The Five Worst Films of 2017

It's indisputable that 2017 had a lot more better films than 2016. That does not mean that the year was home to some incredibly bad movies. Ones that were way more horrible and oddly more lucrative than those of the previous year. For the most part, I avoided the really terrible movies, but I still was a witness to some and they were atrocities. I usually have a hard time making worst lists, because no matter what you say, there's always someone out there who liked it. Nonetheless, I have selected my five worst films of 2017. I did five because, thankfully, I didn't see enough terrible films to make a traditional top ten list, but the other reason is that I think five is a more exclusive amount. It makes the best films even better, but also the worst films even worse.

5. Transformers: The Last Knight

Now, I know what you're going to say. "Wait a minute. Didn't you say that you thought this was a small improvement over some of the franchise's earlier entries?"

You are correct. I did think this was a small improvement. That doesn't make it a good movie though. Also, because of the franchise's history, a small improvement ain't gonna cut it and keep it from being one of the worst films of the year. Especially since that "Transformers: The Last Knight" also makes a thousand more mistakes for every thing it does good.

You might think that this is a little hard to believe, but Paramount actually put together a team full of well-regarded writers to plan out the future of the Transformer's franchise. "The Last Knight" was the first product of that team of writers. Considering that some of them worked on great superhero films like "The Avengers," "Iron Man," "X2: X-Men United," and "Ant-Man," even I had a slim amount of hope that these guys had better things in store for the franchise.

While not all the members of this writers team worked on this movie, some of them did, and their script was awful. I mean, it's not completely their fault. Michael Bay surely had a hand in things, but even he couldn't be solely responsible for the downfall of this film. What "The Last Knight" delivers, is a retread of previous Transformers movies, but even more boring and convoluted than the last one. There is even a sense of desperation at play, with a shoehorned attempt at continuing the franchise. This was a problem with another film you'll see on this list.

No one in this movie is even trying to give their all. Each of them know they are in a doomed production. All the effort that you would expect from any cast is nonexistent. Since they didn't care, I didn't and, as usual with these films, it is up to the endless amounts of CGI and action to entertain. That may have worked on me when I was five, but at fifteen, I got no such enjoyment.

Oddly enough, this was one of my favorite moviegoing experiences of the year. I originally planned to see "The Mummy" for my birthday, but since that was unbelievably packed, I chose to see "The Last Knight" instead. It, expectedly, wasn't so full and the people that showed up weren't entertained with the film either. It was fifteen minutes into the film, when one person started MST3K-ing the movie. We all ended up joining in and we all made each other laugh.

Since I had that experience, "The Last Knight" does not get higher on the list, but it still makes the list for having us to do that in the first place.

Grade: D

4. The Lego Ninjago Movie

This'll likely be one of the more odd selections for a worst list. I can see general moviegoers not placing it here, but this was a personal failure to me. I loved the two previous Lego movies. They were two inventive, irreverent, and hilarious animated films that could easily go on a potential top ten, or twenty, animated films list.

"The Lego Ninjago Movie" has none of those qualities I just mentioned. In fact, this is polar opposite of those films. Where "The Lego Movie" and "The Lego Batman Movie" were inventive, "Ninjago" is so by-the-book, it takes the overused "find your true self" premise to use as a story, but in doing so, "Ninjago" makes it even duller.

The main characters are cardboard, or is that plastic, cutouts of previous character stereotypes, that I feel like I'm watching a two or three different movies simultaneously. The voice work is serviceable, but, as if this wasn't a cliched adventure already, Jackie Chan is the typical wise old martial-arts expert in the movie. Justin Theroux is alright as the antagonist, but oddly enough, I found myself rooting for the bad guy, because the heroes were so lackluster and uninspired.

Brilliant and inventive animation was a staple of these films from the beginning and while it continues when it comes to the city, the forests and mountains lack that unique, Lego-like detail that was applied to the simplest things in the two previous movies. Things look lazier as it felt like I was looking at animated figures in a real-world landscape. A great score is nonexistent. Even worse, I can't even recall anything from it. Scores are, to me, an overlooked part of movies and the score for "Ninjago" did not even compute for me. Rather than making a great Lego movie, it seemed like the inspiration for this one was to simply make endless amounts of sales from the Lego set tie-ins.

Having two Lego films released in the same year likely didn't help, as that might've split the studio's focus, but since they had two great predecessors, I expected more care from "The Lego Ninjago movie."

Grade: D

3. Beauty and the Beast (2017)

As previously stated, there's always someone out there who likes one of the films that you brand terrible. In this entry's case, there must be a ton of people out there that like this, because as of my writing this, "Beauty and the Beast" is the most financially successful film of 2017. It may be, if "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" isn't able to top it.

If I wanted to watch a version of "Beauty and the Beast," I now know I can go watch the 1991 animated classic. The 2017 adaptation is the same as that one, only needlessly longer and full of one dimensional depictions of classic characters. The first time I watched this movie, I actually liked it at first, but many revisits led me to dislike it more and more. Not just because it is a basic retelling of the 1991 movie. It lies within the cast.

Why would Disney cast Emma Watson to play Belle without seeing if she's a good singer? You would think that it would be one of the requirements for the role. Apparently, Emma Watson's singing ability was so bad, that Disney decided to put her voice through an autotuner, and not a very good one at that. Throughout the character's musical numbers, Emma Watson's singing sounds incredibly fake and is even out of sync with what the character is actually saying. I usually like Emma Watson, but she did not work with this role. Everything that came out of her mouth sounded forced and unnatural. As was the chemistry between her and the Beast. The chemistry wasn't there. I mean it would be hard for an actress to have chemistry his her co-star who is walking around in a motion-capture suit.

I didn't understand why director Bill Condon didn't try a more practical approach with the Beast. Dan Steven's Beast looked like a piece of unfinished CGI walking around the lavish sets. What's more disturbing is that, with the placement of the horns, the guy looked like Satan with just his silhouette alone. Throw in the misshapen legs and it seemed like the filmmakers were just compiling a hodgepodge of other animals in the most uncreative way possible. The Beast's song, "Evermore," is sang and preformed well, but it felt like Disney was desperate for another popular song to follow in the footsteps of"Let it Go" from "Frozen."

The castle servants didn't fair much well either. As he normally does in horrible situations, Ewen McGregor fairs the best as Lumière and out of all the returning songs, "Be Our Guest" fairs the best, but is merely passable and not good. Similar to Emma Watson, I normally enjoy Emma Thompson, but this Mrs Potts lacked the charm and vocals that Angela Lansbury had in the 1991 movie. The titular song is significantly terrible in this live action remake. Luke Evans, like mostly everyone else, was miscast as Gaston, but not only is he miscast, he does nothing as Gaston. He sits out of his famous musical number. In his place, the song belongs more to Josh Gad's LeFou, who is busy doing his off-brand Olaf routine.

I enjoyed some of the new additions to the story, but most of them felt like a drag than what I believe was unintended. This movie runs at almost an hour longer than that and does nothing useful with the added time. The cinematography and production design is absolutely dazzling, but is ultimately wasted on this film. With all due respect to fans of this movie, I have the utmost respect for you, but I didn't like this movie. In other words... (read this as if you were singing the song "Something There" from the movie.)

The classic's sweet and very nice, but this was cold and this was rough and unrefined. It's not for me. I'll just ignore, as Disney remakes every film it's done before.

Grade: D-

2. The Mummy (2017)

The 1932 Mummy is a classic of the horror genre. The Brandon Fraser-led trilogy are campy, yet fun, adventure serials. With yet another reboot, Universal was betting big with their updated interpretation of the tale. From all the marketing, it seemed that this new movie would mix the two previous iterations together that, although not advertised well, would serve as the jumpstart a cinematic universe titled Dark Universe.

This universe had already tried to get launched with 2014's "Dracula Untold." Because that failed miserably, that will filmed was figuratively erased from existence and thus "The Mummy" took its place as the film to kick off this interconnected universe. Should it succeed, Bride of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, and Jekyll and Hyde would all become future installments of this franchise. A lot was riding on this.

From the opening logos, it was apparent that building a money-making universe was the motivator for making this movie, rather than making a great, new Mummy movie. As soon as the Universal logo morphed into a sleek logo for this Dark Universe, I knew that this was not going to be a good movie. Still, I had hoped that Tom Cruise, one of my favorite actors to watch, would keep me entertained through this mess. That was not the case.

Tom Cruise was the exact opposite of entertaining with this character. While the script didn't help the character in any way, Cruise often manages to overcome that by being charming and likable. Again, he didn't and, with this following the equally terrible "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back," I'm hoping Mission Impossible 6 is a much better showcase of the actor's talents.

Not only was Cruise dull, but the entire cast was. Coming out a week after "Wonder Woman," this new Mummy movie features one of the worst leading ladies I have ever seen. She's there to drop exposition and to be annoying, because she served no other purpose. Russell Crowe is essentially the Nick Fury of this Dark Universe and he is revealed to be Dr Jekyll. The movie screeches to a halt to give Jekyll, and his alter ego Hyde, his own extended scene and it feels like it goes on for an eternity.

I almost forgot about the titular Mummy. Kind of like how the movie gives the character nothing remarkable, let alone anything, to do. The CGI surrounding the character is just as puzzling as how the strategically-placed tissue paper manages to stay wrapped around her for the hour and fifty minute runtime.

Grade: F

1. The Emoji Movie

"The Emoji Movie" is the worst film I've seen this year. Not only that, but it is the worst film I have seen in my life. Keep in mind, I have seen my fair share of terrible movies. However, "The Emoji Movie," to me, makes all of those other movies look like "The Godfather." Am I exaggerating a little bit? Yes. Would I trade this film for any of those? Probably not, yet they may be more entertaining than this certainly was.

I didn't see this film in theaters, but as the saying goes though, curiosity killed the cat on this one. I decided to watch this with a sliver of hope that the critics were wrong and that this movie was, at least, fine. Now, I am wondering how many times I am going use examples like "Batman v Superman," a film where critics were wrong, as an excuse to try out terrible movies.

Luckily, I borrowed this movie, along with "The Mummy", from the local library. After watching the movie, I wanted to take it, smash it into a million pieces, and burn the remains. The only thing that kept me from doing it was because it was the library's copy and not mine.

Every time I use emojis, I will always have this movie in my mind to remind me of this travesty of a film. Thank you, Sony! Of course, I blame myself for watching it willingly, but it is Sony's fault for making it in the first place. I now pity the poor soul who receives the Blu-Ray after me and all those who had it before me. When I first placed my reservations on it, I was in a hundred and seventy-fourth place to receive it, so that's a lot of people.

That's not even counting the people that paid to see this movie in theaters, because this made 217 million in its total theatrical gross, so there'll surely be a sequel and I have never been more sad at Hollywood's never-ending ability to make sequels. No plans have been announced yet, but it can happen, as we've seen time and again.

Grade: F (My Least Favorite Film Ever Made)

Conclusion

These are, for me, the five worst films of the year. I'll be releasing the five best films really soon. Feel free to share this with your friends and your own personal worst list in the comments section below. I'm curious to hear what you thought were the worst films of the year. Do you have five, ten, or more? Thanks for reading, I'm the Film Fanatic, bye-bye.