The most overrated movies of 2019
Bad acting, clichéd scripting, unnecessary remakes — these movies over-promised and underdelivered. Here are the most overrated flicks of the last 12 months.
Leigh Paatsch
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These are the movies that were all hype and little substance in 2019.
Ride Like a Girl
The quality of Ride Like a Girl fluctuates throughout from quaintly endearing to faintly awful.
The filmmakers continually overcook what should have been a very simple and straightforward dish, often by piling hefty helpings of corn and ham on the side.
The acting on display here is average at best, with one notable exception (Michelle’s brother Stevie, playing himself).
Teresa Palmer as Michelle Payne never really convinces as a jockey, but does excel when it comes to conveying her character’s tough-as-teak personal ethos.
Sam Neill cops the worst of some wonky, clichéd scripting as Paddy Payne, Michelle’s hard-nosed horse-trainer dad.
As for Ride Like a Girl’s all-important racetrack sequences, they are passable enough, but not as exhilarating as first-time director Rachel Griffiths made out while promoting the movie.
Rocketman
The hype machine around Rocketman was furiously pumping up this musical biopic of Elton John into the same league as the recent smash hit Bohemian Rhapsody.
If only it was so.
In truth, the first Mamma Mia! is a more relevant reference point for what is a cheesy rewrite of Elton’s colourful life and times.
The story told between the tunes in Rocketman never achieves takeoff.
Taron Egerton toils hard in the role of Elton for moderate returns.
The actor’s singing is strong in the up-tempo numbers, but found wanting with the slower, quieter stuff.
The Lion King
Everything looks so real. Everything feels so fake.
If you grew up with the original Lion King and watched it more than twice, you will quickly realise that this “new” version is sometimes a straight copy, right down to the same shot composition and edit choices.
Therefore it should come as no real surprise this turns out to be such a dull slog: Disney are just slapping a new coat of technological paint on the same vehicle so many have already travelled in before.
Hotel Mumbai
Hotel Mumbai restages the brutal terrorist murders of 2008 that shocked the world without getting its priorities right. Should a harrowing replay of such awful carnage be presented as a tense thriller to sell cinema tickets?
It remains difficult to fathom how this material got green-lit as a relatively large-scale Australian production.
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Last Christmas
Inspired by (and featuring) the songs of the late George Michael, Last Christmas centres on the trials and tribulations of Kate (Emilia Clarke of Game of Thrones fame), whose messy life gets suddenly cleaned up by the arrival of a mysterious new boyfriend.
While the movie is certain to win over anybody carrying the I Love Love Actually gene, it will be interesting to see what uninvested viewers make of the casting of Emilia Clarke in a largely comedic role.
Clarke is not a naturally funny performer, and early on in Last Christmas, she is clearly leaning too hard on the lines penned for her in the screenplay.