Year in Review
After watching Valerian and the City of 1000 Planets it has occurred to me that 2017 has not been a particularly great year for cinema. True there have been some good films but alot of the expected big hitters were for me a huge letdown.
With this in mind (and to open myself up to ridicule) heres a quick look back at the most notable releases of 2017 thus far -
January saw just one film that caught my eye and that was the surprisingly good Split which saw a true return to form for M Night Shyamalan, outside of that however there was nothing worth watching.
February saw one of the films of the year in the form of the Lego Batman movie and both Get Out and A Cure for Wellness are worthy of your time. Big releases like Fifty Shades Darker, John Wick 2 and the Great Wall were all pretty dire.
March brought us the phenomenal Logan but also the rubbish Kong Skull Island, the Belko Experiment, Trainspotting 2, Ghost in the Shell and Power Rangers.
As for April, there was not a single film that caught my eye and I can admit that I did not see any of the release from that month.
May had many big releases but they all pretty much disappointed -
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 was just more of the same and suffered from another terrible villain King Arthur was a further nail in the Guy Ritchie coffin Alien Covenant was the worst Alien movie since Alien Resurrection (and that includes AvP Requiem) Baywach (do I have to say anything about this film) Pirates of the Carribbean Dead Men Tell No Tales was like GOTG just more of the same and yet proof that Johnny Depp is not the actor he once was
In June DC finally delivered an acceptable entry into their DCEU with Wonder Woman although the sheer amount of slow motion crowbarred into each fight scene took me out of being able to totally enjoy it. The Mummy was supposed to start the Universal Monster Universe but it was so bad it was almost good.Cars 3 and Despicable me 3 were ok for kids whereas Transformers the Last Knight was no good for anyone.
More superhero shenanighans in July as Marvel brought us Spiderman Homecoming which was good but not as good as Sam Raimi's first two Spidey films for me. War of the Planet of the Apes won lots of plaudits but again was not as good as what had come before it in the franchise. As for the aforementioned Valerian and the City of 1000 Planets, that film was so bad that you have to wonder just what happened to Luc Besson and Atomic Blonde was perfectly servicable although it did at times feel like it had only been made for the purposes of having a strong female lead (nothing wrong with that but there are better female driven movies out there).
August saw the long awaited release of the Dark Tower and fans were left wishing that the film had never been made and other than that the most notable release was Terminator 2 in 3d.
We were treated to more Stephen King in September as the reboot of IT was unleashed on the world. Yes it was better than the Dark Tower but it was still not particularly good. Kingsman the Golden Circle was alright but as Ive said about other franchise movies in this rundown it was not as good as what has come before it.
Which almost brings us upto date as we hit October which saw the release of Blade Runner 2049 which I have yet to see but which has bombed at the box office and the eighth film of the Saw franchise Jigsaw which was a confusing mess of a film that they really should have never bothered with, the Saw franchise should have died with John Kramer many years ago.
Obviously we are currently in November and the big release coming is the Justice League which I am not holding out much hope of being any good. We have already had Thor Ragnarok however which was supposed to be my film of the year but actually ended up being one of the most disappointing movie going experiences I have had in my 41 years on this planet (yes I hated it that much).
There is still a month to go and we will see the Last Jedi hit cinema screens in December so there is always that but it arrives in the same month as Pitch Perfect 3 which I would imagine will be as awful as the first two Pitch Perfect movies and Im not sure the latest Star Wars entry is enough to save what has been overall a fairly drab year for cinema.
Yes I know there are many films that I have not seen that probably deserve my attention such as Dunkirk and I Am Not Your Negro but this review is of the films that I have seen and have left me feeling like 2017 has been overall a huge letdown.
Feel free to rip me apart below
