This, to put it rather mildly, has not been the best year for movies. Yeah, there were instant classics like Zootopia and Captain America: Civil War, along with hidden gems like The Nice Guys; no one is denying that at all. But any movie buff can tell you that 2016 is the year that Hollywood really seemed to drop the ball. Or rather, they seemed more interesting in film marketing than filmmaking in a way that's more obvious than unusual. Because one can certainly see a major problem going on when people are more excited for the trailer than they are for the movie.

Nevertheless, there are four movies this past weekend that represent the major trends of Hollywood at the moment (or rather, three new films and one holdover from last week). Those four, of course, are Suicide Squad, Sausage Party,Pete's Dragon and Florence Foster Jenkins. Though it can be argued otherwise, they respectively represent The Blockbuster, The Adult Comedy, The Reboot and The Award Season Film. And what do they tell us about Hollywood's status quo? Well, let us look:

Suicide Squad - The Vapid Blockbuster Intended to Be Part of a Greater “Universe”: In case you may not know already, Suicide Squad is a complete and total mess of a movie. The story is near nonsensical, the characters are lame, and anyone not named Will Smith, Margot Robbie and Viola Davis would have better spent their time shooting the breeze in the green room. The whole thing feels like a corporate attempt at being "edgy and cool" as well as "auteur driven", considering the director has been mostly known for doing the World War II action film Fury. And it all ties back to one thing that is stunningly obvious on screen - there were massive edits done in post-production.

Ignoring that and the post-release stories about how much of a nightmare the whole production turned to be, Suicide Squad along with the DC Expanded Universe has replaced the Michael Bay Transformers films as the new standard for vapid blockbusters that only make money because of a hype train that starts years in advance. In fact, a fixed release date turned out to be part of the problem for Suicide Squad for the obvious reasons. Adding into the mix you have a stock plot, stock characters, empty action and a studio that seems to make every decision about the movie except for the right ones, and a rabid fanbase that bought the hype to the point of mindlessness. Little more needs to be said other than that, though many critics will probably try to add their own takes that usually mock the superhero film phenomenon.

Sausage Party - The Adult Comedy That Pushes the Limits, For Good and For Ill: Adult comedies ever since Animal House generally need to be approached with a healthy degree of hesitation. The reasons for this are twofold: you don't really know if the humor is going to be funny or ever, and you don't know how well the whole thing is going to age over time. After all, for every Caddyshack there's a Sex Tape or Let's Be Cops (sorry if this brought back the memories of those films to certain people).

Luckily, Sausage Party turned out to be one of the good kind of adult comedies, a nice little spoof of the Pixar formula. Nonetheless, this is the type of movie that is meant to offend everyone in the process. Not that there's anything wrong with that; in fact, in this day and age, one of the hallmarks of comedy is its wide variety of targets for the choosing. All that can be done now is to wait and see how well the movie ages over time. Considering the usual track record, the prospects for Seth Rogen's animated work are not promising.

Pete’s Dragon - The Reboot That Shows Disney That They Can Constantly Play With Their Old Toys: Now for the movie that exists because parents need to take their kids to see something. Yes, this is the remake of that weird 70s cartoon/live-action thing Disney made way back when. And yes, it exists along with the remake of The Jungle Book a few months earlier. And yes, it is a movie that is more or less alright, mainly due to the direction of indie guy David Lowery.

But let's call a spade a spade here: not only is it a reboot, but also a Disney film as well. And the fact that a studio like Disney seemingly has the monopoly on good/popular movies is a cause for concern. Sure, they have done quite a bit to earn the goodwill of the moviegoing public. But that's when a studio becomes complacent, much like Warner Bros. in the aftermath of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Saga.

Florence Foster Jenkins - The Award Season Film May Or May Not Celebrate Mediocrity and Privilege: This may not have been a movie you may have seen, dear reader, but it will be a movie you will hear about at Oscar time. The reason why is because it stars Meryl Streep in the type of movie has proven to be really good at. In this case, it is based on the true story of a New York socialite from the 1940s who had dreams of being an opera singer. The only problem? She utterly sucked at it; not that anyone is willing to say it to her face at first.

Ultimately, the movie is about artistic passion and living life, and it is very good in that regard. However, the main problem is the movie's "villain", who is... you guessed, a music critic who plans on writing a scathing review despite the bribe offered to him. Though if you look at it this way, Florence Foster Jenkins is kinda like a metacommentary on your average award bait film: It involves a strong amount of belief in itself (both sincere and ego-driven), it leaves audiences laughing at what it deems to be the wrong moments, and there's a straw critic that makes a good point.

Then again, such ideas will fly over the heads of those who do not go out of their way to find it... much like this article.