10 Most Polarising Movies Of 2017
This year's cinematic Marmite.
Some of this year's movies were hailed as all-time classics, from Christopher Nolan's wartime epic Dunkirk, to Hugh Jackman's R-rated, genre-redefining final Wolverine outing in Logan, while others were given the critical panning they deserve. With any luck, there won't be another The Emoji Movie this lifetime, after the way the original was received.
When the quality of a film gravitates towards one of the polar extremes, fans and critics are usually in widespread agreement on the verdict, but somewhere between the masterpieces and the CGI turds is the divisive middle of the spectrum.
This is where cinema's equivalent of Marmite sits, the movies that split reviewers and audiences straight down the middle and occasionally turn the two camps against one another. A good example is 2016's Suicide Squad, which proved divisive enough to inspire a fan petition to take down Rotten Tomatoes and its stinking reviews of the film.
This year has also seen its fair share of polarising flicks, from superhero films that pleased the fans but left the critics unmoved, to remakes that some felt were more justified than others.
10. Murder On The Orient Express
Both audiences and reviewers found as much to love as to hate about Kenneth Branagh's Agatha Christie remake Murder on the Orient Express. It was a slick and stylish return journey, but is that enough to justify buying another ticket 40 years later?
That's what nobody seemed to be able to agree on. An all-star cast and eye-popping visuals kept the movie on track, but many dismissed it as an unnecessary rehash of a murder-mystery classic.
Branagh shone in the role of Poirot, even if he did hog the spotlight, and he was nothing but respectful to the source material. Nevertheless, you'll find as many critics saying they were compelled by his investigation as those who were bored by it.
Those mixed reviews didn't derail Murder on the Orient Express. So far, it has made $238.8 million off a budget of $55 million, which has proved enough to push a sequel based on Christie's Death on the Nile into development.