Family films are meant to entertain little kids while simultaneously providing the adults who care for said kids with at least a modicum of amusement – ideally with humor that is smart enough to go over the heads of the little tykes and make the adults grin. Other family films are meant to be so touching that they hit the audience at their emotional core, regardless of age. Numerous films aim to do this…and fail on both accounts. Welcome to the 1990s. This decade was rife with family movies that just miss the mark on every front.
Whether loaded with gags that are simply unfunny to all demographics, like Super Mario Bros., or contain such forced drama or situations so outlandish and implausible that they make everyone cringe, like North, these films are all absolute clunkers. And so, behold, the worst 90s family movies of all time, for your viewing displeasure.
10
‘Surf Ninjas’ (1993)
Kicking off this loathsome list is the much-maligned Surf Ninjas. Director Neal Israel’s action-comedy, on paper, doesn’t seem all that terrible. It’s about two brothers, Johnny (Ernie Reyes Jr.) and Adam (Nicolas Cowan), who, you guessed it, are surfer dudes. They discover that they are long-lost heirs to the “Patusan” throne, a made-up ancient Asian kingdom, when a troupe of ninjas attacks them while they catch some waves — and a magical martial artist, Zatch (Ernie Reyes Sr. — apparently, Johnny’s real life dad), appears and elucidates their royal lineage.
If the premise alone doesn’t inspire a hearty “Cowabunga!,” then perhaps the inclusion of comedic genius Rob Schneider (here 28, playing a teen, Iggy) may sway even the most discerning film buff to view this masterpiece. Truth be told, this movie does have a bit of a cult following, in the “so-horrible-it’s-enjoyable” vain, but the fact that it features “magically healing” Sega Game Gear should be all one needs to know.
9
‘Double Dragon’ (1994)
Picture it, Los Angeles, 2007. It’s been re-crowned as “New Angeles,” and it’s overrun by violent gangs and thugs. Once again, fightin’ brothers, Billy (Scott Wolf) and Jimmy Lee (Mark Dacascos) are the protagonists in this video game adaptation. The brothers are charged with protecting a mystical amulet that has been broken in two. One half resides in the hands of the villainous gang boss Koga Shuko (Robert Patrick), and the bros need to retrieve it before Koga combines the two halves and even more hell breaks loose in the dystopian Hell-A.
Director James Yukich does his darnedest to pack Double Dragon with tons of fun action, but the horrendous video effects and gouda-rich script drag this dreck down to the absolute depths of cinema. A baffling aspect is that the film decided to stray from the plot of the video game (where the bros tried to rescue Billy’s girlfriend from the evil gang leader), which only seemed to do it a disservice.
8
‘Super Mario Bros.’ (1993)
Image via Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
With the international success of Nintendo’s Super Mario Brothers video game, a feature film was bound to happen. The people behind the film, though, didn’t think that the game’s story had enough meat to it, so they transported (*cue pipe noise) Mario and Luigi to another dimension (“Dinohattan”). Here, there is not only a sentient fungus, but also shape-shifting dinosaurs. Um, ok.
This would have all been fine if this new setting was remotely interesting or at least visually striking. Nope. Just a bunch of wacky action thrown at the camera, which left children and adults scratching their heads. Directors Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton tried to make the mess that is Super Marios Bros. somewhat comedic in tone, but mostly failed, as the humor is very forced and downright odd. Bob Hoskins does his best as Mario, as does John Leguizamo as Luigi, but they are no match for the nonsensical story and awkward beats (*cue no-lives-left theme).
7
‘The NeverEnding Story III: Escape from Fantasia’ (1994)
Completing a successful trilogy is challenging, with only a few examples in film history having ever accomplished this with a winning third movie. The NeverEnding Story III is not one of those movies. While the first film was an instant children’s movie classic (not in spite of its pensive, dark themes, but precisely because of them), the sequel, The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter, diluted the gravity and sought to lighten things up. This didn’t entirely work. The third film…just went completely off the rails.
Director Peter MacDonald put the nail in the coffin of this franchise with its worst chapter. The plot focuses on Bastian (Jason James Richter, mercifully reprising this role for the last time) as he tries to pry the magical book out of the grimy hands of some bullies (led by Slip, played by an apparently hard up Jack Black). All the intellectual elements of the original (and even the sequel) were removed and replaced with silliness that stretched the limits of “comedy” to their breaking points. Overall, this film left audiences of all ages praying that this story would finally END.
6
‘North’ (1994)
Esteemed, late director Rob Reiner has one of the most impressive film resumes in the business, so audiences were mostly shocked at what they witnessed in North. Aside from having this storied director at the helm, the cast features some incredible big names too, such as film icon Bruce Willis (as the Narrator), 90s comedy legends Jason Alexander (as North’s Dad ) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (North’s Mom), and child actor extraordinaire Elijah Wood (as the titular North). All this talent (and a 40 million dollar budget) added up to very little in terms of cinematic output here.
The story is about a lil’ genius (we’ll get to even worse fare on this topic soon) who feels underappreciated by his parents and decides to go on an epic worldwide adventure…searching for new parents. Huh? He’s accompanied by Willis in this ill-conceived, tonally odd, and strangely dark kids’ flick for the ages.
5
‘Barney’s Great Adventure’ (1998)
Some family movies are aimed at a very young audience, hoping to entertain tots with a G-rated fun fest. Still, this should not be an excuse for jaw-dropping, awful filmmaking. The story of Barney’s Great Adventure, featuring the famous talking purple T. Rex, is that three little tykes, Cody (Trevor Morgan), Marcella (Kyla Pratt), and Abby (Diana Rice), get sent to their grandparents’ house for the summer. They discover an egg that came from outer space (deemed a “dream maker” for some reason). Barney appears (for some reason), and the egg mistakenly ends up in a truck that takes it across the nation, and the kids must recover it (for some other, completely inane reason).
Look, the target audience here is probably five-year-olds, but this overly saccharine, completely nonsensical musical (yes, there’s a boat load of corny, headache-inducing songs) is painful for anyone not in kindergarten to watch. Steve Gomer “directs” this baby schlock, and later, an episode of Blue Bloods — as one does after mastering the talking dinosaur genre.
4
‘Kazaam’ (1996)
Who doesn’t love Shaq? Apparently, moviegoers of the film Kazaam. Paul Michael Glaser’s 5% RT-rated film is about a genie, Shaquille O’Neal, who is summoned…from a boombox. As the titular Kazaam, he is tasked with granting three wishes to Max Connor (Francis Capra), the kid who inadvertently called him forth. Max uses his lucky windfall to seek out his biological father, Nick (James Acheson), a club owner who has his own problems with the infamous “bootleg CD” crime syndicate.
The film suffers from just about everything that makes a movie bad, and throws in some unexpectedly awful wrenches as well — Shaq’s “song,” performed in a nightclub, is one particularly dreadful moment. Overall, this is one of the worst movies — and performances — of all time (and that includes Shaq’s next flop, Steel).
3
‘Theodore Rex’ (1995)
Some films make history. Theodore Rex sure did, as it’s one of only 44 coveted films ever to score a 0% tomatometer on RT. However, the story is at least an inventive one. A wise-talking cop, Katie Coltrane (Whoopi Goldberg in a role she reputedly wished she had turned down), existing in a futuristic world where dinosaurs can talk (and you thought the Barney movie was bad) is paired up with just such a creature, Theodore Rex (annoyingly voiced by George Newbern), to solve a dinocide (dinosaur murder). Yup, that’s the plot.
Theodore Rex somehow garnered a PG-rating, despite having some weirdly dark and adult-like themes. Writer/director/dinosaur-provocateur Jonathan R. Betuel leads the audience down a twisty wormhole of corruption, deception, and evil-intentioned villains (Armin Mueller-Stahl as Elizar Kane is spectacularly, offensively bad). One can only wish a real T. Rex from the Jurassic Park world broke free and ate all the dolts involved in this neo-prehistoric calamity.
2
‘Ghost Dad’ (1990)
Ok, at the time, Bill Cosby was a celebrated TV star as he portrayed Cliff Huxtable with lovable charm for years on The Cosby Show (and, of course, this was all way before any scandals broke). That being said, just based on its merits alone, Ghost Dad is one of the dumbest movies of all time.
The story follows Elliot Hopper (Cosby), a negligent, single parent. He’s so focused on a big deal going through at work, that he is too distracted to realize that the driver of a cab he’s hailed is a suicidal Satanist (huh?), Curtis Burch (Raynor Scheine), who crashes his taxi and kills Elliot in the process. Now, as a hilarious spectral figure, Elliot must not only still get the big deal done, but, oh yeah, he has to find a way to return to his living form. One of the most baffling, logic-defying things about this whole endeavor is that Sidney Poitier, one of the greatest thespians ever, directed this poppycock. It’s convoluted tone, mixing intense family drama topics and goofy ghosty pranks, really cements this as not only one of the worst family movies ever, but as one of the worst anythings ever.
1
‘Baby Geniuses’ (1999)
Talking babies are a hard thing to pull off. Often they come across as creepy rather than adorable (the rare exception seems to be the baby in Look Who’s Talking, but that infant only communicated via cheeky voice over by Bruce Willis). So, Baby Geniuses was already at a large disadvantage before it even hit theaters. However, no one was prepared for what was to come…
With one of the worst ideas in movie history, the story is about a pair of scientists who experiment on babies in an attempt to decode their baby babble — which they believe holds genius-level secrets. HUH? The adult cast (who all probably wish they could remove this “credit” from their IMDb pages) is comprised of Kathleen Turner, as Elena, and Christopher Lloyd, as Heep. They each gave shameful performances, even with the F-grade material presented to them. The fact that anyone was able to stomach this gibberish for its 97-minute runtime is unfathomable. To his credit, director Bob Clark leaned heavily into the ridiculousness of the script, and tried to make the film as over-the-top as possible in an effort to inject a morsel of entertainment into this disaster. The film was released in 1999, which should’ve been a sign that, while humanity did survive the threat of Y2K, the end of intelligent life was imminent. For further proof that society would collapse soon after, look no further than the sequel, Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2.
Baby Geniuses
- Release Date
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March 12, 1999
- Runtime
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97 Minutes
- Director
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Bob Clark
- Writers
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Bob Clark, Greg Michael
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