Every year you challenge me to come up with the list of film that should have made less noise and every year I come back angry. I should point out that a few of these ARE good films, just not nearly worthy of the praise and attention that has been heaped on them. I’m here to balance the scales a bit.
Both Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star Is Born are near misses here. Yeah, they both got more hype than they deserve, but I can’t call either picture distinctly overrated. That title I bestow upon the following:
Roma
OK, this has now gone far enough. It was really cute when critic after critic fell in love with Alfonso Cuarón. Awwwwwww. “He did it! He made a movie just for me!” Ten Oscar nominations later, it’s neither funny nor cute. The double-digits tell me exactly one thing and one thing only: normal people still haven’t seen this film. Because if you had, you’d be just as floored as me. Yeah, Roma was very moving … during hour #3. And lemme tell ya, getting there was not half the fun.
The Favourite
Where were you people when Yorgos Lanthimos made The Lobster? This is the one you wish to honor? The one that devolves into a petty catfight and has no ending? Decades from now, The Favourite is going to be on a short list of films with the most academy award nominations that nobody ever talks about … that is if anybody can remember to include it.
Mary Poppins Returns
This film plays like an outtakes collection from the original Mary Poppins. “…Oh here was a scene we cut just cuz the song wasn’t quite right …” “… and here was a scene that was kinda fun, but looked exactly like the ‘Spoonful of Sugar’ scene…” Mary Poppins Returns to mimic the original exactly, except for the part where it’s just not as good.
Widows
This is a film that prided itself on being an action-packed feminist anthem, sort of a real-life Ocean’s 8. That would be great if any little bit of the Widows transformation to thieves was even slightly believable. As is, this film seems to me a condescending notion of novices playing dress-up; even the title itself tells us these women are defined by who their husbands were, not who they are. If that’s feminism, I’m Gloria Steinem.
The Seagull
Apparently, Anton Chekhov was deadly dull. Unfortunately, that’s not the only conclusion this film paved my way towards. If you respect the persona/image/talent/career of superstar Irish prodigy Saoirse Ronan, I suggest never, never, never watching this film. Not even on a dare.
Christopher Robin
I thought Winnie the Pooh was supposed to be fun. So, what? Let’s take the dullest character in the Pooh world, and retell his story like Robin Williams’ Hook? Yeah, good plan. Waiting for the childlike amazement Disney is normally so good at comes too little too late. If your six-year-old Pooh-loving child requests this particular film over others more than once, I’ll personally eat Piglet whole.
Creed II
Speaking of repeats, here’s a film that took the exciting new player in the Rocky world and made him relive Rocky II, Rocky III, and Rocky IV. Seen it. Seen it. Seen it.
Aquaman
This is the silliest film of the year. Try, try, try to hold back the laughter when you see Patrick Wilson don his battle shades. I don’t know what film the folks around me were watching, but mine was a comedy along the lines of Airplane! Streaming saturation will bear this out.
And now as part of the annual overrated list, I am going to include my top 10 MST3K films of the year. These films are not necessarily bad or overrated, just begging to be riffed:
