This 2016 list wasn’t supposed to take this long but unfortunately, look where we find ourselves. Anywho, to switch things up, I’m going to write some of my recaps for each movie in bullet point form.
Now, here are the movies that came in at #70 – #61 on my complete movie list for 2016. Expect to see a VERY disappointing superhero flick, a boring Oscar bait flick and more.
70. London Has Fallen
‘Olympus Has Fallen’ was a surprise I didn’t see coming but I didn’t think gold would be struck twice. This sequel was entertaining nonetheless because it was action-packed. Gerard Butler is the main one responsible for all that as his character, Mike Banning, was ruthless and basically unstoppable. He did spit out some corny tough guy one-liners though. Come to think about it, the whole movie tried to be funny with purposeful corny jokes. Did the first one do the same thing? Anyways, the movie included more things that were “off”, if that’s what you want to call it. Just like in the first movie, the CGI is very noticeable and abysmal at different points. An explosion scene at the end sums up how weak the CGI is. Also, the villains for the movie felt unimportant. The mole to the villainous team is an unimportant/unnoticeable character and the main villain isn’t really known because the one you think is that guy is taken out very easily in a very less than thrilling ending before you realize he isn’t actually that special guy. Lastly, the plot is almost none existent. It might be because I’m stupid but I don’t know why the plan was to kill the president in front of everyone. What specific statement was trying to be made?
69. Barbershop: The Next Cut
After a long layoff, the ‘Barbershop’ franchise is back and more socially conscious than ever. It’s
also not as funny. Cedric the Entertainer, Deon Cole and Lamorne Morris help bring a majority of the laughs the movie does have while Ice Cube and the rest do their best to create a story that is very timely with the violence that is going on within inner city communities. So you have to give some credit for that. But at the same time, I wasn’t in the mood to be beat over the head with that type of message. Also, I don’t believe Common to be a bad actor but in this movie, for some reason, I just found him to be awful. His delivery for different emotions came off all the same and he just wasn’t funny. In my opinion, it’s safe to say Common, the Oscar winner, gave us a certified stinker.
68. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates
- The plot gets rolling thanks to a Craigslist post that is a dumb idea
- “The jig is up” reveal scene plays out in a typical manner and that was disappointing
- it wasn’t organic which made things worse
- The movie tries to make it seem like a lot of stuff is happening but when you think about it, that is not the case. Some deleted scenes should have been thrown back in there
- It’s a funny movie from all parties involved even though Aubrey Plaza and Anna Kendrick seemed like they were going to be annoying at first. I would have liked to see their parts played by different people because they didn’t really have much chemistry.
- It’s nice to see comedies starting to have bloopers again but now they have to work on being funny. The bloopers here continue the new trend of unfunny bloopers
- To sum it up: An entertaining Zac Efron movie but won’t be remembered once the credits roll
67. Bleed for This
- Just want to say that in 2016 there were two boxing movies that included someone playing Roberto Duran
- he looked much different in this one than he did in ‘Hands of Stone’
- Even though I didn’t find him believable as a boxer, Miles Teller put on a good performance BUT he needed to push toward that next level of greatness to raise the movie up
- The lead up to the car accident that gets the ball rolling on the plot felt like it took forever to get over with
- the same type of lead up could have been done but just quicker
- The way the last boxing match was shot, it seemed like Vinny Pazienza (Teller) should have lost
- To sum it up: This is a typical overcome big obstacles boxing story but still a nice story. It just didn’t do anything special to set itself apart from the word “typical”
66. Loving
- The scene where one of Richard (Joel Edgerton) and Mildred’s (Ruth Negga) kids was hit by a car had misleading tension. I thought the kid was going to get killed and that was going to completely push Mildred back to wanting to move from the area they were in but the kid ended up being fine with just a little bruise. The build up to the scene was saying otherwise though. I guess you can’t change the facts.
- Even though they didn’t say much, the performances from Negga and Edgerton were good and most of that is thanks to their expressions
- The ending the Loving’s were fighting for came but the final portions of the battle was glossed over so quickly. It did fit the vibe of the whole movie (a relaxed tone) but that portion should have been focused on more
- To sum it up: Good storytelling and acting makes for a cool movie but I won’t watch it again because it’s super slow (a.k.a. boooorrrriiiinnnngggg) and that started to get to me towards the end
65. Me Before You
This movie would have easily been another generic, sappy, crappy romance movie if it weren’t for Emilia Clarke. The loveable charm and bubbly personality she brought to the role of Lou made her one of the more likeable characters I’ve seen on screen. Take away Clarke’s amazing performance and you have a movie that poorly progressed Lou and Will’s (Sam Claflin) relationship and finished things off with an “emotional” ending that didn’t hit its mark. It should have pushed the boundaries more so it would be forced to get that emotional reaction. But when you add Clarke’s performance to all that, you get a movie that was better than I expected.
64. Fifty Shades of Black
In typical Marlon Wayans spoof movie fashion, ‘Fifty Shades of Black’ is very funny but very dumb at the same time. The reason it’s this low on this list is because the very stupid moments over take the funny moments some of the time. But when the movie is really on point with the funny is when it perfectly makes fun of the numerous ridiculous moments from ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’. That movie is a perfect movie to make fun of and I’m glad Wayans took his opportunity to do it. It’s sad that he said this is his last spoof movie because I feel he still could have gone out on a better note. Maybe something up there with ‘A Haunted House’.
63. Kung Fu Panda 3
I enjoyed the first two movies in the ‘Kung Fu Panda’ series but for some reason I wasn’t really looking forward to this movie. Maybe it was the long gap between sequels or maybe this is one those series that should have been one or two movies long but I just wasn’t looking forward to this. So maybe that hindered my view on the movie. Either way, what I watched was a great looking animated feature that was funny with some cool looking action. Everything led up to a ridiculous but cool third act that shouldn’t have been so easy to resolve. Even with all that going for it, I still wasn’t all that into it.
62. X-Men: Apocalypse
- The transferring of Apocalypse was a pretty cool opening
- Now when Apocalypse(Oscar Issac) was later awakened, I didn’t get how it happened but I’m probably just in the minority of that
- Quicksilver’s (Evan Peters) “save everyone from the mansion fire” scene was cool but how did he know there was an explosion? He couldn’t have seen it from outside…or maybe he heard it…hmm
- It wasn’t better than his infamous scene from ‘Days of Future Past’ but still a worthy attempt.
- Apocalypse wasn’t a memorable villain like I predicted he’d be. What made it disappointing was how just how unmemorable he was and the fact that nothing about Issac came through in his performance of the bland villain
- His powers and strength wasn’t shown enough in an interesting and terrifying fashion
- His look still wasn’t appealing but I GUESS I was able to get used to it
- The end of the movie with the X-Men suits and a bald Professor X (James McAvoy) might be the best part of the movie because it kind of reignited my excitement for the next chapter
- The action in this movie was very sub-par for the most part
- The cast, new and old, was good but the movie as a whole was lacking that excitement the other ones had so their performances were brought down by that fact
- The standouts were Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Quicksilver (Peters)
- Psylocke (Olivia Munn) and Storm (Alexandra Shipp) were poorly used
- To sum it up: This is easily the worse X-Men movie movie of the ‘First Class’ trilogy.
61. Collateral Beauty
- I didn’t like that the movie went away from the magical/fantasy element it teased just to come back to it at the end with the twist
- I grew to enjoy the plot somewhat but my disdain for it came back at the end when the twist was introduced
- The other twist regarding Howard’s (Will Smith) wife was predictable but I was fine with it
- I felt the all-star cast did good with what they were given but they all were given more than expected. So it felt more like an ensemble movie than a Smith lead flick
- Another annoying trick by the movies promotion
- To sum it up: A solid movie that took the easy way and fun out of the plot with some of its choices. Then relied on a touching message and twists to make up for it. The movie’s promo also held the movie back.
My 2016 Complete Movie List: #80 – #71| My 2016 Complete Movie List: #60 – #51
(Photo Credit: Kevin Maher – https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/film-review-me-before-you-ss7m7tfll; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3628584/; RACHEL SIMON – https://www.bustle.com/articles/162933-is-apocalypse-the-last-x-men-movie-the-franchise-could-be-in-for-a-big-change)
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