The Top Ten Worst Movies of 2016

It was actually a little difficult for me to find 10 movies worthy enough to be considered The Worst of 2016, but that doesn't mean 2016 was a vast improvement over previous years. Hollywood still churned out plenty of crap. I just avoided watching it more than usual. With each mini-review I include the movie's "Hail Mary", some small nugget of legitimate entertainment where I briefly didn't hate what I was watching. Fair warning, some of these really don't have any.

These are listed in order from least worst (10) to absolute worst (1).

Fun fact: 4 out of 10 of these are comic book movies and 3 out of 10 have colons ( : ) in their titles!

Enjoy!






10. Sully

Director: Clint Eastwood

A movie made exclusively for the ultra jingoistic, Clint Eastwood’s latest continues his streak of not making a single movie worth watching since 2008’s Gran Torino. Mining the drama out of the drama-less Miracle on the Hudson, the film focuses on Captain Sullenberger’s landing and subsequent hearing to determine whether or not he was justified in landing on the water. There is thematic potential in a story about how bureaucrats and the media always need someone to blame for a disaster (or in this case, a sort of near miss), but the film plays it safe and by the numbers. The movie’s court room climax is ludicrous, where Tom Hanks’ character of Sully saves his bacon and outwits the investigation board by suggesting during the hearing itself that they factor in human reaction time to their computer simulations of the Hudson landing. This one change of course immediately absolves Sully of the accusations. Any investigator who hadn’t already tried all possible factors in the simulations before the hearing would be horribly incompetent and probably fired. This movie was made solely for Americans who need to applaud and clap themselves on the back every chance they can get. And it isn’t the only one on this list.  

The Hail Mary:  The actual sequence of Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart dealing with the engine malfunction and landing the plane on the Hudson River is a solid and tense piece of filmmaking procedural. Unfortunately it is only a fraction of the entire movie and Tom Hanks has tackled this kind of realistic reenactment before in two much more entertaining films, Captain Philips and Apollo 13.

9. Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

Director: Tim Burton

Tim Burton’s 2016 adaptation of the Ransom Riggs YA novel was doomed well before the brief white-washing controversy, although Burton’s defense for only casting white actors as the titular children certainly didn’t save this one. Eva Mendes tries to lend some authority to her role as Miss. Peregrine, the caretaker of the film’s Peculiar Children, and Sam Jackson is at least somewhat fun as his occasionally unsettling villain, but Asa Butterfield is a walking statue giving the most wooden performance I have ever seen in a big Hollywood production (and he has enough work under his belt to be past this stage in his young career). Completely by the numbers, and unfortunately driving full steam ahead into Hollywood’s desire to turn every property into a Cinematic Universe, Tim Burton’s latest proves that he is no longer the same man who once gave us Ed Wood, Big Fish, and Sweeny Todd. And he hasn’t been for some time.

The Hail Mary:  An interesting visual display when we see how Miss. Peregrine and her children travel through time to create an alternate universe sanctuary around their house. The ending boardwalk battle with reanimated skeletons and H.R. Giger rip off monsters also gives a brief breath of fresh air while reminding us that Burton once had a soul.

8. Hacksaw Ridge

Director: Mel Gibson

It has been pointed out numerous times by film critics that only Mel Gibson could ironically make a violent, ultra bloody war movie out of a story about a conscientious objector. Plenty of great movies about soldiers and war have been made in Hollywood’s history (Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now) but none so boilerplate while simultaneously applauded by the Academy (6 Oscar nominations). Hacksaw Ridge is easily the most decorated movie on this list. Like so many war films since Saving Private Ryan, Gibson throws at us the over imitated moment where an explosive goes off and a character’s ears ring as they stand around dazed, watching as their brothers in arms around them are brutally shot down. The acting overall is nothing to write home about (Andrew Garfield does the best he can, but I’m just going to pretend that his Best Actor nomination was really for Silence) and the plot is nothing we haven’t seen a hundred times before.

The Hail Mary:  From an artistic point of view, there isn’t much here worth a second viewing. However, if the film’s depiction of Desmond Doss and his convictions, not to mention his feats as a medic during battle, are half as accurate as they were in real life, then he is definitely a war hero in every sense of the word and deserves to be celebrated. But it should be through the lens of a better movie.

7. Yoga Hosers

Director: Kevin Smith

Plenty of films are released which feel disingenuous and reek of studio meddling. Plenty are passion projects bogged down with self-indulgence due to a filmmaker having full creative control of their project. Yoga Hosers is the latter, although it’s hard to figure out where director Kevin Smith’s passion went. Less a film than Kevin Smith’s expensive adaptation of one of his Smodcast stories, Yoga Hosers stars Kevin Smith’s daughter Harley Quinn and Johnny Depp’s daughter Lily-Rose as Canadian convenient store clerks (this movie will make you pine for the days of Jeff Anderson and Brian O’Halloran discussing hermaphrodite porn) who battle bratwurst Nazi creatures, called Bratzis, just…just because. Kevin Smith’s Red State was a tense, political game changer which opened up the door for the filmmaker to create a more mature slate of films, and Tusk, the first film in his True North Trilogy, was one part brilliant, one part God awful, but all enthralling horror comedy. Yoga Hosers is written and directed with none of Smith’s signature wit and characterization, especially not as entertaining as the Smodcast episode which spawned it. Filled with nothing but cliché and looooooow brow jabs at teenagers and Canadian stereotypes (young people are obsessed with their phones and Canadians say “aboot” a lot. I bet you didn’t know that), the film has more Tusk alumni (Justin Long, Johnny Depp, Haley Joel Osment) than actual laughs. But hey, Moose Jaws is just right around the corner.

The Hail Mary:  An amusing cameo by Batman: the Animated Series voice actor Kevin Conroy and an appearance by True North Trilogy private investigator Guy Lapointe, once again played with gusto by Johnny Depp (although his shtick is already growing stale).

6. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

Director: Dave Green

This one should have been an obvious warning flag ever since it was green lit after 2014’s Michael Bay fest, but I’ve seen it. So I have to talk about it. While a slight improvement over its insincere, winking at the camera predecessor, TMNT 2 is still the sequel to its insincere predecessor. A slight improvement is no improvement at all. CGI apocalyptic mayhem and nonsense, complete with my oh-so favorite kind of climax, involving a giant portal in the sky that must be closed in order to prevent more CGI from coming through, and Megan Fox being forced to catwalk strut wearing a midriff-revealing schoolgirl outfit (and after Michael Bay’s treatment of her during the filming of Bad Boys II, I honestly do feel bad for her), let us know that it’s business as usual in the current TMNT movie universe. But at least we get a giggling Tyler Perry as Baxter Stockman. That’s at least…something.

The Hail Mary: Bebop and Rocksteady! And best of all…Krang! But I guess a Brundlefly Baxter Stockman would have just been silly.

5. X-Men: Apocalypse 

Director: Bryan Singer

There isn’t a whole lot to say about this one except that X2: X-Men United is still the Gold Standard for Marvel superhero movies and Bryan Singer was once a good filmmaker. Although flawed, 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past and 2011’s First Class revived the franchise and returned it to what made audiences fall in love with cinema’s merry mutants in the first place. Age of Apocalypse, however, completely squandered whatever momentum was reborn with its predecessors. An overall boring, stale, and paint by numbers CGI fest, Apocalypse has more in common with the worst summer blockbusters Hollywood has to offer than the genuinely human and fun X-Men movies of the 2000 and 2003. James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, and Michael Fassbender are given nothing to work with and Oscar Issaac is utterly wasted covered in CGI makeup and voice modulation as the titular villain Apocalypse. Like all terrible popcorn movies, this third entry in the First Class trilogy is a complete snooze fest. It should also be noted that in a superhero series guilty of ignoring continuity and shifting timelines (and I don’t mean how Days of Future Past sort of “erased” The Last Stand), Singer can’t even keep the continuity intact between direct sequels.

The Hail Mary:  A completely unnecessary, and distracting, side trip to the Weapon X facility at Alkali Lake at least offers comic audiences the one scene they’ve been waiting since 2003 to see done right. Wolverine’s iconic, and bloody, escape from captivity and brutal eviscerating of the Weapon X scientists and guards. But at two-thirds through the movie, the audience might already be too busy sleeping to notice.

4. Doctor Strange

Director: Scott Derrickson

It is no real surprise that the quality of movies churned out by Marvel Studios have taken a large dip ever since 2008’s Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. For the most part they have provided mild doses of fun (except for the Thors) but nothing worthy of the almost universal praise by both critics and fans. While early 2016’s Captain America: Civil War was an entertaining, Avengers-sized slugfest (and if you’re down for seeing big named heroes wallop on each other, vastly preferable to Batman V Superman), late 2016’s Doctor Strange was nothing more than a stale, overlong preview for future Marvel movies  (like most of their origin stories tend to be). It’s safe to say I’ve never been more angry watching a Marvel movie than I had been during Doctor Strange. An origin (and protagonist) more or less repeated from Iron Man, utterly atrocious and abysmal humor (before you watch this one, it’s important to know that “Single Ladies” is a song), and Benedict Cumberbatch giving the most wooden and stale performance of any titular Marvel hero (the other Avengers actors give their all and at least have fun playing their roles), Doctor Strange ranks down there with the two Thor movies as being the most factory-assembled Marvel product to date. I was ready to walk out of the theater during the scene where Strange makes fun of Wong’s name by listing off pop stars like Adele and Drake (this is how Marvel makes their movies genuine and realistic, by the way). And surprise, surprise, in the end our hero has to close a giant portal in the sky.

The Hail Mary: I would pay to watch Mads Mikkelsen read the phone book. And while the requisite end credits scene is as convoluted as in any other Marvel movie, at least it gives us a glimpse into the only Avengers movie worth being excited for, Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok. That’s of course only if Marvel actually lets Waititi make an actual movie with an actual point of view.

3. Don't Breathe

Director: Fede Alvarez

Extremely unpleasant and cliché-ridden thriller proves that no matter how clever you think your premise is, execution is everything. Stereotypical trio of young thieves break into the home of a blind war vet in the hopes of scoring easy money. Soon the hunters become the hunted but the Blind Man also becomes as unsympathetic as his intruders when the story dives right into queasy, brutal horror territory. Usually a more charismatic actor, Stephen Lang doesn’t have much to work with as the Blind Man but he doesn’t bring much to the table either. The script does its absolute best to hit the bull’s-eye of every cliché target in an effort to simply keep the thieves inside of the house as long as possible. The Blind Man struggles to navigate his house and shoot his intruders during the first half of the movie, but in the second half he magically becomes a crack shot and slasher killer worthy of Jason when the structure calls for a character to die. A character is impaled with shears and thought to be dead, only to magically come back to life to save another character at the last second (and then to be shot dead for real five minutes later). When your script as no concept of a thematic endgame, you extend the story for as long as possible in order to reach the 80 minute mark. Director Fede Alvarez brought some fun and ingenuity to his 2013 Evil Dead remake, but Don’t Breathe is just a slog.

The Hail Mary:  Nothing in this movie warrants a second viewing. There are scenes that make me ashamed that Sam Raimi’s name is attached to it.

2. Suicide Squad

Director: David Ayer

There were plenty of big studio superhero movies worth avoiding in 2016, but while star hitter Marvel at least provides some semblance of fun, Warner Brothers keeps tripping over their own feet as they stumble up to the plate. David Ayer has proven himself a competent, successful filmmaker (2014’s Fury is all the convincing I need), but DC is clearly not interested in creating competent films. Only (financially) successful ones. You can almost forgive Marvel for using their current movies to plug future ones, because both of DC’s 2016 outings are tapestries of over indulgence, concerned more with 2017’s Justice League than with whatever junk fest they got you to buy a ticket for (don’t believe me? The five second cameo of Batman is, I guess, the most entertaining part of the movie). Boring and murky, bogged down by too many characters who’s backgrounds are explained with literal trading cards full of stats in the very first scene of the movie instead of through organic storytelling, complete disregard for creativity of any kind, and a soundtrack bombarding the audience with hits so that the studio executives can let you know that they’ve seen Guardians of the Galaxy, Suicide Squad brings absolutely nothing new to the action movie table. But at least Justice League helmer Zak Snyder was humble enough to climb down from the Heavens and bless us with his genius for that awe inspiring Flash scene…

The Hail Mary: There is none. At least, none on the screen. But the instant Jared Leto said in an early interview that his performance of the Joker was going to make you forget about Heath Ledger, I knew that I could never like this movie. His portrayal is nothing but a complete rip-off of Ledger’s and anyone who says otherwise is an idiot. The only possible saving grace for this movie is that Leto’s Joker scenes were cut out so viciously that he’s only in the finished product for about five minutes. I guess studio execs aren’t all bad.

1. Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice

I don’t even know where to begin, because it’s all been said before and it’s all 100% correct. Zak Snyder’s second foray into the Warner Brothers DC Universe is an overlong, over packed, nonsensical, dour, joyless, passionless, slog. Even the titular fight between Batman and Superman (you know, the whole reason anyone actually paid money to see this garbage) is dull and poorly staged (and happens about 2 hours in). DC’s mad dash to beat Marvel in the superhero movie race is the equivalent of a hung-over student waking up to realize that the paper worth a third of their grade is due, so they copy and paste their research from ten different articles into a word document in the hopes that no one will notice. The most entertaining, and most competent, scene in the movie where Ben Affleck’s Batman fights off armed goons in an abandoned warehouse  is still just a pooooooor man’s Batman Begins or The Dark Knight action sequence (and let’s face it, it’s a rip off). After sitting through this, I pined for The Dark Knight Rises. Hell, I pined for Batman and Robin. The golden days of Christopher Nolan’s caped crusader are over, boys and girls. From here on out Bats is doomed to a life regulated by a 13 year old boy (from Green Bay too, ugh) armed with film equipment and an allowance from the Brothers Warner.

The Hail Mary: At least the movie ends.