Fish and Cherries Productions

Well, this was an… interesting year, wasn’t it? Loads of civil conflict with victories on both sides, voices speaking out against corruption and being heard, and our planet slowly tightening into one giant ball of political tension. That’s not even getting into events in my personal life, such as getting a job in special education that turned out to be one of the most stressful and rewarding jobs of my life. But of course, we’re here to talk about movies, specifically the worst of the worst that I’ve seen and reviewed. Thankfully, they weren’t as painful as last year… but there were still some hot, wet garbage. But enough talking about it, let’s count down… Ronin’s Top 10 Worst Movies of 2017!

#10: Sandy Wexler

Oh, Adam… it hurts to put this one on the list because I found myself enjoying this at times. But man… there is no forgiving that tasteless suicide joke or Rob Schneider playing a Middle Easterner. It’s the 21st Century, dude. This stuff isn’t cool anymore (it never was, but still…). Even so, you managed to make something with more heart than your previous work I’ve reviewed, so kudos on that.

#9: Snatched

Despite how controversial some find her, I like Amy Schumer and find her kind of funny. However, none of what I like in her can be found in this movie, which is loud, obnoxious, and unfunny. On top of that, there were number of cameos that were not only lacking humor, but more than a little distracting. At the very least, it was inoffensive, but that just made it all the more forgettable.

#8: Beauty and the Beast (2017)

You know, I think I’ve identified the main problem with this movie: the writer, director, or whatever doesn’t seem to be a fan of the original (well, okay, the original Disney version, seeing as there are countless versions). They seem to be approaching this project as if the original needed to be corrected… except in trying to fix perceived mistakes and plot holes, they’ve only served to draw attention to them and make them more glaring. There’s a reason the original was nominated for Best Picture: it’s timeless, tightly written, and above all, grand. By adding extra bits that weren’t necessary and giving songs to weak singers, they’ve just made a muddled mess that most certainly won’t stand the test of time. So no, Beauty and the Beast of 2017, I will not be your guest again.

#7: Death Note

Despite all my rage, I can’t work up that much hate for the American Death Note adaptation as it was pretty fun to riff on with friends. One could argue that fans would have been kinder to this if it was a story in the Death Note universe with different characters rather than a straight adaptations. A fair point, but I think this takes way too many liberties on an outstanding story that wowed people in the East and the West. At the very least, it got me to watch the original anime again. But for me, Death Note’s biggest crime is just being really, really dumb.

Now if you want a really insulting anime adaptation…

#6: Ghost in the Shell

While the visuals were breathtaking, there’s something amazingly insulting about turning a Japanese character white not just in casting, but in the story itself. But apart from that, this was just boring. I’m glad it gave me the opportunity to talk about Takeshi Kitano, but even without seeing much of the original anime, I can tell that the divide in quality is vast. Between this and Death Note, I have little to no hope for Alita: Battle Angel. Especially not with those eyes…

#5: The Mummy (2017)

Let me be clear on something: I support a Dark Universe, just not this one. At least not with what we’ve been given so far. The Universal monsters have a lot of potential for a shared universe, especially when you consider that they’ve had many successful crossovers in the past. But here, all we have is a confused retread that stumbles every step of the way. Worst still, I don’t see any reason for it to be a shared universe. I thought Henry Jekyll and his organization were going to be the focal point that connects the movies, but if that’s true, then what’s the point of Tom Cruise’s god-hybrid character? Is he supposed to be someone we’d recognize or is he an original character? Considering that the Dark Universe seems to have folded like a wet paper crane, it looks like we’ll never know.

#4: Fifty Shades Darker

Oh wow, I forgot all about this hot mess. It left that little of an impact on me, despite going on at length about everything wrong with it in my review. As bad as it was, it wasn’t bad enough to make my top three, all of which are pure garbage. Poor Fifty Shades… seems like you’ll never make it to the top, even if it’s the top of the bottom.

#3: Flatliners (2017)

Of all the entries on this list, this one baffles me the most because I have no idea why it exists. The original was an obscure cult classic, so why would a studio sign off on it? I’d assume that the filmmakers were huge fans, but if that’s the case, why is it so lifeless and confused? As I said in the review, the badness here is measured by the absence of good and boy howdy, this absence is barren. I can’t even recommend this for a bad movie night, except to put everyone to sleep. No doubt about it, this movie was dead on arrival.

#2: Bright

Ohohohohoho, you thought I wouldn’t catch you, huh? Well, unfortunately for this movie, I take new media very seriously and as such judge it just as if it were a theatrical release. Judging as such, this is either the most misguided or laziest attempt at combating prejudice, undermining itself with unironic stereotypes and potshots at groups sharing the sentiments it claims to have. It’s like the anti-Zootopia and it gets worse the more I think about it. That’s not even getting into the story so riddled with holes and stories that go nowhere that it resembles a rotting Winchester Mystery House. I would rather get rectal and testicular cancer rather than watch this movie again and I await the sequel with growing dread.

#1: The Emoji Movie

Surprise!… said no one reading this. Yeah, I’m sure a lot of people called this as my worst movie before it even came out. But in all honesty, I had a hard time deciding which of the top three was going to be number one. Each of them offended me in a different way, whether it was The Emoji Movie’s purely cynical reason for existing, Bright getting me genuinely angry and disgusted, or Flatliners being such a non-entity as a movie. So it took me many days to think about it, but I made my decision when I came across a YouTube video about this movie by someone called The Mysterious Mr. Enter. He had this revelation: in order to solve the conflict of The Emoji Movie, Gene, an emoji, had to do something impossible for emojis to do, thus proving how limited emojis are.

That did it. That right there convinced me. I may disagree with Mr. Enter sometimes, but when he’s right, he’s right. And here, he’s right on the money. In a movie designed to push products, it undermines the very thing it’s trying to sell. It fails so epically that it winds up being the antithesis of what it set out to be. Bright may be in a similar boat because its failings come from cultural ignorance, but at least someone tried to tell a story and at least partially succeeded at that. This was a cynical ploy by studios to cash in on a product… and it couldn’t even accomplish that. The fact that it’s for kids is even more insulting because we should be giving them our best efforts. To that end, while it may be number one on this list, it will always be, much like Patrick Stewart’s character in this movie, a number two.

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If there are any you disagreed with or that you think I missed, discuss it in the comments below and as always, keep it civil. As for me, I gotta get to work on my Top 13 Best Movies of 2017 and folks, my cup runneth over with choices.