Top and Bottom Movies of 2016

*Disclaimer-This only accounts for movies I have seen/experienced for the first time in 2016. Many of these are new movies but they are not necessarily. Also, I did not write about literally everything I watched. And, for a while there was a bit of a lull where I did not write about anything(been busy and lazy). Regardless, here's a useless list of garbage. The further down the list it is the more I enjoyed it; or, in the case of the latter category, loathed it.

Stuff I Liked

Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Okay, this is not really a surprise. I did enjoy this movie. It had everything to be an enjoyable and uncomplicated experience. Thinking back on it it is easy to just bash on the movie due to major plot contrivances, and conveniences in general, but I am not sure it was supposed to be taken too seriously. I also liked the fact that it had some humor to it. Maybe it was a tad forced or out of place but I didn't mind so much. If I had any one major grievance about the movie it is BB8. This robot only exists as a spheroid to be mobile on the desert planet it happened to be on.

Ant Man
I have to say that I underestimated this movie. It was a ton of fun! Even though it did not even try to stick to its own logic. I learned a lot about a character I never knew about before and thoroughly enjoyed it. I know Hank Pym is the real "Ant Man" but I did not feel that he was particularly slighted in the movie.

The Manchurian Candidate
A movie about a group of soldiers who were kidnapped and brainwashed in order to carry out certain nefarious tasks? What is not to love about this? In fact, it sort of makes me wonder if this kind of stuff goes on in the real world. A truly terrifying thought. Liev Schreiber and Denzel Washington both put in some awesome performances as a couple of people who are just not quite right.

The VVitch
I originally did not have much to say about this movie. I suppose I still don't. This movie made me feel gross. The atmosphere was utterly oppressive and bleak. The characters were all suitably twisted, too. Everything about this movie made me feel uncomfortable and I have to give credit to the filmmaker because that is not an easy feat. The fact that I can still remember it to this day is what got this movie on to this list.

Captain America: Civil War
Captain America is back and he punches even more people! Joking aside, this was just a load of fun and had a decently clever plot to make it work. If you liked other superhero movies from Marvel, then you will know whether or not you will like this. I think Winter Soldier is still my favorite of the 3 but this is REALLY good too.

Star Trek: Beyond
What can I say here, it's Star Trek? Well, in a way, yes, it is! I thought Star Trek 2009 was okay. It was a bit of a departure from the older movies but it wasn't a twisted vision all together. Into Darkness was a total letdown for me, though. That plot would have been infinitely better if they just left John Harrison as John Harrison.

Anyways, Beyond took the best parts of the first movie, and threw away all the junk that made the second one awful. It brought back even more nerdy Science stuff that made it feel a lot more like a Star Trek movie. I suppose the credit for the story should go to Simon Pegg and Doug Jung. With Director Justin Lin, they managed to put together something that felt immediately familiar and kept all the great action stuff from the other movies. It just worked. All of it. I loved it.

Things I Wish I Did Not See

Fantastic 4
Ya, this has to be on here. I saw it. With so many tonal shifts, obviously re-shot scenes(Kate Mara's wig), and silly overall story, this movie was a total mess. We know this movie had a lot of re-tooling after Josh Trank was "let go" and it shows. The sad thing is, the more I think about it, the more I kind of want to see Josh Trank's version of this story. A body horror theme for these characters kind of makes some kind of sense initially. We'll never get to see that, though. Because creativity with expensive licenses is wrong.

A Million Ways to Die in the West
I expected this to be better. I really did. What really ended up hurting this the most was that most of the jokes seemed to fall flat. Even the dialogue was delivered in an over-the-top manner which made it annoying after a while. I just think this movie tried way too hard and over-committed in every area creating a truly mediocre comedy. There's stuff to like but meh.

Flightplan
For those of you who dislike Jody Foster, look no further than this movie as a reason to justify that hatred. Okay, that might be a little hyperbolic, but I really thought this movie stank. The story is just so ludicrous that it really pulled me out of it. I don't even dislike Jody Foster. This movie was just awful!

Another Me
I only watched this due to wanting to see Sophie Turner(Sansa from Game of Thrones) in something else. Unfortunately, I had no idea that experience would leave me so scarred. I don't really think it was Turner's fault so much as I blame the terrible writing. I think all the actors were just innocent bystanders in this train-wreck. Maybe not innocent....

House of the Dead
This was one of the most awful things I have ever seen. The acting was dreadful. The story was just predictable and stupid. The characters did things and said things that made no sense. If you want to know what a horrible movie looks like, then watch this. Take special care with the extended gunfight scenes, bizarre and inconsistent death scenes, and the pop-up video game transitions. Utter horse shit.