Happy New Year everyone! 2016 has drawn to a close and has left with some great movies, some mediocre ones, and some movies that were so bad they were downright cringeworthy. 2016 held a lot of promise movie-wise with titles like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Suicide Squad, Batman V. Superman and Captain America: Civil War

The year of the Superhero Movies

2016 had a considerable amount of superhero movies. This year there were six of them (as opposed to last year’s three). Some, but not all, received a hefty amount of criticism. Disappointments like Batman V. Superman and Suicide Squad made the genre look as if it were overdone and losing steam. Thankfully, the genre redeemed itself with movies like Captain America: Civil War, Deadpool, and Doctor Strange.

From a superhero movie perspective, 2016 seemed exciting and promising. Deadpool and Captain America were the first to come out and both dominated the box office, receiving great reviews. Then came Batman V. Superman, the perfect example of what happens when a film franchise is rushed. This movie is a sequel to Man of Steel and was doomed from the start. The film is lazily written and forgets to include some critical plot points. Not to mention, to fans dismay, Wonder Woman is haphazardly incorporated into the film. The debut of the movie was an undeniable mess, making viewers hope that the next movie based in the DC universe would be a saving grace.

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t! Suicide Squad was mediocre at best. The script is terrible, and the movie as a whole painfully predictable. The writers put no effort into keeping the viewers guessing as to the fates of various characters– it was easy to infer who would live and die over the course of the movie. The action sequences are too short and therefore not memorable. The advertising for this movie hyped the Joker, but he is barely in the movie. Jared Leto’s performance as the Joker comes nowhere near Heath Ledger’s previous adaptation of the character. Suicide Squad is all around disappointing and skippable.

The Good

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is a great installment into the beloved Star Wars franchise and will please any fan of the series. The movie is a direct prequel to the original Star Wars movie from 1977. The plot concerns how the Rebel Alliance stole the original Death Star plans. It also explains a few plot holes that were never explained back in the old 1977 film. With an amazing colorful cast of characters and an incredible ending, this movie is a must see for any Star Wars fan.

Back in early December, I wrote a review for the movie Arrival. Given that the review is only a month old, I still stand beside all of my previous opinions. I still think it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in the past five years, with a plot twist crazier than I could have ever predicted. While Arrival is no longer playing theaters, I still believe that avid moviegoers should see this one whenever they have a chance.

Sully is based on the true story of when Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger made an emergency landing on the Hudson River in January of 2009 . With a great cast all around and a spectacular performance by Tom Hanks, I can’t say anything but good things about this movie. It’s hard to focus on all the good things about this movie it is simply amazing.

10 Clover Field Lane is Directed by Dan Trachtenberg and produced by J.J. Abrams. This sci-fi mystery seems to be a sequel or indirect sequel to the found-footage monster movie Cloverfield (2008). This film features three people who are in a nuclear fallout bunker while the state of the rest of the world remains a mystery. What exactly happened is partially up to the viewers as they follow the character Michelle, who is trying to uncover the truth of why she’s trapped in a bunker with two men. One man is sympathetic and nice while the other is implied to be psychotic and unpredictable. This movie had me on the edge of my seat the whole time due to an intensity that never lets up.

The Bad

Movies like Ghostbusters, Warcraft, X-men: Apocalypse and Independance Day: Resurgence were widely regarded as mediocre at best.

I’ve already touched on movies like DC’s Suicide Squad and Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice. I rate these movies poorly because they simply didn’t deliver. I didn’t have high hopes for Batman V. Superman, but the movie still surprised me with its poor execution. Suicide Squad, however, made me excited. It looked like a fun movie where the audience could see comic book villains as the good guys for once. The trailers made it look very promising as it looked like DC’s version of Guardians of The Galaxy, but it ended up being sub-par and a letdown.

The Ugly

Have you ever heard of Gods of Egypt? No? Well of course not. This movie is beyond bad: The film’s “incredible” CGI (computer-Generated Imagery) is simply cringeworthy. In a nod to Egyptian myth, every time someone was maimed, they bled gold. Gerard Butler, actor from Olympus Has Fallen and 300, rode a scarab-drawn carriage. In another scene, when a few characters are leaving earth, the shot of our planet is a flat disc hurling through space. The movie only becomes worse when we are presented with the sun being tugged on a chain behind a glass boat, while the captain shot fireballs at a giant space whale. Gods of Egypt is by far the worst film I’ve seen all year. This movie has a run time of two hours and eight minutes. That’s two hours eight minutes too long. Watch this movie at your own risk. Or better yet, don’t.