John H. Foote
I love my job. Truly, I have been obsessed with film since I was eleven years old. This is all I ever really wanted to do, and I am very aware of how lucky I am to be doing what I love. However, of the 300 odd films that come out every year, most are not very good, many are dreadful, perhaps fifty are good to brilliant. This happened to be a very good year but make no mistake, there were some bad films. It can be draining seeing one bad film after another, so much money and talent wasted. What angers me is the wasted time, I can never get back the time it took to wade through a bad movie. Yet I continue, walking into every new film hoping for surprise, hoping it might be the best film of the year.
What was unusual this year were the number of blockbuster hopefuls that crashed and burned to completely upon release, their movie death swift, without mercy. Big budget, awful movies that had no business being green lit. Word travels so fast now, bad movies have little chance of surviving that first weekend and if there are no press screenings, we all the film is doomed. If the studio lacks the confidence to show the movie to the press before opening day, what does that say about their confidence in their product? Here’s the list of movies that I found to be absolute worst of this year.
15. Just Getting Started
Why? Why Cast Morgan Freeman and the great Tommy Lee Jones in a film that asks them to do nothing. Nothing. Terrible, on every level. And frankly, really insulting. Is this what we have to look forward too as we get older? No thanks.
14. The Mummy
The problem in casting Tom Cruise, a very good actor in the remake of a classic horror film is the film becomes a Tom Cruise blockbuster rather than a creepy, horror flick. And Mr. Cruise takes his movie star image very seriously, often being over controlling on set. Well he took control of this and drove the film right into a huge toilet. Silly, hell downright stupid, the film was a huge flop for Universal and saw the immediate shutdown of the four monster movie remakes. Bad, bad, bad.
13. 9/11
Charlie Sheen on the big screen? Charlie Sheen trapped in an elevator in the World Trade Center on 9/11, some would call that poetic justice, the man has few friends. I call it bunk, and one of the years most tortuous film experiences. For me, it trivialized 9/11, and made a mockery of the many who lost their lives. I kept hoping any member from his TV show would pop in, my God, Ashton Kutcher would have been welcome. More welcome would have been this nightmare never being made.
12. Geostorm
A big, blustery Effects driven film about the weather rebelling and raining hell down on the planet. Cities fall, buildings topple, much is blown up, all sorts of crazy weather pounds away at the earth, reducing cities to piles of dust, or part of the ever growing ocean. Just brutal, as though a ten year old had thought it up. Then again, a ten year old would have more imagination.
11. The Snowman
One of the dumbest serial killer, cop in pursuit films ever made, in fact likely the worst. Laughable, insipid, boring, just idiotic. And I am being kind. The film world would be a better place if this film had never been made. What was Michael Fassbender thinking?
10. The Dark Tower
After years of waiting for the film adaptation of this massive story, fans of the book were left numb with shock watching the film, howling in protest on social media about the absolute ruination of the film. Matthew McConaughey is woefully miscast, Idris Elba is great but has nothing to play. One of the worst King books adapted to the screen. If someone got smart, they would adapt the book for HBO, making a mini-series of it…tell the whole story.
9. CHIPS
Why adapt a very minor TV Show into a film? Why allow a very minor talent like Dax Shepard tondirect, write and star in the film? The only saving grace was the fleeting presence of the lovely Kristen Bell, who somehow married Shepard (for real). What’s next? A film version of The Partridge Family? It will happen people.
8. Ghost in the Shell
A film that boasts cool visuals and a compelling central performance from Scarlett Johansson, but the end result is an absolute bore fest.
7. Mother!
Jennifer Laurence is game, doing all that is asked of her, Javier Bardem mysterious, Michelle Pfeiffer and Ed Harris radiate danger, but the film goes nowhere. Can anyone with absolute confidence tell me what this mess is about. Painfully bad. I am sure the director can explain what the film is about, but from seeing it, no one seems to know.
6. Home Again
Predictable garbage. Sugar sweet, sickening. Why would every young guy fall for her? Honestly?
5. Kidnap
Whatever happened to Halle Berry, a genuine talent who won an Oscar for her seething sexual performance in Monsters Ball (2001). And then nothing. Nothing. Is this the best she can get these days, or for that matter the last sixteen years? If so she should retire.
4. The Book of Henry
Just an insipid film trying to cash in on Jacob Tremblay, the talented little boy from Room (2015). Even prodigies need a script. Horrible on every level, virtually unwatchable.
3. Baywatch
Come on was it not doomed from the beginning? Dwayne Johnson is a big, major movie star, and has enormous star power, but here he is beefcake, nothing more. In fact, everyone in the film is here on display for what they look like…story? Who cares? Aim the camera…go…shoot the pretty people.
2. Flatliners
Why? Why remake a film that was not very good but made money? But there is the key word, money. Nothing matters but money in Hollywood, this film an absolute indicator of that very thing. Not even Ellen Page can save this mess. Same story as the original, a group of arrogant young medical students seeking to know about the afterlife, take turns stopping each other’s hearts, then electroshocking each other back to life. Trouble is once they come back, something comes with them. Not a script by chance?
1. King Arthur
The first major flop of the summer in a season loaded with duds. This retelling of the legend was a terrible mess of a film, as removed from Excalibur (1980) as possible. Not even Jude Law can save this unholy mess. It was not even mystical, not once.
Read More: Best Movies of 2017
