8 Alternative Awards For 2016's Movies
The movies nobody liked from the year everyone hated.
You can say this for 2016 – it was one for the record books. As the year ends, you can celebrate its passing with the perfect Christmas gift - a t-shirt that proclaims, “I survived 2016.”
Even if you were hermetically sealed inside a screening room for the whole year, protected against everything except the latest releases, your mind would’ve slowly rotted away from a succession of needless sequels to movies nobody really liked in the first place. There were bright spots – Deadpool and, for those who saw it, Eye In The Sky – but mostly 2016 made you wish you’d taken the blue pill instead.
Look at it this way: in 1956, audiences were thrilled by The Ten Commandments and its Oscar winning special effects, including the legendary “parting of the Red Sea” – an effect achieved by melting two blocks of Jell-O and running the footage backwards. In 2016, audiences seeking similar thrills were rewarded with Gods Of Egypt, and enough said.
Here, then, are the awards that (to paraphrase Borat) recognize the good times, the bad times and the sh*t times. Mostly, they were sh*t times.
Arrivederci, 2016. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
8. Remake We Didn't Need - Ben Hur
Even before movies learned to talk, Hollywood realized it could recycle its old hits. First filmed (in one reel) in 1907, Ben Hur reached the big screen again in 1925, and when the first talkie version appeared in 1959, it went on to win an unprecedented 11 Oscars.
Timur Bekmambetov directs the 2016 version, and it’s the movie that this year deserves: it feels longer than it really is, and you can’t wait for it to be over. Though the trailer promised epic battles and effects-heavy action sequences, its only Morgan Freeman’s dreadlocks that distinguish it from Gladiator, 300, Gods Of Egypt et al.
Ben Hur is the perfect example of one of 2016’s most annoying trends – the remake that nobody wanted (or went to see) that still managed to persuade Hollywood to open its coffers. Along with The Magnificent Seven, Ghostbusters and Pete’s Dragon, it helped make 2016 one for the record books – for all the wrong reasons.