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| Source: Sony |
Not every movie released will please every moviegoer. Neither will every movie please all film critics. Managing to make a film that pleases both audiences and critics is an even harder feat to realise, and a tonne of movies released during 2016 are definitive proof of that. But just because a movie doesn’t receive universal acclaim, it isn’t necessarily a terrible movie either. There’s many a reason why a film can fall flat. Perhaps it doesn’t live up to audience’s expectations of what it should be; perhaps certain film critics don’t see the merit in less ‘serious’ films. But attitudes like that, from both critics and general moviegoers, means films that are actually fairly decent get dismissed.
While the movies featured on this list are by no means perfect – that is, if ‘perfect’ means both universal critical acclaim and raking in huge amounts of money by putting moviegoer derrieres in seats – they’re by no means the most terrible movies in the history of cinema.
Some were lavished with praise from the film press but rebuffed by audiences and others earned huge box office profits but were panned by film buffs.
Some were disliked by both critics and audiences, but what unites them all is that they didn’t deserve half the hate they got.
12. Suicide Squad
Without a doubt one of the year’s most divisive movies, Suicide Squad may have been critically panned but it also somehow managed to rake in a whopping $745.6 million worldwide ranking it as the eighth highest-grossing film of 2016 so far. Proof, if there ever was, of the sometimes huge gulf between film critics and general moviegoers. Its low rating on Rotten Tomatoes riled fans so much that they took to change.org, the leading first-world problems petition site, to campaign for the aggregate website to be shut down.
Maybe the critics were a tad harsh. Some criticisms like sloppy editing and muddled plotline might have been justified. However, others that accused Suicide Squad of misogyny and fetishizing violence seemed like they were unfairly singling out the movie in a genre where violence and sexism are often main ingredients.
In terms of quality while it’s certainly no Deadpool, it’s nowhere near as bad as some of the comic book movie genre’s other recent offerings like the abysmal Fantastic Four. Besides, if the Suicide Squad’s die-hard fans are happy with how the movie turned out isn’t that the main thing?
11. The Neon Demon
Well known as one of contemporary cinema’s most polarizing directors, Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest offering and his first foray into horror The Neon Demon received both boos and a standing ovation at its Cannes premiere. Perhaps not too surprising considering that his last film Only God Forgives got exactly the same response at Cannes three years earlier. Much of the criticism leveraged at the seductively stylish psychological horror has been that it fetishizes the very thing it sets out to condemn – the glittering but exploitative world of fashion.
It’s true that the film, which focuses on Elle Fanning’s naïve but narcissistic young model as she breaks into the LA fashion scene, does seem to promote or at least be part and parcel of what it also seeks to critique. The movie’s male gaze lingers and sexualises its subjects, its dialogue often feels vapid and when it descends into its more depraved scenes (lesbian necrophilia, Fanning being forced to deep-throat a knife and cannibalism included) it is hard to see The Neon Demon as a takedown of the fashion industry.
But perhaps this is exactly Winding Refn’s intention. By deliberately being as shallow and vapid as the industry it critiques, it works better as a satire of a culture that values beauty and youth above all else. Even if that seems too kind to Winding Refn, the fact that the Daily Mail was so outraged by The Neon Demon’s depravity that they called for the British Board of Film Classification to ban it must lend the movie at least some street cred.
10. Swiss Army Man
Naturally, a film about a flatulent corpse isn’t going to appeal to everyone, but the directorial debut of Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert is so much more than an hour and a half’s worth of lowbrow fart jokes. Something that audience members might have recognised had many of them not walked out during Swiss Army Man’s premiere screening at Sundance. That isn’t to say that the movie hasn’t found a good few fans but its many middling reviews, plus a few more scathing takedowns like one critic who likened it to Michel Gondry directing a castaway take on Weekend at Bernie’s, suggest the general consensus is less than pleased.
To focus on the movie’s more lowbrow, puerile elements is to miss out on a beautiful if very surreal film about overcoming shame and being true to yourself. Yes, the bromance between a suicidal man (played by the brilliant and ever-adaptable Paul Dano) and a farting dead man (Daniel Radcliffe in a role about as far from Harry Potter as you can get) might be the catalyst for these life lessons but that shouldn’t necessarily detract from its more philosophical musings.
9. Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice
Grim, incoherent and bat-sh*t crazy are just a few things detractors of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice had to say about the movie. Some have even gone so far as to suggest it’s the worst superhero movie ever made. Clearly, they’re suffering from short term memory loss if they think it’s anywhere near as awful as Catwoman or Green Lantern, but its wasn’t just critics that weren’t taken with the movie. Comic book fanatic, filmmaker and Ben Affleck’s best buddy Kevin Smith called the film ‘humourless’ and even star Jeremy Irons said the movie was ‘very muddled’.
Nevertheless, it didn’t put fanboys and moviegoers en masse seeing it. Much like Suicide Squad, Batman V Superman managed to turn a massive profit in spite of scathing reviews earning over $873 million worldwide and currently ranking as 2016’s sixth highest-grossing film. There’s a disconnect between critics and audiences here and much of it seems to stem from the fact that many critics weren’t taken with Batman V Superman’s grittier, darker tone.
Yes, it might be a stark contrast to the wholesome Christopher Reeve Superman movies of yore or the gothic campiness of Tim Burton’s Batman films but it’s arguable that gritter, more complex superheroes are more suited to our grittier, more complex times. To paraphrase a previous Batman franchise, the movie might not have given critics the superheroes they wanted but it certainly gave audiences the heroes they needed.
8. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi
One of the lowest-grossing productions of his career to date, Michael Bay’s new movie 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi faced criticism from all fronts after its January release this year. Detailing the true story of an American security team defending against a terrorist attack on a US compound in Libya, the movie was not only awarded some rather middling reviews by the film press (presumably put off at the mere mention of a Michael Bay directed film), but also got flak from CIA officials and Democrats who disputed its accuracy and a good few Libyan nationals who protested their representation in the film as fanatical.
Released in the run-up to the 2016 US election, the politically conservative movie was bound to ruffle a few feathers regardless and while its political leanings should definitely be taken into account, the film does deserve some credit for its adrenaline-filled action sequences that accurately show the chaos and confusion of conflict. Moreover for Michael Bay, the man behind the increasingly awful Transformers series, 13 Hours is a relatively restrained movie.
At the very least, it’s a hell of a lot better than Pearl Harbour and a step in the right direction for Bay.
7. Warcraft
Warcraft was lashed by critics when it hit cinema screens this summer and though it performed poorly domestically, it managed to rake in $433.5 million globally over half of which came from box office sales in China. Currently it ranks as the highest-grossing video game movie internationally, surpassing previous titleholder Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time by almost $100 million. Not too bad considering the video game to movie genre is quite possibly one of the most mocked and responsible critical and commercial flops like Super Mario Bros and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.
What’s more, fans of the long-running game franchise on which it’s based seemed to enjoy the movie by and large which isn’t an easy feat considering how pernickety fans of source material can be when it’s adapted to another medium. A good few moviegoers who weren’t diehard Warcraft gamers managed to enjoy the film too, and even critics who gave it a walloping were forced to admit admiration for its CGI and director Duncan Jones’ visual flair. Of course, it’s by no means an amazing film but an enjoyable enough one and within its genre, one of the best.
6. Hail, Caesar!
The Coen Brothers are an acquired taste at the best of times, but Hail, Caesar! had even self-confessed Coen fans expressing their dislike for the film, some calling it flat, humourless and the worse film of their career. This isn’t exactly anything new however: The Coen Brothers’ varied career has always been marked by heady heights and notable lows. Films like No Country for Old Men and their True Grit remake were both critically acclaimed and crowd-pleasers, while movies like The Hudsucker Proxy and The Ladykillers didn’t resonate with critics or audiences.
Similarly, the Coen Brothers have a tendency to alternate between darker, drama focused movies and lighter-hearted, comedic fare – think of their violent debut Blood Simple and its follow-up crime caper Raising Arizona, for example. Hot on the heels of the critically acclaimed Inside Llewelyn Davis, a comedy albeit a very dark and bleak one, Hail, Caesar! seems at first to follow this pattern. But if moviegoers were expecting a more straightforward and perhaps less demanding comedic film along the lines of The Big Lebowski with Hail, Caesar! they were wrong.
It’s been said that Hail, Caesar! is a movie for real movie buffs and it’s true that a bit of background knowledge about the studio system of Golden Age Hollywood makes it a more enjoyable watch. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing to ask of audiences, however, and if we’ve come to expect anything from the Coen Brothers’ varied oeuvre it’s that we should expect the unexpected.
5. The Witch
Robert Eggers directorial debut The Witch may have been a hit with critics, but not all mainstream horror fans were quite so taken with the creepy period horror and slammed it as boring and un-scary. The movie’s 91% critics rating and 53% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes should give an idea of just quite how divided critics and moviegoers were over the movie.
Admittedly, The Witch is quite far removed from the realms of modern, mainstream horrors. A slow-burner with an emphasis on psychologically unsettling themes and mounting dread, it doesn’t offer the quick fix jump scares and gore that most horror movies do these days. But that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad horror movie, just different. In fact, in a genre that’s all too often dismissed as anti-intellectual, gore-ridden tat for the slack-jawed masses The Witch, alongside films like The Babadook and It Follows which funnily enough got a similar reception, it’s a refreshing change.
As for the accusation of The Witch not being scary? Well, if a film featuring an old hag grinding up a baby and a woman breastfeeding a crow isn’t frightening enough then maybe modern horror fans really need to check themselves.
4. Ghostbusters
A third Ghostbusters film has been in the works since as far back as the franchise’s last outing in 1989, but star Bill Murray’s reluctance to revisit his role as Peter Venkman and the eventual death of Egon Spengler actor Harold Ramis in 2015 scuppered any chance of a reunion sequel. So, the announcement that Paul Feig would be directing a Ghostbusters reboot rather than sequel wasn’t too much of a surprise, but the revelation that the movie would feature a – shock! horror! – all-female cast was met with quite the backlash. Feeling it a gimmicky, man-hating concept, internet warriors worldwide took to social media to voice their concerns and when the first trailer for the movie aired it became the most disliked film trailer in YouTube history.
It’s always dangerous territory remaking or rebooting a much-loved original film, but the reaction to the new Ghostbusters pretty much doomed it from the outset. Admittedly, the final product wasn’t a patch on the original and while not a perfect film by any stretch the Ghostbusters reboot definitely wasn’t awful. Gender wars aside it was funny, silly, featured a great cast (especially the brilliant Kate McKinnon) and conjured up some imaginative and genuinely creepy ghost characters.
Would Ghostbusters have gotten as much hate had it reprised its original cast and been an all-male reboot instead? Probably some, but we’ll never know for sure. If anything, the fact that three quarters of the original ghost-busting team appeared in cameo roles and that the movie had original director Ivan Reitman’s seal of approval should show it isn’t half as bad as some would have you believe.
3. X-Men: Apocalypse
Bryan Singer’s fourth instalment in the X-Men franchise didn’t get quite the critical lashing that its comic book movie contemporaries Suicide Squad and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice did. In fact, X-Men: Apocalypse’s 48% Rotten Tomatoes rating looks perfectly respectable next to their respective scores of 26% and 27% but by and large, critics and moviegoers were less than impressed with the film.
It’s been perhaps rightfully accused of being repetitive and favouring style over substance, but this is comic book movie franchise territory – what did people really expect? Moreover, it’s not an entirely awful film either. It boasts some stunning visuals, a well-cast ensemble (especially Michael Fassbender as Magneto) and even a little Hugh Jackman cameo for true-blue X-Men fans. At the very least, it’s by no means the worst film in the X-Men franchise: that dishonour is currently held by Gavin Hood’s even more critically panned X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
2. The Nice Guys
The Nice Guys might’ve gotten film critics in a tizzy after its Cannes premiere this year, earning it a 92% ‘certified fresh’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a couple of Critics’ Choice Award nominations too, but not everyone was quite so impressed with Shane Black’s latest outing. Most of all and most importantly, the film – a comedy-noir crime thriller set in LA’s 1970s porn scene in which Ryan Gosling and Russel Crowe play a pair of mismatched private detectives looking for a missing girl – was snubbed by moviegoers, making just $57.3 million worldwide against a budget of $50 million.
Certainly, it’s a film for Shane Black fans. One reviewer even called it ‘the Shane Black-est of all the Shane Black movies’, so fans of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and the mismatched camaraderie of Lethal Weapon no doubt enjoyed The Nice Guys. But perhaps being something of an acquired taste wasn’t the only thing limiting the love for the movie. Released amongst a sea of blockbuster kids’ films and comic book movies, it was overshadowed somewhat and quite literally became the epitome of the saying ‘nice guys finish last’, however undeserved that was.
1. Hardcore Henry
The plot of Russian filmmaker Ilya Naishuller’s feature length debut is as simple as it is silly. In Hardcore Henry, the cybernetically resurrected titular character must save his kidnapped scientist wife from a telekinetic Russian warlord, but what sets the film apart is its first-person shooter game inspiration and wildly innovative camerawork. Filmed entirely with GoPro cameras mounted on specially designed masks and shot from a first-person perspective, it’s a non-stop ride of action and extreme violence. Though its camerawork has been called nausea-inducing and it certainly isn’t a movie for those prone to motion sickness, Hardcore Henry’s frenetic POV perspective is exactly what makes it so unique and entertaining without ever limiting the scope of its cinematography.
Yes, it’s low on plot and character development but to criticise solely on such points would be to dismiss that its source material, first-person shooter games, aren’t exactly intricately plotted or character driven but can nevertheless be a lot of fun. Plus, a star turn from District 9 actor Sharlto Copley as Henry’s constantly respawning sidekick in which he appears in personas ranging from a cocaine-addled brothel Casanova to a mohawked punk rocker combined with some of the most inventively gruesome death scenes in recent history keep the movie from ever feeling too stale.
Hardcore Henry is definitely an acquired taste and won’t be for every moviegoer, but in terms of sheer innovation it should be applauded.
