The 10 Worst Alternate History Movies of All Time: A Critical Analysis
Jonah Hex: A catastrophic failure, this movie is a shambolic supercut of a 'Jonah Hex' movie, with a meager runtime and chopped-to-bits characters and story. It's a disaster that's now recognized in the annals of moviemaking history as one of the great filmic catastrophes.
Red Dawn (2012): A jingoistic thrill without picking a real enemy, this movie is a Cold War nationalist fantasy that lacks the courage of its convictions. It's an action movie with nothing to say about occupation, resistance, or fear of a foreign power.
White Man's Burden: A superficial race-based morality tale, this movie indulges in obvious, blundering college-dorm-room-style philosophizing. It treats racism as simply a matter of who holds power, erasing the specific histories that produced American racial inequality.
Dracula Untold: An origin story built backward from franchise necessity, this movie is more interested in setting up MCU-style sequels than in the individual movie itself. It's a defanged Dracula blockbuster with a generic coat of paint.
Wild Wild West: A late '90s genre disaster, this movie is a steampunk reimagining of the 1965 CBS series that falls flat on its face. It's a nine-figure spectacle that never settles on what kind of movie it wants to be.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter: A historical supernatural horror flick that carries a solemn tone that contradicts the inherent absurdity of the central premise. It's a genre-history mashup that seems afraid to have fun with its own premise.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: A notorious blockbuster flop, this movie is an adaptation of the famed comic book series that sets expectations it duly fails to meet. It's an anonymous cast in which no one sticks out as memorable.
Cowboys & Aliens: A genre novelty object, this movie brazenly combines two disparate identities of pulp filmmaking into one misshapen whole. It's too straight-laced to have any fun, and it loses sight of the genre indulgence with which this film should engage.
The Great Wall: A fantasy-action movie about a group of European mercenaries, this movie dilutes the admirable aspects of both wuxia filmmaking and Hollywood blockbuster action. It's a goofy and ridiculous premise that fails to reach its noble aims.
Anonymous: A movie that engages with the idea that Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was the true writer of Shakespeare's plays, this film fundamentally disregards half of the appeal and sensation of Shakespeare. It's a tacky and tasteless speculation that fails to capture the essence of the Bard.
These movies are all examples of poor execution and shallow ideological exercises, and they serve as a reminder that not all alternate history movies are created equal. While some alternate history movies are very good, others are just plain terrible, and they deserve to be ranked as the worst.
