Greetings, Glancers! You may know that 1987 is my favourite year for movies. If you look at my favourite movies of that year list, you’ll see how much love I have for the year. Like any year, there are still duds, movies I didn’t enjoy, and movies I actively hate.
Baby Boom
Most of the films I’ve chosen for this list are not bad films – they are simply the films which always seemed to be on every Sunday evening of afternoon when I was hoping for an Indiana Jones or 007 movie, and as such they come with negative associations. Baby Boom however, is one of those random movies which was forced on me and seemed to have no redeeming features to a young boy who wanted guns, monsters, and action, and watching again as an adult it’s simply another in the long line of vapid Diane Keaton vehicles – worse, it was one of the precursors to what is now an unfortunate sub-genre of its own, the ‘high-powered career woman’ realises that babies are cute/men are cute/other things are more important’. It’s an idea which is still saturated in media today, and one which has neither matured or progressed a single degree in the last few decades.
Batteries Not Included
When I wanted Goonies, I would get this. It’s fine, but doesn’t have the action, the humour, the thrills of what I look for in a Sci Fi movie
Fatal Attraction
A soft-core porn movie with no sex, a thriller with no thrills, and just a scorned lady with a thing against lupines. Doubling down on the populace’s need for salacious scandal and titillation, Fatal Attraction is a well-acted but failure of a thriller which Basic Instinct would later surpass.
Harry And The Hendersons
This was one of those movies that I always wanted to be more. It’s too light and fuzzy – the laughs are neither frequent nor funny enough, the action is uneventful, and the heart is sub-Hallmark. Good costume, good Lithgow, but I prefer my Lithgow completely off the rails.
Jaws The Revenge
The only truly bad movie on the list, this is such a departure from the first two movies that it’s ultimately disrespectful that it carries the same name. As awful as the third movie is, at least it as some shark action. This is nothing, and even the memes and the so bad it’s good moments are not enough to save it – one of the worst movies of all time.
Mannequin
A Rom-com, so I’m halfway out the door before it begins, but it does have a good central premise. The 80s at least were good for doing something different with the genre every so often – though this is a slighter twist on Splash. It’s fine, but again it was on when I wanted Back To The Future.
Masters Of The Universe
I was a huge fan of the He-Man cartoon in the 80s – it was essential viewing. When we learned there was a movie, my brother and I quickly demanded a trip to the video shop to see what was sure to be the most important Cinematic moment of the century. What we got was a pre-Skeletor Courtney Cox teaming up with a monotone Dolph Lundgren to save earth from a variety of furries and baddies, with the help of other furries and goodies. It.. has some visual appeal, and Skeletor looks genuinely scary – Lundgren looks the part too, but when anyone opens their mouth or anything happens… it’s embarrassing when a children’s cartoon created to sell toys has a smarter script, more engaging action, and stronger ideas than a full blown Hollywood thing.
Roxanne
It’s Steve Martin with a funny nose.
Let us know in the comments what your least favourite movies of 1987 are!
The Spac Hole 