Posted January 10, 2017 | Updated February 13, 2017

Contrary to popular opinion...I don't expect much out of the movies that I see.  

I really don't.

All I ask of them is one simple thing: be good.  

That's all.  

I think that's a modest request to place upon today's filmmakers.  Many people have this narrow minded viewfinder through which they construct an opinion of critics.  More often than not, people think that critics want to go out of their respective ways to hate a film.  That's categorically untrue.  I've screened well over 1500 films during my 12 years as a critic and I can emphatically state that I wouldn't spend so much time in darkened cinemas with complete strangers every year unless I loved movies.  I want every film I see to be great.  

Alas, every year a multitude of films supremely disappoint me...and 2016 was no exception whatsoever.

I fancy myself to be an awfully fair and open minded chap.  I like giving every film the benefit of the doubt going in, but when some (especially the ten that I will get to below) seem to go out of their respective ways to make me either unintentionally laugh or inspire my gag reflex while watching them (or, in worst case scenarios, offend me)...there's no redeeming them at all.  The year that was - much like every year since I began this modest film review site - offered up a predictable smorgasbord of cinematic mediocrity, with films ranging from wrongheaded sci-fi sequels, insipid comic book inspired sequels, idiotic action sequels, charmless comedy sequels, ineptly rendered swords and sandal fantasies, star-studded inspirational dramas, hammy book-to-screen adaptations, and two films starring Zac Efron.  He deserves a special Wall of Shame award for appearing in two films that made the cut here.  

No matter how you proverbially slice it, there's no getting around these ten films and their startling and indefensible wretchedness.  Let the following list of my TEN WORST FILMS OF 2016 serve as a reflective warning as to why you should have stayed away from the cinema during the last twelve months.  I'll begin with the most putrid offender of them all and then follow that up with nine very worthy - and dubious - contenders:

COLLATERAL BEAUTY

I can easily say - and without any hesitation or regret - that COLLATERAL BEAUTY was the worst film that I had the displeasure of seeing in 2016.  

It was also a film that was just...plain...wrong. 

MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES belongs on an awfully long list of modern comedies that mistakenly believe that chronic vulgarity and wanton crudeness equals cutting edge high hilarity.  I've seen many teeth grating nuptials-themed comedies before, but this has to be one of the most mind numbingly obnoxious that I've ever experienced.  The fact that it's based on true story makes the resulting film all the more eye rollingly shameful. 

If your idea of a good time at the movies is to see the legendary Oscar winning actor of such films as RAGING BULL and TAXI DRIVER aggressively masturbate, drop n-bombs multiple times, insult homosexuals, make jokes about child and prison rape, and drape his penis and testicles right next to his grandson’s head at his pillow while in bed...then DIRTY GRANDPA is most assuredly for you.   

INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE came 20 frustratingly long years after its 1996 original, which was an agreeably enjoyable ode to 1970's disaster cinema and the alien invasion/flying saucer pictures of the 1950's.  Unfortunately, this massively expensive effort was an excruciatingly bad work of soul crushing disappointment and might be one of the most tediously written, ineptly acted, and aggressively moronic big budget Hollywood summer sequels in an awfully long time.  It's an embarrassing alien mother ship sized waste of talent and financial resources.   

I'm not sure what's more utterly depressing about GODS OF EGYPT: the fact that it was made or the fact that it was made by a proven filmmaking talent.   

I grow increasingly tired of putting putrid Melissa McCarthy comedies on these yearly lists because, quite frankly, she's above their mediocrity.  She's an easily likeable soul with bona fide comedic chops. 

INFERNO was one of the dumbest films featuring smart people in front of and behind the camera that I saw not only in 2016, but perhaps in the last several years.  It's the third film in the Robert Langdom cinematic universe of films - based on the massively popular novels penned by Dan Brown - and it just happens to be its dopiest.   

The second Michael Bay produced TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE movie.  

If I were going to teach a movie studies class on how not to make a sequel then MECHANIC: RESURRECTION would be at the absolute top of the curriculum. 

RIDE ALONG 2 is not a movie.  It's barely a movie.  It contains a premise as flimsy as they come and is so mournfully bland and derivative that I felt like getting out of my theater chair while watching it to reach out at the screen and check for the pulses for those starring in it to see if they were actually alive.   

Not only is RIDE ALONG 2 a movie that was pathetically dead on arrival, but it's a sequel that didn't have a kernel of modest originality to it, opting for repetitious copying of the previous film's formula and premise as opposed to doing something fresh and novel with it.  Even though this was a monumentally embarrassing comedy for all involved, I do get why it was made.  The first film earned well over a hundred million dollars on a modest $25 million budget.  This sequel grossed well over one hundred million dollars as well.  That means RIDE ALONG 3 will frighteningly become a reality.  

Be afraid...be very afraid.

CrAiGeR's MISSED OPPORTUNITIES of 2016