It’s time once again for the annual look back on the year of film. And for those who are new to this blog, I do things a little differently than most critics. Namely, I start with my ‘Worst of the Year’ list instead of my ‘Best of’ list, which I save for the first week or so of the New Year. Why do I do this, you ask? Simple, it’s because I want to end the year on a good note instead of a bad note. I’m well-aware that, compared to ‘Best of’ Lists, the ‘Worst of’ Lists are always the more popular of the two amongst folks on the internet. If the rise of shows like ‘Honest Trailers’ and ‘Cinemasins’ have proven anything, it is that people really love to see others rag on films. But I’m not one of those people. So, with that said, I’m just going to warn you now… don’t expect to see me get ‘really angry’ when I start to talk about these films. To be honest, I rarely get angry at films anymore because I find it to be a little ridiculous to get so worked up over a simple film. Now, don’t misconstrue me, that doesn’t mean that I’m ‘going soft’. While I don’t usually go to see a lot of the ‘worst films of the year’ in theaters, I try to at least have a full ‘Top 10 Worst Of’ list by the end of the year and I’ve done so again this year. So, without further ado, let’s get started with my personal Top 10 WORST films of 2016. This is Part 1 of 2 and today I’ll listing Films #10-6. Also, for the record, I will be addressing some spoilers with these films but because this is the ‘worst of’ list, it’s not like I’m recommending these films or anything.
To start things off, we have a first for me with these lists; a Dishonorable Mention.
DISHONORABLE MENTION – INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE
I list this as a dishonorable mention because, technically, I gave the film a positive review back in June, scoring it at a 3/5 rating. However, I’m clearly one of the few people who DID give the film a positive review. I also noticed that while reviews weren’t as bad initially, with the film’s initial RT score hovering around 50%, they got really savage on the first day of release. And, admittedly, I can see why. For a film that serves as a sequel to a film that was made 20 years ago, it feels like this was made in the 90’s. It just has a 90’s-narrative mentality to it that may have worked back then but definitely doesn’t fly today. So, with that in mind, why then did I give it a positive review? Well, I’ll admit that, at first, I thought it was going to be as big of a disaster as everyone was saying. The film didn’t start off on a good note; it was an awkward intro, to say the least. But then, for some reason that I can’t explain, I got hooked. For as cheesy as it was and despite the minimal amount of story and character development, I was fully into it by the end. But, keep in mind, this was back in the summer when I first saw the film. I haven’t seen it since and, as many film fans will undeniably point out, opinions towards films can change over time. There’s a possibility that I may have over-exaggerated a bit when it came to giving this film a positive review. But, until I end up re-watching it, my original thoughts towards it still stand, hence why Independence Day: Resurgence avoids landing in the Bottom 10. Though, with that said, I’m sure that it’s in many other ‘Worst of the Year’ lists.
As usual, the first few spots on this list go to films that I ultimately had ‘mixed’ feelings towards; films that weren’t outright terrible but weren’t really that great either. And kicking things off at Number 10 is a film that, unfortunately, was a disappointing effort from a talented cast and crew.
10. THE ACCOUNTANT
The newest film from director Gavin O’Connor (Miracle, Warrior) attracted some controversy upon release due to the premise surrounding its main character, a mild-mannered accountant who moonlights as a business partner of some of the most dangerous criminals in the world while, at the same time, also being a highly-functioning autistic. This controversy mainly stemmed from the idea that the film sets up that those with autism are supposedly the perfect candidates to be trained in combat and turned into assassins. So, as I noted in my review for the film, I understand if some people found this implication to be an offensive portrayal of those with autism. However, at the same time, I think the film did do a decent job of making the main character, Christian Wolff, to be a sympathetic figure who, despite being an undeniable badass when it comes to his combat skills, desires to find a legit human connection that he’s never really had. One of the best scenes in the film is a conversation between Wolff and fellow accountant Dana Cummings in which Christian admits to her the difficulty that he has in socializing with others, even though he wants to have that kind of connection. Ben Affleck does do an excellent job in the main role; he succeeds in making the character sympathetic in non-action sequences while also asserting his character’s badass status (no doubt helped by his turn as Batman) in the action sequences. Affleck is also backed by a solid cast that includes the likes of Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, and Jon Bernthal, just to name a few. And, at the very least, the film is well-shot and well-edited, especially in the action sequences.
But the film’s biggest downfall comes with its pacing. It’s simply too overlong, even at a runtime of 128 minutes. Now, granted, this isn’t an ‘action-heavy’ story as the trailers might’ve implied. It’s more of a character study and that’s fine; in fact, in this case, it’s good that the film decided to focus more on the story than the action. However, it doesn’t help that a lot of the dialogue scenes are dragged out more than necessary. It even gets to the point where this sometimes hinders the emotional impact of the moment, including a big monologue from J.K. Simmons’ character, a top government agent, about how he’s connected to Christian and the big reveal at the end that Jon Bernthal’s character is Christian’s younger brother. At the same time, other parts of the plot were rather underdeveloped. In this case, the one plot-point that especially comes to mind is how Marybeth Medina, the young woman placed in charge of the investigation on Christian, had a criminal past that she withheld from her superiors when applying for a job with the government. Simmons’ character then threatens to report this if she refuses to help him, which she does end up doing. Thus, this whole thing about her criminal past never gets brought up again after that scene, basically making it entirely pointless in the grand scheme of things. So, in conclusion, despite the best efforts of director Gavin O’Connor and its talented cast, The Accountant could’ve benefitted from being trimmed down a bit. Again, I have no issue with the fact that this film focused more on story than it did the action; it’s just that the balance between those two aspects was off by a considerable amount.
As much as I hate to say it, my Number 9 pick ended up being the most disappointing film of the year for me.
9. NEIGHBORS 2: SORORITY RISING
I’m a big fan of the original Neighbors. It was a funny ‘prank war’ comedy that benefitted immensely from not outright villainizing the fraternity group that comes into conflict with main characters Mac and Kelly Radner. While I myself am not a member of any fraternity, it’s clear that the film does a nice job of representing the true brotherhood of fraternities. Thus, the first film definitely stands as a modern example of a ‘great college film’. So, with that in mind, I was really excited for Neighbors 2, even if it was basically just rehashing the same plot of the first film with the only major difference being replacing the fraternity with a sorority. In the end, though, I, unfortunately, found the film to be rather underwhelming. Obviously, humor is a subjective thing, just like film, but personally, I felt that there weren’t as many ‘laugh-out-loud’ moments as there were in the first film. In fact, some of the best parts were clearly cut from the film as they were in the trailer and not the final cut, like a cameo from LL Cool J as one of the sorority girls’ fathers in which he dumbfoundedly goes through some of his daughter’s ‘adult’ items. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some funny moments in this and like the first film, they mainly stem from the various pranks that both sides commit against each other (e.g. the sorority girls crying loudly while watching The Fault in Our Stars to annoy Mac and Kelly). And the cast, as usual, is clearly having a lot of fun, just like they did in the last film. Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne still have great chemistry together and Zac Efron is still very much a standout like he was in the first film in the role of former frat leader Teddy. Ultimately, though, I think that the main issue with the film is the fact that a lot of it felt scaled down compared to some of the big moments from the first film, particularly the ending.
I think many of us can agree that one of the best parts of the first film was the final fight between Seth Rogen and Zac Efron. And the trailers for this film implied an equally hilarious final fight between Rogen and co. and the new primary addition to the cast, Chloe Grace Moretz, who plays the sorority group’s leader, Shelby. However, that fight doesn’t happen; instead, a much more ‘dialed back’ ending occurs. When Shelby and her friends find themselves low on funds to the point where they’re about to get evicted from their house, they decide to throw a big party. However, this party ends up being exactly what led Shelby and her co-founders to form their own sorority in the first place; a sexist ‘frat party’, the only viable option that they had at this point. Ultimately, they realize their mistake and, with some encouragement from Mac and Kelly, band to stick together no matter what happens to them. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do think the way in which they come to this conclusion is fine, namely in terms of the messages it conveys. Still, from a comedy standpoint, it lacks the impact of the fight from the first film. And while I do commend this film for its unabashed feminist stance, at the same time the film occasionally drills this message in way too much. We get it; the system is sexist. By comparison, the first film’s themes were executed more subtly, particularly the uncertainty of getting older, something that, for the record, was seen from BOTH sides of the main conflict. In short, while I will say that this film does have the potential to become a ‘college classic’ like the first film, unfortunately, I felt that it didn’t live up to the hype that was built up from the original.
This past March, I got the opportunity to go to the 2016 SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas. While there, I got to see a lot of great films… this wasn’t one of them.
8. HARDCORE HENRY
Hardcore Henry had quite a lot going for it, namely because it’s an action film set from a first-person perspective. In other words, the audience sees all the action from the perspective of the titular character, Henry. As far as I know, there hasn’t been any other film like this before and, to its credit, the film does live up to the ‘hardcore’ part of its title. The action is frenetic and insane from beginning to end and there are some genuinely memorable action sequences, including a big final battle at the end set to Queen’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ in which Henry jacks himself up with adrenaline before decimating a whole army of thugs. However, all that impressive action can’t make up for the film’s biggest downfall; it’s one of the most mindless action films of all-time. Plot and character development in this film are practically non-existent. The film is basically just Henry going from place to place and killing any bad guy in his path, which means that the first-person gimmick does end up getting stale after a while. It’s just non-stop violent action that doesn’t give you a break whatsoever and the whole film has an arguably obnoxious ‘young and immature adolescent’ mentality to it. Henry himself, our audience avatar, is literally a blank slate. I get that this is probably the point as most ‘first-person shooters’ encourage us to mentally step into the shoes of the character we’re playing as. But this isn’t a video game; it’s a film. The same goes for most of the other characters as well, including Henry’s ‘wife’ Estelle, who is abruptly revealed at the end to be the main villain’s wife instead, and the main villain Akan, who has unexplained Jedi-like telekinesis powers. When and where did he get these powers, you ask? You’ll have to read a prequel comic (that was given out to us SXSW patrons after the screening) to find that out.
The only major character to get any sort of character development at all is Jimmy, played by Sharlto Copley. There is this running gag in the film where Jimmy is constantly getting killed and yet somehow manages to reappear just a few minutes later in a different get-up. As it turns out, the real Jimmy was paralyzed from the waist down by Akan, which then led to him cloning himself. Not only that, but each clone has its own unique personality traits, including a hippie biker and a British WWII general (“Jolly Good!”). Copley is very much the main highlight of the film… but he is only able to do so much. I won’t lie, folks, the first time I saw this at SXSW, I left the theater as soon as it was over, and before the ‘audience Q&A’ started, because I felt winded by the whole experience. And even when I saw it a second time a month later when it was officially released in theaters, my original opinion of it still stood. To reference the review of the film that I published in April (Disclaimer: Not the one that came from my ‘SXSW Recap’ post), it was basically like playing Call of Duty on crack… and that’s not a good thing. I’ll give it credit for its uniquely original approach to filmmaking but I feel that someone like, say, George Miller could do a much better job with this kind of story. To end on an interesting note, at the SXSW screening, a few other audience members and I were approached by members of the film’s marketing and interviewed about the film. They subsequently used these interviews in the official marketing campaign. They didn’t end up using any of my interview footage but I can tell you one thing; during this entire interview, I was doing my best to not admit my true feelings towards the film.
One of the biggest video game franchises in the industry got a film adaptation this year. The results… were kind of mixed. And no, I’m not talking about Warcraft or Assassin’s Creed…
7. THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE
This installment of the ‘video game based’ film genre is particularly notable because it’s based on a series that initially started out as a collection of games for mobile devices. And before any of you say anything, no I’m not judging this film for being based on a phone app. I’ll admit that I’m a fan of the Angry Birds games. I’ve played most of the installments that make up the main series; the original, Seasons, Rio, both Star Wars games, etc. And sure, the large amount of Angry Birds games out there can be rather overwhelming at times but they’re ultimately harmless and enjoyable time-wasters that are easy to get into. And the film itself is the same thing; harmless fun for kids with colorful animation and cartoonish mayhem. However, I just found most of it to be rather dull. It isn’t until the third act of the film when it starts to resemble the games AKA the birds taking on the pigs. Now, sure, with that said, it would obviously be rather stupid to just have the entire film be just that. Still, let’s just say that the film’s best moments come in the final third, including a fun parody of the Quicksilver scenes from the X-Men films. But that, as well as a solid voice cast that is, at the very least, well-fit to each role (e.g. Josh Gad as the hyper yellow bird Chuck and Peter Dinklage as the ‘legendary’ Mighty Eagle), isn’t enough to save this film. At the very least, though, compared to one of the next animated films on this list, at least kids will get something out of this. But as for adults, not as much. Also, would it be weird if I said that a film called Angry Birds was perhaps just a bit too mean-spirited?
Normally I don’t count direct-to-video released films in lists like this unless they have some form of a theatrical release. This next film did have a brief theatrical release… and boy was it a disappointment considering its source material.
6. BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE
Since 2007, DC has been producing a series of direct-to-video films based on their iconic characters. Referred to as the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line, many of these films have been based on new and classic storylines ripped straight from the comics and there was undoubtedly a lot of hype behind the latest installment of this series. And the reason why is simple; it was adapted from one of the most iconic DC Comics storylines of all-time. The Killing Joke, written by Watchmen creator Alan Moore in 1988, is regarded as one of the best Batman stories of all-time and, more importantly, the quintessential Joker story. It told the story of how Batman’s most notorious adversary came to be, proving how just one bad day can change everything. Thus, when an animated adaptation was announced starring Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, arguably the most famous duo to play the roles of Batman and the Joker, respectively, in animation, fans were really hyped to see the iconic story translated to film. The results, though, were not as great as people hoped, namely due to the filmmakers trying to work around the biggest controversy surrounding The Killing Joke. Because while the graphic novel was a major success upon release, there was some controversy over its portrayal of Batgirl AKA Barbara Gordon. The story saw her shot in the waist by the Joker, effectively paralyzing her from the waist down. While this ultimately led to her adopting a new superhero persona as Batman’s assistant Oracle, it was a very controversial moment in comics history as many felt that the level of violence directed towards Barbara was too much. Thus, the filmmakers decided to try and further develop her character in this adaptation by way of a 30-minute prologue. This was also their way of expanding the story so that it would meet the requirement of a feature-length runtime, which they wouldn’t have been able to do with The Killing Joke alone.
And boy was this move an epic fail. This introductory prologue has NOTHING to do with The Killing Joke. The Joker doesn’t appear in this segment at all and the ‘main villain’ of this segment, a mobster named Paris Franz, doesn’t appear again after it’s over. But of course, the worst thing about it is that it makes the whole Batgirl situation even worse when it was intended to fix it. This prologue makes Batgirl out to be a hopeless romantic that constantly gets distracted whenever someone hits on her. Case in point, there’s seriously a scene in which she’s pursuing Franz but she ends up losing him when he starts to flirt with her. Thus, Batman decides to take Batgirl off the case, as he remarks that she’s this close to going off the deep end when it comes to combatting crime (in other words, it’d get to the point where she starts killing her foes). Batgirl gets angry about the situation, they tussle for a bit… and then they have sex. Yes, Batman has sex with his crime-fighting partner who’s basically been like a little sister to him all this time. And, for the record, yes, I am aware that sometimes other forms of DC media have alluded to a romance between the two… that doesn’t make this any better. So, yeah, this prologue with Batgirl is easily the worst part of the film, and despite the best efforts from Tara Strong in the role (who, for the record, is NOT at fault for the character’s shortcomings), this is effectively one of the worst portrayals of a superhero character in the history of the genre. But that’s only the first third of the film. Many felt that, even with the terrible prologue, the film does improve once it does start to get into the Killing Joke part of the story.
But, to be honest, I thought that even the Killing Joke part of the story was mediocrely handled. Maybe it’s just because I’ve only read the original story a few times prior to watching this but something about the overall execution seemed off. To the filmmakers’ credit, they did do a great job of staying as true to the source material as possible, from the tributes to artist Brian Bolland’s work on the graphic novel to the almost 100% accurate repurposing of the original dialogue. However, there are some minor changes here and there that don’t work as well as the filmmakers want them to. The one that especially comes to mind for me is the scene where the Joker, before his accident, learns about the tragic death of his wife Jeannie. The graphic novel handles this moment perfectly, best represented by a single panel in which the Joker says nothing with a completely defeated look on his face after a cop tells him of his wife’s accident. Here, it’s seen from the perspective of the Joker’s new criminal acquaintances and we don’t hear a single word of that conversation. Another moment that people keep bringing up is the ending. During the final confrontation between Batman and the Joker, the latter tells a joke that even Batman ends up laughing at. This ending, in the novel at least, ambiguously mulled over the possibility that Batman killed the Joker in this final moment. But in the film, they do not establish the impending arrival of the police to their location, which makes the ending awkward in execution. And that’s the best way to describe this whole film; awkwardly executed. The attempts to further develop Batgirl as a character don’t work at all and they end up hindering the entire film, even when it gets to the iconic parts of The Killing Joke. And despite the hype surrounding this being rated R, that rating is ultimately pointless. Heck, the animation isn’t even that good, and this got a theatrical release, for crying out loud. In conclusion, you’re better off with the other DC animated release of the year, Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders. That at least was an accurate representation of its source material.
And that’s the end of Part 1 of my Top 10 WORST films of 2016 list. Thanks for following along and be sure to check back in tomorrow when I post Part 2, in which I’ll be going over my Top 5 WORST films of the year.
