The Oscars Have the Razzies And The Shaynies Have The Shamies. Here Are The 10 Worst (Or Most Disappointing) Movies I Saw In 2017
Last weekend, just before Hollywood honoured the cream of the crop on the Oscars, the Razzies honoured the worst Hollywood had to offer in 2017 (you can see a list of “winners” here). And as the Razzies are the ugly shadow of the Oscars, so too do The Shaynies have a dark side. Welcome to the 2017 edition of The Shamies, the ten worst or most disappointing flicks I saw in 2017. (Keep in mind that I was able to avoid The Emoji Movie, which is why it appears on just about every “worst of” list on the planet except mine.)
10. IT: OK, before you grab the torches and pitchforks, I’m not saying IT was a bad movie. Nor am I saying it didn’t deserve every penny of the fortune it grossed worldwide. But I fear it was always destined to disappoint me.
With the exception of one disturbing scene, IT is one of my favourite books of all time. Stephen King’s gift for character was on full display in each one of the 1152 pages that my well-worn, dog eared copy consisted of. Because of that and its length, IT was more of an immersive experience than a simple novel. Not only did I lose myself in the story but the Losers Club became living, breathing friends (as both kids and adults). The movie just couldn’t duplicate that charm.
While updating the Loser’s childhood years to the 80’s was a wise choice, IT was missing some of my favourite parts from their first showdown with Pennywise. It didn’t really do justice to the near omnipotent clown (despite Bill Skarsgard’s excellent performance) nor did it touch on the real reason why seven pre-teen misfits were able to defeat an immortal anti-God that devoured human souls for appetizers. Like I said, taken on its own merits IT was decent, but measured against the source material and my affection for the story, it was destined to disappoint.
9. The Post: The Post was more of a disappointment than a bad movie. Directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep (not to mention a solid supporting cast) and based on one of the most pivotal moments in the history of Western journalism (mirroring the deteriorating relationship between the current White House and the global media at large), I went in expecting a combination of All The President’s Men and Spotlight. Needless to say, while The Post was okay it didn’t live up to my admittedly lofty expectations.
Is that my fault? Maybe, but I would refer you to the previous list of reasons why I was expecting a masterpiece. While Streep hit the ball out of the park (the woman’s eyebrows can outact most of the people who have passed through Hollywood’s turnstiles over the years) and Hanks had his moments, the rest felt . . . adequate at best. The Post hit a double while I was hoping for a grand slam.
8. Justice League: The most disappointing thing about Justice League wasn’t the often mediocre writing, the often confused directing, the occasionally sub-par FX (seriously, was no one else creeped out by Henry Cavill’s moustache-less CGI face?) or a plot that made about as much sense as Justin Trudeau’s overseas wardrobe. No, the most disappointing thing about Justice League was that it squandered all the lessons DC and Warner Bros. should have learned from the blockbusting success of Wonder Woman a few months earlier.
And while DC’s very passionate army of apologists will dismiss me as irrelevant (and let’s be honest, I kind of am), I’m not the only one who thought so. Justice League straddled the line between mere box office disappointment and outright bomb. The lowest grossing entry in DC’s cinematic universe, Justice League was also the most expensive to produce, representing an estimated 500 million dollar investment for everyone involved (anyone who thinks JL looks even close to a half billion dollar movie needs to see an optometrist). At the end of the day, JL was the first DC movie to lose money (up to a 100 million by some estimates) and resulted in some very important heads rolling.
7. Transformers The Last Knight: Here’s the part of the list where we move from just disappointing to outright bad. I stuck with this franchise because of the serious nerd-love I’ve carried for Transformers since my childhood. And I was desperately hoping I could believe Paramount when it said that this movie was the first step in course correcting a franchise that had seriously lost its way. But Stanley Tucci’s quirky portrayal of a drunken Merlin aside, absolutely everything about The Last Knight was forgettable. Except, that is, how underwhelming it was. TLK wasn’t the worst Transformers movie (that dubious title still belongs to Revenge of the Fallen), but it was enough of a disaster to convince Paramount to hit the rest button on the whole thing. After next December’s Bumblebee solo movie, everyone’s favourite Robots in Disguise are beginning again from scratch (sans Michel Bay).
And that may be the only good thing this film achieved.
6. Pirates of the Caribbean 5: Remember when Captain Jack Sparrow was an eccentric yet loveable rogue whose greatest asset was his ability to outthink everyone else in the room? Remember when these movies were relevant? While Captain Jack may have had everyone else convinced that he was a witless, bumbling imbecile that owed all of his success to blind luck, we knew better. Jack was a schemer who was one step ahead of everyone else on the high seas. But somewhere along the way, the man who could outwit his rivals, the entire British navy and even Death itself morphed into the facade. Ironically, Sparrow’s fall from grace seems to have mirrored Depp’s fall in real life.
Outside of being disappointed in Sparrow’s pointlessness, I honestly couldn’t tell you anything else about this movie. Except that I may have fallen asleep before the end. Twice.
5. Alien Covenant: The reason this film, which was hyped as a return to the horrifying roots of the franchise, was so bad can be summed up quite simply. Every character in this movie, despite being seasoned explorers and engineers, were clearly brain dead. “I’m an experienced space traveller who can repair starship, navigate interstellar free ways and chart alien topography but I wonder what will happen when I stick my unprotected face into this pulsating sack of extra-terrestrial flesh?” And that was pretty much the mentality of every character in this film.
It was simply impossible to invest any emotion into characters who were so blatantly stupid. There were times I was rooting for the Xenomorphs to wipe everyone out in the name of Darwinism. Combine that with a story that made precious little sense and this movie was just plain bad. It’s little wonder it buried the Alien franchise instead of re-igniting it.
4. Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets: You know, the special effects and world building in Valerian was actually pretty good. The story wasn’t horrible, but the real thing that killed this film from the very first scene was its two leads, Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne. Not only were both horribly miscast (exactly who was supposed to buy DeHaan as an intergalactic James Bond jumping from bed to bed and fight to fight?), but there wasn’t anything resembling chemistry between them. The first time they shared the screen it was beyond cringeworthy. And that was the at the very beginning of the movie (the remaining two hours or so was just one face palm after another).
Considering that the sexual tension that was supposed to exist between the two and the relationship that eventually developed were the lynchpin of an already weak story, well suffice to say that the end credits were a well deserved mercy killing.
3. The Dark Tower: I admit it, I was naieve going in. Like, really naieve. The idea that they could cram significant portions of Stephen King’s sprawling seven book saga into a 95 minute movie was, well, dumb. But King’s Dark Tower series was concluded in a way where The Dark Tower didn’t have to be an adaptation of any kind. They had plenty of creative flexibility to play with and could have explored themes and ideas King didn’t, making this the first chapter in a familiar yet fresh franchise. So what did they do? They tried to cram significant portions of the fantasy epic into a 95 minute movie anyway. Insert swearing and shame-drinking here.
What was even more frustrating was that, if you turned your head and squinted your eyes at just the right moments, you could see the seeds of a decent story hiding just beneath the disappointing and underwhelming surface. Even though Idris Elba had the look of King’s iconic Gunslinger down pat (yes, even though Roland is white in the books, shut up about it already) and Matthew McConaughy had his moments as The Man in Black, The Dark Tower seemed to go out of its way to squander an opportunity to stand on its own.
2: A Cure For Wellness: Remember all the harping I did on Dane DeHaan a few entries ago? About his complete lack of screen presence and charisma? You can double that for A Cure for Wellness, an overlong rambling narrative mess that relied on DeHaan to do the heavy lifting (anyone who had anything to do with casting for this movie should have been fired before being publicly flogged). And while Valerian could at least distract you with a lot of shiny FX eye candy, A Cure For Wellness had nothing. I criticized Annihilation a few weeks ago for its glacial pacing, but Wellness makes it look hyperactive by comparison. There were times this movie was so slow I was tempted to check for a pulse.
With nothing to keep my attention for what felt like hours on end, performances that ranged from bland to bad and a story that was about as captivating as fifth grade Algebra, the theatre felt more like a prison cell and I bolted for the door as soon as the end credits mercifully rolled.
1. The Snowman: I really like both Michael Fassbender and Rebecca Ferguson, but not only were both completely wasted in this wreck of a movie, but both need to beat their agents with hungry piranhas wrapped in barbed wire for landing them in this hot pile of cinematic vomit.
I can’t say enough bad things about this abomination. Nothing that happened in this film made any sense, characters referenced critical events that were never elaborated on or explained later and entire plot developments were completely forgotten or ignored just minutes after they happened. Every time The Snowman tried to come of as smart or stylish or slick I wanted to punch it in its stupid face. These cosmic sized flaws could be explained by the fact that 15% of the script somehow went unfilmed. How does that even happen? you may ask. The answer is it doesn’t, meaning even the film makers were so sick of this thing they were rushing through it with incompetent abandon.
Simply put, letting this movie see the light of day was a crime against humanity.
Image Sony Picture
