10 Most Divisive Movies Of 2016
The movie Marmite of last year.
It should go without saying that not every film is going to please every moviegoer or critic, but more often than not there’s a pretty clear general consensus that acts as a useful pointer as to whether a movie is worth watching or not. Some people still choose to ignore it and go and see Transformers anyway, but the indication still exists.
As added examples, though personal taste always affects how much we’ll enjoy a film, we can probably all agree that whereas Schindler’s List is a good film all-round, Showgirls is definitely not. Shawshank Redemption, yes; Grown-Ups 2, no.
But then there’s movies like the ones on this list - the ones that pit critics against fans, split genre enthusiasts right down the middle or offend the sensibilities of some viewers while wowing others.
The kind of movies that just like Marmite you either love or you hate. And 2016 was full of them...
10. Suicide Squad
Proof if there ever was of the often huge gulf between the opinions of film critics and us mere plebeian moviegoers, Suicide Squad scored itself a rather pitiful 26% rating on Rotten Tomatoes while simultaneously raking in a huge $745.6 million worldwide ranking it amongst one of 2016’s highest grossing movies.
Fans were so outraged by its low rating that they issued a call to arms via petition site Change.org demanding that Rotten Tomatoes be shut down, probably forgetting to take into account that Suicide Squad’s distributors Warner Brothers actually own the site.
To give the critics their dues, Suicide Squad was by no means a brilliant film and fully deserving of some of the flak it got. But on the other hand, it wasn’t nearly as bad as some superhero movies in recent memory (Fantastic Four, anyone?) and could all those moviegoers paying all those millions of dollars in ticket money be that wrong?