15. “X-Men: Apocalypse”
There was, rightly, a lot of trash talked about the two big DC movies this year (and yes, fine, a fair bit of it may have originated here; you can high-five us later). But now’s the time we also get to revoke the relatively free pass accorded (by others) to “X-Men: Apocalypse,” which is only marginally less incoherent and ugly. Giving the always erratic “X-Men’ series one of its worst entries in quite some time and easily the worst of the three ‘First Class’-period reboots, it’s set in the 1980s, but doesn’t even have much fun with that. Instead, yet another Big Bad is invoked, this time in the shape of the first mutant, whose main superpower appears to be that he can drain the vast reserves of Oscar Isaac‘s talent and charisma away to absolutely nothing. Professor X (James McAvoy) and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) trudge around po-facedly recruiting new mutants to tackle the god-like Apocalypse, who has in turn recruited Magneto (Michael Fassbender), who gets the film’s only involving sequence, which is then used to justify him killing an awful lot of people and getting away with it. But then, that perennial series Godfather Bryan Singer is so anonymous, and such a strong cast (Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne and Tye Sheridan also star) is so thoroughly wasted is its own kind of talent genocide — yet another casualty of what we would call destruction porn if it were even remotely titillating.
14. “Zoolander 2”
We all know the chorus by now: “Perhaps, if we can get all the original cast back involved” and “as soon as our schedules align” and the most beautiful lie of all, “only when we’re really happy that the script can live up to, or indeed surpass, the original.” We believed it with “Anchorman 2” and were disappointed, and though we tried to check our hopes this time out, dammit, we got just a tiny bit enthused, only to be drop-kicked off the cliff of expectation like a small orphan. “Zoolander 2” is a stinker and an insult to the beloved memory of the first go-round with models Derek (Ben Stiller) and Hansel (Owen Wilson), which overcame the soft-target nature of its premise (unclever models? No!) by the sheer quality and quantity of jokes. The sequel shows no such inspiration, just a bunch of guys going through the motions, and worst of all, considering how much of Stiller’s work (and he’s writing here with regular collaborators Justin Theroux, John Hamburg and Nicholas Stoller) relies on chemistry, they don’t even seem to be having that good a time. Perhaps it’s the fault of the half-baked plot that sees the two dim-bulb beauty kings teaming up to solve some high-profile pop-star murders, but even that just seems a slim excuse to pack the film with slightly off-brand cameos and, again, was a trope sent up much more inventively and enjoyably in “Anchorman 2.” And that’s about the best we can say for the “Zoolander” sequel: It makes the second “Anchorman,” which was our go-to “be careful what you wish for” cautionary tale until recently, seem like a shining example of comedy craft by comparison.
13. “Divergent: Allegiant”
Directed by Wes Ball? Robert Schwenke, who also directed the third? second film based on Suzanne Coll Veronica Roth‘s YA trilogy, “Detergent: Allergic,” “Divergiant: Allegiant,” the third film following the dystopian adventures of Percy Jackson Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley) and I Am Number Four (Theo James) is partly bad because it’s a victim of the bloat that happens when you try to make a single book into two films. But it’s also just bad — drably staged, with no discernible chemistry between the increasingly dissociated leads (also including Miles Teller and the one and only Alden Ezra Emory Ansel Elgort) and a plot that’s palpably running on fumes. The only high points are provided by Donald Sutherland as the evil President Snow? Kate Winslet as the evil Jeanine oh no wait she died in the last one Jeff Daniels as the evil um, new guy, and the jawdroppingly unexpected discovery that screenwriter Noah Oppenheim also wrote this year’s brilliant “Jackie,” which can give us all hope. One further good news story: The fourth and final film in this series is already slated to go straight to TV, which means that with a bit of luck, we won’t have to cover it, because, though we’ve obviously made a pretty good job at concealing it, this franchise is pretty fucking forgettable and seems to get more so with each passing film. What were we talking about again?
12. “The Hollars”
In general, on these lists, we try to lean toward studio movies and mid- to big-budget wide-release films that feel like fair game. We try to lean away from smaller, scrappier independent films, because there’s no good kicking puppies, and besides, if we were to call out every drab little indie dramedy we sit through each year, this list would be four times as long. All of which is to clue you in to just how very much we hated John Krasinski‘s “The Hollars,” the most shamelessly manipulative, dishonest, aggravating, regressive, formulaic, sentimental, synthetic, embarrassing, wasteful, smug, inane, self-absorbed, twee Sundance-movie bilge of 2016. It’s the timelessly relevant, piercingly insightful story of a floundering white guy (Krasinski) whose vague problems amount to “not feeling very fulfilled at work” and “not being able to commit to his tirelessly understanding, independently wealthy, pregnant girlfriend (Anna Kendrick),” but who might just — for shucks’ sake — find the solutions to these terrible quandaries at the bedside of his warmhearted Moms (Margo Martindale), who has a tennis-ball sized tumor in her head. The callousness with which Krasinski and screenwriter Jim Strouse maneuver the lives of every character in this maudlin soap opera to become nothing more than another rueful life lesson for Our Rumpled Hero is breathtaking — and that’s even before *SPOILER IF YOU’VE NEVER SEEN A FILM BEFORE* certain waters break at a certain funeral because circle of life, innit.
11. “Bad Santa 2”
It’s hard enough to make a comedy sequel, but harder still to make one after a long gap, as recent events have proven — “Dumb & Dumber,” “Zoolander” (see above) and even “Anchorman” all returned after a decade or more to much, much lesser effect. But even by those standards, “Bad Santa 2” is a shocker, a brutally mirthless, truly sour follow-up to a film that seems lessened by the association. Terry Zwigoff‘s 2003 original was an agreeably spiky, often uproarious puncturing of the Christmas movie with an indelible Billy Bob Thornton performance that nevertheless managed to contain some genuinely earned heart. The follow-up is an empty retread that adds almost nothing bar a spirited but adrift Kathy Bates as Thornton’s mother, hitting the same plot but with a tenth of the joy. The misanthropy and misogyny is dialed up, with Christina Hendricks given such a nothing role that you actively ache for her, and the jokes are led by shock rather than actual humor. We’d expected better from “Mean Girls” director Mark Waters, but perhaps we should have been clued in by the script doctoring: Whereas the first film had an uncredited punch-up by the Coen Brothers, the sequel has similarly uncredited work by… “Entourage” creator Doug Ellin.
