HLS Movie Awards: Top 116 Movies of 2021 Part 1! 116-101
Welcome to the first installment of the third annual HLS Movie Awards! For the past few years, we have watch as many films that came out that year as we can from all the big blockbusters to all the award season hopefuls and everything in between. This year the total number of 2021 films watched was 116. Today we are going to cover the worst of the worst and reveal the rankings of 116-101. If you are curious how this works here is a link to last year's 92-81 and last year's HLS Movie Awards. How were these movies judged? They were judged based on the quality of the film itself compared with the enjoyment or emotional reaction the movie gives the viewer. For better or worse for the reaction. We might have loved movies you hated, or hated ones you loved, let us know in the comments or on Twitter @HLSEntrtainment or my person Twitter @HaroldLStokes.
Now like always with every movie I am going to be putting what I personally think is the safest grading scale out there, the IMDB user rating score. Here is a simple breakdown of what their 0.0-10 grading scale means:
116. Tom and Jerry (HBOMax)
IMDb Score: 5.3
Starting out with a movie that I actually looked forward to, I grew up loving the original Tom and Jerry cartoons. This movie was a slog, who in the world okayed this to be an hour and forty minutes movie way too long for this story. This one can completely be marked up to I am not the demographic this movie is aimed at, maybe kids love it I do not know. I love most of the actors in this movie, so I am not sure if the bland acting is just chalked up to poor directing or just the poor script itself.
115. Bliss (Amazon Prime)
IMDb Score: 5.4
I wanted this movie to be good so badly. The trailer hooked me I was in for this depression Matrix movie, and it was just painful. The plot of the movie is fairly straight forward choosing between two worlds, which world is reality sci-fi set up, but this movie gets so lost in trying and failing to explain things by the end you are just left frustrated.
114. Things Heard & Seen (Netflix)
IMDb Score: 5.3
As someone who has dived deeper into the horror genre the past few years this was one of the most forgettable movies I have seen recently. I feel like that is one of the worst things you can say about a horror movie, no memorable scares or thrills just an artist and her husband moving to a creepy old house that apparently has a haunted history. Something I am curious about is if this movie was trimmed by Netflix, the bones of a good movie are there but it would not shock me to find out this movie was going to be over two and a half hours and Netflix (rightfully) thought that was too long and made them cut it down leaving out details that would have improved this movie.
113. Werewolves Within
IMDb Score: 6.0
This is a movie filled with "oh I recognize that person" actors that are all hilarious, but this movie just isn't. I am not sure what went wrong here but I had such high hopes for this movie being fun, but it just was not. I could very much be in the minority hear because I have heard people who enjoyed the movie but even with the barely over 90-minute runtime I was checking how much was left constantly.
112. The Little Things (HBOMax)
IMDb Score: 6.3
I feel like the worst part about this movie is I think it was very forgettable because it was actually so close to being good. SPOILERS. The ending of the movie is a bit ambiguous leaving us guessing, but you are kind of left with the idea that Denzel Washington's character is a killer? I remember we see the boots and the hairband (? some type of band) but there really should have been more to piece together. Ultimately not a terrible movie just could have been so much better.
111. Boogie
IMDb Score: 5.2
I really don't know how we are supposed to feel about this movie and its cast. Taylor Takahashi actually looks thirty something and is supposed to be playing a highschooler? Taylour Paige is actually thirty something, Pop Smoke was at least young twenties but come on I thought we were past this Hollywood? Stop casting people who look like they should be teaching high schoolers as high schoolers. Also just so much of this movie is ignorant to the recruiting process completely. Oh, he is THIS close to getting a scholarship to the best college basketball programs in the country? Oh, wow so that means he also has a hundred offers from all the other lesser programs in the country, wait what no? I mean do minimal thinking when writing the script come on.
110. Beckett
IMDb Score: 5.6
This was such a weird wrong place wrong time movie. I love John David Washington, so I was excited for this movie, but this movie was basically "hey you guys want to get a paid vacation to film a movie in Greece for a while? Don't worry we will throw in a random conspiracy that is not explained at all".
109. Space Jam: A New Legacy
IMDb Score: 4.4
This should have been made years ago, but not like this. You had the easiest layup of a movie just basically copying the original but with Lebron, crack jokes comparing him to Michael Jordan and play a basketball against the Monstars returning to Earth and stealing new players talents. But no, Warner Brothers turned this into an absolute garbage commercial for all the shows and movies they have on HBOMax.
108. Sweet Girl (Netflix)
IMDb Score: 5.5
This movie was THIS close to being the bottom of this list, but the twist does save it a bit, but it is completely illogical to the rest of the film. Seriously do not watch this I will just spoil the twist right now, Mamoa dies very early on, and the daughter has just been having a breakdown imagining her father is with her doing all the stuff she is actually doing. It was an actual oh wow twist, but it is immediately ruined by the rest of the movie and if you think about the plot at all.
107. Mortal Kombat (HBOMax)
IMDb Score: 6.1
I mean Warner Brothers and HBOMax had some just TERRIBLE movies this year. In reflection, I spent a lot of 2021 complaining about their day and date simultaneous releases killing their box office chances but if they decided to just do that for these bad movies that would have been fine. The actually good movies that were drug into that is still frustrating though. Remember when they released the opening scene to this movie and everyone got excited because it looked brutal and very well done? It was really sad to find out that was the best part of the entire film by far. This movie should have been a Scorpion v Sub-Zero movie "A Mortal Kombat Story", do not call it Mortal Kombat if you are not going to give us the Mortal Kombat tournament that audiences are expecting.
106. F9: The Fast Saga
IMDb Score: 5.2
I adore the Fast and Furious franchise. This movie was EXACTLY like a highlight reel of everything people make fun of the franchise for. Congratulations for making the worst Fast movie on the 10th attempt. Apparently, Dom is Captain "family" America now. This was easily my most disappointing movie of 2021 from how excited I was for it.
105. The Matrix Resurrections (HBOMax)
IMDb Score: 5.7
Speaking of disappointing movies. How did Warner Brothers really make multiple movies this year that were big expensive blockbusters that just killed the idea of making a meta movie? Between this and Space Jam 2, I never want to see another meta movie from WB again. I mean what type of cash grab was this? All blockbusters are inherently cash grabs I get that, but this just looks like they did not care if the movie was good at all. At least it had a cool trailer.
104. Love Hard (Netflix)
IMDb Score: 6.3
This was a movie that I actually really enjoyed. Jimmy O. Yang and Nina Dobrev were delightful, but this movie is essentially about a guy who catfishes a girl and STILL ends up with the girl? Huh? I feel like that is something that gets shot down at concept but apparently not at Netflix. Just tweak the concept to wear he was just anonymous not actually catfishing her and it is a much better movie.
103. Army of the Dead (Netflix)
IMDb Score: 5.7
This movie was laughably screwed up, the tone is just wildly off to the concept and world presented. We know this because the follow up prequel movie to this also came out this year and they just NAILED the tone, and it was so much better. So I should explain what I mean. This movie treated itself so seriously instead of leaning into the wacky goofy concept that is, a Vegas heist movie during a zombie apocalypse. A Las Vegas heist movie during a ZOMBIE apocalypse, and the script and direction treated this movie like this was a deathly serious scenario. Watching this and the follow up Army of Thieves, is a very eye-opening experience.
102. Fear Street: Part Three - 1666 (Netflix)
IMDb Score: 6.6
The final movie in a very solid but not great scary movie trilogy that I definitely am the minority on thinking it was the worst. I have seen many people putting this as the best movie of the trilogy, but I just simply think that is not true. This movie stumbled on the concept of slightly meta horror flick doing all the tropes from 80s-90s horror/slasher movies that we grew up on. It was fine, but just was not a very satisfying ending to the trilogy.
101. Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City
IMDb Score: 5.2
I understand I did not grow up playing this game series and I might have enjoyed (or hated) it more if that was the case. This is a movie that will probably be played on TNT or Syfy a million times for the next decade. Take that as a compliment or an insult, whichever you choose, just know I would not be mad at a second film. This film starts out as a legit horror film then falls into a cheesy logicless action movie without enough action, if they can find the right balance or lean into going full horror, I would be excited for a second one.
Thank you so much for reading! Let me know what you think on Twitter @HaroldLStokes! Please tweet me what your LEAST favorite movies of 2021 were and why you think that! Be sure to follow me there and on the Blogs Twitter @HLSEntrtainment for the next updates and preview to the third annual HLS Movie Awards! Up next is Part 2 100-91!
