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I hope you enjoyed yesterday’s first post in the series with my biggest surprises of the year. Today I’m looking at the biggest disappointments of 2022. Be sure to check out all the posts below.
Biggest Disappointments of 2022
As with yesterday’s surprises post, last year I had two films that disappointed me and yet again, the list has grown a bit for 2022. These are in a specific order from the somewhat disappointing, to the extremely disappointing.
Overhyped Superhero Films
I’m thinking of three films specifically that disappointed me and they all fit in the same category. There was so much hype for both The Batman and Thor: Love and Thunder earlier this year and while they’re OK movies, I didn’t think they were the best in their respective franchises. I know I’m generally in the minority when it comes to The Batman (affiliate link) as fans seemed to love it from the start, but it just didn’t resonate with me the same way the Dark Knight trilogy (affiliate link) did, though I did remark in my review that I love Zoë Kraviz in the role of Selina Kyle. In a slightly different way, Thor: Love and Thunder (affiliate link) was tasked with following up on what I maintain is the funniest film in all the MCU, Thor: Ragnarok (affiliate link). I loved what director Taika Waititi did with that film, and had high hopes for the latest iteration, but it too fell a bit flat. Yes, we got the return of Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, and plenty of awesome Valkyrie action, but the film as a whole could never live up to its predecessor. 
Lastly, it wasn’t really over hyped, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Morbius (affiliate link). It’s interesting that we got two movies about superheroes associated with bats this year and I was disappointed by both of them. It’s almost hard to believe that Morbius could be worse than the two Venom (affiliate link) films, but it’s true. I just hope that Sony can redeem itself with the upcoming sequel Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse next summer.
Believe it or not, that could have been my entire list of disappointments this year, but wait, there’s more! Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood This was a film I heard a bunch about early in the year and I added it to my watchlist on Netflix because I trusted the opinion of the people I heard raving about it. Maybe I expected too much, or maybe I wanted it to be great because I would have loved being a kid in Houston during the time of the Apollo missions. That’s I think what made it all the more disappointing for me when I watched it. 
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad movie. I did enjoy the animation style and even the use of some actual archival footage related to the space race in the 1960s. There have been more films like this recently (Flee immediately comes to mind from last year) and it’s refreshing to see creators willing to blend animation with other types of film. But then we got a whole section of the movie where Stanley (played by Jack Black in voice over) tells the story of being assigned to go to space on Apollo 10 ½ before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon on Apollo 11.
I get that it’s a fantasy, but so much of the rest of the film was grounded in reality that it didn’t mesh for me. I would have preferred one path or the other, not a messy blending of both. Hotel Transylvania: Transformania I mean no disrespect to the creators when I say this was a train wreck of a movie. I have such a hard time panning films in this way because I know hundreds of people worked long hours to make the best movie they could, but I know for sure they could have done better with this. 
How do I know that? Because they already made three films in this franchise that are wonderful. And to top it off, they are all unique in their own way.
The first thing that should tip you off is that Adam Sandler and Kevin James were not involved in this film like they were for the other three. The rest of the main voice cast returns, but it just felt off without those two anchor points as Dracula and Frankenstein. The second strike against the film is that it was released primarily as a straight to streaming feature on Amazon Prime (affiliate link). It did get a small theatrical release, but the fact that it was tucked away on Amazon’s streaming service shows that the studio didn’t ever expect it to be a huge success. The story is lacking and doesn’t really move the franchise forward. It was extremely disappointing for a group of films I have enjoyed up to this point. They were never to the level of some of the Pixar and Dreamworks creations, but always entertained the kids and managed to give me some laughs too.
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AuthorI'm just a film buff who wants to watch great movies. Where else to find the best, than the list of those nominated by the Academy each year? Archives
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