The Worst of 2016

As I have grown as a filmgoer, I have developed a keen instinct for bad movies. Still, I did stumble a bit in 2016 and wind up watching a few real stinkers. Some I thought might actually not be that bad, others morbid curiosity won out. Still, my pain is your reward as I list them here for you to know what to avoid and spare the precious minutes of all your lives. 


Yoga Hosers

What has happened to Kevin Smith? The man who gave us the likes of Clerks, Chasing Amy, and Dogma has reduced himself to this? This film tells the tale of two annoying teenage brats, both named Colleen (played by Harley Quinn Smith and Lily-Rose Depp)  who work in a Convenience store in Canada battling little mutant Nazi Bratwurst called Bratzis and their crazy creator with the help of oddball detective Guy Lapointe (played by Johnny Depp). Filled to the brim with really dumb Canadian jokes and barely any plot. I didn't laugh a single time through the entire film as "joke" after "joke" fell flat. Smith obviously was stoned as he wrote this, but I doubt me being stoned would help the viewing experience any. The plot is scattershot at best, focusing on two obnoxious teen girls who were clearly going for being the female Bill and Ted, but without any of the heart. The whole thing is a depressing new low from a filmmaker I am normally a real fan of. But this one was just painful to sit through with every actor in the film mugging endlessly for the camera trying desperately to be wacky. None of it worked at all, sadly.


London Has Fallen

This was a thankless sequel to the far superior Olympus Has Fallen, with both Gerard Butler and Aaron Eckhart in another go around as bad ass Secret Service Agent and the President in jeopardy. With an even more preposterous plot and some really cringe worthy casual racism, this film lacked any of the genuine suspense or intensity of the original film. Instead, we got a strictly by the numbers sequel that lacked any real thrills or even reason to be. The fact that we're still apparently getting a third film, called Angel Has Fallen and is apparently more or less a remake of the fantastic Air Force One, has me filled more with dread than excitement. Needless to say, I'll be skipping it.


Dirty Grandpa

My, how the mighty have fallen. Robert DeNiro has starred in some of the greatest movies of all time. Films such as Taxi Driver, The Godfather, Part II, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and many more. Dirty Grandpa is most certainly not one of them. A raunchy comedy has DeNiro as a naughty Grandpa trying to teach his tightly wound, straight laced grandson (played by Zac Efron) how to loosen up by taking him to Florida for Spring Break is heavy on the raunch but light on the laughs. In fact, I didn't laugh even once. Not even the extended period of time when Efron's character runs around wearing nothing but a plush bee could save the movie for me. And considering some of the crap I've sat through because there was a hottie in the cast, that's really saying something. 


Independence Day: Resurgence

A late in the day sequel that no one really needed or even perhaps wanted. The original film was a great, epic Summer cheeseball Sci-Fi action disaster flick. This film feels like the warmed up leftovers. It has none of the spirit of the original film. God love him, Jeff Goldblum does his best to try and make it work but the film just has an overwhelming feeling of been there, done that. There is destruction and action galore but there is no suspense to really back any of it up. It just retells the same story as the first film with only a minor few changes meaning we know pretty much exactly how the story is going to go beat for beat. If that doesn't say how much we didn't need an Independence Day 2, I don't know what does. 


Ben-Hur

Clearly, nothing is sacred anymore in Hollywood with this half-baked remake of the Cinemascope classic Ben-Hur. Yet, somehow this film seems cheaper, smaller and less epic than the 1959 film it draws its direct inspiration from. Jack Huston stars in the titular role and is does a reasonably good job in the main role. Morgan Freeman also pops up in a supporting role but looks utterly bored. The story is slapdash at best with the narrative cut down to a lean two hours that includes an ending so overwrought and so ridiculous that the preceding two hours doesn't begin to earn, not to mention it comes completely out of left field. I finally broke down and watched the film because I am a fan of Jack Huston, but none of this worked for me, despite the best efforts of the actors involved. The film just completely lacked the emotional weight the story required and as a result never quite comes together. 



The 5th Wave

The first half hour or so of The 5th Wave is actually a reasonably intense and gripping sci-fi thriller. It's the slow decent into mediocre Tween-Lit cliche that ultimately sinks the picture as routine genre plot development after routine genre plot development is checked off. The film focuses on Cassie (played by Chloe Grace-Moretz), who sees her world fall apart after an alien invasion sets off a series of waves of attack, first knocking out the power, then causing a series of natural disasters, followed by a viral outbreak and finally a ground assault to wipe out the few survivors of all the rest of that. Separated from her young brother who was taken to a nearby Air Force Base, Cassie makes her way there on foot while avoiding other people and Aliens in disguise along the way.  When she's pinned down by an Alien sniper, she is rescued by the mysterious Evan (played by Alex Roe), who agrees to accompany her to the Air Force Base. Meanwhile, at the base, her former classmate and crush Ben Parish (played by Nick Robinson), along with other teens have been recruited into the resistance as the last hope of Earth, under the command of Colonel Vosch (played by Liev Schreiber). The majority of the film plays everything so seriously and so earnestly for it's entire run time, it provokes unintentional laughter. The film also crams in so much story into it's two hour run time and at the same time fails to really develop it's characters in any sort of meaningful way, leaving the viewer to shrug rather than care. It also doesn't help that it is terribly predictable as the film moves from one obvious plot development to another, with me nodding each time as the film does exactly what I expected it to with little surprise. It even manages to work in the very tire Tween Lit trope of the love triangle between Cassie, Evan and Ben. The film also does something that has become increasingly annoying in films today, which is have no real conclusion and leave itself wide open for a sequel that will most likely never come. In this case, that's probably a blessing.    


True Memoirs of an International Assassin

My expectations were already at rock bottom and I was still disappointed by this Kevin James "comedy" about an author who pens an adventure novel about an international spy that his idiot publisher proceeds to publish as non-fiction. This leads him to being kidnapped by terrorist El Toro (played by Andy Garcia), who wants James to kill the President of Venezuela for him. Thrust into the world he just wrote about, he has to find a way to escape with his life and hijinks ensue. Ultimately, it failed to create any memorable action sequences or suspense nor was it at all funny as it trotted out one lazy joke after another. If you want to see a movie along these lines that was both exciting and very funny? Watch Spy instead. You can thank me later.


Gods of Egypt

Oh, where to start with this one? I went into this one with such lowered expectations and still was shocked at just how much of a disaster this film was. I suppose we should start with the casting, which for a film that takes place in ancient Egypt is predominantly white. But even within the realm of whitewash casting, this film goes even further. I mean, Scottish Gerard Butler as an Egyptian God? You're kidding right? Danish Nikolaj Coster-Waldau? Aussie Brenton Thwaites? Come on, filmmakers. This isn't just whitewashing, this is the whitest whitewashing with extra bleach for good measure. Add to that just across the board bad acting from a badly written and frankly predictable script cobbled together from every other sword and sandal fantasy epic ever released with some of the crappiest CGI seen in a major motion picture this side of A Sound of Thunder and you pretty much have this movie. It's worth watching only if you want to sit and watch gobsmacked at the sheer number of bad filmmaking decisions parade past the two hour runtime of the film, which was my experience as I sat in my living room watching this cinematic disaster on HBO.