Over the last three years I have written articles about the best moments in film that year. But 2016 frankly, was a stinker. So let’s go over the worst moments in film this year that made us sad, angry, disappointed or just simply emotionless.
10. Movies you forgot existed
This year was so swept up in the carnage of super-hero films and the inevitable onslaught of reboots and sequels (don’t worry we’ll get to those) that we forgot that there were quite a few original ideas that made the grade. I’m not entirely sure how movies like Arrival could exist when we had to cop trash-fires like God of Egypt, Dirty Grandpa and Warcraft
9. Apocalypse is a weirdo
A highly anticipated film that was both underwhelming and uninteresting. Audiences were excited when Bryan Singer came back on board to direct X-Men Apocalypse but were left feeling empty when they were given a story trying desperately to tie their two simultaneous timelines together, and forgetting to focus on the villain, easily the heroes biggest threat to date, yet Apocalypse is just as lame as he is strange. Apocalypse is completely devoid of any kind of menacing nature and is a pointless threat and merely a vessel to make Professor X and Magneto become besties again – like every other X-men film, it’s a yawnfest
8. Zoolander 2 style over substance
We were excited and ready to see the return of Derek Zoolander and Hansel on another wacky adventure packed with clever humour, tight writing and comedic timing. I guess we’ll have to keep on waiting. It’s a 90-something minute cameo-fest, where clearly Ben Stiller was hoping that flash and flair could distract from the fact this it is the worst comedy of the year (or was… until you see #2 on this list). Zoolander 2 had a stupid storyline with shoehorned moments harking back to the 2001 classic, this should never have been made and ruined the Zoolander legacy.
7. Independence Day’s existence
Speaking of ruined legacies; it’s been 20 years since the first Independence Day, and so Roland Emmerich decided his exponential decline in quality of movies needed another victim. Why this movie turned out the way it did – I’d have to write an essay about it. It’s a disappointment because this film had potential, and an interesting premise is all we could’ve hoped for but we don’t even get there, no matter how many cities you want to show getting destroyed.
6. Crappy reboots
I totally understand the impetus behind a reboot, sometimes old classics can have a modern twist, 21 Jump Street for example. Sometimes it’s cool and fresh to re-work an old story for a new generation, and sometimes it’s a plain and simple cash-grab. Ghostbusters and Point Break are just some examples of a remake gone bust. Total let-downs and they leave the audience asking why this ever existed in the first place, and it is certainly not the last of them *cough Ben Hur.
5. Crappy sequels
Jack Reacher 2, Finding Dory, Jason Bourne, London Has Fallen
Now You See me 2, Bad Neighbours 2… it’s actually a very long list of ‘who-gives-a-crap’ movies, of which I saw them all and my overall opinion is this: I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.
4. Twist in Inferno
Spoilers here. I love Tom Hanks and I love Ron Howard… However, I don’t love Inferno. In fact, I am so impassive toward it I’ve given this movie no thought since I wrote its review. Such a shame because the Da Vinci Code was cool, and Angels vs. Demons, despite being a little on the nose, was a fun adventure mystery. I’m not sure what Inferno was and it seems neither did the filmmakers, with a second act twist where the sidekick character played by Felicity Jones betrays Tom Hanks and leaves him for dead. Ok. Problem is nobody cares because her character was so unlikable and vanilla, leaving the reveal to be nothing more than a frustrated exhale not a shock or surprise.
3. Suicide Squads re-edits
The trailer gave us so much promise, I was excited to see DC strut its stuff after a slew of downright horrid movies in competition with Marvel’s polished cinematic universe. Well, I’m not sure who got their hands on this (and I don’t blame the brilliant director David Ayer on this) but someone in the executive room decided to play twister with the plot structure and throw everything everywhere for no reason whatsoever. What remains is a Picasso painting, and a huge let down.
2. The whole of Office Christmas Party
Seriously…this isn’t straight-to-DVD; it’s straight-to-the-incinerator
1. Justice League reveal
Batman vs. Superman could have had this spot to itself on the whole, from the ‘both our Mums are called Martha? Lets be friends!’ to Lois Lane throwing the spear in the water only to retrieve it back less than three minutes later, I decided to focus on one particular scene that erodes my faith in cinema.
What irks me the most about this picture is the reveal of the Justice League. The epic, intense and super important scene where all our heroes we’ll be stuck watching and seeing everywhere for the next 10 years of cinema is shown to us in a montage of Gal Gadot watching a video from a USB drive… It took the collective wind out of any momentum that movie was building, it was lazy, it was stupid and it solidified for me why Marvel will always crush DC when it comes to movies – they know what the audience wants and they don’t tell us what to like.