Top 5 Worst Movies of 2017

I didn’t see as many movies as I did last year mostly because everything seemed kind of shit and those are the movies you’re meant to watch to make a worst of list.

There was no way I was going to watch Transformers and support something that mostly seems to be product placement and explosions. So different  from the comics which could tell some great stories if they were made into movies. I didn’t see the last two in the cinema and I’m not going to see anymore until they completely reboot the whole thing and boot Michael Bay out. Then I’ll give it a chance but if a reboot doesn’t make it about the characters then I won’t be watching those either.

The same goes for the Emoji movie. I wasn’t supporting a cynical cash grab of what’s popular with the young people. The Lego movie was great and I liked Lego Batman but those movies have a lot to answer for in the trend they’ve set. The Angry Birds movie come to mind. Unless it’s getting great reviews about how surprisingly good it is, like the Lego movie, I’m not watching any movies based on games that don’t have a story or things you can find on your phone.

So onto the list, which is very short and not representative of what came out this year. Mostly this is just me griping about movies I hated because illness meant I didn’t do any blogging this year about movies (or anything really).

5) Justice League

I didn’t hate this movie as much as I thought I would. I even enjoyed myself a bit which I have no doubt is down to Joss Whedon taking over the project. But I don’t want to attack Zack Snyder at the moment.

I liked the Flash and Wonder Woman and the action scenes weren’t terrible. But that’s about it.

Batman v Superman is a huge shadow over this movie and they tried to retcon away parts of it but they can’t get rid of the bad taste in my mouth. It almost made me laugh when Bruce decides they have to bring Superman back from the dead because he was such a beacon of hope to the world. What movies were they watching? I think they’ve got themselves confused with every other version of Superman apart from this one. I thought they didn’t want any hope or other positive emotions in there. Isn’t this the movie universe where Zack Snyder said Bruce Wayne would be raped if he went to prison. Everything has to be dark and gritty and awful. Superhero movies aren’t fun they’ve got to be grown up and realistic. Yep those two things go together so well.

Anyway back to Justice league. I was excited for Jason Momoa to be Aquaman but this made me not want to see the Aquaman movie. I don’t have any strong feelings towards it, I just don’t think I can be bothered. Maybe the Flash movie will be good as long as he’s not as much of a screw up as the TV version (I only watch the crossovers of the Arrowverse).

All I want is another Wonder Woman movie.  I don’t care what else we get as long as we get that. Although it better be done by Patty Jenkins or another female director because there were way too many ass shots of Wonder Woman in this movie. And an up-skirt shot while she’s fighting. I’m not impressed. At all. She’s pretty much the only good thing in this movie and you’re reducing her down to her body parts.

Other than that the most disappointing part of this whole debacle is that Ben Affleck never got to be a good Batman and he looks so sad. I was actually looking forward to his version of Batman and he wasn’t bad in Batman v Superman. I liked his version of Bruce Wayne, especially when he was talking to Alfred.

But this version of Batman doesn’t fit with this retconned version of events. They’re trying to make it lighter, funnier (more MCU like) and while I find it funny when he’s lying on the floor in pain after Superman asks if he bleeds, it’s becoming satire. I’d love a parody movie making fun of superheroes but this is meant to be DC’s version of the Avengers. So it should be fun not making fun of itself. As I watched it the whole time I was painfully aware of what had come before.

The only good thing if this whole universe gets rebooted is that hopefully we’ll get a different Superman. And I don’t just mean how the character acts. I want a different actor because Henry Cavill was fine, I guess, when he was broody but trying to be normal Superman shows he’s not a very good actor.

So Justice League is a terrible mess of a movie but because it’s a bit fun it’s not as bad as Batman v Superman or Suicide Squad. That’s barely a good thing.

 

4) Flatliners

There’s not to much to say about this movie or at least not as much to say about it as Justice League or some of the other movies on this list.

I thought this would have something interesting to say about the afterlife and being human but I’m not sure there was anything to take away from it. Other than you shouldn’t stop your heart even in a hospital because it’s dangerous. I haven’t seen the original movie and I doubt I ever will.

It turned into a horror movie at the end which I was not expecting. The only good thing about that was my Dad hates horror movies and he had bruised ribs so every time something made him jump he was in pain. So I’d start laughing which would make him laugh and his ribs would hurt more. I’d feel bad at being a bad audience member if I thought anyone in there was invested in the movie. It was so boring.

 

3)Annabelle Creation

I liked The Conjuring and I was looking forward to all the sequels but not anymore.

The first Annabelle was terrible in so many ways. It was a huge let down but I still had hope for The Conjuring sequel because that’s a completely different director. Then the sequel happened and I liked it but I guess my expectations were too high because I felt disappointed. So I thought this was going to be bad and I was right.

I was bored and it left so little impact on me that I forgot I watched it until I saw another worst movie of the year list. Then I remembered my disappointment at this series. I look forward to the Insidious movies more than the next Conjuring movie and I didn’t think I’d ever say that. (I’m not saying the Insidious movies are bad. I enjoy them especially now that it’s all about Elise.)

 

2) Alien: Covenant

Alien is one of my favourite movies ever and so is Aliens. So do I need to explain why I hate Covenant so much? I will anyway because ranting feels good.

The most glaring error I can see with this movie is that none of the characters are memorable. They’re all meant to be couples (I think) but I have no idea who’s meant to be with who. The only way you can get to know the cast is if you watch the YouTube videos that they cut out of the movie. I’m not watching them, I’ve wasted enough of my time on this movie.

So I have no reason to care about the characters which means it’s very unlikely that it could ever move me in any way but there was still potential for an entertaining horror movie. After all I enjoyed Prometheus. It wasn’t good but it was entertaining at least. I watch loads of horror movies that have unlikable characters and they entertain me. Unfortunately this isn’t scary and it’s not entertaining.

It had potential to be a movie I could like. The trailers got me. Humans landing on an alien planet, exploring and then realising the massive amounts of danger they’re in. That is one of my favourite things.

It’s how this movie starts and I can even ignore the characters taking off their helmets even though they know nothing about the planet other than it has breathable air. Nobody’s worried about disease or viruses. Fine. I’ve adjusted my expectations to normal science fiction horror levels. Then David from Prometheus shows up and it stops being a horror movie. All tension goes out the window and I stop caring. The flute scene happens and I’m waiting until I can leave. It’s so boring.

I hate this middle ground of bringing back characters from Prometheus. I didn’t like Shaw but at least she had personality. I was kind of interested in her search for why the engineers created humans and then tried to kill them.

The main character we’re meant to root for this time has no personality. She’s just a cheap Ripley clone. I’m tired of writers thinking they can just make their main character female and that suddenly makes them interesting. There are strong female characters everywhere. What I mean when I say that phrase is that I want complex female characters. We need complex characters male or female and that is exactly the opposite of what we get here.

The worst part is that this is a beautiful movie and could have been so much more. Unfortunately it’s all surface. There’s nothing deeper even if they’re trying to pretend there is by that opening scene where David talks to his creator. They should have cut that instead of the character stuff with the cast.

 

1)The Greatest Showman

This movie feels like an insult. They take a conman who exploited disabled people for money and make him the hero.

What makes it worse is that they made it in 2017. The year of Trump and Nazis and things just generally getting worse for marginalised people. They make the bad guy the hero because he’s a straight, white, able bodied, neurotypical, cis-man.

Regardless of everything else I was already tired of this type of movie. The ‘freaks’ can’t be the hero of their own story they need the handsome guy to do it for them. I wouldn’t have as big a problem with this movie if one of the marginalised people were the main character and Hugh Jackman was just helping them.

It gets worse because they add Zac Effron to it. I’ve got no problem with him as an actor but he’s just another straight, white, able bodied, neurotypical, cis-man taking away from the types of characters we rarely see. I see his type in movies everywhere. It’s boring.

And having one swanc-man handing his legacy over to another swanc-man just pisses me off. (swanc is straight, white, able bodied, neurotypical, cis-man but I can’t be bothered to keep typing it and I have a feeling it’s going to be a theme of next year too.)

I knew it was going to be bad just from the trailer. Having a song about empowerment play over Hugh Jackman setting up his ‘freak show’ made me roll my eyes. It wasn’t until I saw reviews and I realised this was based on a real guy who exploited disabled people for the amusement of the ‘normals’. That’s when my feelings towards this movie turned to hatred.

I know this isn’t a clear cut issue because some of the people back then who were exploited have a different opinion of their place in history. And I think their opinions matter more because they know their own experience.

If this movie acknowledged the harm that was done and not been so completely positive in favour of this conman then I might have been able to enjoy it a bit. As it is the musical numbers are no where near good enough to distract me from how it completely rewrites history in favour of an abusive man. In 2017 this is offensive.

 

Next I’m going to post my favourite movies of 2017 because I need to balance out the depressing with the positive.