Everyone has the same image in their head when they hear the word dystopia, but it’s a far cry from the image the term was created to express. The modern dystopia is informed by a flood of messy versions of the same setting that may have earned a little more praise than they deserve.
There are many flavors of the dystopian subgenre, from young adult literatureto theMad Maxknockoff. The genre is unlikely to go away for several reasons, one of which is the extremely low cost of pulling it off. Just about anyone can shoot a film in a junkyard or a poorly maintained city or out in the desert and call it the post-apocalypse, but it takes something special to become briefly beloved.
RELATED:5 Underappreciated Dystopian Sci-Fi Movies
The Hunger Games
Inspired by astaggeringly popular novel ofthe same name, this 2012 film entered theaters with a 100% guarantee of success. Fans turned up in droves to see the on-screen adaptation of their favorite book, and the film was fairly well-received, but this opening effort in the larger franchise doesn’t earn the hype.
Almost every supposedly praise-worthy aspect of the film was brazenly borrowed from somewhere else. So much of the film comes across as a weak reinterpretation of2000’sBattle Royalethat the differences feel like a student attempting to change copied homework. There are some solid performances and good music, but this film set the world on fire before it even hit theaters. The first volley of the young-adult dystopia subgenre missed the mark by a wide margin.
The Tomorrow War
Buoyed almost entirely by big names in the credits, this time-travel action film is one of the most expensive streaming projects of all time. The film was praised by audiences but is acontroversial subject amongst critics. Unfortunately, it’s also overwhelmingly dull, completely nonsensical, and tragically unoriginal. With a 76% positive audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s clear that someone got something out of this film, but it isn’t clear what.
The Tomorrow Wartells the story of a man brought into a war in the future by a recruitment effort in the modern-day. Through a ton of very expensive CGI battle scenes, the film lazily wanders toward what feels like a big twist, then ends with a dull conclusion. Sometimes all films need is a ton of cash and a couple of big stars to appearlike something worth watching.
Ready Player One
The reigning champion of films built around entirely references was met with immense financial success and substantial audience reception. Based on an extremely controversial novel by Ernest Cline, the film tells the story of a world which has fallen into tragic dystopia, leaving its denizens to escape into virtual reality.
The VR landscape that makes up most of the film’s settings is packed to bursting with marketable characters owned or borrowed by Warner Bros. It’s that cross-promotion-fueled nightmare that attempts to ingratiate the film to its audience but ends up creating an overcomplicated ad campaign. Films likeSpace Jam: A New Legacycontinue this sad tradition, butReady Player Oneis the poster child for movies based entirely around “remember this” moments. It’s perhaps the weakest film of Steven Spielberg’s long career, and the sequel remains in questionable development.
Minority Report
Based on a 1956 short story by sci-fi icon Philip K. Dick, this 2002 film has a lot of good ideas that it stubbornly refuses to get out of the way of. The film has a ton of interesting moments and plenty of fun action beats, but the draw was supposed to be a philosophical question of deterministic morality.
The storyconcerns Tom Cruise asa cop in the grim future’s pre-crime division, which hunts down and jails those who will eventually do wrong. When the clairvoyants see Cruise committing a murder down the line, he must quickly prove his innocence and determine what could eventually drive him to kill. The film definitely deserves some praise, but it’s still regarded as a modern classic. It refuses to engage with the most interesting aspects of its narrative. No matter how engaging its shiny car chases, the film fails to live up to its potential.
Avatar
Perhaps the most overrated film ever made but is James Cameron’s 2009 blockbuster smash hitAvatara dystopia? Those who can remember any element of the film might recall that part of the reason mankind has ventured to Pandora is that Earth is falling to ruin. The story concerns technology’s negative impact on nature, how human nature corrupts the world around them, and the death of all good things in pursuit of profit.
In some ways, it’s simultaneously dystopian and utopian, depicting a conflict between extremely route versions of both. As the best-selling movie of all time, it’s hard to imagine anything living up to that hype, butAvatarmisses it by miles. As a film that is only ever brought up nowadays to be described as overrated, it’s a wonder that James Cameronstill intends to make four sequels.
