TL;DR – Not everything in 2017 was great, here are the cinematic missteps that happened along the way

 

Countdown –

It’s the end of one year and the start of another and among the fireworks, booze, and celebrations there is one tradition that transcends all and that is the tradition of end of year lists and who would I be to buck this trend, even if I am a little late. So over the next two days, we will be seeing the best and worst that 2017 had to offer with regards to movies. Tomorrow we will have the all-important ‘Top Films of 2017’, also we have had Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of our Key Moments in cinema in 2017 over the last couple of days. However, today we start with the opposite, with the worst or most disappointing films of 2017.

Now before we start I just want to make a clarification on the criteria I used to categorise the following entries. The films on this list had to be films that I reviewed in 2017, now this means there may have been worse films out there but if something is clearly a train wreck then why subject yourself to it, so you can consider The Emoji Film and Fifty Shades Darker to be honorary members of this list and shout out to Olaf’s Frozen Adventure, for just missing the cut-off. Also just to be clear there will be spoilers here.

10: mother!
See Full Review Here

Ok, look, I am well aware that this is a controversial pick, and to answer some questions, yes I got the symbolism at play, no I am not doing this out of the need to cause drama, though given the state of the internet these days I can’t blame you for thinking that. No, it is on this list for the simple fact that I didn’t like it. The story is not that cleaver once it tips its hand as to what it is referencing. The constant single tone actually loses impact over time as the constant relentless tension becomes dull. Now it is only at 10 because I think Jennifer Lawrence was giving an amazing performance in the film, but that was the only highlight for me.

 

9: Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen
See Full Review Here

So why is Transformers one of the worst films of the year? Oh, let us count the ways. The overblown plot, the cookie cutter characters, the bland Transformers, the story that both is desperate to link to the past yet completely ignores plots from the past, or … look a there are a lot of things. One of the worst parts about it is there is a moment in the 2^nd act when it actually works for a moment when we sit back and let Anthony Hopkins have a bit of fun. Though in the end, this was our most read review in 2017, so … um … thanks for that at least.

 

8: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
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Did anyone want this? Did anyone need this? Honestly, I love the first Pirates trilogy, but at this point, it feels like each film after that has not only not lived up to the past but actively made those films worse. The plot is convoluted, the big reveal was no surprise, and it started a reset that no one wanted or needed. Sigh, I think we will have to suffer through at least one more of these at some point … Sigh

 

7: Fist Fight
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The jokes were not funny, the characters were bland and unlikeable, there was a subplot where a teacher creeped on a student in a way that if the sexes were reversed it would have been police incident. Eh, the fight at the end was ok, but it was not worth the 90 minutes to get to that point.

 

6: American Assassin
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Eh, a movie that is equal parts boring and offensive. A man who snuck his way into Jihadist terror group by playing Koran trivial pursuit. At no point was he remotely believable as a spy, and it completely and utterly wasted the time of those who watched it and the clearly board Michael Keaton who they dragged into it for some reason.

 

5:  Collateral Beauty
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What a really, really, bad idea for a film, and that is even before we get to the advertising campaign that pretended to be one thing, only to be something else, something really vindictive. But then surprise, it actually was that first thing, and I don’t care. Screw this emotionally manipulative film that actually fails at every point to be anything noteworthy, and with a cast like this, that is saying something.

 

4: Snatched
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This is Goldie Hawn’s first film in 15 years and it is a complete and utter disappointment. Now it would be easy and popular to dump this at the feet of Amy Schumer but she is not the problem, it is just a terrible script. I doubt even Taika Waititi could have polished this turd of a film playing on nearly every outdated stereotype there is, ok maybe Taika could do it, but no one else.

 

3: Suburbicon
See Full Review Here

Ok if you have had a script idea sitting around for 15 odd years collecting duct, there might be a reason for that, because it is a bad film. This is a film with unpleasant people doing unpleasant things to each other, which I frankly cared nothing about. This is a film where they used the issues of racial integration as a B-Plot point to cover for the white people killing each other. It is so bad that I really feel sorry for Noah Jupe who is excelling in the same film as so many A-list actors phoning it in. At the end of the film as the screen faded to black I was stunned by how a film with such a talented cast could be so bad, ok look no matter who the director is, if the original script was bad there might be not much they could have done to make it a workable film. Well, it was at this point that the writing credits appeared and when I saw Joel Coen, Ethan Coen & George Clooney’s names I audibly gasped in the cinema. How did this happen?

 

2: The Killing of a Sacred Deer
See Full Review Here

Look I am going to start here by reminding that films are subjective, and films with a very particular style and theme could work or not for you. To call this film polarising is not an unfair statement, and my experience people were either captivated or repulsed, and for me, I was the later.  The first really off-putting thing is how everyone talks to each other like they are just spouting exposition at each other, in every scene. Then we get to the content of the film and frankly, I didn’t find enjoyable or compelling having two children try to get their parents to kill each other, and how the father resolves the movie is repugnant. This was almost the worst film I saw this year but for …

 

1: A Cure of for Wellness
See Full Review Here

I have seen a lot of people talk about this film about it being not bad but weird, and I have to disagree, this film progresses like this: 20% interesting, then 70% boring and then 10% gross. Indeed, after a long, long trudge through to the end of the film, A Cure for Wellness takes a deep dive into unpleasantness. We find out that Volmer and Hannah are father and daughter and part of a cult of immortality. Then to keep the bloodlines ‘pure’ he decided to impregnate his own daughter, in a very confronting scene, oh did I mention that his face is a mask to cover gooey burnt mass beneath it and well … look people walked out of my showing, and I wish I had gone with them.

 

 

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

What are your favourite …?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of their respective films