As everyone knows, in terms of general badness, 2017 made 2016 look like the Teletubbies. I'm pretty sure last year put us all through the wringer (with the sole possible exception of Jeff Bezos). But now that it's over, let us take a look at some of the worst-received films of 2017.
And be warned. 2017 was a shitty year. There's lots to talk about. This list is gonna be long. (This time around I'm omitting the "ironically good" qualifier from my last article, because it's just redundant.) Please note that there are many, many terrible 2017 movies that I'm not going to talk about on this list. 2017 was a bad year. Honorable mentions go to 50 Shades Darker, Rings, The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature, Ghost in the Shell, The Space Between Us, The Shack, and MANY others.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 30%. "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales proves that neither a change in directors nor an undead Javier Bardem is enough to drain this sinking franchise's murky bilge."
Rundown of the plot: Remember the first movie? It's the first movie. This is Pirates of the Caribbean: The Next Generation. A plucky young man (Brenton Thwaites) and a plucky young lady (Kaya Scodelario) flirt wittily as they team up to defeat a cursed/undead captain (Javier Bardem) and his cursed/undead crew, all while Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) does funny things in the background, and/or occasionally in the foreground. Seriously. It is the first movie.
Why was this movie so bad?: First of all, this franchise has been losing steam for... what, ten years? Pretty much nobody wanted this sequel. When we all heard they were making a fifth one, the "Stop! Stop! He's already dead!" memes went flying.
Every few seconds, they make a sequel that no one
wants, and this becomes relevant again.
And besides all that... this movie just wasn't very good. Critics' most common complaint was that Dead Men Tell No Tales tries its damnedest to revive a flagging franchise, and fails miserably: it's dull, loud, confusing, and doesn't give you a whole lot of reasons to give a shit about all the mind-numbing action barreling across the screen.
Despite the fact that the whole thing is a jumbled disarray of nonsensical plot points that simply don't mesh, the most baffling thing about this movie is the fact that Davy Jones shows up for two seconds at the end. The very concept that they're going to bring Davy Jones back for a sequel just absolutely boggles my mind. What insane fantastical trickery are they going to pull for him to come back? I don't know. I don't care. I am through with all this nonsense.
The Mummy
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 16%. "Lacking the campy fun of the franchise's most recent entries and failing to deliver many monster-movie thrills, The Mummy suggests a speedy unraveling for the Dark Universe."
Rundown of the plot: An ancient mummy rises from her tomb, blah blah blah, the chosen one is Tom Cruise, yada yada yada, who cares.
Why was this movie so bad?: A phrase you're gonna see (and have already seen) a lot on this list is: "This is a sequel/reboot that no one wanted." The Mummy is no exception. No one wanted it.
Universal spent several years trying to set up a series of film reboots of their old monster movies - the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, Frankenstein, and so forth. The first was Dracula Untold in 2014, but it kind of failed and was removed from the "official" list of Dark Universe movies. (Yes, that's right, they're calling it the Dark Universe. How cool and awesome.)
The second attempt was The Mummy, which also failed, and at this point Universal is seriously reconsidering their plans for the Dark Universe. Which is kind of embarrassing, considering how desperately they wanted it to be a thing, and how there were like 20 planned films and it had its own logo and everything.
They really thought this was gonna be a whole big thing.
That's so cute.
Another problem with The Mummy is that it's got about 500 different plot points floating around searching for something to connect to, and was confusing as all hell. Dr. Jekyll is involved? Okay, whatever. The mummy needs to find a mystical dagger so she can resurrect a god? Okay. Tom Cruise is possessed by said god and can resurrect people? Not having it. Remember Brendan Fraser? He was just a normal guy. Well, except for in the bonkers second movie, where it turned out he was the reincarnation of an ancient tattooed Egyptian security guard or something. I miss Brendan Fraser.
Critics slammed this movie for having pretty much no dialogue that wasn't exposition, for being extremely dull and overly complicated, and just generally sucking. The Mummy did nothing good, except for making everyone realize that we REALLY need Brandan Fraser to make a comeback.
Not the hero we deserve, but the one we need right now.
The people are crying out for him.
Please come save us.
We BEG of you.
Geostorm
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 13%. "Lacking impressive visuals, well-written characters, or involving drama, Geostorm aims for epic disaster-movie spectacle but ends up simply being a disaster of a movie."
Rundown of the plot: A beefy scientist (Gerard Butler) has to save the world from a ridiculous plot device (climate-controlling satellites gone rogue. Hey, didn't Snowpiercer already do this? And not in a shitty way?)
Why was this movie so bad?: You know what I love? A good disaster movie. And you know what we got in 2017? Geostorm.
Let's get the elephant out of the way: for a movie with a budget of $120 million, the special effects are unforgivably bad. I mean, for Chrissakes, just look at this opening scene. It looks and sounds like a documentary that aired on the History Channel. In 1999. That's how shitty this thing is.
No words.
When I first heard that Dean Devlin, the BFF of Roland Emmerich (the King of Disaster), was gonna make a disaster movie? Yeah, I was stoked. And then, after the reviews came out, I was decidedly less stoked.
Disaster movies aren't generally known for their critical acclaim, but I like 'em anyway - as long as they're a good time. But when Geostorm got reviewed, and critics started throwing around words like "boring," "monotonous," "joyless," and "Sharknado was better," I kind of began to lose hope. And when I actually watched a few clips of the movie, I REALLY lost hope. (Notably, it also purports the same "the cold is a moving thing that chases people" bullshit nonsense that The Day After Tomorrow did, only The Day After Tomorrow was actually half-decent.)
This thing is dumb as shit, ugly, and the effects are laughably bad - which is inexcusable, considering that the big disaster scenes are what make or break a movie like this, and also considering the fact that a hundred and twenty million dollars were sunk into assembling this trainwreck. Altogether, even for a disaster movie buff like me, Geostorm is pretty much worthless. It's a crying shame. I can't wait until The Rock comes back in San Andreas 2 and shows everyone how it's done.
Naked
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 0%. No consensus yet.
Rundown of the plot: I bet you didn't know that in 2017, Netflix put out a movie that was basically a tired rehash of Groundhog Day, only the hero (Marlon Wayans) is naked the whole time.
Why was this movie so bad?: Uh. See above.
Final note: the guy who directed this movie is called Michael Tiddes. Heh heh. Tiddies.
9/11
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 11%. No consensus yet.
Rundown of the plot: On Sept. 11, 2001, a bunch of people (Charlie Sheen, Whoopi Goldberg, Gina Gershon and others) are stuck in an elevator in the World Trade Center.
Why was this movie so bad?: First things first: it's very weird (and, briefly, quite controversial) that Charlie Sheen, a noted 9/11 "truther," was cast in the lead role. This movie has a history of backlash, actually - it generated controversy long before its release. I remember seeing the trailer for this thing and thinking "Really? Really?" A lot of people felt the same way - they called it "exploitative," "terrible," "miscast," "tacky," "offensive," "comedic." And those are just the YouTube comments.
Second of all: even if it wasn't for all the controversy, it's not like 9/11 was any kind of masterpiece to begin with. This is not a case of a bad trailer making a good movie look worse than it is. Upon release, 9/11 absolutely... swear to god, I was gonna say "bombed," but I thought better of it. 9/11 did poorly at the box office, and even worse with critics - it was called manipulative and forgettable, among other things.
I have no idea how this PR nightmare of a movie got made, much less how they managed to cast at least one respected star. I'm even less certain how they managed to cast Charlie Sheen, given how he doesn't even believe that 9/11 happened. Just imagine Richard Dawkins playing a lead role in CBS's inevitable reboot of Touched by an Angel. It just simply doesn't work.
Baywatch
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 18%. "Baywatch takes its source material's jiggle factor to R-rated levels, but lacks the original's campy charm -- and leaves its charming stars flailing in the shallows."
Rundown of the plot: Seth Gordon, the guy behind Horrible Bosses and Identity Theft, reboots Baywatch, the quintessential TV show of the 90s, into a raunchy comedy vehicle for The Rock and Zac Efron.
Why was this movie so bad?: The Rock. Zac Efron. In a comedy. About Baywatch. I mean, it sounds like gold, doesn't it? But unfortunately, this movie showed that Dwayne Johnson can indeed do some wrong. (And then Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle absolutely confirmed it. I'm sorry, but I am absolutely baffled at the critical acclaim for that puerile, unfunny trash heap. It just plain sucked. The Rock made a mistake.)
Critics thought Baywatch was dumb, stupid, unintelligent, and just not very smart. And you might say, "Well, obviously!" But that's not the main thing. No one was expecting Baywatch to be smart, but at the very least, moviegoers can expect a movie like this to be fun. But nope. Baywatch was not funny or fun whatsoever - it was two hours of bland, dull, sun-bleached torture. Barely even a chuckle can be found among the reviews. Even the combined charm of Johnson and Efron couldn't save this big, dumb, beached whale of a film.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 20%. "With an all-new cast but the same juvenile humor, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul finds the franchise still stuck in arrested -- and largely unfunny -- development."
Rundown of the plot: Basically your standard "kids get into trouble" movie. They had already made three previous Diary of a Wimpy Kids by the time this one rolled around, but those actors had gotten too old for their roles, and so they were replaced by Jason Drucker as Greg, Charlie Wright as his brother Rodrick, and Alicia Silverstone as the mom. (Alicia Silverstone is old enough to play a mom to teenagers now? Where has the time gone?)
Why was this movie so bad?: Okay, first of all: I have to talk about Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I was a tween in the aughts, and so, obviously I grew up with this kids' book series. I still own like five of those books today. And hear me out. I'm serious. Hear me the fuck out. These books are SO funny.
I am not kidding. Reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid, I still giggle to this day. These books are genuinely brilliant and hilarious, even for an adult like me (though I admit, I would never read one of them in public). A lot of the time, the humor isn't even all that juvenile (though the "kid-friendly" humor is unusually funny as well). I mean, just look at this.
I've gotta give Jeff Kinney props for knowing how
utterly terrifying Shel Silverstein is to kids.
Anyway, that's enough about that. The movies have never managed to capture the weird wit of the books, and this fourth one in the series is no exception. I remember being surprised when I saw that the trailer of this movie had sparked a huge controversy. (I mean... remarkably big for a fandom centered around a book for 8-year-olds.)
Fans apparently thought that the new movie looked dumbed-down and unfunny (and, I mean... did you see the first three???), but that wasn't their biggest problem. The biggest problem was #NotMyRodrick. (Yes, there was a whole hashtag movement and everything.) Mainly, people were pissed off that the actor playing Rodrick was Asian. Yes, that's right - last year, Diary of a Wimpy Kid had a huge controversy about race. 2017 was a weird-ass year.
When this completely unnecessary sequel got released, critics didn't like the finished product any more than fans had liked the trailer. They called it unfunny, dull, uninspired and unnecessarily gross. Though, oddly enough, no critics had a bad word to say about the guy who played Rodrick - in fact, one reviewer opined that Charlie Wright carried the movie with "a genuinely funny performance." Huh. I'm guessing the fans didn't feel so kind.
Boo 2! A Madea Halloween
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 6%. No consensus yet.
Rundown of the plot: For a second time in as many years, Madea (Tyler Perry) does crazy stuff on Halloween. Need I say more? I think not.
Why was this movie so bad?: The first movie was included in my "2016's notable bad movies" list, and now I'm writing about the second. And, honestly, what more is there to say? Tyler Perry can keep pumping these movies out as often as he likes, because they're cheap as shit to produce. And I imagine they're not hard to write, either. You don't even have to try for quality, because people will come see it anyway. Script page 1: "Improvise funny black people stuff." Script page 2: "Improvise funny black people stuff." Script page 3: "A ghost comes out or something. Madea starts yelling funny black people stuff."
Sigh. Another year, another Madea movie. I'm just waiting for Madea Easter. Madea Christmas 2. Madea Labor Day. Madea Falls into a Vat of Toxic Waste and Gets Superpowers. You get the gist.
The Bye Bye Man
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 23%. "The Bye Bye Man clumsily mashes together elements from better horror films, adding up to a derivative effort as short on originality as it is on narrative coherency or satisfying scares."
Rundown of the plot: This demon called the Bye-Bye Man - a name which is supposedly so terrifying that even thinking it will get you killed - haunts a bunch of college students (Douglas Smith, Lucien Laviscount, Cressida Bonas). Did you know that "Lucien Leon Laviscount" is the fanciest-ass name I have ever heard for an actor? Slap an IV on the end and he's fancier than the Sun King. SO fancy. He sounds like a vampire from Anne Rice's books. Okay, that's enough of me talking about this poor guy's name.
Why was this movie so bad?: ...I mean... "The Bye Bye Man." This is the funniest movie demon name I have ever heard, bar none. It's no surprise that this movie became an Internet laughingstock as soon as the title was announced, and inspired a billion memes.
...of which this was my favorite.
Besides the truly awful title, The Bye Bye Man (snicker - wheeze - okay, Shady, get ahold of yourself) was also an awful movie. It was one in a long string of shitty 2017 horror films, such as Rings and Flatliners. These movies don't even really try to scare you, or even to have a coherent plot. Something flies out of the dark at the main character, wham, bang, scream, you've got a horror movie and you've made $100 million.
Critics thought The Bye Bye Man was predictable, dull, and just generally terrible. And with a name like that, it was doomed from the start. Poor movie. Whoever came up with that dumbass name should have been fired on the spot.
Fist Fight
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 26%. "Fist Fight boasts a surplus of comedic muscle but flails lazily, and far too few of its jokes land with enough force to register."
Rundown of the plot: When a teacher (Charlie Day) gets another, far more intimidating teacher (Ice Cube) fired, the latter challenges the former to a fight. (Seriously. That is the whole-ass plot.)
Why was this movie so bad?: Well, goddamn. That plot is thinner than Kate Moss on the Atkins diet. And that's not this movie's only problem. Fist Fight was criticized for being thin and weak, unfunny, lowbrow, immature and just plain suckish. And, man, I just don't have all that much to say about this movie. It's not even the kind of shit I can riff on. It's just plain, boring shit.
Queen of the Desert
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 17%. "Queen of the Desert unites some undeniably talented professionals, but it's difficult to discern what drew them together -- or understand how its compelling real-life story became such a muddled mess."
Rundown of the plot: A biographical film about Gertrude Bell (Nicole Kidman), a British woman who spent her life exploring the Middle East.
Why was this movie so bad?: Nicole Kidman just needs to stop starring in movies about real women. Nobody liked her as Grace of Monaco, and no one likes her as Gertrude Bell, either. (Grace of Monaco was a notoriously terrible 2014 flop, by the way. It's probably the only movie at history to screen out of competition at Cannes, only to end up skipping a theatrical release in favor of airing on the Lifetime channel.)
This "boring," "empty" and "listless" film - despite an impressive pedigree, given that it stars Nicole Kidman and was directed by Werner Herzog - failed to impress reviewers or audiences. I think Queen of the Desert was aiming to become the female Lawrence of Arabia or something, but ended up becoming the female version of this Mean Tweet.
The Dark Tower
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 16%. "Go then, there are other Stephen King adaptations than these."
Rundown of the plot: I've spent like 10 minutes staring at the plot on Wikipedia wondering how to summarize all this crap. Basically, there are portals to other dimensions and stuff; a kid (Tom Taylor) is the chosen one or something, Matthew McConaughey is evil, and Idris Elba shoots guns at things.
Why was this movie so bad?: First of all, I'm gonna take issue with the critics' consensus. What other Stephen King adaptations are we supposed to flee to? Maximum Overdrive? Cujo? The Running Man? Let's be honest here, they've made like 50 Stephen King adaptations, and a whopping 4 of them are any kind of decent.
Fans have been waiting for a good adaptation of Stephen King's Dark Tower books for nigh on 40 years, and if things keep going the way they're going, fans will continue to wait until the day they die. I know next to nothing about The Dark Tower, and even I can see that this incredibly dense and mythology-packed book series would do much better as a TV show than a movie. But I guess filmmakers decided that The Dark Tower would do perfectly fine with all its fantastical bits and bobs crammed into 95 minutes, because that's what they chose to do. And it didn't work out well for anybody.
The Dark Tower was rejected by critics and fans; it was criticized for being boring, unmemorable, and akin to other failed book adaptations like Divergent. (Ouch.) It also underperformed at the box office, making a sequel unlikely. Surprise surprise, the bigwigs have seen the light, and a TV show is now in the works. I hope it ends up better than this movie did.
Just Getting Started
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 5%. "A thoroughly unfunny misfire, Just Getting Started manages the incredible feat of wasting more than a century of combined acting experience from its three talented leads."
Rundown of the plot: This is one of the five quadrillion movies where Morgan Freeman plays an old man who does funny young-people stuff (see also The Bucket List, Last Vegas, Going in Style, RED, and also some ones that Freeman wasn't in, like Grudge Match, Bad Grandpa, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and a million others). This one is apparently some kind of mafia story which also stars Tommy Lee Jones.
Why was this movie so bad?: I mean, seriously, out of this weird micro-genre of movies about old men doing funny things, how many of them are good? Zero? I thought so. And Just Getting Started is no exception.
This film was hated by critics and audiences, getting a 5% critical approval rating and a 15% audience approval rating. It was called a lame, trashy misfire by pretty much everyone. Does that mean that finally, the genre of old-men movies is dying out? No one wanted them in the first place. They were boring and overdone when freakin' Grumpy Old Men came out in 1990-whatever.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 29%. "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword piles mounds of modern action flash on an age-old tale -- and wipes out much of what made it a classic story in the first place."
Rundown of the plot: Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) has to fight an evil king or something (Jude Law). And also, a ton of family drama. Seriously. Everyone is related. It's nearly as bad as Once Upon a Time.
Why was this movie so bad?: Hilariously, this is probably the best movie on this list. But dear god, who wanted to see a whole franchise based around King Arthur???? What signs, exactly, were being interpreted to mean that audiences were clamoring for medieval stuff???? I mean, Game of Thrones, I guess, but anyone who takes a glance at this movie can easily tell it's no Game of Thrones.
King Arthur's first problem is that it's miscast. Charlie Hunnam? Really? How much more of Hollywood's energy is gonna go into trying to make Charlie Hunnam a leading man? Remember Taylor Kitsch?? This guy is the new Taylor Kitsch.
And on top of that, another of this movie's problems is that it retells a story that no one wants to see retold. Honestly, NO ONE wanted a King Arthur origin story. Especially not one as by-the-numbers as this. Legend of the Sword brings absolutely nothing new to the table; it's 126 long, long minutes of stuff borrowed from better movies. Critics called this attempted reboot an expensive, bloated mess, and I'm inclined to agree.
Flatliners
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 5%. "Flatliners falls flat as a horror movie and fails to improve upon its source material, rendering this reboot dead on arrival."
Rundown of the plot: Remember The Lazarus Effect from 2015? Yeah, this is basically a less interesting version of that. (And The Lazarus Effect was already a ripoff of the original Flatliners, so it's a big circle of unoriginality.) A group of young scientists (Ellen Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev and more) start killing and reviving themselves to experience death, but things go Terribly Wrong™.
Why was this movie so bad?: Ah, yet another reboot that no one asked for. Remember the movie Flatliners from like, 1990, with Julia Roberts? For some reason, the bigwigs thought that remaking that would be an awesome idea. And so, we were stuck with this steaming pile of boring horror nonsense.
The original Flatliners was already mediocre, and this movie does absolutely nothing to redeem the Flatliners franchise's reputation. (Is it a franchise? God, I hope not.) This reboot was deemed unnecessary, boring, mediocre, and even straight-up laughable - just your standard shitty horror flick in a year full of them. On top of that, it failed to even do as well at the box office as the original did in 1990. Ouch.
The Book of Henry
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 15%. "The Book of Henry deserves a few points for ambition, but its tonal juggling act -- and a deeply maudlin twist -- may leave viewers gaping in disbelief rather than choking back tears."
Rundown of the plot: A mother (Naomi Watts) plans to kill her child-abusing neighbor with a sniper rifle. Yes. You heard that right.
Why was this movie so bad?: This movie, man.
From the poster and the advertising campaign, you could be easily be excused for confusing this with a light-hearted, happy film about kids growing up. And it is NOT. This is basically the equivalent of Thelma and Louise's misleading poster.
Look at them smiling against the
blue sky! I bet this movie will be a
barrel of laughs!
The Book of Henry was called fake, boring, misguided, and even horrid. It's a weird mess of different themes and emotions, a jumbled Frankenstein of a film. And it was directed by the same guy... who did Jurassic World??? If that isn't just the most random thing I have ever heard.
The Last Face
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 5%. "The Last Face's noble intentions are nowhere near enough to carry a fundamentally misguided story that arguably demeans the demographic it wants to defend."
Rundown of the plot: Two doctors (Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem) fall in love while working in West Africa. Directed by Sean Penn.
Why was this movie so bad?: I bet you haven't heard of The Last Face; it didn't make much of a splash in 2017. With a 5% on Rotten Tomatoes, it was savaged by critics, but was nonetheless selected to compete for the Palme d'Or, if you can believe it.
Such words as "insincere," "impressionistic," "pretentious" and "ill-conceived" were used to describe The Last Face. It was heavily criticized for taking place in West Africa, but putting black actors in the background while making white people the camera's focus. This bumbling melodrama was even called "insulting refugee porn." Yikes!
Rundown of the plot: Two doctors (Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem) fall in love while working in West Africa. Directed by Sean Penn.
Why was this movie so bad?: I bet you haven't heard of The Last Face; it didn't make much of a splash in 2017. With a 5% on Rotten Tomatoes, it was savaged by critics, but was nonetheless selected to compete for the Palme d'Or, if you can believe it.
Such words as "insincere," "impressionistic," "pretentious" and "ill-conceived" were used to describe The Last Face. It was heavily criticized for taking place in West Africa, but putting black actors in the background while making white people the camera's focus. This bumbling melodrama was even called "insulting refugee porn." Yikes!
The Snowman
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 5%. "A mystery that feels as mashed together and perishable as its title, The Snowman squanders its bestselling source material as well as a top-notch ensemble cast."
Rundown of the plot: A detective (Michael Fassbender) investigates the return of a legendary serial killer called the Snowman.
Why was this movie so bad?: Remember how The Bye Bye Man inspired mockery from around the globe? Well, The Snowman is about the same.
The marketing campaign for this movie was supposed to be dead-serious and terrifying, but the poster - with its childish drawing of a snowman, and its message of "MISTER POLICE. YOU COULD HAVE SAVED HER" - came across as unintentionally hilarious. Like, "What if SNL made a parody of crime thrillers?" But that's just not realistic. SNL isn't gonna get back into the business of producing movies anytime soon. Their last movie was MacGruber in 2010. Seriously. That long ago.
Getting off track here. Like I said, before it was even released, The Snowman came off as funny instead of scary. And its release didn't mitigate those feelings. It confirmed them.
I could never forgive myself
if I didn't show you this
hilarious poster.
Reviewers opined that The Snowman was boring, a waste of film, a misfire and even laughable. And even though I haven't seen this movie, I'm inclined to agree. The trailer was obviously supposed to be this absolutely horrifying thing, but... I mean... it's just not. The Snowman gets the attention of his victims by throwing snowballs at them?? "HELLO MISTER POLICE"??? A woman's decapitated head placed on the body of a snowman??? The ending with the snowman head on the guy's shoulders??? The whole thing is so goddamn funny. It hurts.
Transformers: The Last Knight
Rotten Tomatoes score and critical consensus: 16%. "Cacophonous, thinly plotted, and boasting state-of-the-art special effects, The Last Knight is pretty much what you'd expect from the fifth installment of the Transformers franchise."
Rundown of the plot: Uggghhhh, where to begin... Mark Wahlberg teams up with some street kid, the Transformers, a random British lady, and Anthony Hopkins to defeat a threat from space, because it turns out that the Transformers were working with a secret society of humans the whole time, dating back to Arthurian times, and King Arthur was a real guy who was in cahoots with the Transformers, and the only way to stop the alien threat is to get Merlin's staff and have a direct descendant of Merlin wield it, and it turns out the British lady is a descendant of Merlin, and my GOD, does Michael Bay even know when to STOP. Oh, and King Arthur is played by the same guy who played King Arthur on Once Upon a Time. Are they just typecasting him... or is this a hint that Once Upon a Time and Transformers share a universe??? I want to shoot myself.
Why was this movie so bad?: As you can see from that incredibly convoluted plot (and believe me, I didn't even get halfway to describing the whole thing), The Last Knight takes plotting to a ridiculous level. The movie makes its four overstuffed predecessors look like minimalistic art house films. It is stuffed. And on top of that, it's loud, aggressive, obnoxious, full of testosterone, and is just basically a sequel that no one wanted to see.
If I had the choice between them, I'm not sure whether I would prefer to watch The Last Knight, filmed and produced in its entirety, or if I would rather have Michael Bay simply scream the script directly into my ear. (What's the goddamn difference, anyhow?) You might enjoy The Last Knight if you like the sensation of a gigantic trainwreck crashing into your brain at top speed for 154 minutes (SERIOUSLY. THIS THING IS 154 MINUTES). If not, you'll probably hate it. Critics sure did, and they called it dumb, tedious and totally unnecessary.
Audiences must not have liked it either, because this film was easily the lowest-performing of the whole series; it didn't even manage to outperform the first one, which came out a decade earlier. Thank god for small mercies. Maybe this means we won't get a Transformers 6. But, unfortunately, I have little hope that we will be spared.
The Emoji Movie
Rundown of the plot: A "Meh" emoji (TJ Miller, whose soulless bro voice, devoid of emotion or inflection even at the most dramatic moments, is perfect for this role) can make more than one face, making him a pariah in Textopolis. (I didn't make it up. The emoji city is called Textopolis.)
Why was this movie so bad?: Ah, yes. I have saved the worst for last.
There are movies on this list that are lower-rated on Rotten Tomatoes than The Emoji Movie, but make no mistake: The Emoji Movie is worse. This insipid pile of corporate trash somehow manages to simultaneously be a blast of color and noise, and dreary and lifeless as well. It's an 86-minute-long advertisement for every app under the sun, during which "millennial-speak" (at least, what 50-year-old film executives think is millennial-speak) is thrown at you ceaselessly. #Swag. #YOLO. #ILongForTheReleaseOfDeath.
This movie is terrible in so many ways. It tries its best to be funny and relevant to Today's Youth, but somehow manages to be horrifically dated (Just Dance? Candy Crush? Dropbox? Huh?). It fails as a kids' movie by virtue of having the exact same goddamn message as every other boring-ass kids' movie out there ("Be yourself?" Really? Come on). It's moronically pandering, absolutely soulless, and just simply terrible in every sense of the word. And in two years, it'll look like a dinosaur to the kids of that day, let alone what it'll look like to the kids of 20 years from now. This movie is the most dated thing in the universe.
Critics and audiences called the movie derivative, weak, and just plain awful. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst and most hated movie of 2017 - bar none. About the only good thing I can say for it - and yes, shockingly, I can say a good thing about The Emoji Movie - is that, in some places, it's genuinely visually beautiful. But other than that, this thing is the worst kind of corporate nonsense, a movie that wasn't made for any artistic reasons, a movie that was pumped out simply to make money and be done with it. And I am done with it.
And that's the list! Apologies if you wanted to see a terrible 2017 movie on here, and it wasn't. It's probably because I just didn't feel like writing about it. (Or because I secretly loved it. Hush. Don't tell anyone.)
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