventure film that doesn’t satisfy in any of the 3 genres. The action is overly CGI-generated with unimaginative, video game-level construction. The adventure never lives up as the mission most often gives way to emotionally exaggerated & tonally forced conversation between Atlas & “Smith”. And, of course, the Sci-Fi only serves to have a philosophical debate over whether AI creations are alive & when is a good time to give ourselves over to them. Jennifer Lopez always seems to put all of herself into her roles, but this one was too hollow to fill in the first place.

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You know a movie is bad when my MVP of the film was not an actor or a scene, but just simply “the beauty of Ireland.” I mean, it IS beautiful, but not a good sign.

Irish Wish reunites Lohan with her Director/Executive Producer partner, Janeen Damian, who fulfilled the same roles for Lohan’s holiday success Falling For Christmas. Written by frequent TV movie scribe Kirsten Hansen (Cross Country Christmas, Christmas on My Mind), the film centers around Maddie Kelly, a book editor and aspiring novelist who can’t seem to speak up for herself and truly go for what she wants out of life.

Following her recent collaboration with Irish author Paul Kennedy (Outlander’s Alexander Vlahos), Maddie hopes to elevate her career as an author herself through Paul, as well as reveal her true romantic feelings for him. At an appearance promoting the book Paul & Maddie worked on together, she tries to work up the courage to tell him everything she wishes for herself; however, things change drastically as Paul requests Maddie immediately help him with his next book. To make matters worse, Paul also falls for Maddie’s best friend, Emma (Top Boy’s Elizabeth Tan), after they meet at the appearance’s afterparty.

After their brief courtship turns into a destination wedding in Ireland, Maddie is forced to put her feelings aside and join the wedding party as a bridesmaid for Emma. Days before the pair are set to marry, Maddie makes a spontaneous wish for her to marry Paul instead upon a special chair in the woods near Paul’s family home. Before she knows it, she wakes up to a new reality as Paul’s bride-to-be with Emma relegated to a bridesmaid at Maddie’s side. With her dream seeming to come true, she soon realizes that her real soulmate is someone else entirely and that her wish may not be coming true after all.

With a script so poor that it feels written by AI, the film doesn’t work as a romance nor a comedy. Each relationship that Lohan’s character enters into never seems well-established with reasons to root one way or another. Before she wakes up from her newly wished existence, they have us meet both men that she will be linked to: a narcissistic, well-off author who took advantage of her writing prowess to further his career AND a prickly, snarky journeyman wildlife photographer who seems to have a tear down comment for anything Maddie says in his presence. Two awful choices that she feels compelled to choose from because of proximity, jealousy, & some base level attractiveness.

The film and its creators want you to believe that the heart of the story is a journey of self-discovery and self-confidence for Maddie, but it never feels that way. They never prove her to be a good writer or a woman who truly knows what she wants. Does she have a novel ready for publishing that she can put in Paul’s hands? No. Does she say what type of person she wants to spend the rest of her life with and head toward the man with those qualities? No. Does her best friend’s relationship with her author crush make more sense than either of her suitor possibilities? Kind of. Yes.

As a person who is half-Irish and has visited the lovely country of Ireland, I appreciate the buffet of gorgeous countryside on display throughout the film. But writing in the Ireland backdrop just to do a less than half-baked wish fulfillment involving a barely explained female saint and a wishing chair with mystic properties in the woods by a lake makes me cringe on many levels. Why the fantasy element here? Why not have a genuine self discovery in her current reality? Face her problems head-on in an uncomfortable destination wedding as opposed to a forced, magical wedding of her own? The film hides behind a gimmick to take away any genuine growth for its protagonist or development of supporting characters to help her in her moments of crisis.
I could go on with a litany of grievances and annoyances in this film, but the effort seems fruitless. Performances can hardly be judged against the boring, contrived “trope for tropes’ sake” pages of the screenplay. The complete lack of energy, momentum, and verve (outside of an extremely forced violent outburst towards the end) makes the film a slog for a 93-minute movie. If the bar was Falling For Christmas once again, they sadly missed the mark.

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The Deliverance holds many esteemed records in my book.

It is the only movie so maddening and so poor that I declined to write a review for it for this site.

It had the ability to make Glenn Close a laughing stock meme on social media when even Hillbilly Elegy didn’t quite pull that off in 2020 (though congrats for having a 1-point edge on that film in your Metascore).

It might also hold the title for Worst Movie starring 4 Oscar Nominated Actors, but that may require a little more research.

Inspired by the real life of LaToya Ammons, The Deliverance tells the story of the Jackson family – the mother Ebony (Andra Day), grandmother Alberta (Glenn Close), and three children: Nate (Caleb McLaughlin), Shante (Demi Singleton), and Andre (Anthony B. Jenkins) – as they move into a new home in Indiana. Ebony hopes for a fresh start this time after a history marred with personal issues: abused as a child, a criminal record of her own, substance abuse, and physical abuse upon her children. The children’s father has gone to Iraq leaving her with sole custody for the time being under the watchful eye of her Child Services caseworker Cynthia (Mo’Nique). She also has a contentious relationship with her mother who has moved in with them while battling Cancer. Her mother seems to have been a similarly abusive parent when Ebony was younger, but has recently found her faith during the years of her failing health. Alberta hopes that her daughter and her grandchildren will follow her in going back to church to help them get closer to God and restore their faith as well.

After moving into this new home, Ebony’s youngest child Andre starts communicating with what seems to be an invisible presence named Tre, who first started talking with him from a hole in the basement. He starts to act unusually at home and at school with bouts of sleepwalking, catatonic states, and overheating. Everyone in the family starts to slowly change their behavior for the worse; whether it be disgusting acts at school from the children (more later on that), more physical violence in the home, or increased drinking & abuse from Ebony.

With social services bearing down and hospitals becoming suspicious, Ebony is at the end of her rope. She is also being stalked by a woman who follows her and sits in her car in front of their home. After finally confronting her, the woman identifies herself as an apostle or a pastor who claims she was close to the family who lived in her house 20 years ago. She warns Ebony that her family may be succumbing to the demonic presence that drove the family to deadly ends. After more compounding events, Ebony must reckon with her house from hell and take action before it’s too late.

If you’ve not seen the movie yet and are just reading this description for the first time, you may think that this story may sound reasonable or enticing. A family in crisis having to overcome their own sins to battle the devil in their home.

However, the devil is in the details … and the execution. Director Lee Daniels spends so much time early on making this family cringey, especially Ebony & Alberta, that it’s hard to hang on to the eye-rolling, unintentionally comedic supernatural elements.

A mother with a record who drinks too much, gets aggressive at the drop of a hat, and hits her kids? And this seems to PRE-DATE their arrival in this house? Oh yeah, I’d love to continue watching this. A grandmother who may have found religion, but also seems to have a past history of abuse and still (largely unprompted) thinks it’s a good idea to threaten a social worker with a bat after lecturing her daughter about getting her shit together before they take her kids. I haven’t even mentioned the choice of Daniels to change the real life version of Alberta from a black woman to an older white woman dressed like a cartoon version of a teen, street-hardened girl complete with revealing or torn clothing, presenting herself in over-the-top, thickly applied makeup and wild wig changes (or no wig at all). Daniels defended his choice by saying that “every black person knows an Alberta” and that “she’s part of the fabric of our community, but we’ve never seen her on screen before”. While that may be true, the choice to do it to a character based on a real person and have it be such a distraction from the dramatic tension and moral/religious conversations is a questionable one at best.

While I’d love to say that the unwatchable characters at the center of the story are the only problems with the film, I simply cannot. Daniels does not have the chops for horror/supernatural horror filmmaking … period. The film is largely shot like a generic drama, with the basement scenes being a minor exception. He relies more on bad CGI tricks (Andre breaking his restraints and backwards climbing up a wall in the hospital looks so cheap and out of place) and occasional makeup to Andre for his “transformation” into the demonic force that is plaguing the home and beyond.

There are scenes that are sincerely laughable that in a different director’s hands could have been a sinister turning point in the film. For example, the flashback to the murders of the previous family from decades prior. The mother cuts off the head of her husband with an axe, then starts hysterically crying to the point of almost laughing while immediately searching for the head asking “What did I do with your head?” all before picking up the VERY fake looking head, switching back into murder mode, and chasing the daughter with the axe. The tone, the visuals, and the poorly lifted elements from Exorcist & Amityville Horror movies of the past all scream “out of your element” to Daniels and his team.

The grievance list is long. The internet lost their collective minds at Glenn Close saying a certain “nasty” line that isn’t even worth mentioning because, frankly, I’d be shocked if most viewers made it that far into the movie.

The Deliverance only delivers one message: Lee Daniels should leave horror/thrillers to the creators that truly know how to create it. Building tension, creating atmosphere, developing characters, constructing a visual language for the horrors to come. Daniels didn’t accomplish any of this. Even if you can say he tried to make a connection between faith, battling demons – literal & spiritual, and freeing yourself from the power of sin, he did so in the most ham-fisted, visually unappealing, and poorly executed way. This is not only the worst Netflix film of the year, but it’s also the worst movie from any studio all year.

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What were your picks for the worst Netflix movie of 2024? Let us know in the comments.