The Worst Remakes/Reboots According to Content Creators
What do you notice in the picture above? That's right: every single one of these films is a remake/reboot or even sequel. Over the past few years there have been a lot of bad attempts to revitalize certain films. I talked to a few film content creators and asked them what did they think is the worst remake/reboot that they have seen?
Before I get into what everyone had to say about what they think the worst remake/reboot is I had to give mine at least. What was Disney thinking with the live action Mulan that was released in 2020? The pandemic didn’t help matters because a lot of actors that had a film come out couldn’t go out publicly to promote it. I grew up with Mulan and to this day it's still one of my favorite Disney films and favorite films overall.
Mushu and Cricket are cut out of the film because Disney didn't want to be disrespectful and offend the Asian community. While, I 100% understand that aspect of it and respect it, Mushu and Cricket's presence in the film is missing. Not only that but a lot of the musical scenes are cut out and they dub over Jet Li's voice. It's so terrible, like why did they have to do that? When Jet Li talks it looks like a terrible karate movie from the 70's, 60's, where the characters lips are moving but the dialogue isn’t matching what they're saying.
According, to Movieruntime the worst remake is 2013's Oldboy directed by Spike Lee. I never heard of the remake or the original and when I asked her what she dislikes about it her answer was, “The American Oldboy remake might be the worst reboot ever made—not just because it’s bad, but because it completely misses what made the original so iconic. It’s like they copied the plot without understanding the assignment. All the raw emotion, the moral messiness, the stylized violence that made Park Chan-wook’s version unforgettable? Gone. What we get instead is a sanitized, clunky knockoff that thinks shock value can replace storytelling. It hits the same plot beats but misses the psychological depth, moral ambiguity, and sheer audacity that gave the original its staying power. It’s not just a bad film—it’s a hollow echo of a scream that once shook audiences to their core.”
After hearing this not only did I add the remake to my watch list but also the original as well. Talk about, “being honest" am I right?
When I asked Heycrystalj, what she thought the worst remake/reboot was she said 2017's Flatliners. Once again this was a film someone named that I had never even heard of before so I was curious about the plot about how it differs from the original seeing how I never seen either.
Her explanation being: “1990’s Flatliners was a fresh and original concept with philosophical weight. It had incredible actors with characters that had depth. They weren’t just pretty people playing shallow charters. The original characters had sins with weight, like sexual assault, neglect, bullying, etc & they leaned into the guilt, the trauma and atonement for their pasts. The remake is lackluster visually, like a straight to streaming movie. Schumacher gave the original life through the concept of a temporary glimpse into the afterlife. The original was bold. It was surreal and dreamlike. It had a borderline gothic aesthetic that was eerie and a fever dream. The remake doesn’t have a voice, no real atmospheric presence. It was a cash grab that doesn’t hold a candle to the 1990's flatliners.”
Not surprisingly actor/content creator Thejahni said that Disney's live action attempt of Lion King was the worst. Aside from Cinderlla and The Jungle Book there isn't a whole of of Disney remakes that are particularly “good". His exact words were, “the worst remake I would say is the Lion King live action. The fact that Disney thought they could remake one of their greatest & most successful animated movies…you have a movie where the original version was so colourful & expressive, only for the remake to be dull & void.”
As terrible as this film is I try to forget this even existed and thanks to Reeltalkjenabeth I was reminded of this disaster. “That’s an interesting question! I guess for me it would be Fantastic Four (2015). AKA Fant4Stic, It had all the right ingredients but failed the execution. Delivered a hollow, joyless mess with no emotional weight, no character chemistry, and a lackluster finale. Not a solid reboot.”
My friend and also fellow content creator, Mbktheactionguy let it be known that he strongly dislikes 2017's The Mummy starring Tom Cruise. “Awful visual affects, boring story nothing made the story interesting it was just meh the whole time. Wasted Tom Cruise and Sofia. The original mummy with Brenden Fraser was great charming cast and still hold up to this day".”
He is also not the only one that thinks this rendition of The Mummy was terrible. Fellow film content creator, Oshkoshvikash and also one of the host of the film podcast titled, cinemapursuitpodcast had this to say about the film: “The Mummy from 2017 is easily one of Tom Cruise’s worst movies and a terrible attempt at rebooting The Mummy and the Universal Monsters movies. Universal is always trying to make money off of their classic spooky monsters. The recently opened Epic Universe has a portion dedicated to them. The Mummy (2017) besides having a turmoil of production that led to them trying to fix the movie, the movie fundamentally misunderstood what has fascinated audiences all of these years. Spoilers for this terrible movie but we see Tom Cruise’s character become the Mummy at the end of the movie. In the last 15 minutes of the movie, it finally gets interesting. Hollywood has had an issue of making movies that feel like a precursor to a good movie and then never making that good movie. We see and go through plenty of high budget shenanigans, have great actors like Russell Crowe and Sofia Boutella thrown in there BUT it was all never enough to justify the existence of the movie. Anytime we make a movie, asking WHY we want to make the movie is always a must. This movie being the failed attempted to start a MONSTERS UNIVERSE is a sad attempted at even being a movie itself.”
Remakes, reboots or even sequels it's pretty obvious that there is been more flops than successes. There are tons of original ideas in Hollywood that are either turned down by studios because they would rather make something with an IP or people aren't supporting the original projects like they should. I am under the belief of, “if it ain’t broke don't fix it” when it comes to projects we’ve already seen before. While I'm not saying, “no” to every remake/reboot/sequel, I think they only work if there are certain things about said movie that haven’t aged well. For example, I would love to see a remake of The Breakfast Club but with a diverse cast that tackles subjects such as: racism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, autism, etc.
Not every single movie from our childhood or before our childhood has to be remade. However, if you are going to touch an IP then do something that requires it.
