12 Awesome Performances In Otherwise Awful 2016 Movies

Emily Blunt saved the day again this year with another great performance, this time in the silly sequel-prequel to the scandal-ridden Snow White and the Huntsman that nobody really asked for, The Huntsman: Winter’s War. Blunt plays Freya, the slightly less insane sister of Charlize Theron’s evil Queen Ravenna, who becomes embittered after the death of her baby daughter and uses her magic powers to build an icy kingdom where she wanders around wearing beautifully elaborate frocks in pale blue hues, outlawing love and training an army of child hunter-soldiers, as you do.

Sitting uncomfortably somewhere between Frozen and Game of Thrones, the movie then shifts focus to a boring love story between star-crossed lovers Chris Hemsworth and Jessica Chastain whose gorgeous chops can’t distract from the awful accents (Scottish? Irish? Yorkshire?) they’re woefully trying to pull off. But, proving she can make even the worst film worth watching, Blunt manages to infuse her character with emotional depth amidst all the movie’s silliness even when she’s riding a gnarly CGI polar bear. It’s only a shame she didn’t get a bit more screen time.