Top Ten Films of 2017
Unlike the past few
years, the majority of my most-anticipated movies for the year actually
delivered. Though there were some disappointments like Alien: Covenant and Kong:
Skull Island, for the most part, I had a great time at the theater in 2017.
Before I get into my top ten, here are a few honourable mentions: 
Split
A good movie in January? Absurd. I saw Split, the latest from M. Night Shyamalan, expecting to laugh at it
the whole time, but it proved a competent nerve-jangling thriller driven by an
incredible performance from James McAvoy.
Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond
This Netflix documentary revealed never-before-seen footage
of Jim Carrey behind the scenes of Man on
the Moon, the film in which he portrayed the comedian Andy Kaufman, except
he didn’t just portray him, he became
him. The interviews with Carrey coupled with the unbelievable footage made for
an extremely interesting and surprisingly moving film.
IT
Stephen King movies made a big comeback this year, and none
proved more popular than IT. No other
major 2017 release surprised me more than this one, combining nostalgia and
horror and coming-of-age in a way that not only felt like classic King, but
proved incredibly effective and entertaining.
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
This is easily the hardest I laughed at a movie all year. The
last installment in the Resident Evil
franchise was so colossally bad, I couldn’t believe how entertaining it was.
There was never a dull moment. It also had one of the scariest scenes for me:
seeing Milla Jovovich in old-age makeup.
10. The Disaster Artist
My initial reaction after seeing The Disaster Artist was “this is my favourite movie of the year”
but the more I thought about it, the more issues I had with the way the book
(of the same name) was adapted, which was written by Greg Sestero, the actor
who plays Mark in the wildly successful cult film The Room—a film I’ve written about many times in the past as being
one of the best-worst movies. Ultimately, it was just awesome to see James
Franco give such an incredible performance as Tommy Wiseau, the mastermind
behind The Room, and to see
behind-the-scenes of some of the funniest movie scenes I’ve ever watched.
9. Baby Driver
Writer/director Edgar Wright has made some of the
most-original films of the past two decades, from Shaun of the Dead to Hot Fuzz
and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Baby Driver is perhaps the most
mainstream film I’ve seen from him, but that doesn’t stop it from being awesome.
The biggest highlight for me was the soundtrack, which fit the movie perfectly;
a couple of the songs I continued to listen to all summer. Ansel Elgort was
great in the lead role, all of the characters were entertaining, the dialogue
was sharp, and the editing? Better than any other movie of the year, which
doesn’t really surprise me, since Edgar Wright is known for his intensely tight
edits, but even for him, this was a new benchmark.
8. Spider-Man: Homecoming
Finally, my favourite Marvel superhero returned to theaters
in a movie that did the character justice. Everything about Spider-Man: Homecoming was on point. The
story was interesting, the villain was menacing but understandable, the
supporting characters were funny, and in addition to delivering the expected
Marvel action set pieces, it also made for one of the best modern high school
movies I’ve seen in recent years. As re-watchable and great as it was, the only
reason it ranks one spot lower than another 2017 Marvel movie is it felt like
they played it a bit safe, unlike…
7. Thor: Ragnarok
The third Thor film
went all-out for a cosmic comedy action epic. Ragnarok was unlike any film we had seen Thor in before. It was
hilarious, visually enthralling, and quite unexpected. I saw it three times in
the theater, and wrote extensively about it (as well as Spider-Man: Homecoming) in a movie vs. movie article back in
November. As far as I’m concerned, Marvel was pretty much three-for-three this
year. Though Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.
2 didn’t live up to the original, it was far surpassed by Spider-Man: Homecoming, and with
expectations relatively high, Thor
ended up being the best MCU film of all three, for me.
6. War for the Planet of the Apes
Third films in a trilogy don’t get much more magnificent
than this. War for the Planet of the Apes
brought the story of Cesar to a wholly satisfying and emotional close. Somehow,
all three movies managed to craft totally different human characters, and this
time around, I think there were actually more ape scenes than human scenes, but
Woody Harrelson as the villainous colonel might be the most compelling human character
of all. Andy Serkis gave his best performance yet as Cesar, and all of the
supporting cgi characters were as real as I could have imagined. It was a
near-total success.
5. Logan
So if War for the
Planet of the Apes was a near total success, how come it’s only at #6? It
was tough ranking these ten movies, but as great as Apes was, I wasn’t quite as emotionally invested or affected by it
as I was by these other films. Logan
in particular was a tough watch. Instead of being just another X-Men film, it was essentially a
western, just with a superhero as the lead. There has never been a comic book
film quite like this one before, and I doubt there will be an equivalent for
some time. To see Hugh Jackman give it his all in this film (as well as Patrick
Stewart and newcomer Dafne Keene) was better than I could have hoped or
imagined.
4. Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi
I didn’t expect the next chapter in the Star Wars saga to be one of the most controversial films of 2017,
but that doesn’t matter to me. I went in without any real expectations, and was
initially quite taken aback by what I saw (in a good way), then when I
re-watched it a second and third time, it wasn’t the same with the lack of
surprise. However, I still think The Last
Jedi is as fun and entertaining as a blockbuster of this type can be in
this day and age. I appreciated that it didn’t treat Star Wars as this precious entity like The Force Awakens did, but still respected the essence of it. The
only sad part is I think it might be the last great Star Wars movie (for me), because I can’t imagine how it could get
better than this moving forward.
3. Logan Lucky
Not enough people talked about this movie. It came out in
late summer to little fanfare, yet it’s one of the most competently-made films
of its genre that I’ve seen. Imagine Ocean’s
Eleven, if it were about rednecks. It’s an extremely fun film, largely
thanks to the ensemble cast, led by Channing Tatum in one of his best
performances I’ve seen from him, and Kylo Ren himself, Adam Driver, who I found
hilarious every time he opened his mouth. Daniel Craig, too, who I’m not often
a fan of, was perfect. The pacing was great, the comedy was effective, there
were unexpected moments, and it had heart. I definitely recommend checking it
out.
2. Gerald’s Game
I was in total shock after watching this adaptation of
Stephen King’s novel, which was at one point called “unfilmable”, but somehow
Mike Flanagan, who did last year’s inventive slasher/thriller Hush (also on Netflix), found a way that
worked, in practically every way. Sure, IT
was the big Stephen King movie hit of 2017, but this was the best one, for
me. It’s relentlessly paced and unbelievably intense, even though it takes
place mostly in one setting and features only two characters, and the acting by
Carla Gugino was so perfect I couldn’t imagine anyone else in the role. This
movie is not for the faint of heart, though. There is one moment that had me so
revolted I had to look away for a second. Now that is the sign of a great film. Gerald’s Game is certainly the most underrated film of the year, to
me.
1. Get Out
There’s a reason Get
Out has the highest Rotten Tomatoes score of any other 2017 release. I
wrestled with deciding what movie I enjoyed the most this year, but what it
came down to was this: Get Out was
the movie I wanted to re-watch the most, and the one I continued to talk about
the longest after seeing it. All I can really say is, believe the hype. It is not overrated. It really is the
perfectly-executed thriller than everyone has been boasting it as. Is it the
most original film ever? Hell no. But it doesn’t matter. It is so expertly
crafted, I have no doubt it will stand the test of time, and be remembered as
one of the classics of the era, which is the most impressive thing of all,
considering it’s in a genre that is constantly saturated with sub-par material.
Get Out is definitely my favourite
film of 2017. 
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