Boring, cynical, and lazy. Yup, it's a worst of 2017 list.
I'm not someone that tends to exaggerate for a reaction. I don't try to intentionally act over-the-top or act in a cartoonish manner to get a point across. I like to think that I'm pretty straightforward and honest when it comes to my criticisms. I don't sugar coat my feelings and I certainly don't try to behave in a way that isn't honest. I could say that 2017 gave me a healthy supply of terrible movies to tear apart, but that just wouldn't be honest of me.
Did 2017 have some bad movies? Of course it did. What year would be incomplete without bad movies? The bad movies of 2017 though weren't anything to write home about. With a few key exceptions, I just couldn't muster up anything other than boredom of the bad movies this year. On one hand, that's good for me. A boring movie can easily be forgotten and it can be left to die. On the other hand, talking about and explaining why a boring movie is bad isn't all that entertaining. So when I was compiling my list of the worst movies of 2017, I had to simply remember all of the bad movies I saw, which was easier said than done. Then I had to look at which movies really rubbed me the wrong way and most of the movies that made it onto this list are just bland. They're forgettable. Uninteresting. Mediocre.
So I guess that's a good thing for me. 2017 could have been a lot worse in terms of movies and now it's just going to be shooting fish in a barrel here. These are the easy targets of bad movies, the ones that won't take me too long to tear apart, but I'll have fun doing it regardless. I'm make boredom entertaining! If you enjoyed these movies, more power to you. You like what you like, and I respect that, but at least try and meet me halfway and understand why I particularly dislike these movies. So here we are. Let's get ready to eviscerate the Top 10 Worst Movies of 2017.
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| Dishonorable Mention: Olaf's Frozen Adventure |
For those of you who didn't know, Olaf's Frozen Adventure was the obligatory short that went in front of Coco in November. Typically the shorts are about 5 minutes or so and show off unique concepts, animation styles, and generally don't overstay their welcome. Olaf's Frozen Adventure was a 21 minute long short film that feature several new songs and centered around Olaf trying to find the meaning of Christmas or something like that. It was long, it was annoying, and the fact that it was put in front of Coco led many to believe that Disney had little faith in the movie so they needed to put a mini Frozen movie in front of it in order to keep people in the seats.
Disney's gambit backfired horribly. Kids hated the short, parents were annoyed by it, people complained about it, and some people even showed up to theatre a half hour later than the movie time just so they didn't have to see the short film. The film went over so poorly that Disney decided to pull it from theatres after screening it for two weeks in front of Coco. The best part about that? Disney claimed that they were always going to pull it from theatres because it was a "limited theatrical engagement" and was never intended to be in front of Coco for more than two weeks. That's one of the laziest, half-assed defenses I've ever heard and I absolutely love it. Olaf's Frozen Adventure might have been bad, and I can't justify putting a short film on the list, but the story behind this failure was just too good to not preserve for all of time. Congrats Disney for botching it up in such a fun way!
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| #10: Beauty & the Beast (2017) |
Don't get me wrong, the original Beauty & the Beast is untouchable in my opinion and can never be turned into a cash cow like other Disney properties. Look, I know the real reason that Disney wanted to remake Beauty & the Beast. They wanted oodles and oodles of cash from it, and it succeeded. Lord knows they made bank off of this movie, but it's just worse than the original in nearly every single way. Emma Watson's singing is has more autotune than my 2002 Ford Explorer, and that thing goes to the shop at least twice a year! The characters all look so ugly and lifeless. If you just compared Lumiere from the remake to the original, you can see clearly that the remake's Lumiere is just garish and cluttered. Everything about this movie, aesthetically speaking, is too much. Too many things are happening at once and it loses its visual splendor.
But then we have the plot, or what I like to call the attempts to fix the plot holes from the original movie. We now have a time frame for how long Belle has been with the Beast, which severely impacts their relationship. In the original they were able to fit a movie and a Tim Curry Christmas special during Belle's "imprisonment" at the castle, but here barely any time passes. Belle's mom had plague, the Beast's dad was a jerk, Lefou is gay, does any of that really add anything to the story? Were we all left wondering at the end of the first movie where Belle's mom was in that whole affair?
Beauty & the Beast isn't awful by any stretch of the word, but it was easily the most pointless movie of the year for me. They could have done so much with it and it could have been as good as the original, but instead I'm left wondering why I should watch this one instead of the original. If you're a remake and you do that, you have failed as a remake.
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| #9: Snatched |
I mean... do I really need to go into more detail? It's a comedy where the star is not funny and is instead insufferable. That's all that really needs to be said.
So here you are Snatched; you have won my second annual "So Funny It's Sad" Award for trying so hard to be funny and instead just failing miserably. Here's looking at you kid!
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| #8: The Bye Bye Man |
If you've wanted to see one of the most inept horror films of 2017, here you are. A movie so dumb that it almost became so bad it's good. Even then, I can understand when a horror movie is intentionally trying to get a laugh out of its audience. Evil Dead 2 and Nightmare on Elm Street 3 are perfect examples of horror movies that try to intentionally be funny at times, but they can still provide the scares when needed. The Bye Bye Man can't dish out the scares and all of the laughs you may get are completely unintentional.
If I could compare The Bye Bye Man to any movie, it would probably be a college student's horror film. You know the kind. It's a movie where the director came up with this magnificent vision of a horror movie that'll scare everyone to death, but once it's been filmed and edited it's about as scary as a turnip. They tried, and there was probably a lot of passion behind it, but the results were still subpar.
Actually I take that back, The Bye Bye Man is worse than a college horror film because at least in those you can tell the passion of the creators was on screen. You can tell that the people that made those films genuinely cared about what they were making and wanted it to be as scary as possible even when it isn't. There isn't any passion here. It's a January horror film. Disposable.
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| #7: Ghost in the Shell |
More so than any other movie this year, Ghost in the Shell had the potential to be an entertaining and sometimes philosophically rich movie. We've seen it before in the original anime. This adaptation though sucks out all of the potential intrigue and wonder and replaces it with dull cyberpunk aesthetics and even more dull performances. It's especially ironic since the original Ghost in the Shell was one of the pioneers of the anime cyberpunk aesthetic. And now it's just blase.
And as for the elephant in the room, no, Ghost in the Shell is not on this list because of accusations of whitewashing. I could spend a small eternity going on about how if the people who were offended on behalf of the Japanese had watched the original anime or if anyone had seen the movie to understand the context of why Scarlett Johansson works as The Major, I'll just say this. Not only has the original author gave his blessing to the casting decision, as well as the original anime director, but scores of Japanese fans of the franchise said that their biggest complaints about the movie wasn't the casting of Scarlett Johansson, but rather the fact that the themes of humanity and the soul have been glossed over. So no, Ghost in the Shell isn't bad because it's a white washed movie. It's bad because it's more boring than reading the dictionary.
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| #6: Alien: Covenant |
Where do I even begin with this one? Well let me just say that when I saw it the first time, I thought it was just okay. It had a good beginning, but the ending spiraled out of control into bad territory. That being said, I still thought it was an okay horror movie. But the more that it sat with me, the more my opinion began to sour. Ever character in this movie was acting like an idiot. Protocols that were followed to the letter in the first two movies were swiftly ignored because if anyone was using their brain, we wouldn't have a movie.
So we have a bunch of idiots with no personality. Okay, that's not a death sentence to the movie. But then we get David, the AI from Prometheus returning and waxing poetic and generally being a pretentious bore. He can be menacing at times, but most of the time he just likes to draw, play music, talk about life and human nature, all while being as monotone as possible. So that makes the movie worse.
We get a Xenomorph. It's really only one Xenomorph for most of the movie, and it really only pops up in the climax. Don't forget though, the climax was the worst thing about the movie, even in my original review. It tries to cram in the original Alien into about twenty minutes with none of the tension or buildup and without any of the charming characters. But what really got under my skin with this movie was just how it seemed to be so un-Alien. Like if it wasn't for the Xenomorphs, you could call it a completely different name and it would have just as much impact.
Yes, The Bye Bye Man is technically a worse movie than Alien: Covenant, I never could have cared about The Bye Bye Man. There is no conceivable way that I could have been invested in that movie. There was a chance that I could be invested in this. There was even a time where I thought that this could have been a return to form for the franchise. Instead, I was just let down like no other movie this year. Sad, but true.
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| #5: My Little Pony Friendship is Magic: The Movie |
MLPFIMTM (yes it deserves an unpronounceable acronym) is a movie that I think only the youngest of children could find any entertainment in. They can really only be entertained by the bright and flashing colors, akin to jingling rainbow keys in front of their faces. Anyone else that has some thought, some form of decision making, some basic human intelligence, would not care about this movie. It offers nothing. It's the equivalent to tasting air. You gain nothing by watching it, you only waste precious moments of your life trying to find something so bland entertaining.
It's a movie that wants to sell toys in the most blatant way possible. Say what you will about the series, but at least whenever Hasbro decides that the toy line needs some new characters or figures, it'll integrate them somewhat nicely in the TV show. Maybe they'll be a two part event, or maybe the cast will go on some new adventure, just something that isn't as cynical as this. And yeah, I know that that's the entire point to franchises like this. They exist to make toys to tell to little girls and 30 something year old men, I get it, but there was a time where this series didn't at least look like that was its mission statement. There was an episode dedicated to riffing on Batman: The Animated Series for the love of God. Now, no references, no original humor, just dumb as nails characters going on an adventure because you need to buy new toys.
The only thing that kept this from being any higher was because this movie tanked and it tanked HARD. While the production costs are unknown, the movie made about $50 million worldwide with $20 million coming from the US. That may sound like a lot of money, but when you look at other animated features that came out in 2017, it was easily one of the worst and is projected to have just broken even. Maybe. When you can't even get a fan base to mobilize over this movie, you have a real stinker on your hand.
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| #4: Death Note |
A: So what was your favorite part about Death Note?
B: My favorite part was when Light screamed like a bitch and nearly pissed himself.
A: I know right? That's exactly how I envisioned his character.
B: What about you?
A: My favorite moment was when L stole a police officer's gun, chased Light around a city, then threatened to shoot him in his face.
B: Damn, that was another great moment. So true to the original anime, right?
A: Totally. And Misa, I mean Mia, becoming the main villain and wanting to kill people cause Light was being such a wuss? Great character change.
B: Agreed. At least the movie was dark as hell.
A: That was a great decision. I loved how I had to turn the brightness up on my TV just to see what was happening.
B: The only thing that made it even better was making the entire movie like a Twilight ripoff. I've been saying it for years, Death Note needed more angst and moodiness.
A: And L thinking about writing in the Death Note.
B: Yeah, that too. And you know they're gonna make a sequel, right?
A: Oh dude, that is exactly what I need in this world now.
B: Right? Just as much as I need this Glock in my mouth and a bullet in my brain. You wanna help me with that?
A: With pleasure.
SCENE.
But Willem Dafoe was alright I guess.
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| #3: Fifty Shades Darker |
Oh sure, it's still awful in the same ways that the original were awful, but I was never disgusted with what I saw. Actually, I thought that the sequel was so bad, so dumb, so ludicrous that I actually started to enjoy how terrible it was. I laughed at how serious the movie was being and how it wasn't even the slightest bit aware of how trashy and nonsensical it was. I'm shocked to say that I'm actually looking forward to the final movie this February if only because I expect nothing but the worst.
A bad movie is still a bad movie though, and even if Fifty Shades Darker is a slight improvement, it's only real benefit is that it isn't skin peelingly warped with its depictions of BDSM, love, and intimacy. Our two leads still have no chemistry and ever little moment between these two feels about as erotic as smashing two Barbie dolls together. It's bad, but it's entertainingly bad. I really wish I had more to say, but what more can I say besides it's more of the same from this franchise. Here's to hoping that it has a colossal train wreck of a finale.
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| #2: The Emoji Movie |
In what is universally regarded as being the worst movie of 2017, I had trouble when I reviewed The Emoji Movie back in July. There were some pretty hilarious reviews that came out around that time for how bad this movie was. Some people screamed at innocent civilians after watching it. Others burned tickets. Some even lost faith in the human race. All extreme scenarios, and I decided to make a joke review that I personally loved, but didn't really say all that much about The Emoji Movie. So now, as a thanks to everyone for staying with me for so long, here are my genuinely, non filtered thoughts on The Emoji Movie.
I find it draining. This is a movie that thinks that your children are stupid. Hell, it knows that your kids are stupid. It assumes that anything can be made into a movie and anything will entertain a child or at the very least shut them up for an hour and a half. It's an advertisement for your phones. It sends out the insidious message that you don't need social interaction, you just need to play with your phone. This is the movie brought to you by Sound Cloud, by Dropbox, by Youtube, Candy Crush, Just Dance, Twitter, Facebook, and any other app that a child can identify because they see it on their phones or their parent's phones.
This isn't even just an instance of me being an old man and bemoaning that the generation before me has no taste or ideas of social interaction. All of The Emoji Movie characters feel cynically designed to appeal to the specific idea that your phone is the most important thing in the world. There's a wonderland of magic and fantasy in your cell phone, so spend more time with it and love it. There is no soul, no passion, no joy here. Everything in this movie has been created down to a science. If A+B+C, then you will get a good movie. I always talk about how kids deserve better media and better movies, but this movie is the antithesis of everything I believe in. It's soulless. It's pointless. It has no creativity other than corporate sponsorship. It is everything wrong with kids movies and with the creative process in Hollywood.
If you are a parent that voluntarily took your kids to see this, you are not a parent I want to meet. It's one thing if your children wanted to go see it and you decided to placate them. If you're a parent that uses this movie is babysit your kids, or uses technology to do it instead of playing with them, reading to them, or spending quality time with them, you are a bad parent. The end.
Wow that felt great to get off my chest! That was 6 months in the making! Well thank you everyone for reading my Top 10 Worst Movies of... wait, this is only #2? The Emoji Movie was just #2???
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| #1: The Dark Tower |
I never predetermine where a movie is going to place on a list. I never know until the day of posting where a movie may potentially land on one of my lists. When I started to put together this movie, I really started to think back to The Dark Tower and how bad it was. It was a bad movie, a completely awful movie at that, but was it really worse than The Emoji Movie?
That's when I began to think about my feelings before and after I saw each movie. I had no hope for The Emoji Movie going into it. I knew it was going to be bad, so when I left the theatre knowing that it was a terrible movie, there was nothing for me to really feel bad about. I had no hope for it, it came out bad, self fulfilling prophecy. In the case of The Dark Tower, there was some hope. A rich and compelling universe based around Stephen King books? A poster that was commanding and interesting? Movie theatres going so far to change movie times to align themselves with significant numbers from the movie? That showed that there was effort placed into this movie and that people genuinely wanted people to enjoy it. So I gave it the benefit of the doubt.
The Dark Tower betrayed even those thoughts.
Two incredibly talented actors are made uninteresting and generic. Our mystical setting is ignored for setting it in Manhattan. Our hero is sidelined for a whiny teenager. The magical world is made grey and bleak like it came right out of a military shooter. Character moments that would take time to develop are crammed into a few minutes. Anything that could make me care about a Stephen King shared universe was destroyed with this movie.
I know it may seem odd to say how this movie is worse than The Emoji Movie, but you have to understand something. This movie had fans that were already established from Stephen King's novels. People were lining up to see The Dark Tower based on the quality of the books alone. I've never read a single book in the series and I somehow feel betrayed as a fan. This is the very similar to Batman & Robin where everything that fans originally loved about the series was washed away in one fell swoop. Even then, at least Batman & Robin had some campy charm to it. This just has nothing. The Dark Tower was such a failure that it spelled doom for the planned film series, converted it into a TV series, and the TV series plans to pretend that this movie never existed. So congratulations The Dark Tower you were so awful that you don't exist anymore. You clearly deserve the title of Worst Movie of 2017.
My least favorite movies of 2017 were The Boss Baby and The Emoji Movie
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