2016 – in short, a terrible year for big movies – in fact i struggle to remember another time where the Hollywood studios produced so many blockbuster films as badly made, boring, and lacking in imagination as what we were subjected to over the last 12 months.
To begin with were subjected endless numbers of superhero films – one of which (Captain America: Civil War) was so contrived it was painful, then there were the dull and at times terrible sequels to long dead franchises (ID4:2 Jason Bourne, The Huntsman, Blair Witch), crap comedies (Bad Moms) iffy fantasies (Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children) shoddy remakes (Point Break) and yet another godawful game to film adaptation (Warcraft).
Mercifully there were some shining lights among the inky darkness – mostly for which we have to thank the many smaller budgeted productions, such as Room, The Nice Guys, Hell or High Water, Spotlight etc. These were the films that probably struggled to get made for years because the likes of Michael Bay, Roland Emmerich and the other sell outs were hoovering up all the money that the studios could throw at them, just so they could vomit their shoddy, franchise prolonging, zero imagination celluloid turds on Joe Public – bastards.
To be fair though not all the biggies were rubbish – Star Trek Beyond was pretty good, so was The Revenant, Deadpool was awesome, Creed rocked, London Has Fallen and Doctor Strange were great fun and Rogue One completely blew us all away to become one of the best entries in the Star Wars franchise since Return Of The Jedi.
So here it is then – my rundown of the best and worst of 2016 and a look at what I think will be worth seeing next year.
Top 10 best films of 2016
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
- Room
- Deadpool
- Creed
- Spotlight
- Eddie The Eagle
- Arrival
- Eye In The Sky
- The Magnificent Seven
- London Has Fallen (i’m gonna burn in hell for that one)
Top 15 Honorary mentions of 2016
- Doctor Strange
- Hell or High Water
- The Nice Guys
- A Street Cat Named Bob
- Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice
- Ghostbusters
- Conjuring 2
- Purge: Election Year
- Ben Hur
- The Revenant
- Jungle Book
- Star Trek Beyond
- The Siege Of Jadotville
- Bridget Jones Baby
- Midnight Special
The Top Ten Performances of 2016
- Brie Larson (Room)
- Jacob Tremblay (Room)
- Felicity Jones (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story)
- Benedict Cumberbach (Doctor Strange)
- Ben Affleck (Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice)
- Luke Treadaway (A Streetcat Named Bob)
- Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool)
- Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight)
- Sylvester Stallone (Creed)
- Alan Rickman (Eye In The Sky)
The Top ten Best Action Scenes/on screen fights of 2016
- That utterly incredible, pant wettingly brilliant last 20 minutes of Rogue One – ive seen it twice now and i still cant believe it.
- The monumental, bullet riddled arse kicking that Gerard Butler and The SAS throw the terrorists in the climax to London has Fallen.
- Will Smith (guns and all) vs the Meta-Human mutants – Suicide Squad (i hasten to add it was that films one saving grace)
- Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman’s big face off against Doomsday in Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice.
- The edge of the seat finale to Eye In The Sky
- Little Jack’s escape from the room – Room
- The one take, no edit boxing match – Creed
- Leonardo DiCaprio vs The Bear – The Revenant
- The Chariot Race – Ben Hur
- The big finale – Magnificent Seven
Grosse Pointe Geek’s 2016 Hero of The Year
Gareth Edwards – for finally giving us the Star Wars film we’ve all been waiting for with Rogue One – well done my son.
The Top Five Biggest Disappointments of 2016
- X-Men: Apocalypse (someone needs to grab this franchise and give it a bloody good shake)
- Suicide Squad (one of the best trailers of the year – just a shame it couldn’t translate into a better film – God this one had SO much potential!)
- Bone Tomahawk (how in the hell a western featuring Kurt Russell as sheriff going up against a bunch of psychopathic cave men could end up so dull beggars belief)
- 10 Cloverfield Place (another brilliant trailer -and a complete sell out of an ending)
- The Hateful Eight (undoubtedly well made but Tarantino disappeared up his own arse with this one)
The Top ten Worst Films of 2016
- Independence Day: Resurgence (a message to Roland Emmerich – Dear Roland, i and every film geek on the planet sincerely hope that you and Dean Devlin rot in the pit of direct to dvd hell for the rest of your miserable careers – yours sincerely – The Film going public)
- Warcraft (a CGI monstrosity and a complete steaming dung pile of a film)
- Hardcore Henry (i hated this so much i thought i was going to need therapy)
- Bad Moms (i’ve had more fun cleaning cat puke off the kitchen floor than i did watching this)
- Allegiant (a franchise killer that deserved to be the gigantic flop that it was)
- Point Break (pointless remake and an insult to the original -all i can say is that Patrick Swayze must be turning in his grave)
- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (good idea, utterly crap film)
- Gods Of Egypt (so laughably bad i cant believe it got a cinema release)
- Bastille Day (probably the most unoriginal and most torturous to watch “action” film i’ve ever had the displeasure to sit through)
- Blair Witch (total pants – scariest movie of the decade my distended arse)
and finally..Will’s 2017 most anticipated films:
- Star War Episode 8
- Guardians of The Galaxy Volume 2
- Wonder Woman
- Justice League
- The Mummy
- Kong: Skull Island
- Manchester By The Sea
- Geostorm
- Ready Player One
- Spiderman Homecoming
- Thor Ragnarok
- Blade Runner 2049
- Alien: Covenant
- War For The Planet Of The Apes
- Dunkirk
- John Wick Chapter 2
- Fate of The Furious (aka Fast 8)
- Logan
So there we are – my round up of 2016, overall a pretty poor year – still never mind, Rogue One and the smaller films did alot to make up for it plus 2017 is looking very good indeed. As ever id like to thank anyone and everyone who read my reviews (whoever you are!) and visited this fantastic website, plus a big thanks to the illustrious Mr Phillip Hobden for continuing to let me vent my spleen upon the movie going world.
I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous new year
My name is Will Strong and I’ve been Grosse Pointe Geek.
Author: Will Strong aka Grosse Point Geek
