Year In Review - 2016

Another year is in the books, so here are some of my standout picks for the films of 2016.  Since no two films are exactly alike, I'm listing these in no particular order.  Links to my own reviews are included in the headings.

The Jungle Book

Disney's new live action take on The Jungle Book was a welcome surprise for me.  The story paid great respect to Rudyard Kipling's original book, giving us an exciting, fresh look at the Disney classic.  The cast was well thought out, bringing the voices of such great talents as Bill Murray and Ben Kingsley.  It's a great adventure film for all ages.





Eddie the Eagle

Eddie the Eagle may have flown under some people's radar this year, but it's well worth a look.  This film is based on the true story of Eddie Edwards (Taron Egerton), the first British ski jumper who, against all odds, competes in the 1988 Winter Olympics.  It's both funny and heartwarming.  A refreshingly different sort of sports movie.




Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

A great new addition to the Star Wars franchise.  Lots of excitement, a well written story, and plenty of interesting reference points for hardcore fans.






10 Cloverfield Lane

This (sort of) sequel to Cloverfield takes some of the best tools of Alfred Hitchcock and uses them to great effect.  This film does for John Goodman what One Hour Photo did for Robin Williams.  Brilliantly frightening, and well shot.







Ghostbusters

This film was the subject of more controversy than any other this past year.  I myself was a little skeptical at the idea of an all-female team, but 2016's Ghostbusters turned out to be a very funny spiritual (pun intended) successor to the original films.





Stranger Things

Technically, this wasn't a movie, but I couldn't leave such a great show out of this list.  Stranger Things was by far my favourite thing to come out of Netflix this year.  It's both an great original horror/sci-fi story, and a love letter to the 80s.  It's also got one of the best young casts I've seen in a very long time.  I'm looking forward to seeing what new surprises we get with season two.



And the rest...

Deadpool

Deadpool is a strange animal of a film.  It was an incredible success in the box office, and proved to executives that an R-rated superhero movie can generate profit.  The production design and writing of the film got everything right for the rabid comics fans who lined up to see it.  For me personally, there were a few things about Deadpool that were very off-putting, however.  I had no issue with the violence, (which I actually thought was more toned down than it could have been) but my problem lies with the vulgar, and even sometimes flat-out offensive brand of humour this film made for itself.  For me, Deadpool is a wisecracking guy who shoots                                                                                          people for money, and not the sort to make raunchy sex jokes.  I really wanted to like Deadpool, but I

left feeling a bit disappointed by it.

Independence Day: Resurgence        

One of my wife's favourite movies of all time is Independence Day, so she cried tears of joy when we first saw the sequel's trailer in the theatre.  Unfortunately, the final product was a bit confusing.  It seems this film couldn't decided what it wanted to be.  The tone ranged from goofball action movie to serious sci-fi drama seemingly at random, which made it very difficult to take seriously.  This is a shame for a movie that had such great promise, and could have been executed far better than it was.  It                                                                                             wasn't necessarily a bad movie, we just expected                                                                                     more from it.