The Worst Original Amazon Prime Movies

Based on a true story, “Elvis & Nixon” is about a meeting between rock ‘n’ roll’s king and the nation’s 37th president in 1970. Each man had his own agenda about the meeting: Elvis (Michael Shannon) wanted to volunteer to fight the war on drugs and Nixon (Kevin Spacey) thought associating with Elvis would help his prospects among the nation’s youth. Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus said the film is “rarely less than engaging thanks to its talented starring duo” – but Rendy Jones of Rendy Reviews cited its “awkward silliness,” and Richard von Busack of the Pacific Sun noted that the film’s details “seem to be discursive-padding to overlook the lack of source material.”

“Café Society” is one of two misfires for Woody Allen on the list. Jesse Eisenberg plays a young man who leaves the Bronx for the glitz of Hollywood and falls in love with a woman already involved in an illicit affair. The late-career comedy from Allen was dismissed by critics such as Wenlei Ma of News.com.au, who called it “mostly froth with little substance.”

The time-travel film features Chris Pratt as a high school teacher recruited by time travelers from 30 years in the future to fight aliens in a global war that humans are losing. Daniel Howat of Next Best Picture found the movie lacking, calling it “a serviceable action film…but the weak script keeps the movie firmly in mediocre territory.”

“Chemical Hearts” is a teen romance drama about a young man who meets a girl with a disability who has transferred to his high school and is haunted by previous events. Ed Potton of The Times (UK) said the movie didn’t hit the mark, saying “while the travails of adolescence never really change, surely we can find new ways of exploring them.”

The 1970s-era “I’m Your Woman” is about a woman (Rachel Brosnahan) forced to go on the run with her baby after her husband has betrayed his partners. Robert Levin of Newsday liked Brosnahan’s performance and the homage to 1970s moviemaking, but bemoaned the fact that “it’s still not compelling or dramatic enough to hold your interest consistently.”

Spike Lee’s crime comedy, the first movie Amazon Studios co-produced, is about the girlfriend (Teyonah Parris) of a Chicago gang leader (Nick Cannon) who has an interesting solution to stopping the violence – convincing other girlfriends of thugs to abstain from sex. Nigel Andrews of Financial Times said the movie was “a mess. But it makes an impression. ‘Chi-Raq’ has the force of topical-art inevitability. If it didn’t exist, you feel, someone would have had to invent it.”

Ben (Oakes Fegley) and Rose (Millicent Simmonds) are children from eras 50 years apart who embark on different quests: Ben longs for the father he’s never known, and Rose dreams of meeting an actress who’s both her idol and her mother. Circumstances bring the two together in Ben’s time in the 1970s. Deborah Ross of The Spectator felt “the plot is so reliant on coincidences and contrivances you’ll want to throw stuff at the screen.”

Director Todd Solondz is known for mining black comedy (“Welcome to the Dollhouse”) and “Wiener-Dog” is part of his catalog. The movie is about a dachshund owned by offbeat characters played by Greta Gerwig, Danny DeVito, and Ellen Burstyn. Tim Robey of the Daily Telegraph (UK) said “Solondz’ notorious misanthropy…remains fully in force.

In this film, Elle Fanning plays a teen who moves to Los Angeles to be a model. Her fresh-faced look draws the ire of other models and the teen develops a thick skin and a fierce sense of self-preservation as she takes the fashion world by storm. Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus said “‘The Neon Demon’ is seductively stylish, but Nicolas Winding Refn’s assured eye can’t quite compensate for an underdeveloped plot and thinly written characters.”

“The Wall” is a war story that takes place in Iraq, where two U.S. soldiers are ambushed and wounded and must rely on their training to avoid a sniper. While Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian called the movie an “eerie, menacing film,” Kate Rodger of Newshub (New Zealand) said it was “too one-dimensional and not nearly compelling enough for the big screen.”

There’s a huge gap between audience and critics scores on “Life Itself,” with audiences giving the film a score of 83%, while critics dismissed it as “mawkish,” and awarded it a score of 13%. Directed by Dan Fogelman, the creator of the television series “This Is Us,” “Life Itself” follows the lives of a New York City couple who meet in college, get married, start a family, and have an unexpected, profound encounter with people from Spain. M.N. Miller of Ready Steady Cut said the movie is “is too self-indulgent, sappy, and overly sentimental for its own good.”

After his mother is killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a boy steals a painting titled “The Goldfinch” and gets pulled into a criminal world. A strong cast anchored by Oakes Fegley, Ansel Elgort, and Nicole Kidman helped the movie achieve a 72% Rotten Tomatoes audience score. Critics didn’t share the enthusiasm for the film based on Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. “Now, in Hollywood’s hands, the story of a broken young boy coming to terms with the death of his mother is painfully one note, and sort of pointless,” said Douglas Greenwood of NME.

One of two films on the list that came out this year is “Master,” a social commentary on how people of color are accepted as students and administrators at a New England university, with a dose of gothic horror thrown in. Viewers might be reminded of Jordan Peele’s thriller “Get Out.” There were no shivers for Odie Henderson of RogerEbert.com, who said the movie “is not even remotely scary, and its story and lore are confusing and underdeveloped.”

Zu Quirke wrote as well as directed this horror film about a pianist who makes a Faustian pact to overtake her older sister at a highly regarded music institution. Similarly stylish like “Black Swan,” Devika Girish of the New York Times said the “contrivances of ‘Nocturne’ are par for the course in this genre, but ‘Nocturne’ lacks the stylistic flair to make them fun.”

“The Only Living Boy in New York” is a romance-drama starring Kate Beckinsale, Pierce Brosnan, and Jeff Bridges about a young man who finds out his father is having an affair with a younger woman. In his attempt to break up the relationship, he ends up sleeping with her himself. Critics found the film “The Only Living Boy in New York” “narratively messy and cloying [and] is a romantic trifle that audiences won’t want to give a second date.”

When 9-year-old Sophie discovers a seasoned CIA operative is spying on her family, she agrees not to blow his cover if he shows her the art of spycraft. The comedy-action flick didn’t win over Nick Levine of NME, who said “even at its most entertaining, this film never really gets you to suspend your disbelief and invest in its characters.”

“Zoe” is a sci-fi/rom-com starring Léa Seydoux and Ewan McGregor as scientists researching the probability of compatibility between synthetic humans. Christian Holub of Entertainment Weekly remarked that “This is a movie that casts Christina Aguilera as a robot and yet still manages to be boring.”

“Seberg” is a biopic of the American actress and French New Wave cinema star Jean Seberg (“Breathless”), played by Kristen Stewart, who was intensely surveilled by the FBI because of her support for the American civil rights movement in the 1960s and her romantic involvement with a member of the Black Panthers. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times said “Kristen Stewart does fierce work as the radicalized ’60s actress, but the biopic too often wanders elsewhere.”

In this film based on a Tom Clancy novel, Michael B. Jordan is a highly skilled Navy SEAL who seeks vengeance for the death of his wife, only to discover a broader conspiracy. Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus said “despite a commanding performance from Michael B. Jordan, ‘Without Remorse’ fails to escape its outdated patriotic tropes.”

In this comedy, David Oyelowo (“Selma”) plays an American businessman sent to Mexico by his company to deliver a formula for a cannabis pill, but who gets mixed up with black ops mercenaries and drug cartels. A strong cast that included Charlize Theron, Joel Edgerton, and Amanda Seyfried was not enough to sway some critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Brian Eggert of Deep Focus Review said “double-crosses and twists saturate the material, leaving ‘Gringo’ with a modest degree of unpredictability that keeps the viewer guessing, albeit with few moments of levity or any genuine investment in the characters.”

Eddie Murray reprises a role from one of his early film triumphs as the African king Akeem, who comes to America in search of his son and his heir. The massive cast includes Arsenio Hall, Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan, John Amos, and James Earl Jones. Sara Stewart of Book & Film Globe bemoaned the sequel, coming 33 years after the original, saying “as a relic of 1980s comedy, ‘Coming to America’ holds up better than most… And so it’s with a heavy heart that I report that the sequel, ‘Coming 2 America,’ is deeply, embarrassingly bad.”

Woody Allen’s look at how the lives of four people intersect on Coney Island in the 1950s featured Justin Timberlake, Kate Winslet, and “Sopranos” alumni Steve Schirripa and Tony Sirico. Wonder Wheel was the name of the ride at the amusement park. Michael Sragow of Film Comment Magazine said “the plot and the structure undercut the affection Allen has for his salt-of-the-seaside characters. The writer-director falls in love with a tidy narrative arc that ends up more like a vicious circle.”

Academy Award winners Rachel Weisz and Kathy Bates appear in this thriller about a woman who constantly changes identities and the effects she has on her old boyfriend and and his wife, who are weighing a move to California. Christopher Orr of The Atlantic said “in its latter half the film… gradually runs out of ideas, and out of steam.”

“Goodnight Mommy” is a remake of an Austrian film of the same name. It’s a creepy thriller about twins who come to their mother’s house after she’s had plastic surgery, but her behavior – strict rules, areas off limits, and her tearing up drawings they made for her – suggests the person underneath the gauze is someone else. Tom Meek at Cambridge Day felt the remake paled in comparison to the original. “Matt Sobel’s remake of a 2014 psychological thriller…about twin boys questioning the identity of their mother, can’t fully recreate the icy chill.”

Mike Cahill wrote and directed this story of a recently divorced jobless man (Owen Wilson) who encounters a mysterious woman (Salma Hayek) who challenges his idea of reality. James Berardinelli of ReelViews opined “with its blend of existential science fiction and character-based romance, it would seem to be as close to a can’t-miss premise as one can imagine yet, despite that, it somehow does miss – and by a wide margin.”