As you can see the first half of my list had up and downs it was almost like if I watched a good movie the next one was crap. Now I didn't plan it that way(because NO ONE plans it that way, who wants to waste money on crappy movies), in the second half of the year though I had much better picks granted I didn't hit every movie I planned to hit but I got 3 good ones and one decent one. It was much better than the movie that culminated the last list but it wasn't the high point of the second half of 2016.
2016 also see me hit the drive in again for this first time in years, which redeems the drive in because if I'm not mistake my last drive in movies was The Hulk(yeah yeah get your HOOOOEMYGAWDS out of the way). It was a nice date night with an old friend and while the slush machine was a little bitter we enjoyed the movie, which was
Jason Bourne
The return of Matt Damon to the Bourne series kept it at a high level, now some may complain that this seemed like a mesh between the Bourne Identity and the Bourne Supremacy but it's an intrigue flick there will always be similarities it's the genre. The CQC(Close Quarters Combat) was still exciting, he still grabs random items to beat the crap out of you with, and the new usage of gadgets include mini cams was well integrated. I'm not exactly sure if this happens simultaneously with the Bourne Legacy or not because you don't hear any news of Jeremy Renner's character or the actions. Now yes just like a huge government spy organization there were circles within circles, groups within groups and projects within projects, and them spending a little more time on the hacking and information piracy kind of made it feel topical(it kind of marks the movie a little more than others were but time catches up to us all anyway).
This was the decent movie, I liked it but it wasn't the eye catching thriller that we got with the Bourne Identity or Ultimatum. Since there was no interaction between Renner and Damon I can't really compare it to the books because both would have met maybe in a future movie if both come back. Legacy was refreshing it was nice to see how many different ways they tried to create the perfect soldier/killing machine. There was also a slight bit of "Hackers" in it since most of the Analysts in the movie seemed to be "soldiers with no nation" similar to wikileaks the information is the most important thing, which is what I feel was one of the topical time sensitive issues. It was also a Hollywood look into the meshing of the old school cloak and dagger spy work and the new cyber centric gather method.
Suicide Squad
This movie was a welcome surprise, mainly because the LAST 3 non Batman DC movies were extremely disappointing. Superman Returns was a waste of an awesome character. Green Lantern was good until the last 20 minutes, for whatever reason the rushed the ending, almost like they didn't expect to get another movie. And Man of Steel apparently had no clue who Superman was, you never see hope when watching Zack Snyder's Superman, you see a guy with the weight of the world on his shoulders barely raising his head. Which, let me remind you, Superman has done without breaking a sweat. Suicide squad didn't have that problem, they seemed to understand just who their characters were.
Okay let me get this out the way, I am not OVERLY enthused with how Jared Leto's Joker LOOKS but he did SEEM to be the Joker his interactions with Harley were just what I remember from Batman the Animated series. He seems to love her, yet in the next breath he is either risking her life or else leaving her to hold the bag. Margot Robbies Harley was awesome, Will Smith brought the right amount of Smooth to Deadshot, Killer Croc was scary but not as useless as I remember from the cartoons, El Diablo was the surprise fun character. I don't know if that is who he really is in the comics but in the movie you could feel his pain and his yearning to pay penance for his crimes. Captain Boomerang was a Crocodile Dundee ripoff which honestly worked a lot better than his kind of Stuck up pilot in the comics. I liked him, but not as much as El Diablo, and my FAVORITE CHARACTER was Viola Davis's Amanda Waller, I mean the second the announced her I was like, technically she isn't HEAVY ENOUGH to be The Wall, but I knew she understood the motivation behind the character and she gave it to us. She was cold, she was calculating, and she was ruthless oh fall for her somewhat motherly conservative look if you want to, ask her staff how that turned out for them. A bunch of bad guys are sent to take on a mission that has a low probability of survival but a high reward payoff, and of course if they fail no one is gonna care they will be blamed for being what they are CRIMINALS, if they succeed they will have their time reduced. Yup it's a suicide mission thus they are the suicide squad.
Now unlike the animated movie they don't have the same teams and a different person dies(and trust me all comic book companies have plenty of throw away characters), but they gave us a compelling story, some nice hero cameos(and the heroes were not allowed to swoop in and save the day), and a good enough pacing to movie it along with out drowning in the moment say like Batman v Superman. Chemistry oozed out of this movie, it was light when it needed to be, heavy when it needed to be, and no they ain the good guys but they could damn sure get the job done.
Doctor Strange
As usual Marvel knows what we want, Dr. Stephen Strange got an animated movie a few years ago, the basics of his origins are: he's a great neurosurgeon, extremely successful and arrogant, who gets into a car accident, loses the use of his hands and in despair goes chasing around the world to fix them. In the animated movie there was a sister who died of a disease which lead to his kind of heartless demeanor no mention of it in the live action. There was a nod to Civil War with "patient with a compressed vertebrae after a high fall" which is a reference to Rhodie after the airport battle.
He finds the ancient ones, is introduce to magic in the human world, and goes on one hell of an eye opening journey. He also meets Mordo a fellow student who is in essence trying to help him accept a world that goes against everything he has ever thought or known. The actor playing Mordo is Chewitel Ejiofor and if like me you were first introduced to him in the movie "Serenity" you know he has a "catch phrase" if you have never seen him in a movie before it's "We're not Savages" and he says it almost in a disdainful manner. And they way they got it into this movie was perfect, now I know I have ignored the demerit of this movie: Tilda Swinton.
Yes, Tilda Swinton is a wonderful actress, and yes she did a great job as the Ancient One. What she is NOT is an old Tibetan man, which is who the Ancient One should have been. I went in to this movie with an open mind but I was disappointed in that role choice, yes her whole career Tilda has been an awesome androgynous role choice that wasn't what this role needed she did fine but it was an awesome place to basically give us a HUMAN Master Splinter(because that is who he is), an older, learned Asian man, to guide Stephen on his journey into the mystic arts. Stay for BOTH after credit scenes in this movie, they are worth it. I mean all the Marvel movies had great ACS's but the two for Doctor Strange were both cheeky and serious.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
We may not have gotten our crawl but we did get a BUNCH of answers to questions that we had asked for well over 30 years. "Who were the Bothan Spies?" which I mean I guess we see who they are but I never ACTUALLY heard them called Bothans but maybe that's another retcon(you know like Han not Shooting first and SOMEHOW Vader not saying "Luke I am your father"). "Where did they get the plans for the Death Star?" I love that they added another, out front, Strong Female character. Yes there was a droid, yes there were plenty of droids, space ships, and all of the squadrons we have come to love. I won't give away WHERE in the story in happens, yes you know it is between Episode III and Episode IV but that is a good 18 year gap where the movie could take place. Jyn didn't have the pampered life of Leai nor did she have the hard working but boring life of Luke at first her life looked it was gonna be easy but very little in the Galactic Empire works out that way, a young girl loses her family and decides to fight back against the people who took them from her. She isn't one for rules, leadership, or even friends all she sees is vengeance, all she wants is to strike at the heart of the monstrosity that hurt her.
Personally I think this is the movie where we get to see exactly why it is Grand Moff Tarkin is in charge of Vader, and why when we hear the respirator we all get a shiver down our backs and the rebels run in fear. It's the FIRST Star Wars movie where R2-D2 has pretty much no role whatsoever, he gets a cameo as does C3PO but there is no role for Clutch(what I call R2) in this movie. It's an underdog movie, it's the movie that begins the comeback trail, it inspires, the victory is Pyrrhic but it gives someone else a chance to go on and try to win the war. There are no Jedi, Yoda and Obi Wan are not coming to the rescue, I was hoping to see Wedge Antilles but like I said the good guys don't win in this movie, some might say they push but it isn't a feel good movie, it tries to yank a few tears from you. It is however exactly what you look for in a Star Wars movie robots, space battles, a force user, technology, and a vision of the distant past that would be an awesome future for us.
And those are the movies that I saw in 2016, yes I wanted to see a bunch more but my schedule didn't work out that way. Nor did my blogging but hey two so far this year(three if you count the one I did on wordpress) one never knows how things will shake out but you make the best of what you can do.
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