Expectations can kill a movie quicker than just about anything. A great director, actor, or actress in its credits, beloved source material that inspired it, or a successful predecessor in its franchise can dampen our reaction to a film every bit as much as they create the hype that propels us to want to see it.
All the movies on this list are, in one way or another, victims to hype– at least for this writer. Some of them aren’t necessarily bad films. Some are actually good in their own way. Some may improve after time, when we can take them simply for what they are, not for what we expected of them.
A few of them, unfortunately, are just plain terrible and will always be terrible.
What all the films on this list have in common is they all initially had promise that they fell short of– though in wildly varying degrees for wildly varying reasons.
1. Escape Plan 2
As promised by its trailer and poster, Sylvester Stallone and Dave Bautista are, indeed, featured in this direct-to-video sequel to the pretty decent 2014 sci-fi actioner starring Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Stallone and Bautista pretty much have nothing to do with the utterly incomprehensible storyline, however, and are only in about a quarter of the movie. Unless you like being disappointed and bored, do yourself a favor and hold out for Escape Plan 3, which is already in the can and awaiting release.
Perhaps they’re saving all the quality for that one?
2. Death Wish
A remake of Death Wish directed by Eli Roth and starring the Bruce Willis of today actually had potential to be good, though it also had as much potential to be the pointless waste of already-wasted talent that it actually is.
It’s as bad as you’ve most likely heard, though there are some fun moments that remind us of how both men got to be so well paid to make movies as trivial as this one in the first place. It’s unfortunate those moments don’t belong anywhere near the remake of a film as gritty and brutal as the original 1974 film.
3. #SquadGoals
It’s always a welcome sight to see Sheryl Lee (forever Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks) onscreen. One of the most devastatingly underrated actresses alive, she sadly isn’t given too much to do in this rather stale/generic teenage murder mystery. When she’s onscreen playing a somewhat overbearing and pushy mom/guidance counselor looking out for her daughter’s future, she reminds us of how welcome her presence will always be.
Those moments are far and few between, unfortunately, as the film primarily focuses on the story of teenage scholarship contenders being murdered one by one, and fails to keep our interest long enough to care who’s responsible.
4. Distorted
This Christina Ricci/John Cusack thriller had promise. Both actors are vastly underutilized today and are in desperate need of roles that match their talent. Distorted is not that movie. It’s a stale, under-directed, and rather uninvolving film that presents its story (about a bipolar woman uncertain whether her apartment complex is, essentially, out to get her) while forgetting to entice the viewer. Ricci, Cusack, and the potential of the story deserved better.
5. 211 and Looking Glass (tie)
Nicolas Cage will always bring hype to any movie he’s appearing in—at least for this writer. So, he’s been in a string of straight-to-VOD actioners that are beneath his talent for the last several years. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t still take risks that pay off, as evidenced by Mom and Dad and Mandy, both of which also came out this year.
Neither 211 nor Looking Glass are risks that paid off for Cage, however– though it is always a pleasure seeing him try.
211, a multi-character thriller centering around a heist, is soap opera quality in its production value, storytelling, and performances. You know a movie’s bad when you can tell the actors weren’t even on set together while performing the last scene.
River’s Edge director Tim Hunter and Nicolas Cage seem like a potential match made in heaven. Looking Glass, unfortunately, was not the film for them to collaborate on. It’s a rather uninteresting murder mystery set at a motel, with clumsy attempts at noir style and a strained “everyman” performance from Cage that is as awkward as most of his previous attempts at such roles.
Cage flourishes when he is given a role in a film that matches his originality and brilliant weirdness. Skip 211 and Looking Glass if this is what you’re looking for, and be on the lookout for Mandy and Mom and Dad the next time you’re in the mood for some extreme Cage-ness.
6. Ready Player One
While technically brilliant, Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One is akin to being invited to a friend’s house to watch him play video games all night. Granted, the gamer is a skilled and masterful one and the game being played has some pretty great graphics, but you’re watching your friend play a video game, nonetheless.
There is much to admire about Ready Player One, but it’s also a trite and exhaustive experience that never allows its viewers to escape the realty that they’re stuck watching someone else have all the fun for the evening.
7. Annihilation
There’s a growing trend amongst science fiction films today where, as long as they’re atmospheric and strange and as a long as they have A-list talent involved to validate them, they’re often praised as masterworks.
Alex Garland’s follow-up to his universally praised directorial debut, Ex Machina, is no exception. Starring Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Oscar Issac, Annihilation is a solidly executed and oftentimes creepy film full of great ideas (it takes place in a zone seemingly designed to pervert Mother Nature). However, it also fails to coherently tell a fulfilling story or present us with characters we fully understand or care about.
In spite of the potential its talent suggests, Annihilation is a cold and frustrating film that seemingly doesn’t know what to do with itself after setting up its promising premise.
8. Kin
With a cool trailer that touts the film as being “from the producers of Stranger Things”, there were high hopes amongst many for this 80’s-inspired science fiction thriller. There’s a lot of good to be found in Kin, as it’s an unpredictable and wild ride of a movie. It’s also, unfortunately, a bit of a mess that never fully resolves itself.
The story is disjointed and cluttered, though often effective: a charismatic screw-up just out of prison (Jack Reynor) owes some thugs (headed by James Franco) sixty thousand dollars and accidentally gets his father (Dennis Quaid) involved, with grievous consequences. He then has to protect his younger brother (Myles Truitt)– who happened to find a mysterious ray gun with unimaginable powers at the film’s beginning, by the way. The brothers then go on a road trip and a well-intentioned stripper (Zoe Kravitz) joins them in the most organic and logical way possible.
Kin tries to be about seven different movies and succeeds at about half of them. No satisfactory resolution, narratively or emotionally, results from this.
Its storyline is ambitious—though that ambition is also the movie’s downfall. There’s so much potential in every narrative thread of Kin that it does a disservice to itself, and its audience, by not narrowing it down to fewer choices.
9. Sicario: Day of the Soldado
Sicario: Day of the Soldado is the cinematic equivalent of a long, intense inhale before a sneeze that never materializes. Build-up and tension are no problem in this atmospheric and skillfully made sequel, but pay-off and climax are.
Benecio Del Toro and Josh Brolin are excellent in their roles, both reprised from the original (and far superior) film. Their efforts are wasted, however, on Taylor Sheridan’s script, which has moments of greatness and suggests some wonderful conflicts, but ultimately feels incomplete and curiously unquestioned.
Emily Blunt’s character from the first film, the heart and conscience of the entire world within it, is sorely needed and missed. There was talk of a Sicario 3 around the time of Day of the Soldado’s release. If it materializes, let’s hope that Sheridan and the producers don’t make the same mistake twice by leaving her out of it.
10. The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter
Josh Brolin is, once again, magnificent in the title role of the well intentioned but emotionally stunted deer hunter, Buck Ferguson, who is something of a celebrity amongst deer hunters (at least in his own mind). Ferguson brings his son (Montana Jordan) and sycophantic cameraman (Danny McBride) along for a weekend hunting trip, hoping to simultaneously bond and bag the biggest kill of his life.
Writer-director Jody Hill (Observe and Report, HBO’s Eastbound and Down) has a brand of comedy, his fans well know, that simply isn’t for everyone. His work has been successful in the past because it understood that. Legacy is a disappointment because it seemingly doesn’t.
Everything is surprisingly watered down this time around. The usually brilliant McBride is wholly disappointing, downplaying his usual machismo-wannabe shtick but providing nothing memorable or solid as a replacement.
Though there are some good performances and some emotionally moving scenes (Brolin’s struggles to communicate with his ex-wife, played by the always welcome Carrie Coon, are the best moments in the film), nothing ever fully takes flight in The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter. It’s stuck somewhere between trying to please its audience and trying to retain its own authentic voice. Neither fully work.
Hill is not a director who should work on this short of a leash. By trying to make an inoffensive and accessible film that appealed to everyone, Hill and company have basically made a film that struggles to fully appeal to anyone.
