A 2025 Sylvester Stallone Crime Thriller Has A Terrible 0% Score On Rotten Tomatoes

Nobody can mess with the king of 0% Rotten Tomato scores: John Travolta. The man just knows how to make absolute duds, as evidenced by him starring in one of the worst movies ever made with 2000's "Battlefield Earth," a $73 million paean to Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard that was so brutally eviscerated by critics that its writer has had to pen scripts under a pseudonym ever since his name was stamped on the wretched feature. To put the Travolta oeuvre in perspective, "Battlefield Earth" has a 3% Rotten Tomatoes score, so can you imagine how bad those 0-percenters are?

It's futile to try to do battle with such a formidably awful filmography, but there are several stars who've tried — one being Sylvester Stallone, who has his fair share of stinkers. Having launched himself into the spotlight with 1976's "Rocky," Sly found himself thrust into the limelight and dutifully set about making some truly awful films — one of which was his 1978 flop of a directorial debut, "Paradise Alley." In fairness, that same year he also starred in Norman Jewison's "F.I.S.T" which, despite sounding like a forgotten Sly actioner from the '80s, was actually a crime drama that proved a box office success and did fairly well with critics.

As the years went on, however, Stallone would oscillate between making some of the most memorable movies in Hollywood history and some of the most abject. The elegiac "Rocky Balboa," for instance, remains a moving tribute to the titular character, but it followed a significant lull in Stallone's career in the wake of 1995's "Judge Dredd" — the most ridiculous science-fiction movie to predict our terrifying times. Still, even "Judge Dredd" didn't garner the dreaded 0% RT score. But Stallone has been in the industry for more than 50 years at this point, so you better believe there are some 0-percenters in his filmography.

Sylvester Stallone holds a record no actor wants in that he has the most Razzie nominations — specifically, 12 wins out of a whopping 40 nominations. To be sure, it's long since been time to retire the Razzies forever, but I'm sure John Travolta would be proud of Sly for his ignominious record nonetheless.

Today, Sly has managed to secure a starring role in Taylor Sheridan's "Tulsa King," which thus far has proved popular with viewers. But on the film side, he's pretty much been churning out generic action fare, and 2025's "Alarum" is one of the most egregious examples. Ever since 2006's "Rocky Balboa," Stallone has been unable to stop making forgettable action thrillers, with films like "Backtrace" and "Bullet to the Head" being prime examples. "Alarum" is just the latest, and if the Rotten Tomatoes score is anything to go by, it might just be the worst.

Directed by Michael Polish, "Alarum" stars Scott Eastwood as CIA agent Joe Travers, who falls in love with his fellow agent and former rival Lara (Willa Fitzgerald of "Reacher" fame). The pair go off-grid to live a quiet life together, but they soon find themselves drawn back into action after a plane — one carrying a hard drive that several organizations are interested in securing – crashes near their cabin. Stallone co-stars as Agent Chester, who has been sent to take out Travers but who retains some loyalty to his ex-colleague. Sadly, none of this added up to a good movie, with critics absolutely shredding "Alarum" upon its release.

With "Alarum," Sylvester Stallone has added another 0% score to his Rotten Tomatoes page. 2024's "Armor" is the only other film on his résumé to achieve such a dishonorable feat, which doesn't exactly bode well for the legend's late-career trajectory. "Alarum" hit select theaters in the United States on January 17, 2025, at which time it also arrived on VOD services. The critics that did watch it immediately wished they hadn't.

Writing for RogerEbert.com Peter Sobczynski seemed especially disappointed with Sly. "To say that [Stallone] is just going through the motions here would be to wildly overstate the case," he wrote. "His work here makes his appearance in 'The Expendables 4' seem focused and committed by comparison." Likewise, Jeannette Catsoulis of the New York Times decried the film's "bullet-riddled plot" as "a flavorless tossed salad of code names and cleaning crews, drone strikes, and shootouts," while Variety's Dennis Harvey lamented the "unspectacular production values" and "pedestrian" staging.

Not Sly's finest hour, then. But the list of actors with terrible Rotten Tomatoes streaks also includes Sly's action peer Jean-Claude Van Damme and the great Eddie Murphy, which goes to show that even legends can falter (and that these RT scores aren't to be taken all that seriously anyway). In the case of "Alarum," however, you should probably let the Tomatometer be your guide.