3. Total Recall
The most recent film on this list might be the most disappointing failure of the entire summer. Paul Verhoeven remakes are chic at the moment - see: Robocop 2013 - and the previews for this one were promising. Len Wiseman did a serviceable job with Die Hard 4 a few years ago, and the cast of this version seemed solid enough to make it at least a quality summer action flick. Alas, Total Recall was atrocious. It is a thankless, soulless reboot of a film that is a modern sci-fi classic. Taking the story away from Mars was a misstep, and overloading this new vision with CGI stacked on top of CGI layered with CGI zapped any emotion out of the plot. I have always defended Colin Farrell, who is a good actor when he gets the right part, but he was an ill fit for the film. More than anything, this poor remake might spell bad things for the upcoming Robocop reboot. Verhoeven's films all have a sense of humor beneath the hyper-violent surface. Without that, the soul of the movie is gone and you have a drab visual explosion like this.