2017 has come to an end and even though for movies there were a lot of gems to be had, there were quite a few stinkers I had to experience. I do feel the good outweighed the bad, but it was hard to ignore the films that had promise, but fell flat on their face, or the films that were just utterly horrific. Since I'd like to end discussing 2017 on a high note, I figured I'd get the bad stuff out of the way as I discuss "My Top 10 Worst Films of 2017." Most of these were films I had no interest in seeing while there were a few I was looking forward to and just ended up being utterly disappointed.
Without further ado here's PART 1 of My Top 10 Worst Films of 2017 as I countdown NUMBERS 10-6.
From the trailers I did think this looked like a merely fun adventure film in the summer season and that's what I wanted really. However, for the first film to kick off the Dark Universe it made me realize how insignificant this film was since it was written in a way to make it feel like a set-up movie. Although it was fun to watch in parts I couldn't get behind any of the characters. I felt like the plot was explained to me the entire time and I didn't feel the humor really meshed well with a more serious tone they were going for. I thought the performances were great and the talent involved in that capacity was there, but I just couldn't connect to the characters because the writing for them felt non-existent. Tom Cruise's character was just there to set up more movies in this franchise and have I been more invested to see where that character would go is something completely different. Admittedly, it was fun to watch in parts and the performances were solid, but that's not enough to ever make me watch this film again.
#9
It’s known to be one of the biggest box office failures taking in an estimate of $196,458 according to Box Office Mojo.com. Yep you read that correctly. This was a really poorly marketed film, but of course that doesn’t necessarily mean because a film is a bomb that it's in lesser in quality. But in the case of Spark...yeah that statement can be true at times. I wouldn’t say it’s as bad as reviewers are making it out to be, but there are elements that do drag it down a lot being that it’s derivative, the humor can be childish and not mesh well with the tone, and the lead character isn’t very compelling. It’s just an uninspired move that actually has some fairly decent aspects to its concept with certain events and even twists that occur. I just felt the characters were a bit dull and the film tries way too hard to be lighthearted. I mean they make the villain so over the top that it got so old after a while. I think if there were better personalities behind the characters and if it took itself more seriously like a Kung Fu Panda or a How To Train Your Dragon, it could’ve been way better. It just seemed like that since it was a cartoon it had to take advantage of that aspect and it really does by making silly jokes and by having slapstick in almost every scene. Not a horrible animated film, but there just was a lot of missed opportunity.
#8
I feel I should put this lower on the list as well because it probably was one of the least painful experiences out of the mediocre films I saw this year. Some of the action scenes were a little fun to sit through and it was a decent looking film. However, I couldn't overlook the fact that this movie takes itself way too seriously. I mean the concept about warriors defending the Great Wall of China from wolf reptile demons sounds fun on paper, right? If the movie maybe had more fun with its plot and went more over the top, this could've been a decent guilty pleasure movie. When you see the types of crazy bow and arrow tricks by Matt Damon in this movie, I feel they could've done more whacky stunts like that to make the film more entertaining.
The characters were really bland and maybe if given personality they could've added more of a fun vibe to this movie. I have no idea why Matt Damon was even in this fantasy movie and what in the heck kind of accent that was! He felt very out of place. It was also weird to see a very oddball performance by Willem Dafoe, who I swear had all his lines audio dubbed, which sucks because I hate to see an actor of his caliber under a bad light. I still really like these actors, but with bland, stern personalities and dialogue that's nothing more than exposition and set-up of the world and characters, this was merely a forgetful watch. The action can be fun at times, but when it's telling a simple and overly serious story I'm begging for there to be insane bow and arrow tricks with explosions killing mediocre looking CG demon creatures. With the spread out action there was just nothing there other than the movie taking itself seriously when telling its story with characters I just couldn't care less about.
#7
In preparation to watch this film I actually went back and watched the original Japanese film Ringu and the American remake titled The Ring for the first time. Both in my opinion were incredible horror films that you should definitely give your time of day. I'll admit that this new sequel to the first couple American films wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but since it's on my list it qualifies as being, you guessed it, an unnecessary sequel.
Did it feel familiar like the first film in this series? Sure and while I do appreciate that they were trying to add to the backstory of Samara, at the same time it overcomplicated that entire aspect. What I loved so much about the original and remake was that there was so much mystery surrounding that backstory and that viewers could fill in the gaps. Better yet, the remake did a perfect job of telling you everything we needed to know about the backstory and we didn't need to know more than that.
The dialogue was clunky and the performances from the main stars were subpar on top of being really forgetful characters. The story was so nonsensical and the way everything was orchestrated with modern technology, it just didn't make the film all that frightening. It lacked that soul and those great frights I enjoyed from the original and remake and while it wasn't that big of a pain to sit through with some redeeming values in its cinematography and decent performance by Vincent D'Onofrio I'm so glad it made me love those previous films more. Not an awful horror sequel, but just the very definition of mediocre and unnecessary.
#6
So I think it's easy to hate on this film since it's a children's film and the fact that it can be derivative resembling other movies like How To Train Your Dragon, Lilo and Stitch and most definitely E.T. I think those are easy flaws to have with this movie, but even though it is still a children's film there probably could've been better writing in it for adults to enjoy. I mean just look at most of the Disney films, Pixar and even some, not all, of DreamWorks' films. There are ways to make family films work. But considering a movie like this has terribly one note characters, really dumb and immature humor, and barely any heart in its story, then it could be a hard movie to sit through.
Surprisingly, the film looks decent with some well composed shots, the use of color, and some okay acting talents like Lucas Till from X-Men, Rob Lowe, Danny Glover and Barry Pepper. All of whom I was very surprised to see in this movie. This obviously was a movie geared more towards children and I could see younger kids having some fun with it. The story was incredibly silly for me and just only called for the entertainment value that kids can have fun with. The reason why a film like E.T. works is because there was a lot of heart in its story, the characters were written well, and its very endearing to watch. This just felt like a cash grab from Nickelodeon to get the kiddies in the theater. There was only focus on creating a fun movie for a certain age group that I couldn't get enjoyment out of due to the sloppy writing.
Family films can be written well with a lot of soul to it, but this movie just lacks soul. Lucas Till felt miscast and I most definitely did not buy him as a high school teenager. Not to mention that the villains from the energy corporation felt like they belonged in a completely different movie and they were really just evil and motivated because the film needed antagonists to make it a movie with a point. If it works for kids? Cool, but it would be nicer if it could appeal to older folks like myself. But whatever I don't ever need to watch this again as well.
That's Part 1(#'s 10 - 6) of My Worst Films of 2017 list, so please check back tomorrow for Part 2 which will be my Top 5 Worst Films of 2017! We're gonna rip this one off like a band-aid till we get to the good stuff!
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Hope you all enjoy your lives and as always see some great freakin' entertainment (and definitely not these movies)!
Take care. :-)
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