2016 Movies

[Deckard]

Films that I was waiting for 2016:
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story after the triumph of The Force Awakens I could not wait

Captain America: Civil War intrigued me as it meant turning good guys against one another

Suicide Squad looked like it would be a fresh revival of DC's fortunes

The Magnificent Seven as I'm a sucker for a good Western

2015 in retrospect (shorter than normal as I'm trying to catch up to live - also tenses are all over the place)

The Excellent:
Star Wars: The Force Awakens was definitely worth the wait, it exceeded all my high expectations and delivered, very enjoyable!

I almost missed this film as it had flown under the radar, I only heard about it a few weeks before it was released, thankfully I saw it and was once against amazed at how good a director Quentin Tarantino is to produce such varied pieces of cinema. The Hateful Eight felt more like The Thing than a Western, the dialogue was fantastic the acting was great and the variety of characters present was appealing

The Good:
I  enjoyed Jurassic World, not sure if that's because I went in with low expectations, I thought the story was pretty tight, characters were in my view better than the original, I can't really recall anything that annoyed me about it, a pleasant surprise

Again proving that Disney Marvel can do no wrong is Avengers: Age of Ultron, it suffers from too many characters (which stops it being Excellent) but everything offered is great, dialogue is superb, bad guy is chilling and action is top notch

The OK:
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation was thoroughly pleasant without ever being wonderful, there was nothing wrong with the film but it didn't hit any heights either better than the terrible second and third films though

Mad Max: Fury Road thought it was ok, all the visuals were great but there were two things that annoyed me. The dialogue was utterly mindless and the use of 'gross out' moments to remind you it's a post apocalyptic world were unnecessary. I think the dialogue was made worse for me because we accidently saw an audio description showing of the film so whenever something got mumbled we could see what it was meant to say – it reminded me of the awful Nadsat from Clockwork Orange and made me remember what I liked most about Mad Max 1 & 2, there was very little dialogue

In the it's so bad it's good position comes Jupiter Ascending basically this movie is a modern Flash Gordon, ridiculous costumes, over the top acting, crazy plot and yet very watchable for no tangible reason

Caught up on The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 could nearly fall into the Bad category, it concentrated more on setting up the second part which was disappointing as I'd have to wait a year for the conclusion, introduced a lot of new characters though and fleshed out the political / factional elements of the tale that were missing

The Bad:
Caught up on Prince of Persia The Sands of Time and it wasn't really worth the wait, a mediocre swords and sandals movie that felt a bit dated

The Disappointing:
Terminator Genisys, the action sequences are pretty well done, but the story is really poor (and ruined by the trailer) and the best acting is from Arnie - at least it was better than Rise of the Machines

Spectre truthfully I can't really remember much about this one but I recall feeling it was a missed opportunity especially having Christian Woltz as Blofeld it just felt like he was phoning it in somehow, not sure what I expected

Films I missed but want to watch:
Chappie, Ant-Man, Fantastic Four, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, Creed, The Revenant

Films I own but have yet to watch:
Clash of the Titans, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Shutter Island, RoboCop, Interstellar, Conan: The Barbarian

Not Seen!
2014 The Raid 2, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, I, Frankenstein, The Grand Budapest Hotel
2013 Oblivion, The Lone Ranger, Elysium, American Hustle
2012 Life of Pi, Ghost Rider 2, Wrath of the Titans, The Amazing Spider-Man, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
2011 Priest, Death Race 2, True Grit
2010 Daybreakers, Universal Soldier 3, Percy Jackson, Green Zone, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Centurion
2009 Angels & Demons, WALL-E, Avatar, Dorian Gray
2008 Transporter 3, Death Race, Saw VI & VI