Thursday, January 7, 2016

Jay's Least Anticipated Movies of 2016

Last week, I published my list of my most anticipated movies of the year. Now, I'm going to be a little more pessimistic.
 For this list, I looked through the release schedule for this year, and chose those the ones that I have the least interest in. These are the cash grabs and unnecessary sequels that I don't think are worthy of the benefit of the doubt. Of course there may be some movies that I haven't heard of yet that might be worse, but out of all the movies I know right now, these are the worst.

10. The Fifth Wave

I may be a little hard on this movie by putting it on this list, but there isn't anything else that I think deserves to be on this list. The 5th Wave is another movie in the onslaught of teens-in-a-dystopian-future movies that have been made to cash in on the success of the Hunger Games. While it doesn't look like the worst thing ever, it still looks cheesy and probably won't do much to distinguish itself from similar movies.
9. Ice Age: Collision Course
The Ice Age franchise has been done to death. While it is obviously still making money almost fifteen years after the first movie, I personally think it's getting old.
8. Fifty Shades of Black
 I will admit I have a soft spot for parody movies, which is the main reason this isn't lower on this list. Unfortunately, this genre has been lacking in terms of quality recently. Which will probably be the case for this parody of Fifty Shades of Gray starring Marlon Wayans.
 7. Trolls
 This movie is based on the popular toy line Troll dolls. Um... why? This is a movie based around a toy with no backstory at all in an attempt to bring in money from brand recognition. Although this has worked with The Lego Movie, spurring both critical acclaim and box office success, I doubt that lightning will strike twice and that this will be more than just a cash grab.
6. Chicken Soup for the Soul
 Another case of trying to adapt something with no story into a movie for brand recognition. This is based off a popular series of books that consists of inspirational true stories. I haven't heard anything about how they are going to adapt this to the big screen, but the best case scenario will probably be a corny, sentimental movie that tries to profit off a well-known name.
5. Norm of the North
Rob Schneider's career is not turning around. His latest project is as the title charactor of this awful-looking family film. The trailer is stupid, with bad writing and terrible animation. If you look at the Flixster page for this movie, it has, by the apps usual standard, an abysmally low percentage of people who want to see it. I don't blame them.
4. Cabin Fever
A remake of the 2002 Eli Roth film. Does this film really deserve to be remade? The response to the original was mixed, and, let's face it, the movie isn't even old enough to be remade yet. This seems set for disaster.
3. Amityville: The Awakening
 The sequel to the crappy 2005 remake of the Amityville Horror. I did not see the remake so I can not say whether the bad reviews were deserved or not. But I can say that good horror sequels are rare, and sequels to horror remakes are even rarer, especially to badly received ones.
2. Ouija 2
 As some of you may remember, Ouija was a 2014 horror movie about a Ouija board. It has a seven percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and instead of a consensus, the website simply wrote "Slowly, steadily, although no one seems to be moving it in that direction, the Ouija planchette points to NO." However, it still made good money at the box office, so we're getting a sequel. Even though I've never seen the original, it doesn't take a genius to realize this isn't going to go well.
1. God's Not Dead 2
Two years ago, a faith based movie called God's Not Dead became a surprise hit at the box office. It was panned by critics, and even some Christian groups called it out for its questionable approach to its message of faith. The savage criticisms of the original movie had convinced me that it was a movie that I definitely do not want to see, and seeing how most sequels are, this will probably be worse.

And that is the list of my least anticipated movies of the year 2016. Lets hope that the year's best movies outshine these. Which they probably will.