Top Ten Best Movie
Scenes in 2017
I already recounted my ten favourite movies of the year, but
before we leave 2017 behind, I wanted to do a different kind of top ten list.
There were movies I saw last year that I enjoyed—not quite to the point of
being in my top ten—featuring scenes that really stuck with me. Strangely, my
favourite movie of 2017, Get Out,
didn’t really have one stand-out scene to me, it was more about the whole experience.
There were other movies I didn’t get to talk about though that had incredible
scenes. Of course some of my favourites of the year will appear again, but I
just want to talk about the ten movie scenes that stood out the most to me.
10. Let the Body Hit
the Floor – Annabelle: Creation
Oh man, what a scene to start with. Annabelle: Creation impressed some horror fans, but not this one. I
found it pitiful, annoying, and laughable, but no scene was funnier than the
one where one of the main characters, a young girl with polio, takes a ride on
a possessed chair. It’s so obvious leading up to the “scare” what’s going to
happen. Then there’s a huge jump scare when the girl FLIES OFF the chair into
the air. After a few seconds of nothing happening, I turned to my friend and
said “wouldn’t it be funny if she actually landed?” because it seemed like it
would just cut to the next scene with no resolution…but the camera still hadn’t
cut. Then THUD. Her boot lands on the floor and I actually did jump, with a bit
of a laugh (the theater is dead silent at this point) and I barely manage to
say “I thought they were really going to do it for a second” before the girl
SLAMS on the floor with a super loud crash. My friend and I exploded with
laughter. It was one of the hardest laughs I had all year. Maybe the scene was
only as memorable as it was because of us talking during it, but I don’t care,
it was still so perfectly timed I swear it was intended to be comedic instead
of scary. 
9. Slapped to Space –
Power Rangers
The Power Rangers
reboot was a pretty average-to-middling movie-going experience for me, save for
one exceptional scene. I’ll give an honourable mention to the god-awful Krispy
Kreme Donuts product placement. Though that scene was unbelievably bad, the
final battle between the Rangers and Rita Repulsa leads up to the most cliché
thing I could have imagined. She pleads for them to spare her, and gives a
long, dumb speech, so what do the Rangers do? In their Megazord form, they
literally SLAP her—like, a giant robot hand hits her, palm-out—and the strike
is so powerful, she flies into the sky, and INTO OUTER SPACE! I couldn’t
believe it. I laughed even harder at this than I did the Annabelle scene. “Slapped to space” became a certified meme, and is
definitely one of the most-absurd defeats of a villain in any superhero movie.
8. Laureline
Introduces Valerian – Valerian and the
City of a Thousand Planets
Valerian was a fun
space adventure with some cool visual effects and action, but overall, it
wasn’t anything exceptional. However, there’s one scene (it’s not even really
the whole scene, just a moment in the scene) that stood out to me (and my
cousin, who saw it with me) as particularly awesome and random. It’s the moment
when Laureline and Valerian approach an alien, and Laureline introduces
Valerian with this rapid movement of her arms. I can’t even describe it. It was
just this fluent-yet-complex tumbling of limbs that ends with her pointing at
him, and she does it with a completely straight face, which just makes it that
much better, and no one acknowledges it as odd. I want to see the movie again
just to witness that moment, and study it, and memorize it, so I can use it to
introduce people in real life. Seriously.
7. Beep, Beep, Richie
– IT
IT had the
scariest scene of the year, for me. The opening scene of Georgie getting his
arm torn off by the insatiable clown Pennywise perfectly set the tone for the
film. It was a horrific moment, sure, but didn’t scare me the same way a later
scene did—a scene teased in the first trailer. The kids are looking at pictures
on a projector, and it starts going haywire. “Ok,” I thought to myself when it
started happening, “we’re at this scene. I wonder what else is going to
happen,” because given what’s shown in the trailer, it’s clear something else
scary is going to happen when Pennywise reveals himself on the projector
screen. Everything goes dark, then Pennywise appears out of the darkness, only
his head is MASSIVE and his eyes are crazy and his teeth are huge and
slobbering, and just the way the lighting was, it actually evoked true fear in
me, which I haven’t felt while watching a horror movie probably since The Babadook. I have a feeling it
wouldn’t be as scary upon repeat viewing, though.
6. Red’s Redemption –
War for the Planet of the Apes
War for the Planet of
the Apes had numerous jaw-dropping events, from Cesar and company
infiltrating the human settlement early in the film and discovering Nova, to
Woody Harrelson’s final moments, but the one that really got me was toward the
end, so consider this a spoiler warning. One of the ape characters built up
really well over the course of the film was Red, a traitorous gorilla who
fights alongside the humans. By the end battle, though, he has a change of
heart when he sees his own kind getting annihilated, so he redeems himself by
saving Cesar in the most epic way possible. He kills the army guy who is about
to kill Cesar with a grenade launcher, and is subsequently killed himself. The
visual effects, the music, the way it was shot, the way it was acted,
everything was perfect.
5. Confrontation – Spider-Man: Homecoming
Spider-Man: Homecoming
likely would have been just another Marvel movie had it not been for the
well-crafted villain, and his great connection to our central hero. In a genius
moment of realization, Peter goes to pick up his date for the homecoming dance,
Liz, and who answers the door? Michael Keaton, the vulture himself. Adrian
Toombs is Liz’ dad. Throughout the movie, Toombs has mentioned his family many
times; they are the reason he does what he does. It’s such a simple reveal, but
works so well, and the following scene where Peter knows who he is but Toombs doesn’t,
then Toombs realizes Peter is Spider-Man, it’s all so excellently crafted, I
was more riveted by that than any of the action scenes. A truly great bit of
screenwriting right there.
4. The Bomb – Logan Lucky
Logan Lucky had
some of the best mixes of tension and comedy I’ve ever seen. I was laughing throughout,
while constantly moving closer to the edge of my seat. The heist they embark on
(rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway) is extremely well thought-out, but one part
of it is highly risky: a homemade bomb has to be put into the pneumatic tube
system. The bomb is unstable, so the tension of them handling it is palpable—but
becomes even more so when it unexpectedly shoots back out of the tube into
Adam Driver’s hands. They pause, look at each other…the bomb doesn’t explode.
They try again. It is an amazingly funny and intense scene, but it’s hard to do
it justice. Just watch the movie and see it for yourself.
3. Final Moments – Logan
Logan was a
powerful conclusion to the character of Wolverine/Logan, but as great as the
whole movie was, I couldn’t help but feel like I was just waiting for that
ending, to see if they really would kill him off for good or not. Spoilers
ahead: not only is Logan fatally wounded by his clone, he dies in the hands of
his daughter, Laura, and the acting from both Hugh Jackman and Dafnee Keen is
incredible. Logan is buried with a wooden cross staked at the foot of his
grave, and just before Laura runs off with her fellow young mutants to safety,
she does the perfect thing: tilts that cross to become an X, and the shot ends
on the X in silhouette. I can’t really think of a more fitting end to one of
the greatest superhero characters in all of film.
2. No Man’s Land – Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman didn’t
wow me like it did so many other superhero fans. I liked it, but the final act
fell into generic-poor-cgi-fight-with-a-dumb-looking-villain kind of trap, and
so much of it felt familiar, especially with inevitable comparisons to Captain America: The First Avenger.
However, there was one scene that, even out of context, is still so damn epic
and awesome, it deserves some kind of award. When Wonder Woman climbs up that
ladder in slow motion and strides out onto the battlefield to draw the enemy
fire so the others can advance, now that
is what a superhero does. The music is grand, the cinematography is gorgeous,
and there’s just this unexplainable strength about it. I didn’t love the whole
movie, but I did love this scene.
1. Opening Scene – Baby Driver
Why is this my favourite scene of any scene in 2017? It is
perhaps the most re-watchable scene of all. It’s like a mini-music video, that
also perfectly sets the tone for the whole rest of the movie. Baby Driver is not really an action
movie, but it does have some great action in it, with this first scene being
the greatest of all. It’s edited to perfection, it has laughs, it makes you
gasp, the song choice is a huge reason it works so well, and it looks
incredible. Nothing about it looks fake. Nothing about it falters in any way. I
really don’t know what else to say except that if you haven’t seen Baby Driver, go on YouTube right now and
look up the opening scene. It’s so good, the whole scene is available to watch
online for free. And trust me, it will make you want to watch the whole movie
right after.
