Poll: Biggest Duds of 2016

Last week, we voted on Favorite Blockbusters of 2016. Unfortunately, a lot of movies last year didn’t live up to their promise or hype. What movies were the biggest letdowns for you?

2016 was widely regarded as a year of disappointments. I’m sure that I haven’t cataloged them all in these poll choices. I also know that some people hated blockbusters such as ‘Captain America: Civil War’ or ‘Rogue One’, but that isn’t the prevailing sentiment on those movies. What I’ve tried to do here is find a selection of notable movies that were widely met with mixed or negative reactions. If I missed something that you really disliked, vote “Other” and tell us about it in the Comments section.

Of these that I’ve seen, I was a little disappointed in a lot of the dumb nonsense in ‘Star Trek Beyond’, but I generally liked the movie. I’ve only seen the extended Ultimate Edition of ‘Batman v. Superman’, which is generally agreed to be a big improvement over the theatrical cut that everybody hated, and I thought it was OK. I don’t have much interest in ever watching too many of the others on this list.

What Were the Most Disappointing Movies of 2016?

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17 comments

  1. I didn’t see any of those films. My biggest disappointment was TRIPLE 9, a solid film but definitely the weakest one by Hillcoat so far. It just feels generic, which is a shame because I really like Hillcoat’s other 3 films (especially THE PROPOSITION and LAWLESS is underrated). This is such an impressive cast on paper but no one really impresses. There are some exciting heist and chase sequences but as a whole TRIPLE 9 falls short. It’s just another story of corrupt cops and gangsters with nothing setting it apart. The absence of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis in the scoring department is a shame too, as their contributions to Hillcoat’s other 3 films was integral.

    http://thedanmancan.blogspot.com/2016/02/triple-9-2016.html

  2. Bolo

    The only movie I saw on that list was ‘Suicide Squad’. I’m not interested in most superhero movies, but the premise and the characters here really appealed to me. Sadly, the narrative never justified its own concept, which should’ve been easy enough to do. And the execution wasn’t entertaining enough to compensate for the shortcomings in the logic department.

    • Bolo

      Oh wait, I just noticed ‘Hardcore Henry’ is on this list. I saw that too and I really enjoyed it. I’m surprised that one is on here. It got a very wide release for the type of grindhouse film it was, but I don’t really think of it as arriving with the expectations that most of the other films on this list had. It didn’t have a huge budget, a recognizable brand, or a big star etc.

  3. William Henley

    I saw several on this list and enjoyed most of them, but the turds are clearly ID4-2, Warcraft, and Through The Looking Glass

  4. BrunoBruin

    In general, most of the movies on this list met my expectations. I mean, I didn’t go into “How to Be Single” expecting a timeless masterpiece. I thought “Alice in Wonderland” was bad and it came as no surprise that “Through the Looking Glass” was worse. Of the movies on this list, I was most disappointed by “X-Men: Apocalypse” and “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back,” because I thought the previous entries were so good and I was expecting more of the same.

    Based solely on the talent involved, I’d say my biggest disappointment of 2016 was “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.” Everything about it just seemed off-kilter.

  5. I dinged every one I saw this year except for:

    Blair Witch (can’t be disappointed when you have no expectations)
    Hardcore Henry (unexpectedly funny)
    P & P & Zombies (because my wife watched a zombie film and liked it)

    -Bill

  6. Sausage Party for sure. All of the hype and great reviews led to a mediocre (at best) animated movie with dirty words. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for lude humor and enjoy most of the movies that Seth Rogan and his crew make, but this wasn’t funny or entertaining.

      • There was one funny scene I can remember in the whole thing…

        “Sorry aboot that. Sorry aboot that. Sorry aboot that…”

        That cracked me up. So, pretty much a waste of time.

        • Pedram

          That was actually the scene I disliked the most, since it was just playing on a stupid/false stereotype usually used to mock Canadians (the whole “aboot” thing). It was quite disappointing, as Smith professes to be a fan of Canada.

      • Pedram

        I’m surprised that Yoga Hosers was on this list. If you saw the trailer or read the premise then you should know what to expect, and it delivered just that. I don’t know why anyone would have high expectations for this movie, unless they didn’t know much about it and were expecting something more like his earlier work.

        I believe it was a quirky comedy that appeals mainly to big Kevin Smith Fans, as it had a lot of call-backs to his previous work. I definitely wouldn’t recommend it to more casual fans.

        He summarised it perfectly himself when saying that he usually makes movies that he would like to see and sometimes other people like them, and sometimes they don’t – and in this case Yoga Hosers was mostly the latter.

  7. EM

    I didn’t see any listed in the poll. This was studied avoidance.

    My biggest disappointment might have been The Witch. It had a lot of great atmosphere, but I didn’t care for its forays into explicit horror, including the ending—I felt it worked better when the terror was shadows and questions. It could have been a great classic…but it wasn’t.

    By contrast, I disliked Rogue One more, but it inspired less expectation and therefore less disappointment.

  8. Jason Radcliff

    Not sure how ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ could be a disappointment. You should have known it was going to be shit considering the original was, too.

  9. About a decade or so ago I decided that if a movie’s trailer looks like garbage, I’m not going to see it. So I didn’t see most of these. Ghostbusters and ST: Beyond I saw on an airplane and would’ve been fine if the metal bird had fallen out of the sky and ended my suffering (they gotta stop making these Star Trek movies). Tarzan was another airplane viewing. Oof. What a waste of Christoph Waltz and Margot Robbie. Her appearance on this list twice does make me kind of think perhaps Wolf Of Wall Street was a fluke. Batman V Superman I did see in the theater because my dad wanted to see it. I actually thought it was better than I expected for the majority of the runtime. Tried to cram a bit too much into one movie.

  10. Clark

    I don’t know why people hated Ghostbusters so much. It was okay, much like the overrated 1984 movie.
    To me, the absolute worst was Independence Day: Resurgence. 5 minutes into the movie, you already know you’ve made a bad decision. It’s absolutely terrible. But I haven’t seen Blair Witch, Dirty Grandpa or Yoga Hosers, so I cannot say if they are worse.
    (Jack Reacher 2 was garbage too!)

  11. HuskerGuy

    Went with Suicide Squad and a vote for “Other” which goes to Zoolander 2. Yes, expectations should’ve been minimal for Z2, but as a huge fan of the first I couldn’t help thinking that it could be pretty decent. Sadly it was garbage.

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