10 Simple Fixes That Would've Saved Terrible Recent Movies

When a movie flounders, it's easy to assume that the only thing that could've fixed it would've been a complete creative overhaul. After all, films are made up of so many different moving parts, so it might seem bizarre to suggest that just one thing could've saved a picture. 

Actually, no. Despite how many different cooks are needed to make a successful movie, sometimes just one changed ingredient can make a world of positive difference -and the following ten movies are great examples of this. 

While some other recent failures were so awful that they could only have been saved by starting over - Madame Web, Borderlands, looking firmly at both of you - the movies featured here weren't all that far away from being saved. Even if they ultimately failed, they did have some good things going for them, and they just needed to make one key change. 

Some needed a different protagonist or villain, some needed to have their final acts overhauled, and one of them just needed a bigger budget. It's highly unlikely any of these films were ever going to be great, but they could definitely have been decent had they applied these changes, which makes their failure all the more frustrating.

The latest Die-Hard-esque action flick - in this case, it's Die Hard in Canary Wharf - to arrive could've been something. It was helmed by action legend Martin Campbell and headlined by Star Wars' Daisy Ridley, so that's already a promising combo, and this plot formula is usually good fun. Not this time. 

Cleaner is pretty bad, and it really feels like a film held back by its evidently low budget. Of course, plenty of filmmakers turn out amazing material with scant resources, but things didn't work out like that here. It's filled with jarringly bad CGI, the film's only famous name other than Ridley (Clive Owen) is barely in it despite his presence in the trailers, and most damaging of all, there's barely any actual action. 

No word of a lie, Ridley's character spends well over half of the movie stuck outside the skyscraper on a cleaning platform, and any actual combat is largely confined to the last 20 minutes. Additionally, the film is barely an hour-and-a-half and feels far too rushed as a result. 

In this particular case, Campbell and Co. needed a higher budget in order to really fulfil this project's considerable potential. The film does have some solid ideas, so it definitely could've worked with the right backing.