WORST/MOST DISAPPOINTING OF 2016

Balancing movies with life means you have to occasionally pick-and-choose what you see each week…  With that in mind, I’ve been able to avoid some (not all) of the real duds you’ll find populating other worst-of-the-year lists.  Numbers 1 through 5 here are the movies I aggressively disliked while 6 through 10 are flicks I actively looked forward to only to be let me down in a big way.

Pretty simple. These movies all stunk to varying degrees.  No more needless words - let's get to it...

#10 Live by Night

Moody, somber and overstuffed. This pretty yet overstuffed prohibition era saga couldn’t live up to the year-end, awards-ready promise of it’s exciting trailer.  It’s a bootlegger bust.

#9 The Legend of Tarzan

Goofy, dour, cheesy, dull. A 180-million-dollar workshop on how not to make a summer blockbuster.

#8 Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

Tired, uninspired and mechanically dull. Extra points though for including a helpful reminder in its title…

#7 The Magnificent Seven

Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt playing cowboys must have looked good on paper.  Unfortunately, they fail to bring anything new or intriguing to the big screen in this ho-hum hoedown.

#6 Jason Bourne

The Bourne Complacency.  A forced and meandering greatest hits rehash. Here’s hoping we’re not Bourned again.

#5 The Secret Life of Pets
After an innovative and joyful 5-minutes it turns in to an obnoxious Toy Story with dogs rip-off. 

#4 X-Men: Apocalypse

Convoluted, bland and misguidedly self-serious.  Smashes the brakes on all the energetic momentum instilled by its predecessors.

#3 Zoolander No.2

The original was light, comedic and goofy.  This hyperactive mess aptly has No.2 in its title.  Because it’s a heaping pile of it.

#2 Suicide Squad

Spastically empty and chaotically obnoxious.  Pack a group of super baddies in a movie and the results are, somehow, way less than super.  Possesses the same sense of urgency a slug would searching for salt…

#1 Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Aimlessly convoluted and gothically unengaging. An X-Men meets Harry Potter wannabe that bores at every single turn…  Director Tim Burton's predictable tricks are no longer a treat.