The Avengers was recently voted the most overrated movie of 2012. The vote, which was conducted online by The LA Times saw Joss Whedon’s superhero ensemble receive a whopping 85% of the vote.
This will surely come as a shock to Disney: the film was greatly enjoyed by cinema-goers and was hugely successful. It broke nearly every record along the way and was only one of three movies last year to gross $1 billion dollars at the worldwide box office.
Ridley Scott’s special effects extravaganza Prometheus was awarded second place followed by Brave in third.
While The Avengers was weak in terms of story, it was still a thoroughly enjoyable summer blockbuster that ticked all the right boxes. It will be interesting to see what marvel fans think, especially since Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Rises didn’t even crack the top 10. Here are 4 movies that could challenge The Avengers for being the most overrated movie of 2012.
4. Taken 2
We get it, Liam Neeson is an absolute bad-ass. My fellow Irishman has seen his career go from strength to strength in the last few years with Neeson emerging as a seriously bankable action star. And as much as it pains me to add this movie – for which he’s the main star, Taken 2 is a complete waste of time.
The original Taken was an excellent story of revenge with some great set pieces and plenty of violence. It was tense and atmospheric, yet exciting and fun. It should have been a one off movie, in fact that’s what made it so enjoyable. You cared about the characters. The film went on to gross $225 million dollars worldwide. Not a bad return on its $25 million budget. Of course a sequel was inevitable, it’s just a pity then that Taken 2 is terrible.
Neeson must have been laughing all the way to the bank as the movie is nothing but a carbon copy of the original offering nothing new or exciting. But with a worldwide gross of $285 million, something tells me Neeson will be back to complete the trilogy. Maybe the family pet will be taken?
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11 Comments
I agree with all of these EXCEPT The Avengers. That movie was AWESOME!!!
Avengers was a great movie. It’s just easy to hate on successful movies
I wonder how much of the Avengers hate was coming from cranky Nolan fanboys? I went into Avengers not expecting a lot, but quite frankly adored it. I’d move Prometheus to the top spot – rarely have I seen such a mess of a film – and your four suggestions sound good to round out the top five spots.
Prometheus by a landslide. Ted was mediocre. Avengers was exactly what I was hoping it would be. Love to see the underrated list!
I just hated Ted. It was terrible. I thought that kind of comedy was slowly dying! Prometheus was a huge let down. I still thought it was average though. Scott was clearly afraid to stray too far away from Alien and I reckon a sequel could be immense.
Agree with everything. I enjoyed Ted, but it got more love than was deserved-but I’m weird when it comes to comedy. I hated the Hangover (didnt laugh once), and Due Date was just a less funny, more raunchy Planes Trains and Automobiles. I miss the days of Steve Martin, John Candy, Bill Murray, and Dan Akroyd. One question I have, though, is why does literally everyone credit Man of Steel to Nolan? He himself has said he hates the character and that this film is all Snyder. This could be Snyder’s best film (I’m a die-hard Superman guy) and Nolan will get all of the credit…it’s seems like kind of a miscarriage of credit to me.
I have found my taste in comedy is quite different to most guys my age! The last film I really laughed at was Stepbrothers! Toilet humour and sexual jokes are so boring now. It’s just cheap and lazy scripting.
Thank god someone else sees that Man of Steel is not Christopher’s Nolan singular vision. Snyder is a great director and I have such high hopes for it. The point I am making is that people are too invested in these fanboy wars and drama. It’s ridiculous!
Avengers was an excellent summer blockbuster with a silly story and wannabe Power Rangers for bad guys. But, it succeeded in what it set out to do. The Dark Knight Rises had so many plot holes and stupid stuff included that the movie took a hit and rightly so.
The thing I will say is this. Nolan changed the game with Batman Begins. I’m not saying he’s a pioneer and that all movies should go the dark route but Nolan showed that audiences were ready for mature superheroes that have more than one motive (dress up, defeat my enemy). Look at the new trailer for Iron Man 3. You can see the influences.
Check out fellow writer Luke Stevenson’s excellent article on Man of Steel, it’s well worth the read.
I remember hearing SO MANY positive things about Project X, watching it and thinking to myself… Who on earth found this entertaining?
The one bit I chuckled at was the dwarf punching a guy in the crotch, but that’s because it’s a recycled joke from Scrubs…They even use the same dwarf!
I liked Silver Linings Playbook but I think they got a lot of things wrong, some parts of it they were just announcing romcom movie cliches as a plot device which never went anywhere. Robert De Niro at one point mentions fate as a big deal, before never mentioning it again. It was enjoyable but quite sloppily executed I found.
Glad you agree that Project X was atrocious! I remember my 14 year old cousin telling me that it was just fantastic. I guess that was the audience they wanted to hit.
I remember having an argument with my girlfriend over Silver Linings Playbook. She absolutely loved it while I thought it was one of the sloppiest movies I had ever seen. As you say, in terms of the plot, it didn’t know what it wanted to be. I think Russell tried to be too clever and it backfired. It was a train wreck.
It’s funny you should mention need rage. I posted a pretty detailed observation of it on Oren’s Gladiator piece…
i agree on your list. excellent work but i just don’t see Avengers as number 1, not even on top 10 unlike TDKR, Is super Overrrated for me, when i saw it and start thinking about AND saw it again a second time. i though it was boring. i mean less action, less batman, TOO much UNNECESSARY script, and Too many big plot holes. Begins for me is my favorite BATMAN movie. I still love Dark Knight but Begins truly felt like a Batman film for me. Avengers was Epic for what it was ment to be, not an oscar contender but a fan super satisfaction. Just for saying for underrated movie i can only think of two. They are, 1 End of Watch 2 Dredd 3D they were fantastic what do you think for underrated movies