Science fiction films always attract the attention of viewers, but they also often cause disappointment. In some cases, overly bold scientific concepts fail to find understanding among the public. In other cases, directors fail to create an attractive story wrapper for a fantastic idea or to recreate the authentic atmosphere of the source material. We have collected for your science fiction films that disappointed the audience despite having strong prerequisites for success.
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Premiere date: 2005
IMDb rating: 5.2
In 2026, in the middle of the American Nevada desert, a portal to an ancient city on Mars appears. To explore it, a research station is opened on the «red planet». In 2046, an alarm signal is sent from it: an unknown enemy is pursuing and killing scientists. A rapid response team of 8 elite fighters is sent to investigate the situation. But the monstrous creatures the marines find in the labyrinths of the secret laboratory are much stronger and bloodthirstier than anyone could have imagined.
The Doom game franchise from id Software is one of the most influential in the history of video games, starring Dwayne Johnson, Karl Urban, and Rosamund Pike — what could have gone wrong? It would be easy to blame the failure on the notorious curse of game adaptations. But the famous critic Roger Ebert blames the director, who in the last part of the film abandoned dialogues and character development, creating something like a video game. In addition, it is a real crime to invite you to Mars and not show the audience its surface at all — it’s like going to the sea and not leaving your hotel room.
Premiere date: 2015
IMDb rating: 5.3
In 1999, the Wachowski duo revolutionized science fiction cinema by depicting human life on Earth as an AI-driven virtual reality. With the hope of repeating their success in 2015, the authors took on another ambitious sci-fi blockbuster — «Jupiter Ascending». Mila Kunis plays a cleaner named Jupiter Jones, who one day learns that she is the rightful heir to the ruler of numerous star systems and must save humanity from destruction.
Those who expected something conceptual like another Matrix from the Wachowski sisters’ new work were severely disappointed. After all, the film merely placed the old Cinderella story in a futuristic space opera setting. But the rest of the audience enjoyed a visually stunning adventure that, even ten years later, can be called a real feast for the eyes.
Premiere date: 2023
IMDb rating: 5.4
As of 2022, the «Jurassic Park» franchise films have brought Universal Pictures more than $6 billion. Therefore, the idea of combining dinosaurs and space travel in one movie to get a piece of this pie looked quite tempting. That’s how the fantastic thriller «65» about pilot Mills (Adam Driver), who ended up on Earth 65 million years ago due to the collision of his ship with an asteroid, was born. Together with the girl Koa, who is the only passenger to survive the crash, he must escape from the bloodthirsty dinosaurs and find his way home.
Despite an interesting initial idea and the participation of the screenwriters of the successful «A Quiet Place», the movie was a total disappointment. Edition The Observer points out that a large assortment of dinosaurs does not make «65» any less boring. The fact is that horrible creatures mostly bite each other. And the worst thing that happens to Mills is, ridiculously enough, falling out of a tree. Add to this the lack of any sense in the final tweet to realize that watching the movie is unlikely to inspire even the biggest Driver fans.
Premiere date: 2004
IMDb rating: 5.7
A wealthy industrialist organizes a scientific expedition to investigate thermal activity under a 600-meter layer of ice on an Antarctic island. Upon arrival, his team finds a tunnel leading to a pyramid hidden under the ice. Hieroglyphs on its walls indicate that Predators have been visiting Earth for thousands of years. Once a century, they arrive to take part in a hunt for xenomorphs, whose queen sleeps in cryogenic sleep in the middle of the pyramid. When she wakes up, humans suddenly find themselves in the center of a battle between two alien races.
In the early 2000s, the «Alien» and «Predator» franchises were at the height of their popularity. Each of them had already gained an army of loyal fans. Therefore, the upcoming a fight between two monsters that the crossover was supposed to show, kept fans of both communities up at night. In the end, «Alien vs. Predator» only disappointed them, as it paid too much attention to people and overly confused the already controversial lore of each franchise.
Premiere date: 2025
IMDb rating: 5.9
Based on the illustrated novel by the Swedish retrofuturist artist Simon Stolenhag, «Electric State» takes place in an alternate United States of 1997. The country has recently ended a devastating war with smart machines, and most people are obsessed with virtual entertainment. Against this backdrop, a rebellious girl Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown) suddenly meets a yellow robot called Cosmo, who somehow miraculously contains the consciousness of her younger brother Chris.
The brother asks for help. To save him, Michelle teams up with a smuggler named Keats (Chris Pratt). The search leads them to the exclusion zone, where a variety of robots live in exile after the war: from huge combat drones to toy animatronics and home robots with AI elements.
If we look at it in general terms, the story of a man and a girl traveling through the post-apocalyptic United States searching for a safe place could be compared to The Last of Us. But Netflix and the directors, the Russo brothers, managed to turn the book’s plot into a clumsy comedy for a whopping $320 million. At the same time, they ignored the dark and mysterious atmosphere of the source and its deep science fiction ideas to end up with an entertaining attraction for 8-year-olds.
Premiere date: 2014
IMDb rating: 6.2
Johnny Depp plays the role of Will Caster, a brilliant scientist who experiments with artificial intelligence. When he is fatally wounded in an attack by terrorists of the anti-technology group RIFT, his colleagues transfer his consciousness to a newly developed supercomputer. To prevent RIFT from destroying the computer, Caster uploads himself to the Internet. At the same time, he realizes that his new capabilities far exceed the aggregate intelligence of all humans born in history. He comes up with the idea of replacing their primitive organic basis with new mechanisms to provide humanity with a decisive «advantage».».
The idea of digital immortality allows for many fascinating stories. Unfortunately, even a grandiose concept is not enough to make a great movie. With its logical holes, lack of character development, and stunning inconsistencies, «Superiority» failed to capture the audience’s attention for long. Its key drawback is also the script, where most of the story is presented as a memory. Because of this, at the beginning we see a world where the Internet does not exist, which deprives the story of the tension it needs. It makes it a fat spoiler as to how everything will turn out in the end. However, science fiction fans who are fascinated by the potential of computer intelligence will find something to think about after watching the movie.
Premiere date: 2013
IMDb rating: 6.6
The pseudo-documentary sci-fi thriller «The Ninth District» virtually reopened the genre of cinema about humanity’s contact with an extraterrestrial civilization, showed the creative design of shrimp aliens and was a bold statement on xenophobia and freedom. Therefore, the new work of director Neill Blomkamp, the film «Elysium» starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster, was expected to be no less successful.
The film is set in the twenty-first century. The vast majority of people are struggling to survive in the slums of a polluted Earth, while the ruling class enjoys a luxurious life on the Elysium orbital station, where there is clean air and state-of-the-art medical care. After being heavily exposed to radiation at work, the protagonist Max realizes that his only hope of survival — is medicine «Elysium». So he sets off on a suicide mission to save himself and the people he loves.
Despite an interesting idea, «Elysium» quickly switches to the hackneyed trope of the plight of illegal migrants and gets bogged down in political intrigue — somehow Jodie Foster had to find screen time to play Secretary of Defense Jessica Delacourt. Instead, the film pays minimal attention to fantastic ideas, such as the construction of a grandiose space station that supports a comfortable life for tens of thousands of people.
Premiere date: 2005
IMDb rating: 6.8
Michael Bay’s sci-fi dystopia takes us to a future where a group of people survived a global catastrophe and live in a carefully guarded residential complex in the middle of an infected desert. The administration of the complex takes great care of the health of the residents and holds a lottery among them, the winners of which will be able to get to «Island» — the last unpolluted place on the planet. However, one day, the main character Lincoln Six-Luna finds out that he and the rest of the inhabitants are just clones, grown to provide wealthy people with «spare parts», and decides to escape.
«The Island» incorporates ideas from dystopian literature and science fiction films of the 1970s, such as «Logan’s Run», where the residents of the city under the dome, who have turned 30, are destroyed by laser, supposedly for «rebirth in a fiery carousel». But Michael Bay is primarily known for his spectacular blockbusters «Transformers» and «Armageddon». Perhaps that’s why he focused mainly on action, not paying due attention to a whole range of exciting ideas about cloning and its impact on human life in the future.
Premiere date: 2016
IMDb rating: 7.0
The spaceship «Avalon» is carrying thousands of colonists to establish a colony on the planet Homestead II. The flight is designed to last 120 years, so all passengers and crew members are in anabiosis. But due to a system malfunction, mechanic Jim Preston wakes up 90 years before the end of the journey. Faced with the prospect of living his whole life and dying alone, the hero musters the courage to wake up the beautiful Aurora, who, of course, does not like it.
«The Songbird» Jennifer Lawrence and «The Star-Lord» Chris Pratt are left alone in the middle of endless space. The star power of the actors and the mysterious premise are already intriguing, so how could the movie disappoint the audience? «The Awakening» was heavily criticized for its questionable love story and unsuccessful ending. The thing is, Jim knew very well: Aurora would not be able to go back to sleep.
Thus, he deliberately condemned her to the sad fate of spending the rest of her life among the deserted corridors of the spaceship, where only service androids can be found. Later, the heroine Lawrence even forgave Jim and decided to stay with him when she was provided the opportunity to return to anabiosis. In theory, this was probably supposed to be romantic, but in practice, the justification of Jim’s unethical actions turned off the audience.
Premiere date: 1982
IMDb rating: 8.1
The film «Blade Runner» is based on the book by the famous American science fiction author Philip K. Dick «Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep» and tells the story of the world of the near future. By the way, it has already come more than five years ago, in November 2019. In the world of the film, humanity has survived a nuclear war, created replicant robots that are almost indistinguishable from humans, and is actively colonizing remote worlds.
The replicants are forced to work hard and dangerous jobs, and their lives are limited to 4 years, as if in mockery. That’s why more and more artificial humans are fleeing from space colonies to Earth searching for a better life. To search for them and neutralize them, a special unit «Blade Runners» was created on Earth, in which the protagonist of the movie, Rick Deckard serves. After receiving an order to eliminate a dangerous group of replicants of the advanced Nexus 6 model, he finds himself facing a difficult question: who can really consider himself human?
It seems almost unbelievable now, but upon its release, Ridley Scott’s film, which created a cyberpunk aesthetic of a rusty future and subsequently took a place in the IMDb Top 250, not only failed to become a box office success. It was simply trampled by critics. Viewers expected to see heroic adventures like «Star Wars», but got a gloomy neo-noir that was imbued with numerous metaphors and melancholic reflections on humanity and the transience of life. In addition, many people saw the film as a detective story, failing to understand its true philosophical depth.