Written by Tyrone BruinsmaHONORABLE MENTIONS -All the Money in the World [Dir. Ridley Scott] -American Made [Dir. Doug Liman] -Atomic Blonde [Dir. David Leitch] -The Autopsy of Jane Doe [Dir. André Øvredal] -Baby Driver [Dir. Edgar Wright] -Batman and Harley Quinn [Dir. Sam Liu] -Battle of the Sexes [Dir. Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton] -Better Watch Out [Dir. Chris Peckover] -Brimstone [Dir. Martin Koolhoven] -Call Me by Your Name [Dir. Luca Guadagnino] -Coco [Dir. Lee Unkrich] -Cold Skin [Dir. Xavier Gens] -The Death of Stalin [Dir. Armando Iannucci] -Detroit [Dir. Kathryn Bigelow] -The Devil's Candy [Dir. Sean Byrne] -Gerald's Game [Dir. Mike Flanagan] -Ghost in the Shell [Dir. Rupert Sanders] -A Ghost Story [Dir. David Lowery] -Happy End [Dir. Michael Haneke] -It Comes at Night [Dir. Trey Edward Shultz] -John Wick: Chapter 2 [Dir. Chad Stahelski] -The Killing of a Sacred Deer [Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos] -King Arthur: Legend of the Sword [Dir. Guy Ritchie] -Lady Bird [Dir. Greta Gerwig] -Life [Dir. Daniel Espinosa] -Loving Vincent [Dir. Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman] -Man Hunt [Dir. John Woo] -Mary and the Witch’s Flower [Dir. Hiromasa Yonebayashi] -The Mimic [Dir. Huh Jung] -Murder on the Orient Express [Dir. Kenneth Branagh] -My Little Pony: The Movie [Dir. Jayson Thiessen] -The Post [Dir. Steven Spielberg] -Professor Marston and the Wonder Woman [Dir. Angela Robinson] -Raw [Dir. Julia Ducournau] -Savageland [Dir. Phil Guidry, Simon Herbert, David Whelan] -Split [Dir. M. Night Shyamalan] -Transformers: The Last Knight [Dir. Michael Bay] -The Void [Dir. Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie] -War for the Planet of the Apes [Dir. Matt Reeves] 20. Molly’s Game [Dir. Aaron Sorkin]Acclaimed screenwriter Aaron Sorkin makes an amazing directorial debut with this true story of a poker game manager who got involved with the wrong people. Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba give two of their best performances in an energic biopic drama that knows how to educate and be funny. The writing is amazing, but what more would you expect from the mind that brought us A Few Good Men, Charlie Wilson's War and The Social Network. Molly's Game is a winner and I highly recommend it to anyone. 19. It [Dir. Andy Muschietti] Stephen King adaptations are a troublesome thing even in the 21st century, but Warner Brothers and Mama director Andy Muschietti nailed it with this child focused adaptation of Stephen King's It. Narrowing the horror on children, the killer clown visual and removing a lot of questionable elements has given the public one of the major studio horror films in a long time. The adult and child actors are great, the visual storytelling never fails, it's scary and endlessly watchable. It's a shame the sequel was a disappointment. 18. Colossal [Dir. Nacho Vigalondo]This film feels like a combination between an indie comedy/drama, a Kaiju film and an episode of the Twilight Zone. It’s a strange, quirky, dark, fun story about self-destruction and the outward destruction that has on others. Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis give two of their best performances, the giant monster angle is done very well and it’s a very engaging story. It’s absolutely worth watching by anyone, regardless of your genre tastes. 17. Wind River [Dir. Taylor Sheridan]The "proper" directorial debut from Taylor Sheridan, screenwriter behind Sicario and Hell or High Water; Wind River follows the murder of a Native American woman on icy reservation land. While not directly based by a singular event, the film is clearly influenced by the mistreatment, disregard and systemic problems that Native Americans (especially women) face in modern day America. The film is emotionally taxing, with a simplistic filming style avoiding fetishization or cinematic indulgence. There's one nasty cowboy style shootout that'll become a well-known classic for years to come, but this is an actors showcase with Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen giving career bests in a sea of talented figures. It's slow and intense-but an unforgettable watch. 16. Dunkirk [Dir. Christopher Nolan]After handling the Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception and Interstellar; visionary director Christopher Nolan decided to make the best European Front World War 2 film since Saving Private Ryan. Dunkirk feels real, giving us an immersive (if not 100% historically accurate) film that never takes focus away from the people in the moment. The 3 timeline angle is a unique choice that gives the film a different edge to play out, with other choices like never seeing the enemy and going for a mostly dialogue-free film show the care and focus Nolan put into it. It's easily Nolan's most human film with the final scene always making me tear up. 15. Wonder Woman [Dir. Patty Jenkins]Patty Jenkins, Zack Snyder and Gal Gadot captured something truly special with this film. The action scenes are perfectly put together, the film looks gorgeous and the cast admirably puts themselves into the material. While the DCEU films before Wonder Woman were divisive, this was the one that got people fully invested. While I'll admit that the final showdown is somewhat disappointing in a narrative and execution sense, the rest of the film more than carries its weight as an excellent origin story for a classic heroine. And yes, seeing Wonder Woman take that stand in No Man's Land made me cry a little. 14. Brawl in Cell Block 99 [S. Craig Zahler]After directing Bone Tomahawk, most film buffs were gonna be on the lookout for what S. Craig Zahler had. No one expected him to make the art-house drama version of an exploitation film with Vince Vaughn as a monster of a man. Vince Vaughn gives easily one of his best performances in a role that utilizes his physique for type, and our pre-existing knowledge against type to amazing effect. What essentially amounts to a build up to one nasty brutal cell fight is a dark character study that does not bore the audience or glorify its monsters. It's really a great film, go watch it. 13. Thor: Ragnarok [Dir. Taika Waititi]While the first 2 Thor films received mixed results, New Zealand goofball Taika Waititi realized what most should have caught on by now: Thor is better when playing into the wacky humor of itself. Thor: Ragnarok is a fun, funny, colorful film that puts Thor in the most entertaining solo adventure to date. The returning and new supporting cast do great work, the action sequences are the best they've been in this franchise and the music rocks. While it is entertaining, it also has a message about a dominant and colonizing nation being better off with their foundations broken and left to live a better life as a nation shouldn't be its dark deeds, but the good people who make a better future. 12. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets [Dir. Luc Besson]Is this a somewhat uneven mess with a simple plot? Yes. Is Luc Besson a creep? Yes. Is Valerian still one of the most creative, ambitious and visually engaging blockbuster experiences to date? Also, yes. Despite pop culture's love of The Fifth Element, not enough people saw this spiritual successor. Touting a great cast, insane visuals and creative ideas, amazing production values and the kind of pulpy story that catches on with a cult fanbase. It's also a very forward-thinking story about space as a means to breakdown barrier of prejudice between race and species, and how the bad guys are war-mongering colonialists. Seriously, go seek this out on Blu-Ray/4K. 11. Kong: Skull Island [Dir. Jordan Vogt-Roberts]A prequel to 2014's Godzilla that would help set up further installments in Legendary's Monsterverse, Kong: Skull Island was the most fun I had in cinemas in 2017. A monster film inspired by 70's films of the same genre; the film is colorful, balances humor and drama, delivers some amazing monster action and has a cast committed to the film they're in. The changes to the Kong mythos to fit into a world with other Titans works really well and hyped me up for the epic showdown of Godzilla V.S Kong in 2021. This movie is still awesome, still fun and still worth watching. 10. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 [Dir. James Gunn]James Gunn made one of the modern blockbuster auteur pieces with this Marvel sequel. A film that is both a colorful, fun and well-crafted popcorn flick, as well as a film deconstructing toxic masculinity, problematic fathers and male ego. It was clearly a passion project for one of the best talents Marvel has had, along with the stellar cast and amazing production team. While it took me a while to come around to this film-I'm glad I did. 9. Get Out [Dir. Jordan Peele]The directorial debut of comedian Jordan Peele in Get Out is one of the most electric films of the 21st Century. A film with a great cast, brilliant writing and a thematic core that breaks down American racial relationships on different (but important) lines. It's funny when it needs to be, smart when most films would play dumb and scary on multiple levels. While I prefer the epic ambition of his follow up Us more, Get Out still remains a great film that should be mandatory viewing for all audiences. 8. Logan [Dir. James Mangold]A finale to Hugh Jackman's Wolverine gives us easily the best X-Men film we've ever seen. After Fox butchered the X-Men movies for the better part of 2 decades, returning Wolverine director James Mangold and Hugh Jackman send the character off in a deconstructionist reaffirmation of the character. Clearly inspired by works like The Dark Knight Returns graphic novel; the film gives us worn out heroes performed to perfection, a tear down of the bad X-Men films, nasty yet satisfying violence and a heart wrenching conclusion. Logan may never be beaten in terms of ripped down "superhero" stories that are really westerns, but a near masterpiece is still a near masterpiece. 7. Alien: Covenant [Dir. Ridley Scott]Reading and listening to many criticisms of this film has lead me to believe that some Alien "fans" have forgotten what the series is. Ridley Scott's second (and hopefully not last) installment in the Alien Prequel series has yielded an unhinged, nasty, exploitative gothic horror gore fest. Alien: Covenant solves problems with Prometheus through context, gives us a righteously gory series of deaths and plays right into what Alien is: a B-Grade slasher in space with AAA production values. The film succeeds for me, with my favorite ending of the entire series. For all the complaints for "plot holes" and "dumb characters", I ask what you go to a horror or Alien film to see. I had fun and continue to joyously re-watch this film, go watch it. 6. Phantom Thread [Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson]From the director of Boogie Nights, Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood and The Master comes a hypnotic and elusive creature of a drama. Seemingly a drama about procedural dressmaking in post World War 2 London, Phantom Thread unveils (pun unintended) itself as a fascinating breakdown between men and women in relationships. Daniel Day-Lewis gives a perfect performance, while Vicky Krieps steals the show. Don't look up anything about it and just watch Phantom Thread. 5. Mother! [Dir. Darren Aronofsky] Darren Aronofsky makes easily his most controversial film with this allegorical art house horror film that will shock and stun you. A film that seemingly follows a young Jennifer Lawrence trying to maintain her broken home while Javier Bardem tries to write a masterpiece as people continue to show up and wreck their peace-soon evolves into a story of madness. Whether you view it as allegorical of the bible, the relationship women have to creative men or just God and Mother Earth-you will take away something from this. It's perfectly acted, brutal and nasty without pulling punches, and its arguably one of the most important films of the 21st century. 4. Star Wars: The Last Jedi [Dir. Rian Johnson]Rian Johnson makes in Star Wars: The Last Jedi-the best and most unique Star Wars film since The Empire Strikes Back. Similar to Logan, the film is at first glance a deconstructionist take on Star Wars that removes the gloss of people's deaths and suffering, denounces the elitist Jedi order and reminds us that slavery and war profiteering exists in this universe. But in the end, it's a reaffirmation of Luke Skywalker, the rebellion against tyranny and Star Wars fans as a whole. It's a film that plays of meta logic, deconstructionist and still provides a fun and engaging Sci-Fi action film. It provides some of the best action sequences of the series, is the most visually engaging film of the modern era and gives us some of the best characters of the series. While a lot of this would be undone due to fan backlash and The Rise of Skywalker, I preferred the director we were heading with this film. I know many people did not like this film. If you found issue with the tone, style, writing, performances and execution: that's fine. But it's you're one of the people who screams "plot holes", "SJW", Woke/Feminist Agenda" or harassed the cast for their work...you're not a Star Wars fan, you're a bad person who can't handle the world moving on from you. 3. The Shape of Water [Dir. Guillermo Del Toro]Guillermo Del Toro has never made a bad film and The Shape of Water is a masterpiece alongside Pan's Labyrinth. Both a wonderful love story between a mute woman and a sea monster, and a gory creature feature with political themes: this is one of those true masterpieces that deserves Best Picture. The entire cast is amazing with Octavia Spencer being pure delight and Michael Shannon as a true bastard. The visuals and music are beyond gorgeous, painting the film in a way that blurs the lines between modernization and classicism. It's willing to be gory, political, sexual, a little silly and ultimately one of the best gothic romances of all time. You. Must. Watch. This. 2. Blade Runner 2049 [Dir. Denis Villeneuve] This is the best made film of all time. Blade Runner 2049 is the masterful balance of CGI, practical effects, screenwriting, themes, performances, score and action that we don't see enough. The last film that looked this revolutionary was Pacific Rim in 2013, and the only films to come close to it since are Christopher Nolan's Tenet and Denis Villeneuve's own Dune. As someone who loves the original Blade Runner (and by original, I mean the definitive Final Cut), Blade Runner Runner 2049 is as much a masterpiece as that film. It's gorgeous beyond compare, has one of the best modern scores, has an outstanding cast giving 110%, achieves so much in its practical and digital cinematography, and successfully carries on the themes and story of the original. It is a masterpiece and easily the best made film of 2017. But...it's not my favorite. 1. A Cure for Wellness [Dir. Gore Verbinski]While many know Gore Verbinski for his Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy and Rango, we should not forget he entered the mainstream consciousness with his terrifying remake of The Ring in 2002. Since then he's mostly been stuck with franchises and mainstream work that have restricted his vision, but finally managed to get this original unhinged story out of his system. I cannot guarantee you will love or even like A Cure for Wellness. You may hate it so much that it's one of the worst things you've ever seen, either by how nasty it is or how seemingly incomprehensibly dense it is to unpack and understand. But I can assure you that you won't see anything like it, forget the experience of watching it or deny the artistic craftsmanship that went into it.
A Cure for Wellness is a dark gothic, Lovecraftian inspired horror film that fits with similar visually epic art house horror films like The Neon Demon, Mother, Hereditary and the remake of Suspiria. It's not a horror film about jump scares or spooky ghosts, but nasty body horror and nastier psychological horror. There will be scenes in here that shock and disturb you, disgust you even. But it all comes to a thematic point about how despite the promise of "traditionalism" being an escape from the toxic modern world, there's a lot we've forgotten in the darkness of tradition and why we abandoned it. The story of a financial firm member going to s health spa in the Swiss Alps to retrieve a member of the board and ending up stuck there too leads to some dark ideas and darker revelations. It's a film that feels very much catered to my sensibilities, oozing with visual ideas and nasty concepts that give me hope for future artists. It was a critical and box office disappoint, but quickly grew a cult following for a reason. It's one of those pure expressions of visual ideas many mainstream blockbuster filmmakers need to make for their health and artistic joy; similar to Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch, or Michael Bay's Bad Boys 2 and Pain Gain. Again, no guarantee you'll love this film-but you won't forget it and it's my favorite film of 2017.
0 Comments
Written by Tyrone BruinsmaDISHONORABLE MENTIONS -American Assassin [Dir. Michael Cuesta] -Armed Response [Dir. John Stockwell] -Beauty and the Beast [Dir. Bill Condon] -Boar [Dir. Chris Sun] -Bright [Dir. David Ayer] -The Bye Bye Man [Dir. Stacy Title] -The Circle [Dir. James Ponsoldt] -The Dark Tower [Dir. Nikolaj Argel] -Extraordinary [Dir. Scott Curlee] -Fifty Shades Darker [Dir. James Foley] -Flatlines [Dir. Niels Arden Oplev] -Happy Death Day [Dir. Christopher B. Landon] -Hounds of Love [Dir. Ben Young] -The Hitman's Bodyguard [Dir. Patrick Hughes] -Jeepers Creeper 3 [Dir. Victor Salva] -Jigsaw [Dir. Spierig Brothers] -Kingsman: The Golden Circle [Dir. Matthew Vaughn] -Monster Trucks [Dir. Chris Wedge] -Rings [Dir. F. Javier Gutiérrez] -Power Rangers [Dir. Dean Israelite] -Singularity [Dir. Robert Kouba] -The Space Between Us [Dir. Peter Chelsom] -Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars [Dir. Shinji Arramaki] -Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri [Dir. Martin McDonagh] -Unforgettable [Dir. Denise Di Novi] -Wish Upon [Dir. John Leonetti] 10. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales [Dir. Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg]I'm undecided on if Dead Men Tell No Tales or On Stranger Tides is the worst of the Pirates films. Dead Men Tell No Tales wants to return the franchise to the original drawing board with Jack as a secondary character to other people's story, but forgets to not make him the main character. The film's in-universe continuity is rendered sloppy, the poor attempt at female characterization is backward, the production values are not particularly strong and no actor here can make the lazy script work. The biggest insult aside from a boring story is how the film has zombie ghost sharks...and gives us a boring action scene with them. Why even bother? 9. Death Note [Dir. Adam Wingard]The Death Note anime remains ones of the best of its category for a reason, while this long "awaited" American adaptation is a failure of adaptation. It takes the rich, interesting world of the manga and anime, and gives us essentially a poorly made teen young adult story with kills from a lesser Final Destination film. Willem DaFoe's Ryuk is the only 100% good thing about this film, with the rest being theoretically interesting ideas. But it's just a poor imitation of the source material, with another badly written female character, loose ends, a rushed conclusion that doesn't actually end and what feels like a 3-hour film stripped to the bone. All I can say is that Adam Wingard has done better and did do better after this film. 8. Geostorm [Dir. Dean Devlin]Here's a film that completed filming in 2015, suffered terrible test screenings in December of that year to the point that a year later; producer Jerry Bruckheimer oversaw reshoots by director Danny Cannon (Judge Dredd) and writer Laeta Kalogridis (Shutter Island). It released almost a year later and was still absolute garbage. It's a generic disaster movie with only ONE memorable(ish) disaster scene and a boring plot. I couldn't tell you where or what was reshot due to how boring it is was. It really is one of the worst disaster films of all time, maybe the worst. It's only not worse by count of being too boring to be offensively bad. 7. The Book of Henry [Dir. Colin Trevorrow]While we may not know if it was this film or his incompatibility that got Trevorrow removed from Star Wars Episode 9, The Book of Henry is certainly a bad film. A supposed deconstruction of Spielbergian aesthetics and precocious genius children stories, The Book of Henry is a tonally unfocused story that doesn't know where it stands. The plot basically amounts to a super smart (super asshole) kid Henry planning the murder of his neighbor due to apparent (but not to the audience) child abuse. Things change when Henry develops cancer and dies, leaving his mother to carry out the murder. There's far too many numerous problems from logical errors, moral failings, not understanding Henry is a terrible person, being too tame where it should be upfront and overall not being either enchanting or deconstructive. Whether this is the failing of an overly worked screenplay over 20 years or Trevorrow's misreading of the material-it's an earnestly made, but incompetent mess. 6. Justice League [Dir. Zack Snyder, but I blame this mess on Joss Whedon]2021's Zack Snyder's Justice League is a great film, but the 2017 theatrical cut pushed out by Joss Whedon and the Warner Brothers executives who had no spine is a disaster. During the 2nd or 3rd round of reshoots by Zack Snyder, his daughter tragically took her own life. The studio was apparently wanting to fire Snyder for some time, but his desire to be with family and grieve meant he could step down amicably, with Joss Whedon of the first 2 Avengers films taking over to re-write and reshoot. Unfortunately, Whedon and Warner Brothers executives in charge of the production behaved appallingly with Ray Fisher and Gal Gadot recieving the worst treatment. One instance involved Gal Gadot being asked to performance a sexist and degrading gag (Which Whedon had already done in Avengers: Age of Ultron) and when she refused (self-proclaimed feminist) Whedon threatened to ruin her career, but she refused and so they used a body double. Whedon later claimed that this wasn't true, and Gal Gadot just didn't understand English. Hey Whedon, maybe don't be a racist to "prove" you're not a sexist. I don't care what pressure a studio head puts on you, that's no excuse to be an ass on set. When it was time to edit the film, the mandate was simple: don't go over 2 hours. Well, they did that...and made one of the worst films of 2017. Having seen Snyder's vision makes watching this 2017 abomination unwatchable. Whedon's "comedy" writing is atrocious, the scenes he added were pointless, the overall story just feels like a lazy retread of The Avengers and the overly red color pallet to paint over the high contrast Snyder design just looks ugly. All the lines that are by Whedon's hands come off as the cast trying to make his pathetic writing work, the film's action scenes have been cut down to be soulless and the end result is a wasted space of a film. Whedon has never been appealing to me, with both his actions and lacking skillset making me question the fanbase he built. The only good thing I can say about this film is that the song "Everybody Knows" by Sigrid is a banger and the opening it plays over is alright. But yeah, this movie sucks and everyone who was originally involved deserved better. 5. Beauty and the Beast [Dir. Bill Condon]This is hands down the worst Disney remake. Everything it does is inferior to the masterful 1991 original, despite having every potential to do better with its canvas. The writing is obvious and dreadful, feeling needlessly cynical and failing to "fix plot holes" from the original that people don't actually care about. Despite a strong cast, everyone is either forgettable or a horrible being. It looks ugly despite the CGI and production design limits being endless and it's edited like trash. Seriously Disney, who said "let's get the guy who did the last Twilight movie to adapt our most acclaimed animated film into live action"? That puts you on par with the Paramount executives who let M. Night Shyamalan make The Last Airbender. 4. The Emoji Movie [Dir. Tony Leondis]The pitch for this film was bafflingly (but logically, in a dumb way) a hot commodity for Hollywood and its production caused Sony pitches to cancel promising looking projects. Basically, it's Toy Story/Wreck it Ralph on your phone and the worst possible version. Generic plot that steals from better films but terribly? Check. Voice cast of reliable VAs and some garbage talent (Miller, Cordon and Faris) giving bland performances. Check. Generic studio quality animation with no personality, artistry or energy? Check. A story that has inconsistent themes and is both overly intense and yet somehow has no real stakes at all? Check. All humor dead on arrival? Double Check. It's not good, was a waste of a pitch and was dated before it was imagined. 3. The Snowman [Dir. Tomas Alfredson]This film failed on every production level to the point it should be taught forever in film schools. The writers took a pulpy, darkly farcical crime novel and tried to turn it into David Fincher's Se7en. After losing Martin Scorsese as director, the studio hired Tomas Alfredson of Let the Right One In and the 2011 Tinker Tailor Soldier spy...and the producers stalled on him for months before rushing him to London and leaving him very little prep time. Then during production, Alfredson refused to adopt a faster shooting style despite his compressed time frame and ended up not shooting on anywhere from 10%-15% (maybe more) of the script. When finally editing the film, very lazy methods were used to hide or work around the missing pieces, with both the color grade and score not helping either. Even if the film wasn't the complete mess it was, it's a very bland serial killer film with boring performances, a disappointing (and confusing) killer story and decent cinematography. That's the only thing I can praise, decent cinematography. It's a mess to watch, a mess of production and should be studied by all who want to enter the field of filmmaker. 2. The Mummy [Dir. Alex Kurtzman]The worst attempted blockbuster of 2017 is Universal's attempt at a cinematic universe with the "Dark Universe" by rebooting their Mummy franchise. The main problem is Universal took a pitch for this by Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci, which resulted in Universal's prior cinematic universe start up Dracula: Untold from 2014 being erased. But it also Universal putting their faith in the writers of Legend of Zorro, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Cowboys and Aliens, Star Trek Into Darkness and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in a project that would end the two's professional relationship in films and neither have worked on a film since. After Kurtzman was done shooting, Tom Cruise took over in the editing phase and removed the original main creative to give his character more focus. Speaking of Tom Cruise, do you remember his character's name? No, you don't, no one does. Cruise plays easily the worst character of his career and one of the worst protagonists of all time. He's a boring, generic soldier whose only actions are starting the conflict, being given exposition and randomly solving the conflict. He's basically Sam from Transformers, but worse. And what sucks is so much of the film is spent with him instead of Sofia Boutella's The Mummy who has a cool design and performance, too bad we don't see enough. There's like one cool horror scene here, but most of the film feels like a bunch of references to better films. They copy a scene from An American Werewolf in London for "comedy" (there's a lot of out of place bad comedy) and even the famous sand wall set piece from the 1999 Mummy that exists only as a trailer shot and reference. The only other bright spot is Russell Crowe over acting as Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde, but the rest of the film is just garbage. It might have high production values, but the execution and look is terrible with a bad story in tow. What's pathetic aside from the fact that they cancelled their second cinematic universe installment Bride of Frankenstein by Bill Condon, but they scrapped the entire enterprise after Blumhouse and Leigh Whannell showed them you can make great money-making films on a small budget with 2020's The Invisible Man. Seriously Universal, you screwed up. 1. Guardians [Dir. Sarik Andreasyan]The worst film of 2017 comes to us from Russia, a country for which cinema owes a lot of its developmental and artistic merits to. But Guardians is a garbage attempt by people with eyes too big for their stomach attempting to recreate the feel, look and story of The Avengers and ending up making something worse than 2015's Fan4stic. Guardians has a cool premise and potentially cool heroes...and wastes them all. The story makes no sense, its pacing is genuinely terrible, its heroes don't actually save anyone, the effects are largely bad and the action is pathetically small in scope. The film runs 89 minutes but hits the act 3 moment after 30 mins and has nothing to do until the bad "climax". It's poorly made, makes no sense and makes the blockbusters its attempting to rip-off look superior. It truly is the worst film of 2017, even if it has a bear with rocket launchers on its back.
|
Tyrone BruinsmaThis is the Official Blog/Magazine for filmmaker, writer and content producer Tyrone Bruinsma Categories
All
|