Best Films Of 2016

2016 is already coming to a close. This is kind of insane, I cannot believe this year has blown by this fast, and it is time once again to talk about my picks for my favourite movies of 2016. A lot of people have referred to 2016 as not the greatest year for film, and I guess that’d be true if all of your hopes and dreams were riding on movies like Independence Day resurgence or Jason Bourne. If your livelihood rests on the success of those movies well then I'm sorry, this year's probably kind of sucky for you. Yes, there were a lot of misfires this year in the big-budget franchise category. We're going to talk about a few of the really good ones in that category, but there were a lot of films I think this year that flew under people's radar, and we're going to talk about a lot of those, and this year I do have a few honourable mentions, some great films that I really wanted to put on this list, but didn't quite make it, and those films are:

Hell Or Highwater

The Hunt For The Wilderpeople

Sing Street

Kubo And The Two Strings

Doctor Strange

Star Trek Beyond

 10 Cloverfield Lane

5. Moonlight

Moonlight; this is a film that I can't see myself re-watching a lot because it is very long and it's very depressing and it's very intense, in its depiction of a boy growing up in a harsh urban environment. But despite the fact that I can't see myself popping this Blu-ray in every once in a while, I couldn't find a single flaw with this movie. This film is directed so masterfully and it told that story with such beautiful, heartfelt emotion, I think if you miss this film in theatres, definitely seek out that Blu-ray when it comes out.

4. Deadpool

Deadpool; this was for me, one of the biggest surprises of 2016. I was excited about this movie; I was careful though. I was like ‘uh, last time Ryan Reynolds portrayed Deadpool in a film, that really went south.’ And all of my worries just went out the door with in the opening credits alone. This is one of the best adaptations of a comic book hero to the big screen, regards to capturing to feel, the tone, and the essence of that character. I loved Deadpool everything a blockbuster movie should be.

3. La La Land

La La Land; I had to see this one again, I saw it a second time, just to make sure where it was on my list. This film got even better the second time. I have only one flaw with La La Land, I think that's a little too long, I think maybe about 15 minutes could be trimmed off the runtime. Other than that, this is one of the best, if not in my opinion, the best musical since the Blues Brothers. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are brilliant in this film, there are so many amazing musical numbers and dance sequences, and it is as close to perfectly directed a film like this gets, it feels like you're watching a movie that was made in the nineteen fifties today, in the theatre. La La Land is amazing, if you missed it in theatres, definitely check this one out, because it is starting to expand more, it is one of the best films of the year, and for a musical to be this high on my list, you know it's pretty damn good.

2. Captain America: Civil War

They pulled it off. Captain America: Civil War was a total blast; this was my most anticipated film of the year. I would have liked to have seen it as my favourite film of the year, but in the long run, it's on my list because it actually was that good. Does Spiderman have to be in this movie? Yeah! He's awesome, he's Spiderman, he's one of my favourite superheroes of all time, and even though you can kind of look at that and say maybe they shoehorned him in, I think they found a really great middle-ground of introducing that character. It was a great conflict between our heroes, it wasn't just about battles and action, and I think it all came to a head beautifully. It was exciting, and again, this is everything a blockbuster movie should be.

Well guys, it has come down to this what is my personal pick for my favourite movie of 2016, the Blu-ray that I've watched the most, the movie that I went to the theatre the most times to see, well that film is…

1.The Nice Guys

The Nice Guys is my favourite movie of 2016. This is a film that people just don't make anymore, when's the last time you saw a great detective noir style mystery? These films aren’t on the market anymore, and it's no surprise this film tanked heavily at the box office, nobody saw it, no one's talking about it anymore. Everyone that I've talked to about this film that did actually see it, liked it or loved it, I have not talked to a single person that didn't like The Nice Guys.

I think it is such an original film. Shane Black wrote and directed the shit out of this movie, his script is so incredible, I just re-watched it last night on Blu-ray to make sure this is my favourite movie of the year, and despite having seen it multiple times already, I laughed my ass off the entire time. Gosling gives I think one of the best comedic performances that I have seen in the past five to ten years. Russell Crowe is such a great companion piece for him, they work together so well, the chemistry is amazing. If you watch these two in interviews for The Nice Guys, they are great, this is a movie that has a fight scene with Keith David in it, if you're a fan of the movie; They Live, well then you know that a fight scene with Keith David is a pretty awesome thing to see.

Let's talk about Angourie Rice in this movie: My God, one of the most underrated performances of 2016, her accent in this movie is perfect, she is so great in this movie and so funny, it's no surprise that she's in the new Spiderman film. If you watch the Blu-ray special features of this movie, and go to ‘always bet on black’ special feature you will hear shane black talking about the fact that he wanted to make a sequel to this, he actually says ‘I could make movies like this with these two characters for the rest of my life’, and he goes ‘I'm not saying sequel, but sequel’. And of course, no one saw this movie because you know there's no superheroes in it.

The Nice Guys is the type of movie that people who love film should support. Please go out and buy this movie on Blu-ray, or rent it on Amazon, don't download it don't torrent it, actually support this film. The novelization is really good, I've read it, it's good. The soundtrack is amazing, I bought it on vinyl. The Nice Guys is my favourite movie of the year I think it's incredibly funny, I think the action set pieces are great, I think it has two characters I would love to see more from, and the most underrated screenplay of the year. For me, The Nice Guys is 2016 Edge Of Tomorrow… except Edge Of Tomorrow is actually getting a sequel, supposedly as it made a lot more money.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - Good way to cap off the year

It's safe to say that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was one of my most anticipated films of the year. I have lived and breathed Star Wars my entire life, ever since my dad sat me down with the original VHS tapes, and made me watch the original trilogy. I have loved this thing since I was a little boy, I've played with the toys. I love Star Wars, so naturally going to this film, I was on edge, I was trembling, my heart was beating, I was waiting to see just every little moment of this movie. I wanted to see how the very first ever Star Wars anthology film, would open what they have a crawl, would they not have a crawl? What would they do differently with the score, what would the characters be like, how would everything wrap-up.

I've avoided all theories and speculation articles about this film, I have not read a single spoiler which by the way, this review will also be spoiler-free. I went into this film as a humongous fan, but also with an open mind, who obviously knows what the majority of this film is going to be about, because if you've seen Episode IV: A New Hope, you know that Leia had the Death Star plans, but how did these plans come into the hands of the rebels, and that's where this movie comes into play.

The character Jyn Erso, portrayed by Felicity Jones, and a team of rebels go out on a very small mission, to attempt to retrieve these Death Star plans and hopefully turn the tide in the battle against the Empire.

Let's start with the pros first: I really like the fact that this was a grounded, realistic Star Wars movie, it was sort of like a very fun action film that takes place in the Star Wars universe. It feels suitably small-scale despite its massive budget and incredible special effects, despite the fact that they're traveling all over the galaxy to many planets, there was something that felt more contained about this movie, which was refreshing. The film also features gorgeous action set-pieces, with mind-blowingly good CGI, and I'm talking about the space stuff, the ship to ship battles, the stuff on the beach battle that we were all very excited to see. The CG here is virtually flawless.

It is so well imprinted within this film, that it feels completely seamless with the human characters. There's a lot of sequences, especially within the beach battle where you see the AT-AT is walking around, and it's often shown from the perspective of the humans on the ground, so you get a way of relating to it, and it also depicts the size very well, just something that Gareth Edwards, who directed this film, did a really good job in with Godzilla, making him look gigantic. You really felt the size of that creature in that movie, and you feel that with a lot of the CG in this film. It's very well incorporated with the people that are on the ground.

The performances are all (almost) uniformly great. Felicity Jones is terrific, Diego Luna is very good, Riz Ahmed is great. In regards to the new characters that are in this film, I would say that Donnie Yen and K2-SO the droid, are my favourite new additions to the Star Wars universe. I thought Donnie Yen was a complete badass in this movie, all his fight scenes were really cool, and I like his character, there's a lot of good humour there, and speaking of humour, K2-SO is by far the shining example of it in this film. He has so many great lines, he's such a fun and likeable character, he's easily my favourite part of this movie in regards to the characters. I also appreciated the brief call-backs, and references to other Star Wars films they're there, but they're not overpowering. The film is wise enough to trust its own story, and be fun in its own right, whilst not relying too much on things of the past that we appreciate. But they're there in small doses, and if you pick up on some of them it's going to make the experience more entertaining for you.

The aesthetics of the film are also beautiful, the production design feels used, dirty, lived in, the type of Star Wars we like to see, the sort of dirty futuristic world, where it feels tangible and real, and I love the prop creatures as well that were on display, a lot of really fun stuff. Also, this film puts to rest a decades-long complaint with Star Wars fans, I can't say what it is but this film addresses a very specific complaint that many people had with the Star Wars universe, and it did it in a very emotionally satisfying way. And let's talk about a certain character named Darth Vader that we all know is in this movie, he has an incredibly awesome scene, an extremely satisfying seen that gave me goosebumps. It is great, it is great…

…which leads me into my negatives, because this film is not perfect. Rogue One, I think is an enjoyable film, I do not think it's a great film. To be honest, I left the theatre, a little underwhelmed. I was kind of disappointed mainly with the characterization. Jyn Erso is really the only character that we’re given a reason to root for or care about. The majority of the other characters are set up in a very sloppy fashion. For the first act of this film, there are aspects of the first act that did feel messy.

This film underwent extensive reshoots, this was very well publicized, a lot of people were concerned about that, and it does show. There's an intriguing friendship set up between Donnie Yen's character and Jiang Wen’s character. But there's never a reason given for why they're friends. We actually learn nothing about either of those characters. They're just funny and the script has some good lines for them and they felt unfortunately safe. There just wasn't anything there beyond the ‘let's make some funny jokes’, and I liked Donnie Yen, because he's the badass side character, he can be that cool character who comes in and kicks ass, and you're like ‘yeah you're cool’, and K2-SO can be that cool droid character who comes in and tells jokes you're like ‘yeah you're funny’, but there isn't much else to them.

The characters that really needed focus like Diego Luna, except for one real outburst that he has, we learn nothing about him either. Instead of more characterization being given to these characters, and more reasons for us to care about them. We get strange, out-of-place scenes, like a mind-reading tentacle monster, I don't really know why that was in the movie. Forrest Whitaker is an actor that I really like. His character in the film is based off of a character who appears in the Clone Wars animated show. His voice in this film I can tell you is probably going to polarize a lot of people. My best way to describe it would be if someone stepped on my throat right now, I’m just talking like this yeah it’s like that, I'm not exaggerating that's really what he talks like. After a while, I was kind of like ‘I don't know about that either’.

There's a character in this film that is full CG, it’s a motion-capture face, it is something that had to be in this film. I expected it, I figured it would be involved in some way, I just didn't think it would get as much screen time as it did, and it was very distracting. Which leads me to Darth Vader. Now Darth Vader is one of my favourite characters of all time, in fact I think if you went out in public, and pulled say a thousand people, and asked them who the greatest movie villain of all time was, I bet you Darth Vader would be at least number two and probably number one, he's amazing, Darth Vader's like the greatest person ever I love Darth Vader, what I'm trying to say is the fact that Darth Vader's in this movie, I went to the theatre like ‘oh my gosh,  I'm about to hear James Earl Jones talking as Darth Vader. And he’s in the movie for about four minutes maybe…

Look, I enjoyed the newest Godzilla film which was also directed by Gareth Edwards, but I think the majority of people wanted more of Godzilla when they left that film, because Gareth Edwards, for whatever reason was like ‘hey I'm making a movie with Godzilla, let’s just not show him’, and for whatever reason again, we have a film that has Darth Vader, like he literally has the opportunity to show Darth Vader for this entire film, he chooses to show him like a couple times… Why? And I know what you're thinking ‘well you're just being a fanboy for Star Wars, and you want everything to be old, like the way it was, you don't want anything new’.

I loved the Force Awakens, and I went into the Force Awakens, expecting Luke Skywalker to be in the film, and if you've seen Force Awakens, you know it's not really the case. He's in there, but not really and I loved it. Why? Because I loved the characters Rey, Finn, Poe, Han solo, great characters kept me invested. Kylo Ren, I love Kylo Ren, these characters can be invested in this story, there isn't a character in Rogue One that I like more than Darth Vader, especially Krennic, portrayed by Ben Mendelsohn, who is suitably over-the-top, and I enjoyed his work in this film, but as a character and as a villain, he just does not stand up to Darth Vader so I constantly like ‘Where's Vader let's get some more of that’, because the other characters in the film aren't as cool or interesting. And, there's nothing really to them to make me more invested in them, like I was invested in the characters in Force Awakens, because when I left, Force Awakens, I was like ‘actually I don't mind that Luke wasn't in that movie’ because there are other characters that are great.

I don't have that feeling with Rogue One, which is why I wanted more Darth Vader, which brings me to that CG character, the majority of his scenes I was like ‘you could just have Darth Vader be in those scenes like I don't need this motion capture guy, just have Darth Vader do this stuff’. I understand that you need this specific character to be in the film because he's integral to this whole story. Haven't him be in like one scene, I figured he'd be like in one scene, but he was it like five or six, and for whatever reason, Vader was in literally two, and I'm like ‘I need more of that please’

To be completely honest, if you told me that the reshoots that were done for Rogue One were to add the character of Darth Vader to this film, I'd say that makes perfect sense, that's how little he's actually in the movie.

Full disclosure: my biggest issue with Rogue One is that nothing surprised me. Now I did not read a single internet article about speculation theories or spoilers, I stay away from all of that because I'm not really a fan of that, because it's like ‘oh this could happen, it’s gonna happen, okay maybe Kylo Ren's Luke Skywalker what if that was true, wow that would be weird…seriously. But still having read none of that information, nothing in Rogue One took me off guard, nothing surprised me there, wasn't a single moment where I was like ‘wow I didn't expect. Say for that one thing that I told you, addressed a flaw with the Star Wars universe, that people have complained about for years, that was the one thing I was like ‘that's awesome, I love that’ other than that, everything basically played out the way I expected it to. Except for the fact that I thought there’d be a lot more Vader.

I know what you're thinking, you're thinking ‘man he really hates Rogue One’, actually no, I enjoyed watching this movie, I think it's good. It's just that when you are a giant Star Wars fan, when Star Wars is special to you, when it means something to you, when it has impacted your life in an emotional way positively, the things that aren't great about the Star Wars films, are going to stick out to you, and they're going to hit you on a deeper level than I think most. And so that's one of the reasons why you get such rage over the prequels, and the fact that people flipped out the Force Awakens was similar to a New Hope, because we expect so much out of these movies, and that's not wrong, but at the same time I must reiterate, that I did enjoy Rogue One, and I want to see it again. I thought it was a terrifically exciting and fun action movie.

But as a Star Wars film, I expected more out of one very specific thing the thing that makes me want to watch Star Wars over and over and over and the thing, that's going to make me show Star Wars to anyone I've ever met, or future children if I do have them: the characters. The characters of Star Wars are what keep us all watching it, and the characters in Rogue One let me down. There wasn't a sense of urgency or intensity with them, they were just funny and likeable. Jyn Erso did have a background, and there were reasons to care, but I wanted more from characters, because as a huge Star Wars fan, that's what keeps me coming back, and not the space battles, not AT-AT’s, not Darth Vader's lightsaber.

It's the characters, it's the fact that I would like to go to the cantina and have a drink with Han Solo, that's what makes me want to watch Star Wars. The action sequences are amazing, and roll one and it is definitely worth seeing, and I will buy the Blu-Ray, it is a very fun exciting Star Wars movie, but the characters for me we're lacking.

Grade - B

I must reiterate, I enjoyed the film, but it's not a perfect movie and I wasn't going to sit here and act like it was just because I love Star Wars