Baumer's best 42 films of 2016 (and 12 worst) and Ruk's breakdown of 2016 films (Finished!)

[rukaio101]

52. Disorder

 

 

Chalk this up to another on the ‘I kinda forgot this existed’ pile. But I’m willing to give it a lot more credit than other movies I forgot this year for an interesting premise and some decent moments... that ultimately don't really come together.

 

Disorder is about a bodyguard with PTSD assigned to protect some rich guy’s wife and kid. Paranoia lurks around every corner as he tries to figure out whether someone is out to get them or whether its his own neuroses setting him off. It’s an interesting premise for sure and the movie does do a decent job of getting some mileage out of that idea. Not a great job mind, but there are some tense sequences. The problem is that the movie feels fairly incomplete. I’m not talking sequel bait or anything like that, it just ends with a shit ton of stuff still unresolved and it in no way felt like the movie came to a natural conclusion. It just stopped. I’m all for bucking traditional story structure if you think you can handle it well, but this just felt unsatisfying, both in terms of narrative and creativity.

 

Would this have made it that much higher on the list had it stuck the landing? Maybe? While there were a lot of tense scenes, there were also a few that did kinda feel like they dragged on a bit. And the movie did a fairly poor job of pacing itself (something which I think helped contribute to the unsatisfying ending). Still, it was at least an interesting premise with some level of competence behind it.

[rukaio101]

51. I am a Hero

 

 

I watched two foreign zombie movies this year. One which made me question why people were getting so tired of zombies in pop culture… and one which promptly reminded me why. This is the latter.

 

It’s a shame too because the original manga (which I read the first few volumes of a year ago and enjoyed) actually had a relatively interesting idea behind it. In said original manga, the protagonist, Hideo, is shown to suffer from mental disorders and hallucinations. Thus when zombies start showing up and things go to hell, it does so such a surreal odd way that it leads you to constantly question whether the whole disturbing thing is actually happening or is just in his head (although eventually it does become pretty clear what's actually happening). The movie however kinda does away with that and just makes him a generic loser, which is much less interesting. I mean, yeah, he was a loser in the original manga too but that wasn't all there was to him, unlike here.

 

That said, despite the wasted potential, I do have to give this movie credit for a genuinely really really good first act. The tension is pulse-pounding, there are a few great action scenes and, in particular, the portrayal of the zombies is probably one of the more creepy versions I’ve seen in almost any other horror movie. Along with the grotesque make-up and twitchy body movements, the zombies in this movie constantly repeat inane phrases from their lives. It's the sort of thing that should seem utterly ridiculous (especially with some of the siller phrases) but somehow really hits into the uncanny valley and makes it skin-crawlingly creepy. If anyone's familiar with the series Attack on Titan, it's the same sort of thing with the titular titans. The design/movements should be utterly hilarious and narmy but something about it just works to make it utterly terrifying.

 

Which is why it’s kind of a shame that the rest of the movie after that first act just goes into very generic zombie movie territory. It has themes you’ve seen done better a million times before (Hey, guess what, maybe humans are the real monsters the entire time!), the drama is uninteresting, Hideo’s character arc is predictable. Hell it’s about survivors hauling up in a fricking shopping mall for gods sake! The sort of shit we've a million times before and in the process seen done much better. The only semi-interesting thing they throw in (aside from the world's most hilarious athlete zombie) is a character seemingly semi-immune (kinda) to the virus and then they go absolutely nothing interesting with it. I don’t know whether this was an actual arc in the manga (I suspect it was) but I’d wager it was done a lot better there.

 

As it is, this movie is only really worth watching for its first act. In fact I actively do recommend seeing that first act. It was very good. However, for everything else, just read the manga or watch the other zombie movie that’s on this list (which I suspect anybody who's already seen it has guessed already, but I won't spoil yet). I won't say the rest of this movie is absolutely terrible, there are a few decent scenes, but it's just been done a lot better a lot of times before.

[Kalo]

Ugh I have to endure not only one put two people grossly underpredicting Green Room! 

[James]

So... my list for the 25 best movies of the year will be sooooo different. I will not make a separate one like you guys, but Beasts and Pets will both be Top 10 or even Top 5... BvS too probably. Also, I will see Green Room. Really curious about it.

[baumer]

@James BvS is in the middle of my list somewhere. 

[4815162342]

Ya'll need to give Green Room a little more credit.

[baumer]

Love your write ups Ruk.

 

Secret life of pets did not make my top 40 and I understand why people didn't like it because I'm always the one of them didn't care for it. But I also understand why it did make tons of money. Kids loved it. Same thing with sing. I took my niece's to see SLOP and SING and they loved both of them. I have no problem with illumination making films that cater to a certain demographic. They're no different than pixar in my opinion. Pixar gets a lot of love this site because most people like their movies. I think most of them are trash but they are obviously not made for me.

[baumer]

23 minutes ago, 4815162342 said:

Ya'll need to give Green Room a little more credit.

 

Every film on my list in the top 40 ranked at least 7 and at 10. I like green room I just didn't love it. I like don't breathe but I just didn't love it.

[cannastop]

8 hours ago, rukaio101 said:

And even the more out-there elements, like Chris Rock’s rabbit,

[rukaio101]

21 hours ago, cannastop said:

I don't think there's a single way I can explain 'I often get Chris Rock and Kevin Hart mixed up' without digging myself into a deeper hole, so I'm going to move on here.

 

Also, my list will be resuming in the next few minutes. And I'm going to be starting off with another movie a lot of people really seem to love...

[rukaio101]

50. Finding Dory

 

 

Yeah, Finding Dory is this low. No joke, I thought this movie was painfully average. It's a shame because Finding Nemo is one of my biggest nostalgic favourites and probably one of my favourite Pixar movies. However, while I’m not against Pixar sequels/prequels as much as some people, I was leery of this project from the beginning. While as I mentioned, I do really like Finding Nemo, I tend to find that Dory is one of the few aspects that doesn't really hold up on rewatch. She had a few great moments, yes, but her schtick does get fairly annoying a second time around. So an entire movie about her was going to have some trouble winning me over. And while I give them credit for trying it didn’t really work overall for me. Not because of Dory, mind, she was fine. The biggest flaw of the story came down to one simple thing.

 

The movie never really made me care about finding Dory’s parents.

 

I mean, let’s compare with Finding Nemo for a second. The whole ‘Finding’ storyline in that works because when Marlin and Nemo are separated, we’ve already had plenty of time to get to know and empathise with them both as characters. So we care about them both and we care about them getting back together. Finding Dory showed us a bit of the parents early in the movie but they didn’t really come off as anything except generic loving parents. So I didn’t really care that much about them. Not to mention, there’s no pressing need for them to be immediately reunited. In FN, Nemo and Marlin had literally just been separated when Marlin set off and Nemo was shown to be in danger of dying in captivity. In FD, Dory’s gone for years without seeing or even knowing about her parents, so there’s really not as much of a strong narrative pull for them to need to be reunited. Hell, I kinda thought for a moment that they might be going down the ‘parents are dead, Nemo + Marlin are your new family’ route towards the end, but nope. Sure, you can argue that we're supposed to care because Dory cares and we care about Dory but (and maybe this is why I don't like it as much as other people) I don't really care that much about Dory. For me, Marlin was what worked so well about the first Finding Nemo. Dory was a cute annoyance. I cared about her character a little bit but not nearly enough to support an entire narrative.

 

So yeah, to sum up, the central conceit of the movie really didn’t work for me which meant the movie didn't really work for me. Which is a shame because the animation is nice, there are some neat sequences and Hank was a cool character. But it never really rose above average to me.

[rukaio101]

49. London has Fallen

 

 

Alright, just getting out there now, this movie was dumb. Super dumb. Really really super mega dumb. The dumbest little star on the dumbest little Christmas tree dumb. Gerard Butler as an Egyptian God dumb. And pretty racist. That said… I still kinda enjoyed it.

 

It’s pretty much the clearest guilty pleasure for me on this list (well, aside from one other movie that’s coming up next). And I'm not talking about the sort of guilty pleasure where other people think the movie is bad but I actually think it's relatively good (because that's not a guilty pleasure at all. That's you just being wrong). No, London is Fallen is a movie that I actively agree is bad. It's a terrible movie, no bones about it. But, damn it, I still got a kick out of watching it. It’s just so over-the-top and sincere in its dumbassery. It's cheesy, makes no sense, overloaded with action and literally does the outrunning the fireball cliché seriously in the finale (in a sequence that I was laughing my head off at in the theatre) but fuck it, I enjoyed it anyway. Honestly, it’s impressive because I wasn’t really that fond of its predecessor, Olympus has Fallen, but I still ended up having a fun fun time at this.

 

That said, it is still a bad movie. Hackneyed characterisation, silly plot justifications, an absurd premise, questionable politics and, again, kinda racist. So I really can't justify putting it any higher on this list. But, hey, that’s what guilty pleasures are for. Speaking of…

[rukaio101]

48. Sadako vs Kayako

 

 

Guilty Pleasure #2, up to bat!

 

I’m guessing most of you probably didn’t even know this existed, yet alone that it came out this year in Japan. And… that’s fairly justifiable because it’s a pretty terrible movie. Hell, the original concept was formed out of an April Fool’s joke taken seriously. But while the movie is terrible, it’s terrible in an entertaining way. And in the end, isn’t that all that really matters? ...The answer is, of course, no, but I will pretend so anyway to justify ranking it above Finding Dory.

 

So yes, it's a movie about the main villains of the Ring and the Grudge in a, heheh, Grudge match. (I have no regrets.) Effectively, a J-Horror Freddy vs Jason with a lower budget and played much more seriously (which ironically ended up making it all the more hilarious). Admittedly, unlike that movie, the actual titular conflict here is a bit of a letdown, since it doesn’t take place until the very end and only lasts about 5-10 minutes. However, unlike Freddy vs Jason where the rest of the movie was kinda bleh, the story leading up to the fight in this movie is filled with glorious cheese and unintentional goofiness (especially if you watch the rather poor English dub). From the ghost boy who meows like a housecat (unsettling in previous movies, hilarious here), to the bitchslapping priestess, to the headbutt of death, to the super edgelord exorcist and his blind psychic girl assistant (yes, seriously), to the amazingly silly looking CGI conclusion, this movie is the best kind of bad horror movie. One that I could easily see myself sitting down with mates and just mocking the hell out of it.

 

Just don’t go in expecting to be scared.

[rukaio101]

47. X-Men Apocalypse

 

 

I did a write-up of this when it first came out and, honestly, my views haven't really changed enough to justify doing a brand new one. It was decent but flawed when it first came out, it's decent but flawed now.

 

Quote

 

Overall thoughts, I liked it.... but I can entirely see why it's getting such a mixed reception.

 

The problem is that, while the movie has a lot of good character and story ideas, it really doesn't feel like it spend enough time on a lot of them. Team Apocalypse in particular gets pretty damn shafted. I will say I definitely enjoyed Apocalypse as a villain (as I have a soft spot for the occasional hammy doomsday villain) and Oscar Isaac is definitely having a ball with the role. But the movie does a really shitty job of developing his team and establishing their motives. Despite showing him recruiting each of them in turn, there's not a single member of his team (except maybe Angel) that I felt like I really understood why they were working for him. Not even Magneto and he gets the most screentime pre-joining Apocalypse (with a very eye-rolley 'Stuffed in the Fridge family' subplot)*. And, as a result, that reflects poorly on Apocalypse himself. They could've used those recruiting moments to really show off his charisma and what makes him worth worshipping as a god. Instead, the audience is confused as to why exactly these people are following him.

 

I'll admit, I really can't tell whether the problem with the movie is a result of having too many character subplots (especially with ones like Quicksilver's, Moira's and Magneto's, none of which really add anything to the story) or simply that there's not enough time to satisfyingly develop them because of the utterly pointless Stryker/Wolverine segment that is dumped in the middle of the movie, like a big steaming... dump. And it's odd, because I don't actually dislike that segment. It's a perfectly well-told mini story within the movie. The problem is that it's entirely pointless and irrelevant to the rest of the movie and when you already have so other many character threads that desperately need the screentime it hogs up, it feels very hard to justify. Did we really need to see more of Wolverine and Stryker? Haven't we seen enough already in, you know, almost every other X-Men movie?

 

I will say though, there was a lot I liked about the movie. The young X-Men (Scott, Jean, Nightcrawler in particular) were great. There were two fun Quicksilver sequences. I particularly enjoyed some of the scenes where Apocalypse demonstrates his power, such as when he hijacks Cerebro. The opening was awesome, as was the final scene where the team show off new costumes (which look great and I hope stick around for the next movie). Mystique didn't hijack the movie nearly as much as I thought/feared she would. (Her subplot of fearing hero-worship is fairly stupid, to be honest, though.) But it's fairly easy to recognise that the movie is flawed. I suspect the movie was trying a bit too hard to copy the Avengers method of team-ups** where every character gets a fairly equal representation and their own little stories (as opposed to previous X-Men movies which have been largely Wolverine & co/Professor X, Magneto and co (fyi, that's not necessarily a bad thing)), but that balancing act, like the first Avengers did perfectly, is much more difficult to pull off than the normal X-Men method and I can't say they've succeeded here.

 

So, in conclusion, would I recommend it? Honestly, I'm not sure. It's a lot better than BvS for certain, but it's very disjointed and significantly more flawed than Civil War or Deadpool or even Singer's other X-Men films. I think, if you're interested in the movie and have enjoyed the previous X-Men movies, give it a shot. I can't guarantee you'll like it, but there are definitely things to like.

 

 

*Personally, I really wish Magneto's wife + daughter hadn't died. Not only because the Stuffed into the Fridge thing is overused, cliche and you could see this one coming a mile away. But I also found both were interesting characters. The wife for her connection with Magneto and the daughter for being a fucking Beastmaster. Also, they brought out new, interesting aspects to Magneto's character which vanish the instant they die so he can go back to being an angsty vengeance machine. Because obviously we needed to see more of that again. Just like obviously we needed to see more of Wolverine. 

 

**Funnily enough, I'd say Civil War actually copied the X-Men method of team-ups this year, by focusing mainly on two characters (Cap + Iron Man) and relegating the rest to supporting status. And it worked very well. Unfortunately, this wasn't quite as successful.

 

 

[rukaio101]

46. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

 

 

Here’s another in the ‘definitely flawed but still kinda enjoyable’ selection. Unfortunate since, like Apocalypse, it feels like it could've been much much more if handled better. However, both the pacing and the editing were just kinda abysmal. I'm really not the sort to notice when a transition feels particular awkward, but even I couldn't miss some of the more poorly-done ones here.

 

But honestly, aside from the rather poor pacing and editing, I think the other major issue with this movie was that it focused far too much on Asa Butterfield's journey rather than the actual titular Peculiar Children. From the trailers, I was expecting it to be much more a Victorian X-Men sort of movie which is a fairly neat concept. What we got instead was a half-hearted time travel plot with too much focus on Asa Butterfield (who’s a fine actor but is also the least interesting thing about this movie) and his family issues (which end up being completely forgotten by the end (seriously, I think his dad is still on that island somewhere)) and it just didn’t work as well. Still, the titular children are definitely fun to watch, there are some compelling characters and cool uses of powers here there (creepy puppet kid being the standout)and Samuel L. Jackson is just having a ball in his role as the leader of the Slenderm- erm, I mean Hollows. It’s just that the movie spends so much time on Butterfield’s plot and it’s just not that interesting.

 

So yeah, probably the closest we'll get any time soon to Tim Burton directing a superhero movie, but this was really not that impressive a mark in his resume.

 

 

Okay, I'll leave things here for now with my list and give Baumer a chance to catch up a little. Also post any complaints for Finding Dory ranking so low to telemachos@yeoldemessagingservice.com. I certain he totally won't mind. 

Edited January 12, 2017 by rukaio101

[Tower]

I'm with you on Finding Dory, if I made a list it would have been even lower down. They gave a full length film to an annoying side character, and it didn't work for me.

[Kalo]

I still haven't seen Finding Dory, although my sister did and she has a similar opinion of me on Finding Nemo being very mediocre and said she liked Dory quite a bit better.

[rukaio101]

Still waiting for Baumer before I post more of my list. But, in the meantime, let's play a little guessing game!  I'm going to give you the first line of the write-up I did for each of the next 5 movies on my list and you guess which 2016 movies I'm referring to. Be warned, one or two might be a little deliberately misleading. And I'm just plain cheating for one.

 

45:  "<Film Title> is the sort of a homely Disney family movie you don’t see that often these days."

 

44: " This is another one of those movies that got a hell of a lot of praise this year, but really didn’t click with me that much."

 

43: "Really internet, really?!"

 

42:  "Now, I’ve made no bones of the fact that I actually genuinely really like Gareth Edward's 2014 Godzilla movie (even if I totally get why those who dislike it don’t)."

 

41: "I'm 90% certain most of you will probably have never even have heard of this movie but it's an interesting, (albeit messed up) little flick."

 

Take your guesses!

[aabattery]

1 hour ago, rukaio101 said:

Still waiting for Baumer before I post more of my list. But, in the meantime, let's play a little guessing game!  I'm going to give you the first line of the write-up I did for each of the next 5 movies on my list and you guess which 2016 movies I'm referring to. Be warned, one or two might be a little deliberately misleading. And I'm just plain cheating for one.

 

45:  "<Film Title> is the sort of a homely Disney family movie you don’t see that often these days."

 

44: " This is another one of those movies that got a hell of a lot of praise this year, but really didn’t click with me that much."

 

43: "Really internet, really?!"

 

42:  "Now, I’ve made no bones of the fact that I actually genuinely really like Gareth Edward's 2014 Godzilla movie (even if I totally get why those who dislike it don’t)."

 

41: "I'm 90% certain most of you will probably have never even have heard of this movie but it's an interesting, (albeit messed up) little flick."

 

Take your guesses!

 

Spoiler

45: Pete's Dragon

44: Hmm. Arrival or La La Land are my top guesses. Maybe Hell or High Water.

43: Ghostbusters 

42: Rogue One

41: You got me on this one. No clue!

 

[robertman2]

5 hours ago, rukaio101 said:

Still waiting for Baumer before I post more of my list. But, in the meantime, let's play a little guessing game!  I'm going to give you the first line of the write-up I did for each of the next 5 movies on my list and you guess which 2016 movies I'm referring to. Be warned, one or two might be a little deliberately misleading. And I'm just plain cheating for one.

 

45:  "<Film Title> is the sort of a homely Disney family movie you don’t see that often these days."

 

44: " This is another one of those movies that got a hell of a lot of praise this year, but really didn’t click with me that much."

 

43: "Really internet, really?!"

 

42:  "Now, I’ve made no bones of the fact that I actually genuinely really like Gareth Edward's 2014 Godzilla movie (even if I totally get why those who dislike it don’t)."

 

41: "I'm 90% certain most of you will probably have never even have heard of this movie but it's an interesting, (albeit messed up) little flick."

 

Take your guesses!

Your opinion on 42, 43 and 44 are wrong