And so we come that time again when I do my annual movie rundowns. As before, I am totally insatiable when it comes to movies so I do try to see something at the cinema even if it’s only of vague interest. However I’m fully aware that there are probably worse films released in 2017 then most of the ones on my list, and I don’t tend to see much of the straight to DVD stuff that my fellow writers watch and review far more of than me, this particular list being basically cinema releases only.
10/ GHOST IN THE SHELL 
This version of the anime was a near perfect example of how Hollywood can take something truly unique and intriguing and thought provoking – and then turn it into something as bland as they come, a generic sci-fi/action movie made up of little more than spare parts from other films with supposed twists you can spot a mile off. Taken on its own as yet another bloody superhero origin story it’s not too bad, and visually it looked okay, but was largely undone by stupid decisions throughout [i.e. everyone speaks English aside from Takeshi Kitano], plus a star who looked increasingly tired of it all throughout. 4/10
9/ THE BYE BYE MAN
This actually wasn’t too bad for a while until I realised that the majority of the rest of the film was going to consist of little more than its characters going on and on about what they shouldn’t do – think about the Bye Bye Man or say his name [hardly a compelling premise is it?] – and that its idea of being frightening was an ugly in a hood who sometimes points at people. But then this was a film so pathetically low on ideas that it had its students pursue their nemesis via a search engine called “Search”. You can’t say that the mostly awful performances didn’t fit the movie. 3.5/10
8/ CHIPS
So tell me, what was the point, what was the darn point – of supposedly remaking a fondly remembered, kid friendly TV show into something that bore no resemblance to it whatsoever and is not suitable for children at all? Things like turning one of the two main characters into a sex addict who can’t stop masturbating and the other into a pill head who drives his bike high on opiate and who hasn’t taken a dump in weeks were just insulting to fans of the series. I did muster a few chuckles, but overall this was cynical, dislikeable stuff. Even the Baywatch film was better than this. 3.5/10
7/ GEOSTORM
I’m certainly able to enjoy a good silly disaster film, but whereas for example San Andreas was good dumb fun, Geostorm was just dumb, its sheer stupidity painful to see, perhaps the low point being when the President of the United States was kidnapped in the most ridiculously easy manner. Director/writer Dean Devlin thought that simply piling on cliché after cliché in a mechanical fashion was the way to go, the special effects actually got worse as the film went on, the cast mainly phoned in their performances, and there wasn’t even a geostorm in the film – which smacks of false advertising really. 3.5/10
6/ RESIDENT EVIL: THE FINAL CHAPTER
How can a film with almost constant action be so boring? Actually boring probably isn’t the right word, perhaps annoying would be better, as the horrendous shakycam [something not seen so much this year thank goodness] and tiny edits made much of the mayhem a chore to watch for this critic – though his sore eyes were still able tell that a lot of stuff was barely choreographed at all and just put together in the editing room. But then this lazy ‘greatest hits’ package masquerading as a finale to a seriously flawed but sometimes entertaining series failed in most other respects too. 3/10
5/ BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Millions of kids have traditionally grown up with Disney cartoons for many decades, but incredibly this actually seems to be something that Disney is now trying to change with their programme of remakes of their animated classics. And Beauty And The Beast, a remake that was almost identical to the animated original, showed the company’s corporate greed, creative bankruptcy and insulting arrogance at its very worst. It’s not even as if they managed to get all the CGI right, the awful Beast looking as if Gollum had never happened. The fact that this film was a huge hit is a terrible thing for cinema. 3/10
4/ THE DARK TOWER
I’m happy to believe people when they say that the book series is good, but you wouldn’t know it whilst watching this idiotic, unimaginative and really rather boring nonsense which just felt like the pilot episode for a TV series where three quarters of the way through after setting everything up, they decided to not bother with the series and instead to suddenly wrap everything up in the final quarter. But then it’s impossible to tell what exactly they were trying to do with this movie except make it steadily worse. There have probably been worse Stephen King adaptations, but none quite so catastrophic. 2.5/10
3/ WISH UPON
A film so ineptly made that the bloody colour correction changes several times, Wish Upon largely consisted of little more than a series of quick cuts barely piecing together the story and allowing no time whatsoever for suspense to build, along with a thoroughly dumb heroine who continued making wishes even when people were dying. But then this was a film that asked us to believe, for example, that a box has sat in a bin on the street untouched for ten, or more years, in a town where her father scavenges the same bins seemingly several times a week? Insulting, pathetic dreck. 2/10
2/ JUSTICE LEAGUE
Proving that Wonder Woman was a fluke, this was yet another terrible effort from DC and possibly the worst of their offerings so far, showing without a doubt that DC and Warner Bros just don’t know what the hell they’re doing, as well as being coincidentally the third film on this list that was probably made worse by tinkering by an incompetent studio. How on earth was getting a writer with a totally different approach to the director and original screenwriter going to result in something good? How on earth did they think that the CGI was good enough to present to the audience? 2/10
1/ FIFTY SHADES DARKER
The first one was bad enough, but this sequel plumbed new depths of stupidity, ineptitude and tedium, and didn’t even deliver on the sex while proving Jamie Dornan to be probably the worst actor alive [okay, I’ve not seen him in anything else, but still…]. I guess you could say that I’m not the target audience for this movie, but I do my best to appreciate any movie whoever it seems to be aimed at, and I would have thought that any target audience member with any intelligence would have felt insulted by the total awfulness of the writing and by the fact that its heroine was such a lame brained pushover except for the moment when she told Christian he doesn’t have to tell her anything about his tortured past, then a few minutes later complained that he never ‘opened up’. Though that wasn’t as bad as when Christian went missing for a few days due to an off-screen helicopter crash and then suddenly walked through the door without a scratch on him, or when Christian fondled around inside Ana’s dress in a lift and nobody noticed what was going on despite her heavy breathing and moans, or when Ana orgasmed after Christian kissed her just once between the legs, or when – bah – this movie was just one awful scene after another, along with choice lines of dialogue like: “You taught me how to f***, she taught me how to love”. Total bilge. 1/10
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