Gary Garrison
Overrated: “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2”
James Gunn’s idiosyncratic Marvel sequel is a curious case. It was fine — and at times even enjoyable — during my first watch. But since then (and in light of the joyous “Thor: Ragnarok” [see Martine’s Overrated pick! — Ed), the glue has lost its hold. Gunn’s film has a lot of goofy polish to it and plenty of diversions distract from the lack of substance. But what was once the delightful black sheep of the Marvel family has become just another doomsday portal above New York. Which is to say: familiar. How exactly you make Kurt Russell as a planet such a bore is a mystery to me. On top of that, ‘Vol. 2’ is anchored by familiar plot points that, under even the most cursory examination, crumble. Worse still, is that I can’t even remember those plot points. Then there is none other than Star Lord himself, Chris Pratt. Former endearingly-oafish-side-character-turned-embodiment-of-condescending-washboard-abs, Pratt has traded in his charm and goodwill to play a Movie Star. And it’s just not working for him. Most unforgivable, though, is ‘Vol. 2’’s position in the MCU, where it is neither its own thing nor an integral piece of a grand tapestry. Instead, it’s just another commodity. And it shows.
Underrated: “Free Fire”
I’m not sure I had more fun at the movies this year than in Ben Wheatley‘s excellently mischievous “Free Fire.” To be certain, it got mostly positive notices from critics (we called it “A joyous blast of B-movie mayhem”), but it all but disappeared when it expanded to 1,000 theaters, earning a paltry $1.8 million. Wheatley’s film is jam-packed with stars and character actors eagerly chewing the scenery and having a blast doing it. Which seems to be the key to the film: It’s really damn fun. The plot is full of backstabbing and double crosses, but the whole shebang takes place during a protracted warehouse gunfight. The absurdity is not lost on Wheatley; he revels in the B-movie glory of it all: Before the first act is over, everyone has been shot at least once. Even amid the chaos, though, “Free Fire” doesn’t lose sight of character, and beneath all the blood and dirt and cardboard and duct tape body armor are some real, rounded people doing whatever they can to stay alive. At times its constraints feel like contrived writing exercises, but that doesn’t keep them from being wildly, uninhibitedly, stupidly fun.
Nikola Grozdanovich
Overrated: “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”
I’m no “Star Wars” fanatic, you won’t see me writing any petitions or screaming into my pillow about what they’ve done to Luke Skywalker, so this isn’t me siding with the passionate fans over the swooning critics. This is me torn in the middle like the lightsaber in the film’s greatest moment. I respect the directorial flair Rian Johnson brought to the table, especially with the framing and the camera movements, but how different is this ‘Star Wars’ to any of the others, exactly? The alleged uniqueness that most critics, and the film’s actors, keep highlighting is precisely what’s missing, making the film so overrated. Apart from the mini-morality twists with the likes of Laura Dern’s Admiral Holdo and Benicio del Toro’s D.J., nothing happened that wasn’t 100% predictable; especially in the grandest climaxes involving the major characters. From the Pixar-like Porg creatures to the endless stream of regular Star Wars platitudes; much of Episode VIII feels like filler. It’s an overlong exploration of special effects, eclipsed by many moments of total dullness, in a galaxy far, far away from the funnier, more entertaining (“Thor: Ragnarok”), emotionally intelligent (“Logan”) and layered (“War for the Planet of the Apes”) blockbusters of the year.
Underrated: “Happy End”
“It’s like all Michael Haneke films rolled into one!”, said (almost) every critic ever. Walking out of its Cannes premiere, a lot of people were insta-dismissive of the Austrian auteur’s latest scathing, cynical, evisceration of high-end European society. On the other hand, I gobbled up every single beat in this movie – right up until the final cut and Isabelle Huppert’s nonplussed expression (one for the ages) – and I’m still savouring it to this day. It does have the familiarity of Michael Haneke’s earlier works – traces from every single previous movie, in fact – but that’s exactly what injects ‘Happy End’ with more urgency. It’s almost as if Haneke has been trying to communicate chapters of his philosophy through each of his films, and seeing the world turn shittier, and shittier (the immigration crisis and the rise of populism in Europe are a big target here), now finds himself angrier than ever, with a need to summarize everything that’s wrong into one piece. As ever, there are no substitutes to Haneke’s sense of dark humour, the performances he inspires from his acting ensemble, and the masterful awareness of the spectator’s gaze that has so informed his unique cinematic language. ‘Happy End’ has it all in spades. So, it’s like all his films rolled into one? Yes it is, and that’s not a bad thing. On the contrary, it’s fucking brilliant.
Kevin Jagernauth
Overrated: Rotten Tomatoes/Cinemascore
The obsession by studio executives and audiences about aggregate scores across a variety of platforms — Rotten Tomatoes! Cinemascore! Metacritic! — reached an insufferable boiling point this year. Executives wrung their hands at box office failures due to low scores, while fanboys put an ever increasing importance on grades generated by unknown algorithms. It all came to a head with “Justice League,” with Rotten Tomatoes choosing to withhold the score so they could reveal it like a magic trick on their Facebook show the day before it opened, while everyone waited so they could draw whatever threadbare conclusions they could about the picture based on a Fresh or Rotten rating. If this is the future of film culture — discussing ratings and ranking, rather than parsing substantive opinions — then we’re all doomed. Aggregate scores bring absolutely nothing of any value to any serious conversation about cinema, whether it’s blockbusters or obscure arthouse pictures. If we want the medium to evolve, and movies to get better, we need to move away from binary good/bad, Fresh/Rotten assessments and consider films in all their complexity.
Underrated: “Life”
“Alien” fans have been very patient waiting for Ridley Scott to return the franchise to former glories. The filmmaker has wrested control of his series, and through two middling to awful movies — “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant” — explored lots of half-baked sci-fi ideas, but failed to bring the pure, terrifying spark of that made the original a classic, innovative horror movie. Well, “Alien” fans would’ve been well-advised to track down the unfortunately overlooked “Life.” Directed with no-frills efficiency by Daniel Espinosa, with Ryan Reynolds, Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson delivering exactly what’s required — no more, no less — “Life” makes no bones about what it is: a direct “Alien” ripoff. It’s unapologetic in its aims, but its nonetheless terrific popcorn entertainment, executed with the kind of precise, lean and mean approach we once upon a time got from Scott. The ending is killer (despite nerds trying to theorize about a connection to “Venom,” sheesh) and even the score by Jon Ekstrand is ace. “Life” is a beautiful, simple little alien vs. astronauts b-movie that fires on all cylinders. Sound welcomingly familiar?
Ally Johnson
Overrated: “Darkest Hour”
In fairness, Joe Wright’s static “Darkest Hour” isn’t as overrated as the performance on which the entire picture centers. Ever since the film dropped — really, since the first still of Gary Oldman in his layers of Winston Churchill prosthetics — there’s been “Oscar Buzz” surrounding his performance. It’s fine. At it’s okayest moments, the film is at least visually engaging, even when we’re stuffed into dry meeting rooms with politicians, offering a version of the same events that “Dunkirk” and “Their Finest” both covered with more grace and intrigue. At its worse moments? We’ll they’re blubbering and spittle-laced as Oldman bellows into the camera, incoherently at times, with the film only remembering every so often to offer the character a quiet, humanist moment so that we might actually care. There are interesting threads that sit in the background, and the film suffers because of it. Instead we’re forced to watch the same internal conflict on repeat and to watch a performance that is stalled because it’s trying to work its way through the caked-on makeup. Both the greatest compliment and worst insult that could be given to Wright’s film is that it’s aggressively inoffensive, happy to tread water rather than try to live up the excitement of the subject.
Underrated: “God’s Own Country”
Francis Lee’s debut is an achingly romantic and optimistic film about two men who fall in love under both extraordinary and simple circumstances. Focused both on the natural serenity of the land that surrounds them as well as the tension that exists in the space the two farm hands must share, “God’s Own Country” is a coming of age story that adores its characters and their connection. It happily subverts expectations, making the main drama feel honest and earned in a way that’s character-based rather than narratively dictated. Josh O’Connor and Alec Secareanu share a palpable chemistry with O’Connor especially a revelation, imbuing his character with such open vulnerability that it makes his harsher moments easier to sympathize with. While the film has been rewarded overseas, it’s yet to make what feels like an adequate splash in the States, which is unfair, for a film so profoundly moving and intimate.
Kyle Kohner
Overrated: “Logan Lucky”
It’s good to finally have Steven Soderbergh back in the director’s chair. Unfortunately, his comeback project “Logan Lucky” is quite underwhelming. At best a fun film to watch, the reality is there really isn’t anything groundbreaking going for it, especially when dealing with generic heist plot elements. Yes, the setting (Charlotte, NC), and the way the characters execute the heist are slightly different than in most films of this kind, but at the end of the day, “Logan Lucky” appears to have come out of a cloning factory with little to no substance or thought to its name. This is especially true considering Edgar Wright’s “Baby Driver,” [see Ryan Oliver’s Overrated pick — Ed] a far superior heist film in almost every sense, was released just a couple months prior. Although “Logan Lucky” is good fun with its timely satirization of southern culture, the accents are pretty forced, and the NASCAR-loving stereotypes explored are far too convenient. which contributes to making it Soderbergh’s most banal work to date.
Underrated: “Marjorie Prime”
Eerily comparable to an episode of “Black Mirror,” but more affecting, and extended into a full-length feature, Michael Almereyda’s futuristic “Marjorie Prime” based on Jordan Harrison’s Pulitzer Prize-contending novel, stands as a sneakily haunting masterpiece dictated by profound concepts of grief, memory and time. An intellectual and emotional spectacle through and through, its elements of science fiction are almost an afterthought as it poignantly intertwines the implications of how memory and personhood are defined. Aside from the phenomenal acting at hand (Jon Hamm and Lois Smith especially), the number of philosophical conversations Marjorie Prime will incite once it is viewed, makes it one of the hidden gems of 2017.