Every year has a few disasters mixed in with the masterpieces, and 2017 wasn't any different.
While the year produced some truly great films, it also had its fair share of clunkers, from
malformed horror movies and badly made bio-pics to overbearing blockbusters that might just
give you a migraine.
Here are the worst movies of 2017.
The Snowman
On paper, The Snowman should've been awesome.
It's headlined by several formidable stars and was directed by Tomas Alfredson, director
of well-received films like Let the Right One In and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
But despite all that talent, this film is a bloody mess.
Based on the novel by Jo Nesbø, The Snowman follows an alcoholic detective who chases
a psycho with a thing for building snowmen.
Unfortunately, the thrills are undone by a slew of messy subplots, over-the-top music,
subpar performances, and a bunch of supposedly freaky Frostys that really aren't that frightening.
The Bye Bye Man
With movies like Split, Get Out, and It Comes
at Night, 2017 was a pretty solid year for horror.
But on the flip side, we also got The Bye Bye Man.
"Bye bye man."
Written by Jonathan Penner and directed by Stacey Title, this January fright flick has
been described as "one of the emptiest, nonsensical haunted thrillers ever to fail genre audiences,"
and for good reason.
As a movie, it fails on every level imaginable, from the acting to the directing.
And worst of all, the bad guy's mythology doesn't actually make any sense.
What's up with the coins?
What's up with the train?
What's up with the CGI mess of a hellhound?
So yeah, don't say it.
Don't think it.
"Don't say it, don't think it."
And definitely don't watch it.
Baywatch
Based on the hit TV show starring David Hasselhoff
and Pamela Anderson, Baywatch looked pretty good on paper.
It stars Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron as super-shredded lifeguards who spend their days saving lives,
cracking jokes, and fighting crime.
But after Baywatch hit theaters in May 2017, critics immediately slammed the movie for
being...well, bad.
So what's up with the hate?
Maybe it's because the movie focused a little too much on jokes involving body parts and
fluids.
It's not hard to see why critics didn't feel the need to save this movie from drowning
at the box office.
Underworld: Blood Wars
Kate Beckinsale has been playing the character
of Selene since 2003.
In other words, she's been making the Underworld movies for a long, long time.
It's a shame most of them are terrible.
Keeping with tradition, Underworld: Blood Wars lives up to the franchise's monstrously
awful reputation.
"Roar" "roar"
As usual, the plot is "vampires fight werewolves, and Selene wears a lot of leather."
The directing in uninspired, the dialogue is stilted, and it may just be the bluest
movie ever made.
In other words, it's probably time to drive a stake through this franchise's heart and
let Kate Beckinsale move on to bigger and better things.
She's killed enough Lycans for one lifetime.
The Mummy
Ever since Iron Man burst onto the screen
in 2008, movie studios have desperately been trying to copy the Marvel model.
Now, we've got the Dark Universe, an attempt by Universal to cash in on the interconnected
movie franchise craze.
But instead of relying on talking raccoons or thunder gods, the Dark Universe is reviving
classic movie monsters like the Bride of Frankenstein, the Invisible Man, and the Mummy.
Unfortunately for Universal, they bungled their whole rebooted universe thing right
out of the gate.
The Mummy bombed at the domestic box office, and the film was savaged by critics.
From the opening scene involving Iraqi insurgents to the undead mummy herself, few critics found
anything positive to say about the film.
Worst of all, The Mummy tried to set up a cinematic universe in just two hours, whereas
the MCU unfolded over several movies.
By trying to lay the framework for a future franchise in just one go, the story suffered.
As a result, The Mummy hasn't done much to brighten up the future of Universal's Dark
Universe.
The Circle
With some movies, you can tell right away
that they're going to be awful.
But when some films bomb, it's a little more surprising.
Take The Circle, for example.
It's based on a novel by award-winning author Dave Eggers, and it features a who's who of
big Hollywood names, including Emma Watson, John Boyega, and Tom Hanks.
The plot centers on a creepy internet corporation known as The Circle, which wants to create
a world where privacy is a thing of the past.
Unfortunately, the film hits you right over the head with its message.
As The Atlantic put it, "It's all like an episode of Black Mirror, if Black Mirror made
no effort whatsoever to be subtle."
The Emoji Movie
You might think a movie featuring Patrick
Stewart as a walking, talking piece of poop would at least be worth watching as a gag,
but The Emoji Movie is such a soulless slog it deprives you of even that simple pleasure.
"You are smooth."
"Just doing my duty," It's a movie that's supposedly about being
true to yourself, but really, it's just a big commercial for Spotify, Candy Crush, and
Sony.
A lot of people scoffed at the idea of this movie when it was first announced, and rightfully
so.
The film was obliterated by critics, even though it still turned a profit at the box
office, because kids are the worst.
"Look, tiny riot gear"
Birth of the Dragon
Making a movie about Bruce Lee should be the easiest thing in the world.
He was a martial arts master with a rags-to-riches story, a truckload of charisma, and a tragic
demise.
It's the perfect recipe for an awesome bio-pic, but unfortunately, director George Nolfi ended
up making the worst kung fu flick of 2017 with Birth of the Dragon.
"You have offended my family, and you have offended the Shaolin temple."
Dragon centers on the infamous 1964 showdown between Lee and Wong Jack Man.
Only instead of focusing on either of these legendary figures, the movie spends way too
much time following a white guy named Steve who trains with Lee, sympathizes with Wong,
and wants to save his Chinese girlfriend from a crime boss.
This isn't the movie anyone paid to see.
Worse still, the film portrays Lee as an egocentric jerk who needs a good beating, which is a
weird way to depict one of the most likable movie stars of all time.
Daddy's Home 2
When the original Daddy's Home hit theaters
in 2016, it scored a measly 31 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
So why make a sequel, and why release it during the holidays?
Simply put, because of the money.
That's what Christmas is all about.
"He's fired?
But it's Christmas!"
"Thank you!"
Daddy's Home 2 picks up with Brad and Dusty having become BFFs and excellent co-dads,
but the status quo is torn apart when the grandpas show up.
There's Brad's dad, who keeps kissing his grownup son on the lips, and then there's
Dusty's old man, a womanizing jerk.
With its painful holiday humor, Daddy's Home 2 is the kind of movie that might inspire
a new generation of Grinches to swear off Christmas for good.
The Shack
In 2007, author William P. Young published
The Shack, a best-selling novel about grief, guilt, and God.
Ten years later, it was turned into a movie starring Sam Worthington, Octavia Spencer,
and Tim McGraw, and — spoiler alert — one of those actors literally plays God.
Variety summed it up as "a Hallmark-card therapy session," which is putting it nicely.
If you're looking for deep truths about religion, you'd be better off looking just about anywhere
else.
"So Always look on the bright side of passed."
Nope, you won't find any answers to life's big questions here — unless you wanted to
know if God is a Neil Young fan.
Second spoiler alert: yup.
On the other hand, you will get to see Sam Worthington race Jesus across a lake.
So there's that.
The House
You can hire all the comedians you want, but
if you don't have a solid script, then your movie won't get any laughs.
That was the problem with The House, the latest from Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O'Brien
of Neighbors and Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates fame.
Although The House boasts the talents of Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler, instead of giving
them a strong screenplay to work with … "Which we were kinda counting on…"
...it leans almost exclusively on their improv skills.
The so-called "comedy" revolves around a pair of parents who open a casino in their friend's
house to raise tuition money for their daughter, but things spin wildly out of control.
Soon, the two become suburbanite mobsters, using drugs and chopping off fingers.
While it seems like this wacky premise could lead to some good gags, most of the jokes
failed to land with critics or those few audience members who bothered to watch.
Bright
Theoretically, Bright sounds like it should
be pretty awesome.
A cop movie set in an alternate universe where orcs and humans live side by side?
Yeah, it sounds goofy, but it sounds like the right kind of goofy.
But while there's a rich mythology here to explore, the world of Bright feels incredibly
two-dimensional.
The action scenes lack any real spark, and while Joel Edgerton tries to salvage the film
with the best performance he can muster under all that orc makeup, the script isn't doing
him any favors.
Plus, whenever Will Smith starts dropping lines like this…
"Fairy lives don't matter today."
...it's probably time to press pause and revisit…pretty much anything else on Netflix.
All Eyez on Me
Tupac Shakur was one of the most influential
artists of his generation, and he definitely deserved a better bio-pic than All Eyez on
Me.
The movie glosses heavily over the rapper's career, hitting the basic highlights instead
of really digging into his life.
As many critics have pointed out, the film plays more like a Wikipedia page than an actual
movie.
Here's hoping that one day, some future filmmaker will make a Tupac movie that delves a bit
deeper into the artist's life.
Flatliners
When the original Flatliners dropped into
theaters back in 1990, it made a pretty penny at the box office, but still failed to impress
many critics.
Compared to 2017's pseudo-sequel, though, the original feels like an absolute masterpiece
of horror.
The film follows a group of med students experimenting with life after life.
Their tests involve taking some heavy duty drugs, stopping their hearts for a minute
or two, and checking out the other side before being resuscitated.
Naturally, messing around with the afterlife has serious consequences, but when our heroes
starts experiencing some "spooky" visions, the film devolves into Jump Scare: The Movie.
Critics called out the film's lack of suspense, foolish characters, and lacking visuals, leading
many to wish the property would've just stayed where it belonged: in the afterlife.
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