2. Steven Spielberg - Hook (1991)
Having captured the attention of pretty much everyone, ever, by the time the '90s came around, Steven Spielberg was just about the most famous director in the world, and his name had become synonymous with Hollywood pictures built with quality, assurance and heart. Simply put, the man was King of Tinseltown. And although Spielberg sought to shake things up with more personal projects like
The Colour Purple and
Empire of the Sun in the mid to late '80s, he eventually found himself going back towards safer box office ground with
Hook. Big mistake, Senior Spielbergo.
Hook is, without a doubt, the singular movie in Spielberg's entire filmography that showcases the director indulging his worst traits: messy, overtly sentimental and filled with so many lazy sequences, this movie saw the director trying to recapture the magic of earlier movies like
E.T., but instead putting out a product that feels as though it was directed on autopilot. Reviews were negative, of course, and the movie failed to make as much as was expected at the box office: audiences expected
more than a half-assed theme park ride from Mr. Spielberg.