20 Worst Movies Of 2016 (So Far)
So much for Hollywood's biggest ever year...
So much for 2016 being a watershed, brilliant year for cinema, with the idea of the early year dumping ground shattered by strong releases and a general blurring of release dates into one super blockbuster window. Aside from some stunning successes (Deadpool, Zootopia, Civil War...) it hasn't been great.
Once more, Johnny Depp has proven that he's nowhere near the talent he used to be, video game movies have proven they ALWAYS suck and at least 3 entirely unnecessary sequels utterly bombed. It's enough to make you despair at the characters who pretend to have cinema-goers' best interests at heart rather than being lead entirely by the call of the almighty dollar.
It hasn't been the worst year for film, by any means, but it's hard to remember as many disappointments and so much mediocrity from a slate that initially looked so promising. It's getting better, but the second half of 2016 has a lot to do to live up to its billing.
Luckily, the benchmark of quality in 2016 is mostly pretty low, thanks to abominations like these...
20. The Boss
You'd think that a comedy vehicle written by Melissa McCarthy and directed by her husband Ben Falcone would play to her strengths, but The Boss is a one-note, one-joke caricature comedy that does nothing for McCarthy's image. She's undoubtedly talented, even when she's being profane and outrageous, it's just perhaps best if she leaves the creative control outside of her immediately personal relationships from now on.
As with McCarthy, The Boss casts Peter Dinklage as a despicably bad villain, following on from Pixels' abuse of him and painting no more than a pantomime villain that is utterly beneath him. It's just not funny, and for an incomplex comedy, that's the only thing that could save it.
Strangely, McCarthy feels like she's doing someone a favour here, slumming it briefly to pay back some old debt. But it's her movie, and the blame for the cheap jokes and painfully thin thrills lie at her feet (and her husband's), which is all the more unforgivable given her last two movies (Spy and St Vincent) and how great she was in there.