The Worst Spy Films of All Time

As a James Bond parody and homage to star Rowan Atkinson’s legendary character of Mr. Bean, the first “Johnny English” film was decidedly average but at least elicited a few chuckles. By the time this one, the third film in the franchise, was released in 2008, whatever goodwill remained had been thoroughly depleted. Atkinson once again stars as an MI7 agent (retired by now) who’s called back into action after all of the agency’s undercover operatives are outed in a cyberattack. The film actually fared fairly well in the U.K., but in the U.S. its release was more or less like beating a dead horse.

The idea of a stoner (Jesse Eisenberg) who discovers that he’s actually a sleeper agent for a secret government program on the run for his life is actually a pretty funny one, and “American Ultra” has some genuinely chuckle-worthy moments (like when he wonders aloud why he never questioned why he has no memory of his life before he moved to a small town in West Virginia), but the consensus was that “American Ultra” was a major missed opportunity.

There are more than a couple sequels and three-quels on this list, and here once again is Johnny English. In the film, English (Atkinson) is called back into action to investigate a plot to assassinate the Chinese premier. If you absolutely love spy spoofs and Mr. Bean, or happen to be British (the film topped the U.K. box office but didn’t fare nearly as well in the U.S.), you might find this film amusing, but if not you’ll probably find it middling at best.

In “This Means War,” two CIA agents (played by Chris Pine and Tom Hardy) who are best friends discover that they’re both dating the same woman (Reese Witherspoon). What could have been a “Spy vs. Spy”-style madcap romantic comedy instead lacked much in the way of humor, the action scenes were tedious, and it came across as clumsy, mean-spirited, and unsure of exactly what type of film it wanted to be.

We’d usually be game for any action spy thriller starring Pierce Brosnan, but sadly “The November Man” just doesn’t live up to expectations. The premise is all there: Brosnan stars as a retired CIA agent who’s called back into service in order to retrieve a Russian agent (his former lover) who has incriminating evidence on a corrupt Russian leader. After the mission fails, Brosnan goes rogue. Sadly, it’s poorly paced and full of plot holes, and left reviewers with a decidedly “late night on cable TV” vibe.

In Roger Moore’s final appearance as Agent 007 (in a film that takes its name from an Ian Fleming short story but is entirely original), Bond faces off against a villain who’s bent on destroying California’s Silicon Valley. Even with none other than Christopher Walken portraying the psychopathic product of a Nazi genetic experiment, the film fails due to poor writing and direction, generic action sequences, gratuitous violence, and the fact that Moore was 57 (too old to portray Bond, even by his own admission) at the time of filming.

“Criminal” is an appropriately generic name for what was widely considered to be a generic action thriller. Kevin Costner stars as a sociopathic convict who’s implanted with the memories of a dead CIA agent in order to complete an assignment in which he has to stop a hacker from stealing nuclear codes. Even though the film also stars Ryan Reynolds, Gary Oldman, and Gal Gadot, it was panned and bombed at the box office, with one reviewer commenting, “We can but pray that scientists invent a procedure to remove the memory of ever watching this film in the first place.” Oof.

The first installment in a spy-comedy franchise that somehow spawned three films, 2001’s “Cats & Dogs” has a plot that’s far more complicated than it needs to be, but is essentially about a high-tech, covert war between cats – who plan to sabotage a vaccination that would end all human dog allergies – and the dogs who are attempting to foil their scheme. Critics praised the high concept, special effects, and wittiness of the script, but agreed that the effects take precedence over the story, and that there’s not much here for anyone over eight years old to enjoy.

The third film in another series we can’t believe got three green lights, ” XXX: Return of Xander Cage” sees the title character (Vin Diesel, perfectly in his element as a daredevil field agent) uncovering a high-level conspiracy while racing against time to find a device that controls every military satellite. It’s fairly nonsensical and lacking much of a plot, and critics agreed that only die-hard fans of the series, and people who enjoy action for action’s sake, would enjoy it.

A vehicle for child star Frankie Muniz, who at the time was still riding high from the success of his sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle,” “Agent Cody Banks” stars Muniz as the 15-year-old title character, who must balance his usual life as a teenager with being a James Bond-style superspy who must save the world from an evil mastermind, father of a classmate (Hillary Duff).. Young audiences might appreciate it, but critics deemed it a bland and uninspired ripoff of countless spy films.

Remember that film in which a suburban couple played by Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher start suspecting that their new neighbors (Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot) are secret agents? Neither does anybody else, unfortunately. With a top-tier cast and the premise of a potentially great action comedy, “Keeping Up with the Joneses” had just about everything going for it – until it didn’t. It was panned by critics (who called it bland, tired, and simply unfunny) and bombed at the box office.

Another film that squandered a promising premise, “The Double” stars Richard Gere as a retired CIA operative who must work with a rookie FBI agent (Topher Grace) to solve the murder of a senator by a Russian assassin. The plot was convoluted and full of tired action movie clichés, and the two stars had no chemistry; the film was panned and was a box office bomb.

No, not that Casino Royale (you know, the actual Bond film). This 1967 ensemble romp is regarded today as an oddball curio. Producer Charles K. Feldman secured the rights to the Ian Fleming novel of the same name in 1960 but failed to get the film greenlit as an official Bond film, so instead he decided to turn it into a satirical spy parody in which Bond (David Niven) comes out of retirement to bring down a Soviet intelligence organization with the help of six other agents who pretend to be Bond. The cast was packed full of celebrities including Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress, Woody Allen, William Holden, and even Orson Welles, and the Burt Bacharach soundtrack included the hit “The Look of Love.” It performed surprisingly well at the box office, but critics found it to be completely disorganized (it had five directors), incoherent, smug, and inscrutable, with Roger Ebert calling it “possibly the most indulgent film ever made.”

The third film in the “Spy Kids” series that launched in 2003, “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over” is about, well, kids who are spies. Released in 3D, it was filmed almost entirely with green screen technology. The plot follows a spy kid (Daryl Sabara) as he tries to rescue his sister from the evil Toymaker (Sylvester Stallone). The insanely thin plot (and disturbing lack of any parents) put off critics, who also agreed that the visuals took priority over a coherent storyline.

Wesley Snipes stars in “The Art of War” as a U.N. operative who’s forced into hiding after he’s accused of murdering the Chinese ambassador to the U.N. while attempting to uncover a plot to bring down the organization. The storyline is convoluted and filled with ridiculous double- and triple-crosses, and it suffers from bad directing and poor editing of its copious action sequences. It didn’t even come close to making its budget back at the box office, yet it somehow still managed to spawn two (direct-to-video) sequels.

Jackie Chan action comedies are at least usually marginally entertaining, but 2010’s “The Spy Next Door” bucked the trend with this poorly written, indifferently acted, incompetently directed, and simply unfunny “True Lies” ripoff. In the film, Chan stars as a CIA operative who decides to give up his career and marry his girlfriend (Amber Valletta); he’s forced to protect her children from Russian terrorists after one of them accidentally downloads a top-secret formula. It’s exactly as ridiculous as it sounds.

If you’re in the mood to go down a hole of bad Jackie Chan action comedies, follow up “The Spy Next Door” with “The Tuxedo.” In this bust, Chan stars as a taxi driver who dons a magical tuxedo that imbues its wearer with superhero abilities including martial arts, super speed, and “Soul Train”-level dancing skills. He’s then tasked with defeating a villain who’s bent on destroying the U.S. fresh water supply. Chan is charming, but he can’t overcome the bad special effects, bad writing, and incomprehensible story line. And there isn’t even a dance-off.

In most situations, we’d be excited about a buddy spy comedy starring Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson, but not in this case. “I Spy,” based on the 1960s Bill Cosby TV series of the same name, follows a spy (Wilson) and a boxer (Murphy) as they go undercover to stop a gunrunner from selling a stolen stealth bomber. It bore little resemblance to the TV show that inspired it, and critics universally panned it for being by-the-numbers, boring, and a waste of the stars’ talents. It was also Murphy’s third bomb in a row.

A rare miss for stars Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock, 2012’s Joel Schmuacher-directed “Bad Company” stars Rock as an everyman who’s recruited to become a secret agent and stop a rogue nuclear weapon from being detonated in New York City after his identical twin brother (who actually was a secret agent) is killed. The film’s release had to be pushed back a year because of the September 11 attacks, which didn’t do it any favors, but it was also widely panned by critics for being bland, unexciting, and full of clichés.

The techno-thriller “Paranoia” stars Liam Hemsworth as a corporate spy who’s forced to obtain secrets from a company led by his former boss (Harrison Ford). It was a major bomb and was panned by critics, who lambasted the film for its phoned-in performances, hamfisted storyline, indifferent directing, and lack of heart.

In the predictable and overstuffed “Survivor,” a foreign service officer (Milla Jovovich) must race against time to stop a deadly plot while on the run from an assassin (Pierce Brosnan). It’s lumbering and convoluted, slow and unexciting, and the plot and dialogue are laughable. The best part of the movie? Pierce Brosnan’s mustache.

The star-studded, heavily promoted “Mortdecai” stars Johnny Depp as a British aristocrat and art dealer who is tasked by his friend in MI5 (Ewan MacGregor) with tracking down a stolen Goya painting. While on the hunt, he discovers that both an American heiress and a revolutionary also want it, because it’s rumored to contain a code to a bank account for Nazi gold. Bizarre, misguided, scattershot, and simply not funny, the film was clearly intended to start a franchise, but instead was dead on arrival. For an example of its humor, one of the character’s names is Jock Strapp.

A James Bond parody starring Lesile Nielsen written by the duo who went on to write “Scary Movie,” 1996’s “Spy Hard” sure looks good on paper, but just didn’t work. When an evil general played by Andy Griffith sets his sights on world domination, Agent WD-40 (Nielsen) and a KGB agent (Nicollette Sheridan) must track down his headquarters, where her father is being held hostage. Nielsen’s comedic chops are on full display and received praise, but sadly they were wasted in this crude, haphazard, plotless, and lazy sendup.

A former CIA agent and hit man (Sylvester Stallone) is hired by a woman (Sharon Stone) to kill a mob family who murdered her parents. Things get complicated when he discovers that his former partner (James Woods) is now working with the family. It’s a promising premise, but the film is hampered by bad acting, a formulaic and hard-to-believe plotline, ridiculous twists and turns, and overall pretentiousness.

The sequel to the 2001 film “Cats & Dogs” (also terrible; see above), “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore” has a difficult-to-decipher storyline in which an evil cat named Kitty Galore (Bette Midler) puts in motion a diabolical plan to finish off the dogs, as well as humans, once and for all; cats and dogs must join forces to stop her. Overwritten and dumb, it’s essentially just a vehicle for countless celebrities, including Christina Applegate, Wallace Shawn, Michael Clarke Duncan, Nick Nolte, and Roger Moore, to lend their voices to computer-generated housepets.

This, the first sequel to 2002’s Vin Diesel vehicle “XXX”, has a script so bad that Diesel took one look at it and dropped out, only to be replaced by Ice Cube. In the film, he plays an ex-con recruited by an NSA agent (Samuel L. Jackson) to bring down a group of terrorists who have infiltrated the government. This is one of those movies that gets dumber the longer it goes on and the more you think about it, and it was universally panned for its illogical storyline, bad performances, and overuse of CGI-rendered action sequences.

Why did they keep making these movies?. In “Spy Kids 4-D: All the Time in the World” (the fourth, and mercifully, final installment in the series), a retired spy (Jessisa Alba) springs into action (along with her two precocious children, naturally) to save the world from a villain called the Timekeeper (Jeremy Piven). With a stale and insipid plot, countless unnecessary poop jokes, and cheap-looking special effects, it was pretty obvious that the franchise had run its course. Oh, and that fourth “D”? Smell-o-vision.

Yet another unnecessary sequel, “Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London” sends its hero (Frankie Muniz) to London along with his bumbling handler (Anthony Anderson), where he’s inexplicably tasked with recovering stolen software in order to stop a secret mind control project. Young children might have found it, like its predecessor, to be marginally fun, but anyone older than that most likely thought it was lazy, half-hearted, awkwardly paced, and oddly mean-spirited toward Brits.

When a man (Cedric the Entertainer) wakes up in a hotel room next to a deаd body, with a briefcase full of cash and no memory, he assumes that he’s a secret agent for the CIA and sets out to discover the truth. What was intended to be a comedic take on the “ason Bourne films, “Code Name: The Cleaner” is instead a humorless, boring, oddly depressing “comedy,” and if the protagonist even remotely resembled a real person he’d have figured out what was going on in the first 15 minutes. This made just about every list of the year’s absolute worst films.

No, this isn’t the Marvel blockbuster; it’s the 1998 movie based on the ’60s British TV show of the same name, and the worst spy film of all time. The storyline is largely indecipherable, but we’ll give it a go: When an evil genius named Sir August de Wynter (Sean Connery) discovers a way to control the weather, two British Ministry agents named John Steed and Emma Peel (Ralph Feinnes and Uma Thurman, the later a meteorologist) are sent to stop him. But they’re stymied by (among other things) dead men in teddy bear suits, mechanical bees, hypnotism, poison gas, and an abandoned plotline involving clones of Peel. A hot air balloon also makes an appearance at one point, but we’re not sure why. Inscrutable, painfully dull, awkwardly edited, badly written, woefully miscast, and painfully overwrought, “The Avengers” isn’t just bad, it’s downright awful; critics gave it a thorough drubbing at the time, and to this day it’s still regarded as one of the very worst films ever made.