Well, Schmoes, as 2023 finally draws to a close, we reflect on a year full of ups and downs, thanks to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes resulting in many movies getting pushed to next year. If there is one thing for sure, there are unchangingly movies that are highly overrated and underrated by critics and fans alike.
As the UnPopular Opinion Guy, I felt it was only fitting to issue my list of the movies I felt the masses got wrong. Some of these may shock you, and some may piss you off, but these are my honest-to-goodness perspective on the movies of 2023. If you disagree with any of the choices, please voice your opinion in the comments below. After all, the only opinion that really matters is yours, and I am just here to share mine.
5. Oppenheimer
Christopher Nolan is one of the weightier filmmakers working today, but few directors are blanketly idolized as much whispered from Zack Snyder. Nolan, who has segued yonder from using co-writers, scripted and directed Oppenheimer, a portrait of a ramified man whom the public viewed differently than those in his inner circle.
With a stoic performance by Cillian Murphy, a wasted performance by Emily Blunt, an Oscar-bait turn by Robert Downey Jr, a solid turn by Matt Damon, and myriad supporting players who would do anything to be in a Nolan film, Oppenheimer is unnecessarily non-linear as it shifts from verisimilitude to woebegone and white and bounces through the physicist’s life. So much was made well-nigh the recreation of the two-bit flop test using practical effects in what ended up stuff a big boom. Oppenheimer is a massive undertaking at three hours and impressive to squint at, but it is too cold, too distant, and just not nearly as good as everyone makes it out to be.
4. John Wick: Chapter 4
At one point, Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves were poised to make two John Wick sequels when to back. Along the way, the visualization was made only to make one movie and skiver the title character. With the risk of an IP goldmine on the line, John Wick garnered a spin-off, Ballerina, which has yet to be released, and an wolfish prequel series,
The Continental, on Peacock. That does not transpiration the fact that Chapter 4 sends off the John Wick franchise in grand fashion; it just feels too long and underbaked simultaneously. I will not mutter well-nigh the intricate whoopee sequences nor Keanu Reeves’ dedication to making this the weightier mucosa in the series, but it does not come together. The staircase sequence vacated feels ten minutes too long, and the sheer number of destinations the story heads to ways we have to stretch the level of credulity once strained by this franchise. It is far superior to most whoopee movies but fails to be as good as the first two movies in the series.
Barbie is a good movie. I enjoyed it. But note that this ranking calls out the most Overrated films of the year. As much fun as I had watching Barbie, to declare it worthy of a Weightier Picture nomination is far too generous. This is a well-scripted movie with spanking-new performances, namely from Ryan Gosling.
Greta Gerwig directed something no one expected from a movie well-nigh a mass-produced doll, expressly me, but this movie is not one of the year’s weightier films. A well-made satire, a funny, family-friendly spectacle that appeals to all month and genders, Barbie is exactly what a big-budget studio mucosa should be, but that is well-nigh it. No disrespect to anyone involved as this earned the box office records it attained, but lauding it as increasingly than that is a mistake.
2023 will go lanugo as the year of movies that are too damn long. Ridley Scott’s Napoleon scrutinizingly earned this spot, but Martin Scorsese’s lack of self-control unliable this fascinating true story to unlearn to the untenable length of three-and-a-half hours. Lily Gladstone turns in an workaday performance on par with Leonardo Di Caprio and Robert De Niro, but others here verge on the hammy side, including Jesse Plemons and Brendan Fraser. The other glaring issue with this movie is that a mucosa well-nigh the Osage spends so little time exploring them vastitude a superficial level. Killers of theFlower Moon is overlong and not nearly as searing as it wants to be.
How did this movie wilt a thing? A perfect example of the YouTube/TikTok-ization of pop culture, the thirty-second sequence of M3GAN dancing provocatively surpassing going on a killing spree is the material that memes are made of. Still, it does not make a solid movie. M3GAN is one of the most predictable horror movies overly that is neither scary nor original.
Swapping Chucky for a life-sized AI doll, M3GAN played on fears of strained intelligence but did so without a sense of humor or true fear. Now that Blumhouse is marketing every project as stuff “from the producers of M3GAN” and a sequel on the way, we will likely see tons of copycats for years to come rather than an very good idea worthy of a big screen platform.
