12 OVERRATED HOLLYWOOD FLICKS
12 OVERRATED HOLLYWOOD FLICKS
Welcome back
dear readers. As it is with every blog, I apologize for being inactive, and
leaving everyone stranded for so long. But now, I am back. And better than
ever. In this 4 month break, I have significantly expanded my cinema knowledge.
I downloaded Letterboxd, which in case you don’t know, is a social media-esque
platform for reviewing and logging movies. I absolutely loved it, and I can
actually keep a track of how many movies I have watched in my lifetime. And to
give you an idea, I am 19, and in my 19 years on Earth I have watched well over
at least 750 movies.
1. The Usual Suspects
Release year: 1995
Rating: R
Runtime: 1h 46min
Letterboxd Review: 2/5
Genre: Crime
When you Google, “movies
with the best plot twists” you get results such as Fight Club, The Empire
Strikes Back, Se7en, The Prestige, etc. And don’t get me wrong, these movies do
have very mind-bending twists that will keep your jaws wide open. But another
movie whose name gets thrown around a lot is, ‘The Usual Suspects’.
While I personally did
not dislike this movie, I feel that its plot twist is heavily overrated.
Halfway through the movie I got bored because I already figured out who was the
antagonist. Had I watched it without any expectations, maybe I would have liked
it. But overall, a mid movie that you can skip anytime.
2. Face/Off
Release year: 1997
Rating: R
Runtime: 2h 18min
Letterboxd Review: 2/5
Genre: Action
I don’t understand why
Face/Off has a 93% score on Rotten Tomatoes. I would have probably ranked it
somewhere around 40% and not more. The only good thing about the movie was
Nicolas Cage and John Travolta’s on screen rivalry and their acting skills.
But overall the story
was bland and did not make much sense. Especially the science behind the face
change seemed loosely written and lacked explanation. And to top it all off,
the action was unrealistic and seemed excessive.
3. Inside Out 2
Release year: 2024
Rating: PG
Runtime: 1h 36min
Letterboxd Review: 1/5
Genre: Animation
When I was a kid and
went to watch Inside Out, I absolutely loved that movie. It was really fun to
watch even as an adult. So obviously, when I heard about Inside Out 2, I was
equally excited. But let me tell you, it was a let down.
Inside Out 2 suffers from the typical sequel curse. They try to remake the original movie by adding some new elements but the end result is a complete mess. And I can’t even begin to tell you how shocked I was to know that this movie made 1.6 billion dollars at the box office. If that sounds excessive to you, trust me, it is. I can name a 100 different remarkable movies exceedingly better than Inside Out 2 who deserved such a box office number. Overall, definitely a movie one should skip.
4. Baby Driver
Release year: 2017
Rating: R
Runtime: 1h 53min
Letterboxd Review: 2.5/5
Genre: Action
Baby Driver has now become the underrated champion of
‘underrated Hollywood movies’. So much so that now it is no longer underrated
but rather overrated. Again, a movie with a ridiculously high rating which it
does not deserve.
According to Wikipedia, “The scriptwriting and plot development
in the film's climactic scenes were sources of criticism.[121] Some reviewers cited the
scriptwriting as Baby Driver's biggest flaw, where rapid tonal
shifts undermined the viewing experience.” And I couldn’t agree more.
The film
starts off strong but by the end it forgets the entire point of the movie and
goes in the opposite direction. It does not end the way you expect it to and that
is the most frustrating thing about it. I can forgive the tonal shifts, I can
forgive the loud action, but I can’t forgive a harrowing ending.
5. A Few Good Men
Release year: 1992
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 2h 18min
Letterboxd Review: 2/5
Genre: Thriller
I absolutely adore Tom Cruise and this is one of those
movies where an actor with terrific skills can actually show it for once. But
unfortunately, A Few Good Men faces the same problem as Baby Driver. It starts
off strong and keeps you hooked, yet by the end it completely misses the whole
point of the movie and goes awry.
And the poster and the hype surrounding it is
misleading. You may think that Jack Nicholson has a big part in the movie and
gets a heavy screentime. But in fact, it is quite the opposite. He does play a
big part, but his screentime is close to nothing. It is just that one court
room scene with the famous dialogue where you actually see Nicholson in his
form. Otherwise, the entire movie is just Tom Cruise and Demi Moore flipping
papers and talking.
6. John Wick: Chapter 4
Release year: 2023
Rating: R
Runtime: 2h 49min
Letterboxd Review: 2.5/5
Genre: Action
Oh God this movie just did not end. I watched it on
the plane while on my trip to Europe (as my dear readers may know), and this
movie felt longer than the plane ride.
It is just 2 hours and 49 minutes of Keanu Reeves
limping, shooting and punching. I don’t have a problem with that but after a
certain extent you feel irritated. Infinite health bar, infinite bullets,
infinite henchmen, this trope gets boring after a while. Ultimately there is no
story. John Wick just relies on pure adrenaline and fight sequences. It’s
follow-up, Ballerina, was also inferior. I hope the John Wick franchise gets
back up on its feet once more.
7. Tropic Thunder
Release year: 2008
Rating: R
Runtime: 1h 47min
Letterboxd Review: 2/5
Genre: Comedy
I will never understand the love this movie gets. The
jokes did not land, the storyline is messy, there are too many unnecessary
actors, and the whole vibe of the movie is cringe. It feels like a parody of a
big budget Hollywood movie, and maybe it is supposed to be like that. And if it
is supposed to be a parody then it shouldn’t be so loved and appreciated by
everyone.
The only 2 good things in this movie were Robert
Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise. I gave it 2 stars on Letterboxd, one for RDJ and one
for Cruise. This movie was Cruise’s best perfomance by far. You could actually
see him having the time of his life with this role. And each line of Blackface
is pure gold that had me laughing. Those were the only good things about the
movie.
8. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Release year: 1986
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 1h 43min
Letterboxd Review: 2.5/5
Genre: Comedy
I am really glad that people have almost stopped
talking about this movie. I don’t hear much about it and that is a good thing.
But there was a time when it was regarded one of Hollywood’s best movies ever.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, just like Baby Driver and A
Few Good Men, starts off good. You see the potential it has, but somehow they
go completely off rails and don’t use the potential at all. Essentially I
thought that there would be a message in the movie. And there was, “'Life moves pretty fast; if you don't
stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it!” but it wasn’t
executed very well.
I
definitely did not agree with Ferris Bueller’s actions. And neither was his
characterization very believable. They have displayed him as an all popular and
charismatic high school senior who is loved by everyone, but somehow the
impression doesn’t land. There is nothing unique about his character. And to
top it off, Ferris and his friends caused actual havoc all throughout the
movie. I felt especially bad for Cameron’s father and I ultimately realised
that even though, as a teenager, I am supposed to find this funny, it actually
is not.
9. Eternal
Sunshine of The Spotless Mind
Release year: 2004
Rating: R
Runtime: 1h 48min
Letterboxd Review: 2/5
Genre: Romance
If not anyone
else, Karan Johar will definitely be disappointed after reading this article.
Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind is the favourite go to movie for a large
number of people on Earth, (including Karan Johar). I expected something really
magical and heartbreaking from it, but it actually felt very tasteless.
I am just not
interested in knowing why Joel and Clementine have issues. In fact a more
compelling story was the love triangle between Kirsten Dunst and two other
characters whose names if I took, would spoil the movie. And that was probably
the biggest mistake. There were too many characters in the movie. It should’ve
been just about Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. That would’ve had a better impact.
And I may be the only one but I also did not see any chemistry between Carrey
and Winslet. Again, the only good thing about this movie was their acting. They
have played their part really well. Just the screenplay and script did not
support.
10. Manchester
By The Sea
Release year: 2016
Rating: R
Runtime: 2h 17min
Letterboxd Review: 3/5
Genre: Drama
Another
depressing and harrowing movie that is supposed to leave a hole in your heart.
On the contrary I actually think Manchester By The Sea is a comedy movie. The
whole situation of Patrick trying to avoid dealing with the death of his father
by hanging out with his girlfriend/s is really funny. At one point in the
movie, Lee looks over at a few antique guns and Patrick chimes in by saying,
“Who are you going to shoot, you or me?” And I absolutely burst out laughing at
that scene.
But I think
what the movie was trying to convey was that sometimes, some people, can never
move on. No matter what you give them in life, however you behave with them,
whatever you say to them, some people will never move on from the trauma. And I
think it is an interesting take on grief. And as usual, I respect this one for
Casey Affleck’s acting too. He has literally embodied the word, ‘grief’ and his
eyes are completely empty. Maybe this movie is the least overrated in my list.
11. Ex Machina
Release year: 2014
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 1h 48min
Letterboxd Review: 2/5
Genre: Sci-Fi
This movie
made absolutely no sense. I think when I will write a new article about ’10
Hollywood movie villains who weren’t actually wrong’ then I will definitely
include Nathan in there. Because I really don’t see what the point of making
him the villain was. Sure, maybe he did steal millions of people’s data, but
that isn’t even the point of the movie. The point of the movie was that he
didn’t respect the robots that made he made.
Another reason
why I didn’t really like this movie was that the ending is very frustrating.
You root for a character and then the character completely changes their
behaviour – that isn’t really something you like to see a lot. Overall, a
frustrating movie with a frustrating ending.
12. F1
Release year: 2025
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 2h 35min
Letterboxd Review: 3/5
Genre: Sports
I may get a
lot of heat for saying this, but F1 was not the ‘movie of the summer’. I may
get heat by a specific friend of mine too, but that is what it is.
Good sports
movies are those movies where you can understand the plot even if you don’t
know anything about that sport. For example Rocky, Karate Kid, Million Dollar
Arm, Invictus; it doesn’t get into all the schematics and facets of boxing,
karate, baseball and rugby as a sport. Rather it focuses more on the human aspect.
F1 doesn’t care if you don’t know about Formula 1. It just gets right into it with
0 explanation of what is going on. I am one of those people who were absolutely
clueless on what exactly was going on in the film.
And to top it
all off, the whole plot was very predictable from the start, at least those
parts which I could understand. Everyone knew that Sonny would forget his card
in one of the races, and that Joshua and Sonny would have a fight and then
someone would crash. And I also challenge the reader to count the number of
times ‘Sonny’ was said in the movie. I kept hearing that name once every 3
minutes.
As I leave you
all with this, I must say, these are strictly my opinions. Your opinion may
differ and something I find overrated, you may find it underrated. But I urge
you to go ahead, watch the movie, and find out on your own. Unless, if you’re
not a cinephile, and just a regular person who watches films once in a while,
then you can gladly skip the above 12 movies. Thank you! See you soon!
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