The Morbius Effect

Is it ever really that bad?

After recently taking the 'jump' and watching Morbius (2022) for the first time, despite the dire reviews and cultural pile on, I was pleasantly surprised by how good the film was, at least compared to my expectations. Now, don't get me wrong, was it the best film of all time? Not by a long shot, and of course there are elements to critique, as with any piece of art, however I simply could not believe how much of a victim of sensationalism it was at the time. It was an okay movie, so for audiences to act like it was quite possibly the worst, most laughable film of all time, was absurd to me.

On a side note, can we have Matt Smith in more villain roles, PLEASE!

This prompted me to explore more of the 'most hated' films that exist, particularly of more recent years, as this is where the sensationalism is more prevalent, due to social media and online rhetoric causing those kind of heard mentalities. This certainly isn't an extensive list, mind you, and I'm of course open to suggestions. I did some research into films that were collectively hated (by audiences and critics alike) upon first release, and then had a deep dive into the worst rated movies on trusty Letterboxd, where I also made the list. And I'll say, I'm excited to dive in, if my experience of Morbius is anything to go by. I personally prefer when a film overdelivers than those which are overhyped and leave me feeling deflated and miss-sold - but that's a whole other post we'll surely get on to... cough cough, Longlegs....

I want to caveat this by saying, I'm not Morbius' number one fan - I know it might sound like it - I'm just genuinely intrigued by audiences making a collective, conscious decision to act like the filmmakers personally kicked their dog whenever they release a less than 5* worthy film.

I also recently watched Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017), another film which was received terribly. It's fantastical and tropey, sure, but it's also A LOT of fun. Do we as a society just have an incessant need to be miserable? Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne had great chemistry, and it seemed like one of those fantasy/sci-fi films that should have had a Divergent or Hunger Games-esque fandom. Again, there’s plenty to critique too, some rough CGI to say the least, but once again I find myself asking how something so harmless could cause such visceral reactions among so many.

Of course, there are films out there that I whole heartedly agree on. For example, the newest iteration on War of the Worlds (2025) which I’ll say no more about, or Blonde (2022) which had its own problematic issues, so this is by no means a ploy to go ‘against the grain’, I'm just not sure many of these movies are deserving of as much vitriol as they get.

Some other titles on the list, which I am yet to delve into, include: Cats (2019), Madame Web (2024), Green Lantern (2011), Joker 2 (2024), Hurry Up Tomorrow (2025) and Cinderella (2021), to name a few, and I certainly want to add some older movies in there too. I also noticed many of those on the list come under the Superhero/CBM bracket, which doesn’t surprise me (do I even need to explain why), so I’ll be intrigued to see what ‘heinous atrocities’ to filmmaking 2015’s Fantastic Four allegedly committed.

I’m sure I’ll be disappointed by some and pleasantly surprised by others, and I’ll certainly to let you know, but if this is a new method of finding movies I’ll enjoy, I’m all here for it.