10 Worst Fantasy Movies with Great Premises

Fantasy is a genre where pretty much anything goes. It serves as a playground for imagination and the creative minds behind films, allowing them to craft whatever story they want, be it magical, impossible, or wild, without any repercussions or limitations save for the ones that they put in place. At first, it might seem like a hard thing to get wrong since anything goes. Indeed, sometimes, it does go very, very wrong.

The world of cinema often produces bad movies and, in turn, bad fantasy movies. This might not necessarily be the fault of the writer(s) either because the story might be solid, even though the film lacks the rest of the right ingredients that typically make a movie great. These are the worst fantasy movies with great premises, which are hallmark examples of brilliantly crafted worlds with wasted potential that ultimately disappointed critics and audiences alike.

10

‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’ (2014)

Directed by Peter Jackson

The first two The Hobbit movies weren’t actually all that bad, but they certainly didn’t hold a candle to the critically acclaimed The Lord of the Rings trilogy ten years prior. Many fans were disappointed at the adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien‘s debut novel because many felt it was overly-padded, too cartoony, and riddled with bad CGI. Despite being directed by the same guy, The Hobbit just didn’t quite pack the same punch as its predecessors. But hey, maybe they saved the best for last, right? Wrong.

The Battle of the Five Armies did do some things right. For one, the battle in the novel is extremely lame. Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) gets knocked upside the head and falls to the ground unconscious just as the battle starts, and he wakes up after it’s over. Boring. So the movie did do the right thing by actually showing the battle. Unfortunately, it, like the previous installments, was too padded, had a romantic plotline that didn’t exist in the book and that nobody asked for, and the violence felt too cartoonish. The trilogy’s main villain, Smaug the Terrible (Benedict Cumberbatch), dies before the main title sequence, which is really underwhelming. It does set the tone for the rest of the film, though. All in all, there could have been promise for this one, but it didn’t really deliver.

9

‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ (2013)

Directed by Sam Raimi

The Wizard of Oz is easily one of the greatest movies of all time and a cinematic classic that simply must be seen. It still stands, nearly 100 years later, as one of the most revolutionary and fun bits of cinema ever created, and it’s universally loved by pretty much every critic out there. So, in 2013, when experienced director Sam Raimi was poised to make a prequel story about the eponymous wizard, it should have been pretty promising.

James Franco was set to play a younger version of the wizard, and the trailer promised that the movie would be in monochrome before transferring to colour, much like the original. But when Oz the Great and Powerful actually came out, it was bland and mediocre. Nothing felt as authentic or whimsical as it did in the first movie, and the events in the film felt manufactured and poorly planned. The result is extremely forgettable, to the point where most can’t recall a thing about it, even though lots of people have seen it.

8

‘The Golden Compass’ (2007)

Directed by Chris Weitz

The Golden Compass is set on an alternate version of Earth in which magic and monsters are real. It follows the adventures of a young girl named Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) as she journeys to the frigid expanse of the Arctic to save her best friend from a shadowy cabal and their sinister experiments. The film is based on a novel of the same name by Philip Pulman, which is the first in the His Dark Materials series.

Sadly, the movie was so bad that it squashed any hope for the remaining books to be adapted into sequels, thanks to its lack of faithfulness to its source. Citing all the differences between the book and the movie would probably be enough to write a book of its own: it’s completely unrecognizable and disappointed fans immensely. If any fans of His Dark Materials were to want a good adaptation, it’s best to just turn to the BBC One/HBO series. It’s more faithful and tells the complete story, unlike the movie.

7

‘Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief’ (2010)

Directed by Chris Columbus

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief was Hollywood’s first attempt at adapting the widely-popular book series of the same name by Rick Riordan. The keyword here is “attempt.” There were so many glaring issues with this movie, namely the fact that it didn’t even mildly resemble the book. Major details were left out entirely, the characters were much older than they should’ve been, and the entire thing felt rushed and sloppy.

It hurts even more knowing it was directed by Chris Columbus. This prospect sounded good at first because he directed the first two Harry Potter films, which were great, so one would think he would be an experienced veteran at bringing YA fantasy to life on screen. Unfortunately, this movie was not approved by fans, yet it made millions at the box office. It did produce a sequel, but any plans for a franchise were scrapped due to its lackluster quality. If fans of the novels wish to find a more suitable adaptation, they’d be better off watching the Disney+ series; it’s way better.

6

‘Inkheart’ (2008)

Directed by Iain Softley

Inkheart is yet another adaptation of a YA fantasy novel based on a bestselling book by Cornelia Funke. The basic premise is that there is a father who often reads fairy tales and picture books to his daughter, with everything he reads inexplicably coming to life. Twelve years later, some of the most dastardly villains from the stories have come back to haunt them and take over the world, and it’s up to the family to try to find a way to read them back into the books from whence they came.

All of that sounds great, right? It sounds like it could be a whimsical story about childhood and imagination, full to the brim with iconic characters from fables and folklore, with a potential for a war between evil characters like the Big Bad Wolf and good characters like the Three Pigs. To be fair, the book wasn’t spectacular, but it still presented a unique and memorable story. The movie, however, not so much. The movie was chock-full of overused clichés and lacked everything that made the original novel so popular. The movie version of Inkheart was quickly swept under the rug and forgotten about.

5

‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald’ (2018)

Directed by David Yates

The Harry Potter series really made waves at the box office, making billions and providing fans with some really awesome adaptations of one of the most popular YA fantasy series ever written. Naturally, when a prequel series directed by the same director as the latter four Harry Potter films was announced, fans were excited. This first movie, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, was absolutely nothing special. It was a fun little urban fantasy that wasn’t bad but was nothing groundbreaking. Nothing could have prepared fans for the serious dip in quality of its sequel, though.

Out of the entire trilogy of prequel films, The Crimes of Grindelwald is definitely the worst, which is honesty a huge shame because having Johnny Depp star as the titular villain actually really works. This film is a pretty poignant lesson about when to call it a day and quit while you’re ahead, because if the first film had remained a stand-alone, it would have been so much better. This lackluster sequel felt more like a cash grab and less like a genuine effort to continue the story of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

4

‘Clash of the Titans’ (2010)

Directed by Louis Leterrier

Clash of the Titans was supposed to be a remake of the 1981 film of the same name, which was somewhat obscure but pretty good for its time. This modern version promised updated visuals, a star-studded cast, and a more epic scale, thanks to new film technology. To its credit, it did bring exactly what it said it would—the CGI is stunning, and the visuals are nice—but it fell short in just about every other department.

For one, the dialogue is so embarrassing that a lot of the movie’s lines have been made into memes. Not even the performances of its veteran actors could salvage the awkwardness of the script. On top of that, it fails to capture the spirit of the Greek mythos upon which it is based and largely deviates from the story of Perseus (Sam Worthington), leaving fans of the Greek myth subgenre very disappointed. It might look impressive if one were to watch isolated clips of all the exciting parts, but if one were to watch the whole film, one would quickly see the glaring flaws in it.

3

‘Warcraft’ (2016)

Directed by Duncan Jones

The world of Azeroth from the widely-popular MMO World of Warcraft is vast and varied, featuring many different environments, monsters, and magical beings. It’s a land brimming with everything a fantasy fan could ask for, oozing with hidden secrets and mysteries, and with a huge lexicon of history behind it that is constantly changing with every update the developers make to the game. Sure, video game movies are generally a bad idea, but with as much material as the Warcraft series provides, it should be easy to craft a story that feels separate from the games and that expands upon the fully fleshed-out world.

With fans of the game, this movie was actually a success, as many appreciated it for its action, visuals and entertainment value. Yes, it’s a good movie if one were to only look at the surface of it. If someone were to look for an easy-to-watch fantasy that’s exciting, it’s fine, but as soon as critics point out some of the more technical aspects, the entire thing falls apart. Basically, the main arguments are that it’s way too hard to tell the CGI characters apart, that the movie doesn’t really answer the crucial “so what?” question at the heart of every story, that it’s way too ambitious, and that there’s absolutely nothing in it to attract non-fans. Overall, Warcraft has its niche of fans, but for everyone else, it’s kind of a slog.

2

‘Gods of Egypt’ (2016)

Directed by Alex Proyas

There’s definitely no shortage of movies about Greek mythology or Greek gods, some of them good, many of them terrible. But a movie about Egyptian gods? Now that’s something new and exciting. But typically, if a filmmaker is going to make a movie about Egyptian gods, it would probably help to get actors who were, you know, Egyptian. Or at least of Egyptian or North African descent. The actors selected for Gods of Egypt are talented and perfectly fine, but most felt entirely mismatched in this disappointing movie.

Visually, the movie is garish. The CGI is far from impressive, and there’s way too much of it. Beyond that, the script is clunky, the characters lack development, and the story doesn’t appear to be based on any real Ancient Egyptian myths or legends. It’s almost as if it took the gods to be characters and crafted a nonsense story to include all of them. It’s actually kind of sad because a good movie about Egyptian mythos is absolutely warranted, but ideally, they’d have to be better executed than whatever Gods of Egypt was going for.

1

‘The Last Airbender’ (2010)

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

The Last Airbender is a name synonymous with embarrassment in the world of cinema because of its poor quality that felt like it was trying to be bad on purpose. The film is based on the hit Nickelodeon cartoon series Avatar: The Last Airbender, which had garnered a huge following, so how could these fans not be excited for a live-action movie version of it? Well, there was just one problem: M. Night Shyamalan. The Oscar-nominated director has proven himself perfectly capable of creating cinematic masterpieces, but at the time this film came out, he was on a massive losing streak, with this flick representing the all-time low of that downward descent.

The characters barely resembled their cartoon counterparts, the dialogue is awkward and lacks personality, the CGI is horrible, and the magic, or “bending” as it’s called in-universe, lacked any real power or impact. This adaptation hurts so much because it isn’t just bad; it’s atrocious, which is particularly egregious because a live-action adaptation of the cartoon can be good with the right ingredients—the recent Netflix series is a perfect example. As for the movie, though, it could have been fun, but it wasn’t. It was terrible from beginning to end and is arguably one of the worst movies ever made.

NEXT: 10 Movies With Great Plots but Terrible Execution