There has been a lot of trash to grace the silver screen in 2017. From long-awaited sequels to rubbish remakes to failed attempts at starting a movie universe (that wasn’t very subtle was it?).
The reason for these failings could have been down to poor writing, bland characters or just the fact they were absolutely terrible. I wasted 1,105 minutes of my life (yes, I did just spend the time working that out) watching these disasters and now I get to talk about them again.
Now, I didn’t see every movie this year so if you’re expecting to see the likes of The Emoji Movie, Fifty Shades Darker or The Dark Tower you’re out of luck as thankfully, I was lucky enough to miss those.
10: JIGSAW
Fans of the series, me included, were underwhelmed but accepted the ending of torture porn franchise back in 2010. We didn’t ask for an eighth instalment but for some reason we got one and it wasn’t even close to recreating the tense, twisting tales of the original films.
The characters were once again one dimensional. This resulted in me caring more about the how the clean-up crew feels disposing of the bloody messes in Jigsaw’s traps, than the actual characters. They were weakly written and lacked any likeable qualities, however it was a nice change to see them work together this time.
The traps were tedious, lacking the visceral intensity of the other movies, and the twist was underwhelming and a far cry from the clever revelations in Saw 1,2,3 and 6. The biggest mistake it made was that it didn’t really connect to the others or reference the unanswered questions we had after the final chapter.
9: GOING IN STYLE
The story for this one was very predictable, given the theme of the flick it should be easy for you to guess the outcome. The comedy becomes stale quite quickly as most of the jokes come are about the lead characters’ age. Old man jokes are funny maybe once or twice, but you’ll struggle to get consistent laughs.
The story slows way down after the heist scene and the few laughs there were become rare, leaving me sitting in silence for a good 20 minutes. There also multiple times where this film can be quite depressing which isn’t ideal for a comedy.
The talented cast were a bit wasted, they could do so much better than this. There is nothing new or original in this crime-caper and I found it quite hard to believe that three old-age pensioners could successfully rob a bank! Spoiler alert I guess, but seriously, if you didn’t see it when it came out, chances are you’re not going to see it.
8: 47 METRES DOWN
The Shallows tried and succeeded in making another good shark film. However, 47 Metres Down struggled to make an impact and instead, sunk. I was intrigued on first watch of the trailer but instead we got weak characters with a ridiculous reason for going shark diving and a little amount of tense shark moments.
The acting is okay from the two leads, but they don’t really do enough to make you care about them. You spent most of the film waiting for the sharks to pop out, instead we get a 90-minute snooze fest mainly made up of them checking their oxygen levels.
The ending was a bit wasted as well. The attempted twist was too predictable making the reveal a bit underwhelming as I saw it coming a mile off. Overall, a pretty naff shark flick, but somehow it has warranted talks of a sequel…I’ll be giving that one a miss.
7: xXx: THE RETURN OF XANDER CAGE
These movies make Fast & Furious look realistic! I haven’t seen the original xXx but this one looked ok. I completely forgot about it, that kind of shows its impact in the movie world doesn’t it? The acting was extremely dull and it clear that all the budget went on the action scenes as a story was considerably absent.
The pathetic attempt at a story is full of clichés and the action scenes are just mindless explosions and impractical stunts. Donnie Yen could take out a room full of security specialists without taking a single bullet, I’ve seen Stormtroopers with better aim! Oh, and apparently motorcycles have enough tread to work on water as well…
If you watched a trailer, then you’ve seen the entire movie. All of the key action scenes and cringe-worthy dialogue is present in the promotional material. Vin Diesel should just stick to the Fast & Furious franchise.
6: THE MOUNTAIN BETWEEN US
I was completely misled when I saw the trailer for this one. I thought I was going into a gripping survival-adventure but instead I was tricked and had to sit through 112 minutes of a romance set on a mountain.
There was potential to make the survival scenes a bit more intense and exhilarating but instead they were just skipped over for more talking and getting to know each other. A lot of times I found myself checking my watch to see when I could free myself from this lacklustre bore of a film.
The scenery did a good job of making me feel cold. Wish I could say the same for the actors though. They waded through the chest-deep snow with ease and not one time does any of them complain about the cold. Also, explain how two people who didn’t pack for snow, crash landed on top a mountain, walked all the way down through thick snow and didn’t lose a toe to frostbite? What could have been a gripping survival thriller turned out to be a leisurely walk through the snow.
5: THE MUMMY
All this movie had to do was choose; be a good mummy movie or set up the Dark Universe. The result? It did neither and instead it hurt any chance of getting this shared universe off the ground. There are times when it goes for some genuine scares, but these moments are buried under mindless, dull action scenes.
Tom Cruise is the most unlikeable he has ever been which was a surprise. He lacks the charm and hero element that Brendan Fraser had in the original trilogy. Cruise was massively miscast but hes not the worst thing in the movie.
That honour goes to the writing and direction. They tried so hard to build the ambitious shared universe of classic movie monsters with hints and references to future films that it forgot the main thing…make a good mummy movie! Russel Crowe is merely used to spout exposition, Annabelle Wallis was tedious to watch, Jake Johnson is the lacklustre comedic relief. The only saving grace was Sofia Boutella’s seductive and powerful Ahmanet.
4: BAYWATCH
At this point it seemed like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson was everywhere, don’t get me wrong he is one of the most likeable actors in the business but there’s only so much of the souped-up beefcake I can handle.
Why comedy movies insist on revealing all their best jokes in the trailers baffles me every time. But still this filmed revealed all its cards in the promotional material, meaning that I spent large chunks of the film not laughing. There was also an over-reliance on one joke that they ran into the ground, it was funny the first time but not the 13th time unfortunately.
The CGI is laughable, with that one particular fire sequence looking like it was filmed with the special effects on an iPhone. The fight scenes were a bit lacklustre as well as they used too many close-ups instead of backing out and showing us the whole fight. The villain was a cartoon and there is barely any reference to the TV show the film is based on, besides a couple of pointless cameos and the first three seconds of the theme tune. Verdict: Forgettable.
3: FLATLINERS
One of the most boring films of the year. Yet another example of Hollywood running out of ideas, so they remake a cult hit. A first half that showed real promise was ruined by a mind-numbingly dull second half, full of predictable jump scares that we’ve seen a thousand times.
There were a number of interesting storylines and concepts that were mentioned or hinted at but never explored, bit of a waste if you ask me. Speaking of wastes…(*Spoiler Warning*, but honestly, if you didn’t see this in the cinema, I doubt you’ll seek it out upon its DVD release) Why set up all that back story if you were just going to kill Ellen Page’s character half-way through.
The characters were kind of annoying as well meaning there wasn’t a single one I cared about or could potentially root for. Overall, Flatliners is stupid when it’s not dull, yet it isn’t stupid enough to be a bad movie you can just have fun with. This lame excuse for a horror movie should have never been revived.
2: TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT
STOP MAKING THESE MOVIES!! The one thought I had after coming out of the fifth instalment of this dying franchise is; well there’s two and half hours of my life I’ll never get back. Honestly, whose idea is it to make these films that long? The only way you can succeed in having a lengthy runtime is if you have a good story, likeable and interesting characters and thrills, all of which Transformers 5 lacked.
It was confusing in my opinion. Why they felt the need to jump from one scene another so frequently is beyond me. There are so many details to follow and jumps between stories that it was exhausting trying to keep up. The characters were so bland and poorly developed that I literally didn’t care if they died. We are five movies deep into this series and they still think we care about the humans, WE DON’T! Just give us a Transformers movie about Transformers.
The action was so lazy and extremely dull. There is no entertainment to be had by just watching things go BOOM for a bloated and overly long runtime. This film is filled with Michael Bay-isms; the humour is stupid and insulting, the females in the movie are merely used as eye-candy and it has an abundance of slow motion, which if cut could have shaved 30 minutes off the run time. An absolute disasterpiece.
DIS-HONOURABLE MENTIONS
AMERICAN ASSASSIN
DADDY’S HOME 2
MOTHER! (I’m still not actually sure if it’s bad, but I’ll put it here just in case)
1: THE SNOWMAN
This one annoyed me as I was genuinely excited for what looked like a thrilling crime story. Instead, what we got was a mind-numbing, woefully-edited mess. What do great crime-thrillers do? Build tension. The Snowman had no tension whatsoever and I found myself repeatedly checking my phone to see when this nightmare would end.
The characters are so thinly written and the portrayals from Michael Fassbender and Rebecca Ferguson lack emotion, chemistry, which are things you need in order to invest in a character’s story. I’m no filmmaker but even I can recognise awful editing. This film had so many problems from; terrible scene transitions, to scenes with no pay-offs, to countless scenes from the trailer missing from the final cut.
I spent the entire film with a confused expression on my face. The plot is executed so poorly and by the end I was laughing at how stupid it was. There are subplots that if they were to be removed it would have no effect on the story at all and characters that served no purpose whatsoever. This movie was borderline incoherent and the only way it will be of use to anyone is by being the prime example of how NOT to edit a film or how NOT to tell a story.
