10 Most Overrated Sci-Fi Movies Ever Made

French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve has proven one of the most masterful genre directors in the business over the past decade, with both Sicario and Arrival standing out as prime examples of his skill at deftly weaving weightier concepts into the bones of tensely calculated popcorn fare - and the odds are he'll somehow do it again with his upcoming take on Dune.

Yet his most recent film Blade Runner 2049 sits at an unusual crossroads. As a long-gestating sequel to the seminal sci-fi classic, it was always going to have to meet stratospheric expectations of a sort, and it is to its testament that it mostly does throughout, returning us to the world of Rick Deckard.

Yet with a runtime that can feel particularly punishing and less of a deft handle on its grand mythologising than it thinks it does, it likely falls just below the mark of greatness on reflection, despite its oft-brilliant nature. The sheer weight is mostly borne throughout by Villeneuve, who takes the film in interesting directions - but there's little escaping that he could have trimmed the fat here significantly while still retaining powerful character and narrative strength.