The bad batch: My least favourite films of 2017

Thumb's up? Nope, it's a definite thumb's down for Assassin's Creed

I wasn't going to bother with a "worst of the year" list this time, as I'd somehow avoided seeing most of those films already widely acknowledged to be 2017's most rotten. I'd avoided The Book Of Henry, gave The Emoji Movie a swerve, and paid no attention whatsoever to the likes of Baywatch and Transformers: The Last Knight. Having given it a bit of thought, though, it turned out there were still a great many absolute stinkers worth naming and shaming. A surprising number of them were 'Netflix Originals' and, oddly, some starred actors of whom I am very fond (including Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotillard, and Javier Bardem). Only films released in the UK on any format between January 1 and December 31 2017 qualified for inclusion...

10. Assassin's Creed

Director: Justin Kurzel  UK release date: January 1
Despite starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, and boasting a budget of some $125million, the Macbeth director's video game adaptation is a howling mess. The storyline is confused and confusing, and there is so much exposition you could stick a flag in it and declare it an independent nation. It's all topped off with iffy CG and a grungy colour palette that goes all the way from turd-brown to corpse-grey. See my full review here.

9. To The Bone
Director: Marti Noxon  UK release date: July 14
Soppy and unconvincing drama about anorexia, written and directed by Buffy The Vampire Slayer alum Noxon. Lily Collins is Ellen, a young woman battling the disease, who seeks treatment under Keanu Reeves' unconventional doctor at a live-in rehab clinic. Alex Sharp's Luke – a weird and wacky Brit – is so annoying you wish the reassuringly wooden Reeves would turn into John Wick and put a bullet between his eyes. 

8. Naked
Director: Michael Tiddes  UK release date: August 11
Shameless rip-off of Groundhog Day that steals everything from Harold Ramis's 1993 comedy classic, apart from its great jokes and infinite charm. This 'Netflix Original', directed by Fifty Shades Of Black's Tiddes, sees Marlon Wayans cursed to relive the hour before his wedding over and over again, until he shapes up and gives his wife-to-be (Regina Hall) the ceremony and husband she deserves. Insufferably predictable and laughter free.

Bare-faced cheek: Naked rips off Groundhog Day... it doesn't go well

7. Death Note
Director: Adam Wingard  UK release date: August 25

Po-faced live-action Netflix adaptation of the Japanese manga that fails to make good use of its USP – namely, Ryuk, an eight-foot tall demonic death god, voiced here by Willem Dafoe. The CG creature turns up quite a bit at the start, then only appears intermittently for the rest of the film, actually doing very little. If you have a massive demon as your film's visual centrepiece, might it not have been an idea to keep him gainfully employed?

6. From The Land Of The Moon
Director: Nicole Garcia  UK release date: June 9
The year's worst plot twist goes to this dreary romantic melodrama. In 1950s France, Marion Cotillard's Gabrielle is stuck in a loveless marriage but falls in love with another man when, ill, she is sent away to a clinic in the Alps for treatment. It isn't predictable but only because the twist is so ludicrous (not to mention unoriginal) you spend the film's final moments trying to decide whether to laugh or throw things at the screen.

5. Slack Bay

Director: Bruno Dumont  UK release date: June 16
Obnoxious French black comedy from director Dumont. Set in 1910, it sees an affluent family arrive at their lavish holiday home for the summer, only to find themselves embroiled in a police investigation into a series of mysterious disappearances. People fall over a lot, the two lead cops look like Laurel and Hardy for some reason, and there's even a family of cannibals. A masterclass in overacting, especially from Juliette Binoche in a career low.

Kiss of death: Slack Bay does little for Anglo-French relations

4. The Circle
Director: James Ponsoldt  UK release date: June 30
Leaden Emma Watson lands her dream job at the titular Facebook-style company in Silicon Valley, but quickly finds her life subsumed into its corporate strictures and demands. Shockingly, it turns out these tech companies are robbing us all of our privacy and identity, something I'd certainly never considered before (sarcasm). In fact, Ponsoldt's film is so bad not even Tom Hanks, as a creepy Steve Jobs-esque CEO, can save it.

3. Little Evil
Director: Eli Craig  UK release date: September 1
Adam Scott marries Evangeline Lilly's single mum and becomes convinced her six-year-old son is the Antichrist in this supposed comedy/horror from Netflix. The idea to use the set-up of The Omen as a way into exploring the difficulties of being a step-parent is a solid one, but writer/director Craig fails to take it anywhere remotely interesting. The jokes aren't funny, the horror isn't scary, and the "power of love" ending made me want to sacrifice a virgin.

2. The Last Face
Director: Sean Penn  UK release date: May 12

This well-intentioned clunker sees Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem's crusading doctors conducting a fraught romance amidst the mayhem of Liberia's second civil war in 2003. It's horribly clumsy and cloyingly earnest, with none of its black African characters granted any agency whatsoever. They are little more than extras in what should, after all, be their story. Worst of all, though, is its dialogue – "she's leaking urine, but she's dancing" being perhaps the most ill-advised line in any film I've seen all year.

1. Tomboy

Director: Walter Hill  UK release date: March 13
In his heyday, veteran Hill directed the likes of The Driver, 48 Hours and The Warriors. This monstrosity, however, is such a fall from grace it seems likely he made it for a bet (i.e. "I bet you can't make one of the worst movies of all time"). Michelle Rodriguez is Frank Kitchen, a macho hitman transitioned into a woman against his will in an act of revenge by Sigourney Weaver's mad scientist. The premise is beyond stupid and the film lives down to it at every available opportunity. A turgid, misogynistic, transphobic shambles. Read my full review here.

Just shoot me! Tomboy is the worst film I've seen all year

Coming next: The third annual 'Resties'. Watch this space...

Death Note, Unforgettable, and Bushwick: Your Week In Film (August 28 - September 3)

To L and back: Netflix's Death Note is one to avoid

This week's highs and lows in UK home entertainment, on DVD, Blu-ray, and VOD. All films are available to buy, rent or stream now, unless otherwise stated.

Ratings guide:  WWWW - Wonderful  WWW - Worthwhile  WW - Watchable  W - Woeful

You'd think an eight-foot tall demonic death god would fit right in amongst an American pantheon of horror monsters that includes the likes of Freddy, Leatherface, Jason, and Chucky. Unfortunately, Jason Wingard's adaptation of the manga/anime Death Note (Netflix) W isn't a thousandth as much fun as any of the iterations of A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday The 13th, or Child's Play. In fact, it's a humourless bore, whose sole interesting feature - the aforementioned death god, Ryuk (a stop-motion effect, voiced by Willem Dafoe) - is disappointingly underutilised.

For those unfamiliar with the original Japanese original (I have only a passing knowledge of it myself), Death Note is about a supernatural notebook that enables whoever owns it to kill a person of their choice, simply by writing their name onto one of its pages. In this US take on the material, in which the action is moved to Seattle, the book (accompanied by its demonic guardian) falls into the hands of Light Turner (Nat Wolff), a high school student who initially uses it to murder a boy who has been bullying him. He then shares his secret with Mia (Margaret Qualley), a fellow pupil he has a crush on, and the pair go on a killing spree, taking out hundreds of criminals and ne'er do wells the world over. But, when they start signing their handiwork, it brings them to the attention of a Sherlock Holmes-style investigating detective, L (Lakeith Stanfield), who travels to the US and is quickly on their trail.

The first half-hour's promising and, for a moment, I thought we might be about to get an interesting spin on Bonnie And Clyde or Natural Born Killers. Alas, Wingard (who was responsible for last year's underwhelming Blair Witch reboot) seems more interested in Light's relationships with Mia, and his dreary cop dad (Shea Whigham), than he does in serving up something that takes a few risks. One of the main problems is that it's difficult to care about any of the characters. Light's a dope, Mia's underwritten, L's annoying (just SIT on the chair, you wannabe ninja twerp!). And you can forgive plot holes in decent films (see last week's What Happened To Monday) but there's a doozy here: Light is meant to be super-smart but can't work out a way to kill L, because he never reveals his true name, so can't be the victim of a death note. Using the book, why can't Light simply compel someone else - like, perhaps, one of the dozens of criminals he has absolutely no problem tracking down - to murder him instead?

Its main shortcoming, though, is that Dafoe's Ryuk isn't used nearly enough. He turns up quite a bit at the start, then only appears intermittently for the rest of the film. Apart from exchanging a few unfunny barbs with Light, he actually does very little. If you have a massive demon as your film's visual centrepiece, might it not have been an idea to find stuff to keep him gainfully employed or at least give him a bit of backstory? When Ryuk is on screen, the movie is immediately more interesting, substantially less po-faced and infinitely less predictable. It's like making a new Elm Street film and leaving most of Freddy's bits on the cutting-room floor.

Light's out: Nat Wolff's killer fails to engage in Death Note 

Two beautiful women fight over a dullard who owns a micro-brewery in Unforgettable (DVD, Blu-ray and VOD) WWW. No, really, when you strip away all the bells and whistles, that's pretty much the plot of this insanely overwrought but thoroughly enjoyable thriller from Denise Di Novi, making her directorial debut after decades as a producer on everything from Heathers to Focus.

Rosario Dawson is Julia, newly engaged to aforementioned brewer David (Geoff Stults), a man so effortlessly tedious the Dull Men's Club should immediately make him its life president. Poor Julia has a secret: she once took out a restraining order on violent former lover Michael (Simon Kassianides), which is about to expire, and she is scared he may try to re-enter her life. David's jealous ex-wife - control freak Tessa (Katherine Heigl) - is desperate to wreck David's new relationship, so steals Julia's phone and uses the information contained on it about Michael to embark on an ambitious campaign of revenge. She turns Julia's life upside down but that's only for starters...

Unforgettable is like one of those venomous late '80s/early '90s psycho thrillers (Fatal Attraction or Basic Instinct), only with a generous side order of Dynasty-style cheese. Heigl - "attack breasts" straining against the fabric of the tight and starchy shirts she's poured into, like a couple of cruise missiles - is hilarious and brilliant here, one part Alexis Colby, one part Catherine Tramell. Her performance takes scenery-chewing to a whole new level and Di Novi indulges every bonkers minute of it. I particularly enjoyed the scenes where she's sat in her lair, lights dimmed, rain battering the windows, guzzling red wine, as she spins her web of Internet deceit. It's as if Cruella de Vil had joined Anonymous, and one of many moments in which the film becomes so camp it makes Behind The Candelabra look like Manchester By The Sea.

Underneath all the drollery, I suspect the movie wants to make a serious point about the changing nature of the family unit and perhaps cocks a snook at the American right. In those Reagan-era thrillers, it was always the white-bread nuclear family that was coming under assault from an outside threat - Glenn Close's disturbed Alex in Fatal Attraction, Sharon Stone's icy Tramell in Basic Instinct. Here, the aggressor isn't some toxic interloper but a seemingly fine, upstanding wife and mother. Di Novi goes to great lengths to illustrate just how different the two women are - not only in terms of career and life experience but also of race. Dawson, we know, is of Cuban and Puerto Rican heritage, while Heigl's Tessa is so white she makes Theresa May look like Aretha Franklin. Such considerations add an intriguing and serious layer to the glorious lunacy on show elsewhere.

Trouble brewing: Heigl and Dawson face off in Unforgettable

Bushwick (VOD and cinemas) WWW boasts an opening 10 minutes as strong as any I've witnessed this year. It sees grad student Lucy (Brittany Snow) thrown face first into a war zone when she emerges, with her soon to be ex-boyfriend, from the New York subway. An army of masked, black-garbed soldiers has launched a surprise assault on a number of American cities and even the titular Brooklyn neighbourhood of Bushwick hasn't been spared. Helicopters fill the sky, bombs explode, gunfire is exchanged, and poor Lucy is stuck smack-bang in the middle of it, with only Stupe, Dave Bautista's grizzled former marine for protection. Directors Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milott demand your attention from the get-go and, for the most part, keep it. This is not a big budget movie but the pair make a little go a long way, their grasp of sound design, a few ingeniously rationed digital effects, and some mightily impressive camerawork ensuring Bushwick is a film that punches way above its weight. 

It's a shame the identity of the invading army has been revealed in every plot summary and review I've seen for the movie (the trailer gives it away, too) because the filmmakers go to some lengths to keep it a secret. Murnion and Milott then give us a powerful unmasking scene around halfway through that nicely explains the entire situation (I won't be giving away the twist, even though it is the film's main talking point and USP). Bushwick doesn't get everything right. Some of the character moments between Lucy and Stupe are clumsily written and the whole thing starts to fall apart towards the end, as the story loses focus and becomes unnecessarily bleak. That said, lots of action movies have Bushwick's thrills and spills but few of them can boast its smarts and craft.  

Home invasion: Mysterious aggressors target US cities in Bushwick

What I shall be watching this week: I've been looking forward to Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit for ages.