10 Recent Movies NOBODY Expected To Be Good

10. Plane

Look, it's a movie called Plane starring Gerard Butler and the bloke from Luke Cage (Mike Colter) with the trailer giving off distinct "this should've been a streaming film" vibes. How good could it possibly be?

Yet as much as Plane was a meme long before it came out - largely due to its comically unimaginative title - the end product is precisely the sort of modest, meat-and-potatoes genre film we desperately need more of these days.

Indeed, nobody's going to see a movie called Plane for a nuanced meditation on the human condition, but this gamy action-thriller benefits considerably from the entertaining two-hander between Butler and Colter, its snappy pace, and slew of tense, well-staged set-pieces.

If "Dad Thrillers" tend to be a point of mockery for both critics and audiences, Plane proved that when the ingredients are all there - a fun high-concept, well-matched leads, and loony action - they can be unpretentiously joyous.

That it ended up receiving better reviews than many of the year's most anticipated blockbusters - Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, The Flash, The Marvels, and Wish, to name just a few - is absolutely shocking in the best way.