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Most Overrated Films of 2022

2022 was not a good year for movies and actually most of the biggest releases turned out to either be disappointing or downright mediocre. This is the list of those overrated disappointments where I will list only the movies that got widespread praise from both critics and audiences, so here we go.

5. Elvis

Elvis gets the last spot on this list because it didn’t receive overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, but it is a big audience favorite and it did get multiple Oscar nominations, which was a problem for me. Yes, Austin Butler is good here, but not great. Tom Hanks fared much worse in such a caricaturist joke of a role. Buzz Luhrmann was at his directorial worst here as he succumbed to all of his worst impulses, including a visual and editorial excess that was frustrating more than anything else. Couple that with a very problematic viewpoint and you’ve got another very mediocre, overrated music biopic after ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

4. Top Gun: Maverick

First things first, Maverick was a definite improvement over the first ‘Top Gun’ movie released all the way back in 1986. It’s well made and it has at least some semblance of plot and characterization in it. However, this was still not enough to suddenly magically call it a great movie when it clearly wasn’t. It was still military propaganda for the US. It still had cringey dialogue and an overreliance on action spectacle and nothing of true substance. It made over a billion dollars and it received a whopping 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, but the biggest issue was its Best Picture nomination, which remains one of the biggest injustices in recent memory from the Academy that is otherwise very blockbuster-averse.

3. The Fabelmans

There is a smaller fraction of cinephiles that recognize that The Fabelmans is not amazing, but that fraction is too tiny in comparison to the vast majority of Spielberg fanatics who will eat up everything the man serves them. This is a well made film with a particularly effective and fun ending, but most of this autobiographical drama wasn’t about the love of movies at all, but about Spielberg’s parents and his teenage years. The acting performances are mediocre and those coming-of-age elements were ridiculously corny. Add to that the overwhelmingly self-praising tone to the story and you’ve got one of the director’s worst efforts to date.

2. All Quiet on the Western Front

The 2022 German adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front is a big disappointment. While I can certainly appreciate the effort to bring back this source material to the nation that originated it and I did admire its cinematic qualities, the overwhelming emphasis on action spectacle and audio-visuals led to an emotionless, tiresome viewing experience. The 1930 Best Picture winner is one of the best movies of all time, especially impressive for its strong anti-war sentiment, but this one failed to develop its characters properly, which made me not care when they met their terrible faiths. The movie received incredible reviews and the whopping 9 Oscar nominations, but I would contend that only those people who’ve never seen the vastly superior original can adore this one to such an extent.

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once

And the obvious number one for me goes to Everything Everywhere All at Once. Nominated for eleven Academy Awards and getting overwhelmingly positive reviews, the movie also ended up on multiple top ten lists for the year. But in my opinion this is not even a passable movie. Yes, it features strong acting performances with Michelle Yeoh delivering a particularly impressive turn in the main role. It also has a solid family story at its core, but that moving plot was tarnished by all this multiverse bullshit that made no sense and was just audio-visual noise. So many of these sections devolved into silly comedic bits that were never at all funny, but were just annoyingly strange for the sake of being strange. This is originality at its worst and a further proof that just because something is original doesn’t mean it’s good. I know that I am in the vast minority with this assessment, but I am more than happy to not board this hype train.

Honorable Mentions:

The Woman King – The Woman King could have been a return to form for the historical epic, but it ended up being too action-oriented and chaotic unfortunately. Most people like it for what it represents and that’s it.

Scream 5 – The fifth Scream movie was a disappointment for me. It ended up being quite familiar and stale while lacking the momentum and freshness of most of its predecessors.

Glass Onion – Glass Onion is an overrated ‘Knives Out’ sequel that is nowhere near as good as that terrific original. It felt too silly and simplistic, so it just couldn’t compare.