All week, we at mxdwn will be looking back at what the cinema had to offer in 2016. Before we get to the good stuff and start celebrating the very best achievements of the year, our staff compiled a list of their absolute least favorite movies of 2016, our cinematic shame so to speak. Take a gander.
BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE
Read our review and discussion.
Unfortunately, there were many bad movies this year, but Batman v Superman takes the cake. A mess of CGI, bad characterizations and with a rambling plot, Batman v Superman‘s horrible nature was mostly due to a bad script and terrible direction by Zack Snyder. It might have been saved by more inclusion of its two great female characters — Wonder Woman and Lois Lane. Instead we got several long, unimportant dream sequences and a weird villain whose plan didn’t make any sense.
-Kristen Santer
A BIGGER SPLASH
Read our review.
A Bigger Splash was a movie in love with it’s own notion of itself. High-minded concepts that make for an impossibly bland and boring cinematic experience. A criminal waste of top-tier acting talent.
-Raymond Flotat
CRIMINAL
Criminal is embarrassing due to it’s weak characters, terrible writing and lackadaisical pacing. A film that no one will remember once you’ve left the theater. Great actors, including Kevin Costner and Ryan Reynolds, are wasted on a stupid plot that features tasteless action and nothing remotely interesting within the confines of its genre.
-Rick Rice
INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE
Read our review.
To put it simply: after twenty years in studio development, this was the best we got from Roland Emmerich? Yeah, it’s that bad.
-Ben Wasserman
THE JUNGLE BOOK
The Jungle Book had none of the excitement and fun from the original animated movie. Instead it had a clunky narrative, a cliché-riddled plot and horribly placed musical numbers that made you constantly question if the movie was actually attempting to be a musical or not.
-Alyssa Merwin
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS
Read our review.
A bunch of pretension that can’t overcome a very lazy plot and never quite gets under the skin of its characters but forces emotions rather than actually making situations organic enough for them to make much sense. Michael Shannon rises so high above the material if he were to get nominated there would be no argument here.
-Nathaniel Mathis
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES
Like the Seth Grahame Smith novel it is based on, this film is a poor excuse for parody. The concept and its execution seem more like a collection and combination of fetishes rather than a true attempt at originality. The addition of zombies to Victorian England manners proves to be infinitely more lazy than creative. The comedy is obvious as well as the acting, and the film’s existence defines the problem of studio output.
-Rachel Lutack
SAUSAGE PARTY
Totally crude and unintelligent, but not nearly funny enough to justify its vulgarity.
-Karen Earnest
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS
How to chose the worst movie? Choosing between Zoolander 2 and Collateral Beauty or The Brothers Grimbsy and Gods of Egypt? The bloated, self-importance of Snowden? But I’d like to single out a Netflix exclusive that was clearly intended for theatrical release – Ricky Gervais’ Special Correspondents. It’s a Kevin Smith-level milestone that eliminates any remnant of good feelings one might still have towards the star/co-creator of iconic sitcoms The Office and Extras. (And Gervais wrote and directed the film, so the fault lies on him.) Its attempts at satire oscillate between being too limp and too broad with its target never really clear, and the third act takes such a bizarre left turn that you wonder if it’s a dream sequence because even that would be less horrible and hacky. Plus, it’s one of those movies that seems to think that we’d feel for an incompetent pathetic loser as though being an incompetent pathetic loser is a redeeming quality rather than realizing those people are not likable. If anyone escapes from this unscathed its America Ferrara, as a daffy waitress, and Eric Bana, who plays second fiddle to Gervais but as an actor deserves so much better.
-Brett Harrison Davinger
SUICIDE SQUAD
Read our review.
What a giant piece of hot garbage. Despite some admirable (if troubling) performances from an all star cast, David Ayer’s fever dream is a nightmare of bad choices, studio notes and even more bad choices. The plot of the movie is so mind-numbing and broken, its hard to believe that real actual pants-wearing, taxes paying, book reading adults made this movie. If you told me that David Ayer spent the entire production tied up in his trailer while some Pepsi-tweaked thirteen year old had a spastic field day, I would absolutely believe you.
-John Wedemeyer
For all the hype leading up to this film, this blockbuster was poorly written and relied on cheap thrills. Instead of appealing to all types of audiences, they simply made a rock-infused, neon, street art mess of a super hero film that failed to develop the interesting characters available to the filmmakers.
-Katherine Sanderson
WARCRAFT
Read our review.
Ugly, stupid and dull, Warcraft is a terrible movie and a huge disappointment coming from Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code).
-Matthew Passantino
ZOOLANDER 2
Read our review.
Zoolander 2 had a great cast, director and premise to get it off to a good start. But it ended up being one of the un-funniest movies in years, and only made me yearn for years past when mainstream comedies weren’t executed so lazily.
-Henry Faherty
Agree? Disagree? Sound off in the comments.
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