Best and Worst Films of 2016

[CrazyGirl17]

I didn't see too many movies this year, though the ones I did see - Deadpool and Zootopia - I really enjoyed. I understand that these too movies are pretty far apart on the spectrum of movie ratings, but screw it, I don't care.

 

[Kenbo Slice]

Without spoiling the movie, can anyone tell me what makes 10 Cloverfield Lane good? Because Cloverfield was pretty terrible.

It's because it is the opposite of Cloverfield. It is a tense thriller about 3 people in a bunker. It is incredibly well-acted. John Goodman deserves an Oscar for his performance in it. I am not exaggerating. He was that good.

I decided to not make a list of best movies. None of them really stood out as the best. However, there a lot of movies that I really liked for different reasons.

Best Acted: 10 Cloverfield Lane - I have already raved about John Goodman. Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Gallagher Jr. are also fantastic in this intense drama.

Best Animation: Zootopia - What haven't been said about this movie? Great voice acting, great writing, and most importantly a smart message about tolerance.

Best Comic Book Movie: Deadpool - I am starting to feel a little burned out with all these superhero movies. So, this movie came along at the right time to give it a fresh R-Rated, irreverent energy to the genre.

Best Comedy: Keanu - It was going to be Army of One, because it was criminally underseen. However, I recently revisited the best action movie that features a cute kitten. Key & Peele delivers a hilarious comedy about the absurd length a guy would go to get his cat back.

Best Written: Hell or High Water - The dialogue in every scene in this movie just pops. He made overused tropes really fresh and demonstrate why they matters.

Best Musical Movie: Swiss Army Man - This movie is definitely WTF! However, there are remarkable musical moments in this movie that really stands out. My favorite is Montage.
I forgot to mentioned the worst movie I saw. It was easily Ghostbusters. It was just too much talk about a cynically produced, sub-par, nostalgic cash grab of movie.

The singer and guitarist of Manchester Orchestra did the music for Swiss Army Man. It's no surprise it was great.

 

[Prepper247]

Only saw the arrival and rogue one - both exceeded my expectations!

 

[McElroy]

2016 films I've watched:

Deadpool
Zootopiatropolis
Rogue Uno
Captain America: Civil Scuffle
Star Trek Beyond

Star Trek is the only one I consider bad while the rest are all 7/10 or maybe 6/10. Deadpool edges out Zootopia because it has a dick-punch while Zootopia has clothes on animals who don't have anything to cover up anyway.

I get that the main draw of Zootopia is its main duo, and those two do a fantastic job. Otherwise it's just way too clean and manufactured like Bolt all over again. I also watched Inside Out this year and just the idea of a world inside one's head makes it a better movie than any of these 5. Even in Blacksad your furry mind can toy with the idea of being a man-cat or something, but in Zootopia none of that makes any sense.

But hey somebody liked a Finnish film. A rare occurrence.

EDIT: Meh-tier films I initially forgot about: BvS, X-Men, Legend of Tarzan's Abs...

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Now I can't give a huge list, 'cause I didn't see too many movies this year, but.

Best:
1. Zootopia. No question. Easily in my Top 10 of all time, certainly the best of the year.
2. Rogue One. I liked it! I really did! It was unique, and all but gut-punched that terrible Force Awakens.
3. Captain America Civil War. People seem to have forgotten this one came out. And although there are serious plotholes, like how the villain knew anything about anything, the fight scenes more than make up for it.

Worst:
1. Suicide Squad. It was a mess. An utter mess from start to finish, that felt like 30 scripts put into a blender, loading into a shotgun and fired at a Jane Austin novel, and then performed by dead howler monkeys.
2. Star Trek Beyond. Beastie Boy's Sabotage destroys an army of giant robot space bees.
3. Sausage Party. 1999 was 17 years ago. And cock jokes stopped being edgy two hundred years before '99!

I saw a few other movies, like Warcraft and Deadpool and Dr. Strange, and meh. Worth mentioning, so
These movies exist
1. Deadpool
2. Warcraft
3. Dr. Strange

 

[Breakdown]

I really liked Captain America Civil War, Rogue One and the Jungle Book. Deadpool was pretty good. I'm struggling to think of a bad new film but I've settled on Bone Tomahawk. It's not a bad film as such, just really mediocre. And there's too much limping going on.

 

[Chanticoblues]

I've got a lot of films left to see from 2016. Like I've seen maybe a third of what I want to. That said, here's all I've seen from this year in tiers:

It's excellent:
-Sieranevada
-Yourself and Yours
-Staying Vertical
It's great:
-Sully
-Toni Erdmann
-Nocturama
-Aquarius
-Moonlight
It's real good:
-A Quiet Passion
-The Death of Louis XIV
-Paterson
-Love & Friendship
It's good:
-Personal Shopper
-Things to Come
-10 Cloverfield Lane
-Kubo and the Two Strings
-The BFG
-Hail Caesar!
It's OK:
-The Wailing
-Weiner
-Wiener-Dog
-Cafe Society
-Midnight Special
-Zootopia
-The Nice Guys
-Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
-Jackie
It's not so good:
-Nocturnal Animals
-The Magnificent Seven
-Doctor Strange
-Hell or High Water
-Captain America: Civil War
-Deadpool
It's bad:
-Arrival
-Fire at Sea
-The Neon Demon

 

[tippy2k2]

Fear not people for it is I, tippy2k2, here to tell you what to think! You're welcome

The problem I always run into when it comes to Best and Worst is that I feel like the best movie usually isn't my favorite movie. Also, I never seem to remember movies as even reading this thread, I'm remembering movies that I forgot I saw that I really liked (and didn't like). So keep that in mind as my scores might not fully match what I'm listing here for the two of you that read my reviews

So with all that said...

Favorite Movie: Deadpool [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.934544-tippy2k2-tells-you-what-to-think-Deadpool]

My bias is 100% percent on my sleeve with this one but I adore Deadpool more than a grown man should. While it's certainly not the best movie of the year (see my warning above), it was easily my favorite.

Worst Movie: Batman V Superman; Dawn of Justice [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.942190-tippy2k2-tells-you-what-to-think-Batman-V-Superman-Dawn-of-Justice] and X-Men Apocalypse [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.944429-tippy2k2-tells-you-what-to-think-X-Men-Apocalypse]

The best part of me not caring about what's actually new and whatnot when I write my stupid reviews is that I get to just watch movies I want to watch and therefore get to avoid a lot of garbage. BvS is one of those that I knew was porbably not going to be great but I was one of the seven people who liked Man of Steel so I figured I might like it. I was wrong. I'll likely make that same mistake with Suicide Squad too but damn it, I want to see it!

X-Men Apocalypse was just freaking boring. That doesn't seem like it should be possible with superpowered mutants running all over the place but everything it did was done better already.

Biggest Surprise: Hardcore Henry [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.945357-tippy2k2-tells-you-what-to-think-Hardcore-Henry]

I feel like I'm the only one who absolutely loved Hardcore Henry. No internet, I will not apologize for that. Hardcore Henry was awesome and you should see it, if for any other reason to see Sharlto Copley be amazing.

The "Why did they ruin the movie??!?" award: 10 Cloverfield Lane [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.936094-tippy2k2-tells-you-what-to-think-10-Cloverfield-Lane]

I loved 85 minutes or so of 10 Cloverfield Lane. Absolutely amazing performances by everyone involved and an excellent mystery thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat. Then, the last 18 minutes happened and my smile turned into a frown real quick. I won't spoil it here but I don't think I ever went from being so high on a movie to so low on it like that ever. That ending was awful and everyone involved in that ending should feel bad that they ruined such a great movie.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Arrival is garbage ... like, all of it. It was factually wrong. None of it made sense, and worst of all even if it partly made sense the lead is then a deeply unlikeable, deeply idiotic person. The movie was garbage. The plot was inane, McGuffin-y, and hadn't a scant reasoning for its existence. A movie about psycholinguistics? Sounds great. Right up until you realize they did zero research. No ... I deeply disliked the film. Its pace is boring, its concept is retarded, its characters are broken, nasty, or pointless and yet the movie pretends otherwise, and none of it was researched and the plot is either LSD fueled or non-existent. Your choice.

Arrival isn't the worst movie of 2016 ... it is just agonizingly bad for how much money they spent on it.

Spoiler: If you're big into ranty vitriol...

It felt like two hours of wasted time and a trite, meaningless, *insulting* morality and conclusion that had me literally scoff as the credits appeared. Frankly it epitomizes the worst aspects of Cold War-esque paranoia about China as both irredeemably evil AND stupid, and how the magical mcguffin that saves them from themselves is how people construct language (because apparently Chinese figures themselves is inherently bad at this). Which is odd that a movie about linguistics and an alien language made up of radicals, spatial partitions and particles, that Chinese characters are somehow bad at constructing shared meaning. Despite the fact that written Chinese characters are given weight by its radicals, structural particles and partitions. Because, hey! Why should a movie about psycholinguistics make sense in terms of psycholinguistics!? Because Mahjong. No really. Mahjong. Chinese didn't understand because Mahjong. If it had been a film about Scandinavians and aliens, and how Americans wanted to hit them with nukes ... people would have screamed 'SJW propaganda'.

And I feel as if the makers of this thoughtless disaster of a film knew this.

Mahjong. This. This explanation here was enough for the reviewers and the makers of this god-awful trash to give two thumbs up. Mahjong. And this wasn't even the low point of the film.

None of it made sense. Not the psycholinguistics. Not the premise of the ships coming down. Not the aliens. Not their language or its explanation, which the movie IMMEDIATELY DISCREDITS AS A NON-LINEAR LANGUAGE DESPITE PRETENDING OTHERWISE. Not the shark-jumping garbage, hackneyed, forced conclusion to all problems forever(tm) at the end. Not the pathetic, intellectually insulting conclusion to the China problem. Not a fucking thing. It was a movie with emotion but not a lick of fucking sense. None of it made sense. Not in this universe or any other. Why did the aliens have to land on Earth rather than ship to surface capsules they are shown to have? Why did they come en masse? Why the fuck did they come at all now?

This movie didn't just commit cardinal film sins, it co-authored the fucking book with Adam Sandler. Lumping ontop of it all with bad characters, a POINTLESS supporting cast and pointless melodrama where the aliens themselves take a backseat to the deteriorating political conditions on Earth. That problem of which is handled at best as if from the mind of a raving Cold War-era prepper who has gone off their meds, and the conclusion of which is so fucking bad it's hard to imagine anybody but the scriptwriter's 5 year old kid wrote it.

Literally, the ending can be summed up as; "I need to tell you something I only know because you told me, but not really because it relies on you not doing a thing you will do if I don't tell you the thing you told me because you didn't." And don't give me that bullshit that all her trauma with her daughter was because she got unstuck in time, that is so beyond ridiculous as to be mind-numbingly stupid equal to every Shyamalan movie barring The 6th Sense. All to basically suggest none of it happened and therefore I shouldn't be invested *at all* in ANY of her actions, because they mean so little to begin with. It would also be inexcuseable to have that line; "If you want science, go talk to your father." Even though psycholinguistics is an interdisciplinary field in science, but putting even that aside... it would also mean I shouldn't give a shit in any of the chemistry of the cast members to begin with. Which if that was the case, good ... because there was none.

It also means that Banks is just a god-awful person through and through who learns nothing and ultimately treats her daughter like shit despite knowing ahead of time not to ... so perhaps you don't want to read too much into that theory. Also don't give me the garbage that living fragmented time makes it impossible for her to understand her actions in between moments, because she wouldn't have been able to make that phonecall if she couldn't. That last action insists the universe we operate in is both indeterministic and possibly suggests the capacity for humans to have free will. So she could, 100%, shape all elements of her reality. Including not being short-tempered arsewipe to her daughter.

Seriously, yelling at your daughter asking you for a word substitute for something when you're a fucking linguist and rubbing it in her face with a backhand how her parents have split up? AND you know that's wrong and you have literally been given God-like powers to undo it through postcognition of knowing you will say it and the power to not do so?

None of this movie makes sense and it was entirely ripped from another story to begin with, so it's not like they're treading unfamiliar territory.

This is what people gave two thumbs up about. This. The ending to this film is not merely lazy, not merely thoughtless, not merely schizophrenic ... it's just bad. You know what this movie is? Space Gods. And apparently Space Gods need help and humanity needs to be Space Gods, too. Because reasons. Which won't be given. Because reasons.

There was nothing in this movie that was smart, witty or original. Because none of it made sense ... and I will fight you if you pretend otherwise. Fuck the critics. While I'm at it, fuck all critics. You're as bad as the game reviewers that favourably compared the writing in Mass Effect to the script of The Godfather II.

The aliens? They were the Chinese. Their writing is like Chinese characters. And that would be a clever critique of international relations and the insane lengths we go to to paint other cultures as so alien to our own rather than realize the common bonds between all of mankind. Insanely clever. But no... we didn't get that movie, did we? Now... compare this with District 9. Same story, same elements, one actually makes sense. Watch District 9 instead. Or 2001: A Space Odyssey. Literally every other 'movie-about-aliens-but-not-really' is better or at least watchably bad at worst compared to this pile of rot congealed tripe of mindfuckingly awful dimensions.

I lost brain capacity for this film. Its only redeeming value is remembering how much I miss Stanley Kubrick.

 

[Marter]

*CTRL+F "Norm of the North"*

"No results found."

You havin' a laugh, Escapist?

Anyway, I can't spoil my SUPER SPECIAL CINEMARTER AWARDS 2016 that will be coming out soon-ish, but suffice to say that there's certainly one movie making my "worst of" list. ;-D

 

[Glongpre]

Arrival is garbage ... like, all of it. It was factually wrong. None of it made sense.

I really enjoyed Arrival, so I read all of that to see if I missed anything. And it seems like you just didn't like it's premise. Idk why you are getting so worked up about it either, were you really hyped for this movie???

Spoiler

-The movie made sense to me.
-I thought the lead was good. She seems like a human to me, so any flaws of hers weren't deal breakers.
-The linguistic aspects weren't 100% realistic because scifi/it's a movie.
-I believe the Chinese also found out that the aliens offered a "weapon", even though they were using mahjong. I'm pretty sure they found out first actually.
-It was about aliens.
-"2001 has a giant space baby and knowledge granting monoliths, but yeah, I can suspend my disbelief for that"
-She does not technically have the future sight through the whole movie. She gradually becomes better at recognizing when she is living in the "future" or "past" (which she can technically live at once).
-idk what you are talking about with the unstuck in time stuff.
-"IMMEDIATELY DISCREDITS AS A NON-LINEAR LANGUAGE DESPITE PRETENDING OTHERWISE", when does this happen?

lmao, yeah I just can't understand where this hatred is coming from.

 

[Harrycanyon1982]

My faves:
Deadpool.
Zootopia.
Dr. Strange.
Rogue One.
Hacksaw ridge.
Moana.
Captain America 3.
Hardcocre Henry.
Lights Out.
Keanu.
The Nice Guys.
Conjuring 2.
The Jungle Book.
Finding Dory.
Star Trek Beyond.



My worst:
Ghostbusters.
ID4 Resurrengence.
The Witch.
Bad Moms.
Superman V Batman.
Suicide Squad.
X-Men Apocalypse.
Neighbors 2.
The Boss.
The Darkness.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I really enjoyed Arrival, so I read all of that to see if I missed anything. And it seems like you just didn't like it's premise. Idk why you are getting so worked up about it either, were you really hyped for this movie???

I was, actually. As a student of neuroscience I was excited by thr prospect of a movie that was billed as 'smart' and dealt with the expansive divide that would occur if humanity collectively met an intelligence for which cognition was altered by the fundamentals of language acquisition and extrapolation of meaning.

Movie aliens that are Lovecraftian in their unknowability, unlike say Star Trek aliens for which are mirrors of humanity which various shades of difference born from examining the cultural divisions on Earth or hypothetical philosophies of being humanity might adopt. We get Klingon honour, we get Cardassian fascism (with kangaroo courts designed less on validity of guilt and more to serve as moral examples to the public), etc. Because there are facets of it that we can relate to in history or through common virtues or merely how different they are from the quite social humanist principles set by the Federation.

But a movie that bills itself in terms of cognitive differences through the divide in language usage? Fantastic! Hasn't really been explored barring Lovecraftian horror.

So uou can say it's more intense dislike (hate is pretty harsh, let's not dilute it) ... is born purely from a supreme disappointment, reinforced by all those critics who praise it ... which may mean the next movie that truly tries to define 'alien' is going to take a page out of it. And for that, it makes me sad.

(Edit) Why couldn't it just be a movie of first contact, and the story just revolves around humanity making a concerted effort to be understood and knowing of the greater universe? Humanity making that first cerebral journey to realize the vastness of space and stepping up to the plate. With the aliens doing so themselves solely for the same reason? Not that they need to connect, simply because they want to (heaven forbid finding an intelligent species in the depths of space and simply wanting to say 'hello' and learn from eachother?) and discover new ways of thinking and new means to see the universe they all share? What would it *mean* for humanity to be understood, and what would it mean for us to develop a scant understanding of other? Instead it weaves this grand narrative that isn't even explained, and paints a picture of which is so ludicrous and downright schizophrenic, that it felt like wasted potential to truly capture a message beyond the Chinese are idiots and language makes you Space God (and yet somehow still a terrible person).

Or better yet, it could be a story of our failure to connect at all. Solidifying our differences, but at the same time still enriching as a cultural exchange and births a desire to know or be better people. That science and exploration of both space and mind for its own sake can be uplifting on the most personal of levels without comparison. Even if we *fail*, and even if it costs us travelling the stars in vain, to find commonality with all existence.

Thr story could have meant something, had actually researched psycholinguistics and the connections between cognition and language acquisition, and still have been interesting without the supernaturalism. Moreover the movie made no sense in terms of the subject matter and premise it presented, nor did it rven truly address what it might mean for humans to actually touch some of the pillars of alien cognition. Instead turning the aliens into barebone space prophets without explaining *why*. The story could have been Plato's cave. Instead it was Schrodinger's cat as understood by *no one*.

Instead of sending the message that studying various languages helps breed new ideas concerning the very foundations of critical thought and deeper understanding of humanity's relationship to itself and the universe... it sends the message that learning languages gives you magic or causes you to go insane, and makes you a toxic parent despite said magic.

The funny thing is you could forgive Banks and her relationship to her daughter *if* the alien language didn't allow her fragmented time. If you cut out fragmented time alltogether, and merely had it be a story of learning a new means of discourse and how it shapes a person to connect to even their own. As if a revelation of thought, not merely supernatural nonsense. That the movie loses nothing if you cut out the space child, humans as eventual saviours-element and instead focussed on the idea that the mere exposure of the alien language and the slow unravelling of it changes the perceptions of others and helping to illuminate to other humans just what the aliens have to *give* and the reasons why they are interested in learning the multitude of human languages.

That would have explained *everything* ... but the movie misses this point. Why the aliens landed in different continents, why the aliens came in the first place, why humanity lets go of its fear and embraces the *potential*, how it could be explained to the world that aliens have come to learn our languages... not invade ... and it fails to do this. For a movie about linguistics, it failed to make a convincing argument for the study of linguistics.

Instead the movie says; "Problem solved by magic and space gods need us to be space gods as well sometime in the future."

And that's just sad.

This is why it makes me angry. Also why (most) critics can collectively eat a dick.

Now I get that the movie is competently put together, and that it's interesting if schizophrenic and divorced from reality in every way. I also understand why someone might go into it and come out with a different message. But it was never a movie about psycholinguistics. It was never a movie about first contact or touching an alien mind. It's a movie that sold itself on that premise to tell a story of how a woman achieves truly fragmented time as a being lost to postcognition and unstructured spatial existence.

If they sold the movie like that, it would be fine with me. But they could have done that with any other sci-fi vehicle ... instead what they did is take a field of neuroscience and cognitive psychology and butcher it. What could have been a wondrous story of what humans can achieve if they go out to understand all the facets of describing our world and ourselves, and build upon it as a means to explore the depths of our mind itself and our image of the universe ... and they failed to do so.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Snippity snip-snip

But they did research linguistics. They basically took a sorta fringe theory and greatly expanded upon it, that's kinda what most sci-fi does. Also I don't get how the Chinese came off as bad in any way.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/11/22/a_linguist_on_arrival_s_alien_language.html

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

But they did research linguistics. They basically took a sorta fringe theory and greatly expanded upon it, that's kinda what most sci-fi does. Also I don't get how the Chinese came off as bad in any way.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/11/22/a_linguist_on_arrival_s_alien_language.html

Did you actually read the article? Before I start ... did you read the article? It basically justifies my rant.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Now I get that the movie is competently put together, and that it's interesting if schizophrenic and divorced from reality in every way. I also understand why someone might go into it and come out with a different message. But it was never a movie about psycholinguistics. It was never a movie about first contact or touching an alien mind. It's a movie that sold itself on that premise to tell a story of how a woman achieves truly fragmented time as a being lost to postcognition and unstructured spatial existence.

If they sold the movie like that, it would be fine with me. But they could have done that with any other sci-fi vehicle ... instead what they did is take a field of neuroscience and cognitive psychology and butcher it. What could have been a wondrous story of what humans can achieve if they go out to understand all the facets of describing our world and ourselves, and build upon it as a means to explore the depths of our mind itself and our image of the universe ... and they failed to do so.

And this, folks, is why I never watch trailers.

A question: if you hadn't watched the trailers (did you even?) or knew nothing about the plot beyond "aliens come to earth, communication with them is a major element", would it have affected your opinion on the film? The way your writing comes across is that you formed an idea in your head of what the film is about based on either marketing or synopses from critics, and built your expectations of the film on that idea. And when the film wasn't what you thought it was about it left you disappointed.

I avoided any and all plot descriptions and trailers as much as possible (thanks to good critics who manage to describe the film's quality without giving anything away), knew basically nothing but the outline of the premise going in, and enjoyed the movie a great deal.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

But they did research linguistics. They basically took a sorta fringe theory and greatly expanded upon it, that's kinda what most sci-fi does. Also I don't get how the Chinese came off as bad in any way.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/11/22/a_linguist_on_arrival_s_alien_language.html

Did you actually read the article? Before I start ... did you read the article? It basically justifies my rant.

Yeah, nothing in the movie was 100% out there. Highly unlikely, yes. Again, that's pretty common across the board for sci-fi movies. And, the professional linguist loved the movie. I'm not at all trying to say the movie is objectively good and you need to like it. But if you put any sci-fi movie up to your standards, you're going to hate them all.

 

[09philj]

I didn't see any bad films in the cinema because I endeavour to avoid bad films. Doctor Strange was the weakest film I saw, but I still enjoyed it. When Marnie Was There was my favourite by far. I adored every minute.

*CTRL+F "Norm of the North"*

"No results found."

You havin' a laugh, Escapist?

You got paid to see Norm of the North. We would have to pay to see Norm of the North. Would you want us to spend our money on Norm of the North?

 

[Marter]

You got paid to see Norm of the North. We would have to pay to see Norm of the North. Would you want us to spend our money on Norm of the North?

Haha. Well, I figured at least one other person might have been dragged to it by their kids, or maybe did a Redbox rental to see just how bad it is.