Top 5 worst movies of 2017: 980 CJME’s Brett Buster

Frigidly cold temperatures in the final week of 2017 might make it a good time to catch up on movies.

Brett Buster joined the 980 CJME Morning Show on Thursday to recap his list of the top five worst movies to hit theatres this year in his opinion.

5) Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

I am a huge fan of the Resident Evil video game franchise. But the movies? Not so much. This franchise has been churning out one terrible film after another, and seemingly their only reason for existence is to keep the director’s wife, Milla Jovovich employed.

The film does the exact same thing as the previous films. The main character, Alice, is attempting to take down the evil Umbrella Corporation in a zombie-infested world. The movie is filled with incoherent action sequences, implausible physics, and horrid “special” effects. The only saving grace of this film is that it is supposedly the “Final Chapter.” I can only hope.

4) Fifty Shades Darker

“Author” E.L. James strikes again with the continuation of her highly lucrative Fifty Shades series, and I can honestly say I hated this one more than the first. The film once again follows the boring, repetitive, and chemistry-free “relationship” between dominant, sociopath Christian Grey and the impossibly doe-eyed and innocent Anastasia Steele, and not much else.

There is no plot, no characters to latch on to, no sexiness, and worst of all: it never ends! This is essentially a beautifully shot, two hours and ten minute, high-class porno that attempts subplots that go nowhere and features a male protagonist who might-as-well be a sex toy with how robotic his performance is. There is a third and final film coming next year, and a really good chance that it’s already secured a slot on my worst of 2018!

3) The Emoji Movie

Probably the worst-reviewed movie of the year, and for all the right reasons. This is an animated film that is so inept and such a clear rip-off of the excellent movie Wreck-It, Ralph that I honestly believe if you show this to young kids, their intelligence will drop drastically.

The opening narration literally states and I quote: “Emojis are the most important invention in the history of communication”. The film stars TJ Miller as the “Meh” emoji (which I actually spent time trying to find on my phone, to no avail) who teams up with James Corden’s high-five emoji to set off on an adventure through their user’s smartphone for…reasons.

This “film” is a sad exercise in the blatant use of product placement and the whole thing comes across like your out-of-touch grandfather who’s trying to look “hip” to his grandkids, but completely misinterprets what they enjoy. And let’s not forget: Patrick Stewart voiced the Poop emoji.

2) Transformers: The Last Knight

Michael Bay is plain and simply an incompetent filmmaker. And after 5 Transformers movies, I feel like I don’t even need to watch them anymore, because they’re all the same, formulaic junk.

Clocking in at two and a half hours, this film out-stayed its welcome early and I was very close to walking out of the theatre.

Mark Wahlberg returns as Cade Yager (stupid name) and has to find an ancient artefact on Earth to stop the evil Decepticons while pairing up with an extremely attractive woman and occasionally gets assistance from the Transformers: sound familiar?

The humour is tone-deaf, the action sequences make no sense, and the very fact that Anthony Hopkins appeared in this makes me very sad. Thankfully, the box office returns are declining, so the general audiences are finally getting wise to this same-old crap!

1) The Snowman

Believe it or not, I was actually looking forward to this one and actually thought the trailer was very promising; how wrong I was.

Based on a best-selling novel by Norwegian author, Jo Nesbø, the film stars Michael Fassbender as a supposed “brilliant” detective who is hunting a deranged killer who leaves snowmen as their calling-card.

Simultaneous with its release, the director came out and revealed that they were unable to film 10-15% of the script and they attempted to stitch it together through editing. It didn’t work. LARGE chunks of the narrative are missing with character decisions/motivations that don’t add up, characters are introduced and then never seen again, and a giant subplot involving JK Simmons goes absolutely nowhere.

I would be remiss in not mentioning one of the most bizarre performances I’ve seen all year: Val Kilmer has a minor role (which surprise, surprise, also goes nowhere) looking frail as a mannequin and whose performance was so incomprehensible that they actually had to dub him, quite badly too. This is my worst film of the year because it makes no sense, the plot progression is laughable, and it’s an incomplete film that was released anyway to try and make a quick buck, which is unacceptable!