In keeping with what I did last year, the following list is NOT a list of the worst films I saw this past year, rather the ones I looked forward to and ended up failing to meet expectations. Thankfully, this list isn’t very long because the majority of what I was excited to see lived up to my expectations. Without further ado, here are my top three film disappointments of 2025.

3. “How to Train Your Dragon” (2025)
I feel like a fool for even being a little excited to see this film. On principle, I’m not a fan of live-action remakes. I think they’re a creatively bankrupt endeavor that repackages the same film only it’s worse, less interesting and grey-looking. I had thought maybe this title would be different because it had the same director as the animated version and the same composer. The result? Less of a remake and more of an ugly transposition from animated to live-action that offered hardly anything new or made any changes that warranted a remake to begin with.

I thought the music and the visuals of the film would be enough to capture me, to wrest from any comparisons to the original, but it had the opposite effect. I’ve seen the original many, many times and instead of being captivated by these new visuals, I was bored by them. It looked dreary. It looked flat and it was sad to see a childhood favorite of mine reduced to a hollow version of its former glory. Maybe some kid saw this iteration and for them, it’s their version of this story, but for me, it was mediocre at best.

2. “Captain America: Brave New World”

Much can be said about the overall quality of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) since “Avengers: Endgame,” so I’ll forgo that and instead focus on this entry alone. Ever since Steve Rogers handed Sam Wilson the shield I have been excited to see what kinds of stories would be told with Sam as Captain America. The announcement of Harrison Ford joining the MCU as well got me ever more interested to see how the film would unfold. Where would they take Sam’s character? Turns out, the writers at Marvel only know how to tell one story with him and it is one where Sam Wilson’s legitimacy as Captain America is questioned and he’s constantly compared to his predecessor. I never personally needed a narrative or two that justified this character getting the shield.

Our villains for this story too were weak, which is not uncommon for a Marvel flick, but it was worse than normal this time around. Getting Giancarlo Esposito was wasted on a villain with little screentime and unclear motivations. Esposito’s character was a waste of a talented performer. The other villain, named “The Leader” was one of those characters who’s too smart and knows everything, so anytime his plan failed it was because, of course, he meant it to. The villain’s worst offense? Boring. A nothing character really. Without any compelling story or memorable action set-pieces, what’s the point of a super hero film?

1. “Jurassic World: Rebirth”

If there are dinosaurs heavily featured in your film I am very likely to look forward to it and the Jurassic World franchise has been no exception even with the shoddy quality of the last two films. Beyond the dinosaurs, this entry boasted a great cast with Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey. What’s more, the film was ​​directed by Gareth Edwards, who has yet to direct a project I didn’t like until now unfortunately.

Two of the four action set pieces of the film fell flat and were beyond forgettable, but the other two? They were true standouts of the franchise. A T-Rex chasing down the river and a mosasaur alongside a gang of spinosaurus chasing down a boat in the ocean made for memorable and tense moments that genuinely thrilled me. Their greatness made the others look worse by comparison.
The characters, while they’ve never been the focus of the franchise, were still dull. That is despite the all-star cast doing their best to elevate so-so material. I think if given good material, these could’ve been memorable characters or at least more interesting ones.

Another low point was this film’s abomination dinosaur, the “D-Rex”. An odd, malformed creature that didn’t really do much of anything. The most the beast got out of me was a shoulder shrug. I think the “real” dinosaurs stand more of a chance to be threatening and scary than some grotesque one. At this point, I feel the entire franchise is tired and played out. I haven’t enjoyed one of these movies since 2015’s “Jurassic World” which is a shame since I grew up a big fan of these films. Alas, I remain a part of the problem as I keep buying movie tickets to this franchise.