34. Batman: The Killing Joke
D: Sam Liu, Bruce Timm
**********
How could they have gotten this so wrong? The tragedy of Batgirl’s paralysis is
cheapened by the revelation that she sucked at being a superheroine anyway, and
not even the voice acting from Mark Hammill and Kevin Conroy couldn’t save
it. The animation seems a bit disappointing
and would have been better had they not wasted so much effort on 30min worth of
scenes that shouldn’t even exist. The
main reason this movie could have been great was to hear the Joker’s song, but
even that was a bland letdown.
33. Independence Day: Resurgence
D: Roland Emmerich
**********
It lacks the effective manipulation of the first. Without that, the great practical effects,
and the nostalgia, it wasn’t worth watching.
32. Underworld: Blood Wars
D: Anna Foerster
**********
Not as much technically wrong with it as the previous movies, but lacks almost every interesting aspect of them. It doesn't even have a memorable line, which even the others seemed to have some of those.
31. Kung Fu Panda 3
D: Jennifer Yuh Nelson, Alessandro Carloni
**********
Though this year has definitely seen some bad sequels, I
think this is the most genuinely disappointing
one. I’ve always thought the weakest
aspect of Kung Fu Panda was Po
himself. I’ve always found the
supporting cast more likable. Here the
characters I like are pushed even further into the background while Po spends
time with a whole village of Po-like characters. Also, the villain was not as developed or
interesting as the previous two. Lord
Shen was a pretty hard act to follow.
30. Zoolander No. 2
D: Ben Stiller
**********
Had its moments, but not nearly as funny or clever as the
first. Apparently, 15 years wasn’t
enough to write jokes. It really looked
like it only had enough material for a short sketch which should have been a
special feature on a Blu-Ray release or something. Very clear that some of the jokes were
written years ago, but they still kept them in (the Netflix references).
29. Suicide Squad
D: David Ayer
**********
Massively disappointing.
It would have been better had it stuck to its gritty guns and not had a
supernatural force that the Suicide Squad was distinctly ill-equipped to deal
with.
28. The BFG
D: Steven Spielberg
**********
Doesn’t hold a candle next to the animated version. The fart jokes were done with the worst
possible delivery.
27. Star Trek Beyond
D: Justin Lin
**********
Despite what everybody says, this is a bad movie with a
bland villain, shameless fanservice, and tedious action sequences. The one good thing was the beginning in which
they talk briefly about how boring deployment is (with a beautiful shot of the Enterprise travelling through warp) and
the entrance into the space city.
26. Passengers
D: Morten Tyldum
**********
Really creepy “romance,” even if they movie makes it
clear how wrong the protagonists’ actions are.
The only good thing was Michael Sheen’s character, who passes a
personhood test for his moral decision to tell the woman the truth in spite of
orders.
25. A Cure for Wellness
D: Gore Verbinski
**********
Great cinematography and that’s about it. The character is unlikeable up till the end of the movie, and that’s not enough time. Also it subverts its ominous atmosphere to transform into a feel-good action movie at the end.
Great cinematography and that’s about it. The character is unlikeable up till the end of the movie, and that’s not enough time. Also it subverts its ominous atmosphere to transform into a feel-good action movie at the end.
24. The Magnificent Seven
D: Antoine Fuqua
**********
A blandly competent and unnecessary remake. The only part I liked was when the villager
couldn’t hit any targets and Chris Pratt says, “I don’t get it. Statistically they should have hit something.”
23. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
D: David Yates
**********
I had the opposite reaction to this movie I had to Kung Fu Panda. Po was the character I liked the least, and
his arc is heroism handed to him on a silver platter. Kowalski was the only thing about this movie
I liked, and he maintained an effective role as an everyman. I also liked Kung Fu Panda overall and disliked this movie overall. It pleases the fans of the book in that it’s
full of tedious filler that doesn’t work in a movie (like a front-heavy
rhino-thing trying to hump a fatman).
22. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
D: Zack Snyder
**********
Despite how inept it was overall, there were many
enjoyable aspects to it. Ben Affleck was
surprisingly good as Batman, and I have an aesthetic defense for his
killing. Batman has always been depicted
as on the edge of becoming a killer, and this movie portrays him as a Batman
who has crossed that line. Hopefully the
Justice League would be a redemptive force on him, as the final scene
suggests. Still, Afred’s killing and the
possibility of continued killing in Justice League might discredit that
theory. I also like how the forming of
the League may be a redemptive event for its members (Wonder Woman seemed to
have been in a cynical funk at the time), which is more interesting than having
a bunch of people brought together and shoot wisecracks at each other
(Avengers). The score had its moments.
21. Hell or High Water
D: David Mackenzie
**********
Honestly, I thought it was a competent No Country wannabe and not much else.
20. Triple 9
D: John Hillcoat
**********
I checked this out because I never got a chance to see Heat in the theaters. This wasn’t much of a substitute. I doubt that an officer down would compel the
entire city’s police force to cripple their ability to protect the city be all
converging on that one point.
19. Finding Dory
D: Andrew Stanton, Angus MacLane
**********
I was a bit distracted by the elements the movie handled
well, like Dory’s character arc, to immediately mind the things it didn’t do
well. It took a while for me to finally
accept that the octopus character was going to be a player, and the ending
dragged on way too much.
18. Queen of Katwe
D: Mira Nair
**********
A competent feel-good Cinderella Story.
17. Hail, Caesar!
D: The Coen Bros.
**********
With its visual style and religiously significant themes,
this may be the best comedy I’ve seen that isn’t remotely funny. It also shamelessly indulges in a decidedly annoying 50's movie trope: interminable dance sequences.
16. Moana
D: Ron Clements, Jon Musker
**********
15. Zootopia
D: Byron Howard, Rich Moore
**********
The more I find out about the original concept for this
movie, the more I feel cheated out of it.
It’s got some insight, but much of the plot seems formulaic. I love Nick Wilde and I do identify with
him.
14. Doctor Strange
D: Scott Derrickson
**********
A decent superhero movie that gets some extra points for a
great acid trip scene using modern effects and a good score.
13. Hacksaw Ridge
D: Mel Gibson
**********
A solid war movie with a relevant message about
conscience rights (although in case it seems both parties refuse to make a
reasonable compromise; I mean all he had to do was simply touch a gun and use
it as target practice, and all they had to do was just make an exception for
this one guy). It still lacked the edge
that Mel Gibson’s previous movies had.
12. Deadpool
D: Tim Miller
**********
Overall, it was pretty good. Had the action scenes been better, it would
have been the movie Shoot’em Up
should have been.
11. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
D: Michael Bay
**********
I had no idea that Michael Bay was even capable of making a movie
this good. I was surprised he actually
pulled off an earnest war movie. Unfortunately, the movie's one flaw was its failure to depict the Libyans' contributions to the rescue.
10. Patriots Day
D: Peter Berg
**********
Refreshingly down-to-earth.
10. Allied
D: Robert Zemeckis
**********
A good paranoid thriller, but Brad Pitt gets too much
screentime over Marion Cotillard, who can act circles around him.
9. The Founder
D: John Lee Hancock
**********
A pretty good movie starring the excellent Michael Keaton.
8. Kubo and the Two Strings
D: Travis Knight
***********
Amazing stop-motion animation and a refreshingly earnest
story.
7. Arrival
D: Denis Villenueve
**********
A solid cerebral sci-fi movie. I don’t see
how learning an inefficient form of writing, however, enables you to see into
the future.
D: Gareth Edwards
**********
Characters could be better, but what the heck. I love this movie. The dark atmosphere, the best space battle in the franchise since Return of the Jedi (not saying much, I know), and Darth Vader’s being awesome. Great that it shows the visceral, bellicose side of Star Wars.
5. Deepwater Horizon
D: Peter Berg
**********
Genuinely tense and suspenseful.
4. The Nice Guys
D: Shane Black
**********
Not quite as funny as Kiss
Kiss Bang Bang, but I nice love letter to 70’s retro style.
3. Split
D: M. Night Shyamalan
**********
The twist is that M. Night Shyamalan actually made a good
movie for the first time in years [canned laughter]. James
McAvoy is great in it. Divisive as it is, I like the twist, which actually
makes me look forward to the next Night movie.
Never thought I’d say that for a while.
2. Shin Godzilla
D: Hideaki Anno, Shinji Higuchi
**********
While the CGI on Godzilla is terrible, it’s an interesting movie that feels much more like an authentic Japanese story. I also liked the pro-human theme of the protagonists using ingenuity to solve the problem.
1. 10 Cloverfield Lane
D: Dan Trachtenberg
**********
John Goodman: The Movie.
A good psychological thriller with an actor I love. I was genuinely frustrated when he didn’t get
nominated for an Oscar. I don’t have
much interest in Cloverfield, but I loved this. I also liked the alien twist because it was
like seeing the origin story of a sci-fi heroine, in which her backstory is the
movie itself. Also had a good score.
No comments:
Post a Comment