2) Justice League
I know those sticks are still sharpened from when I brought up Wonder Woman, so now it’s time to light the torches. I’m bringing up the sure to be complete train wreck, Justice League. Now, before the lynch mob starts to form, this one I want to be wrong on the most. My god, let me be wrong…
However, let’s look at what we have to go on. Justice League is the direct follow up to last year’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, also helmed by Zach Snyder. Now, I know everyone is entitled to their opinion and it’s totally fine for you to be wrong and think that BvS was good. Cause it’s not. It’s abysmal. It’s an unchecked dumpster fire. It was so packed full of story problems I don’t know how they even filmed it, the plot made absolute ZERO sense, was packed full of unexplained dream sequences, had strange cinematography choices, had a bunch of shoehorned in easter eggs that no one liked, had some of the most uninspired fight sequences ever (except for that one!) and considering the title, had a bizarrely short fight between Batman and Superman.
The direct sequel is a Justice League movie where they still have to introduce the majority of the League. Cause when creating a crossover film that has multiple leads that require a certain amount of screen time and represent vastly different aspects of the DC Universe, obviously you want to spend a lot of time introducing characters. The fact that the other DC property to come out last year was another large cast film – the unforgivably atrocious Suicide Squad – the evidence of a massive failure is beginning to stack up.
Need something else? Okay, here’s an awful trailer too.
1) Transformers: The Last Knight
There’s only one film that’s being released this year that you knew, KNEW, right from the announcement, was going to be awful. Without a doubt, the movie to avoid at all costs this year is the fifth iteration into Michael Bay’s Tranformers series, The Last Knight.
The success of Bay’s Transformers series is undeniable as they continue to churn out nearly a billion dollars with every entry. This is a baffling fact given that I have yet to encounter anyone who tells me that they enjoy this series. In all fairness, I have also seen all of the previous four, but refuse to see them in the theatres after I got suckered into lining up to see the second one. However, the diminishing quality of the series is also pretty evident. Even the introduction of Mark Wahlberg (the franchise saver The Rock replaced) only made the series get worse with Wahlberg playing a Michael Bay special – one dimensional character that no one would ever care about.
This one promises some medieval elements (what?) and a bad Optimus that no one is buying for a second, but as mentioned above when talking about Pirates, how many ‘secret robot invasions’ has Earth gone through? How come Megatron hasn’t taken advantage of all of them at the same time? I mean, neither Optimus nor Megatron have never thought to mention or exploit any of this stuff before?
In the end, it doesn’t matter. I watched the fourth one with my then 8-year-old nephew who, once the credits began to roll, turned to me and had a handful of story problems with the movie. He’s eight. We all know this is going to be a lot of generic robots flipping and transforming in slow motion, some stuff blows up and Optimus will return to save the day in the end. We all also know this fifth awful entry to an awful franchise is going to make buckets of cash. Just be a little discerning and don’t subject yourself to yet another Michael Bay bomb.
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Special Note – XxX – The Return of Xander Kane
This doesn’t really belong on this list, but it looks so terrible, it needs to be mentioned. Just… Just watch the trailer. Even the trailer is so horrendous that you have to wonder just how much of the Fast and Furious audience Vin Diesel thinks he can drag along. When this is what you put forward to try to entice people to come see it, you’re pretty much just banking on the fact that people see Fast and Furious to see you. I think you’re going to be hilariously mistaken, Mr. Diesel. Please, please, please don’t give this trash your money…