Movies keep undermining their strong female characters by pairing them with utterly uninteresting male leads.

We talk about “strong female characters” a lot; maybe a little too much, since it’s become studios’ quick fix for otherwise very male-centric stories, rather than a manifestation of the progress we’re making in bringing equality to storytelling. But while hyper-focusing on these women, movies seem to have left all other characterization aside, rendering all their efforts useless, and their movie annoying.

This year’s Mortal Engines is a perfect example of this. It had one of the coolest female leads we’ve ever seen: Hester Shaw, a clever, ruthless, tough and three-dimensional character that immediately drew one’s attention. And yet, we had to see her through the eyes of one of the most annoying male leads ever: a whiny, self-aggrandizing guy whose only role in the movie is to constantly ruin everyone else’s plans.

I haven’t read the book, and I’m sure Tom’s character is a lot more interesting in the novel, so this isn’t meant to be a dig at the source material. Rather, it’s a criticism of the filmmakers who didn’t think of investing in creating a good male lead.

It’s not just an issue with Mortal Engines, either. This problem happens in multiple movies, especially in the sci-fi genre. The main lead (who is male 99% of the time) acts as the newcomer — the eyes and ears of the audience — but is often just a blank slate that ends up filling the same stereotypical role: the questioning, stubborn guy who has to eventually prove himself… and get the girl.

While filmmakers pour resources into making their female characters tough, powerful, clever and independent, they don’t seem to spare a thought for the male characters that are expected to earn those women’s respect, and sometimes even their love.

The women have to be perfectly crafted to be considered good characters, while the men can just be a product of lazy writing and be considered just as good… hmm, sound familiar?

It’s frustrating to see when we know that Hollywood is constantly despairing over the “science” of strong female characters, considering them too complicated. Male writers are mystified by the concept of a female character with agency, and unfortunately often end up just crossing off characteristics from the list… creating the Strong Female Character(TM) that is always played by the same set of actresses. Meanwhile, male characters can be terrible and be considered “relatable.”

But if you can’t come up with an interesting lead, why is that character the lead at all? In Mortal Engines, Tom offers absolutely nothing to the plot. He could have been replaced with any side character, and Hester’s mission would have been just as interesting and epic — if not even more so, because Tom would not have been there to interrupt all the cool parts. If the movie hadn’t been based on a book, I would have wanted Tom to be cut out of it altogether.

It makes one question if filmmakers are just making men the movie leads because they subconsciously — or overtly — feel that they can’t market a movie with a female protagonist. Their strong female character might be strong, but she’s still a woman — and in Hollywood, people still seem to think that women can’t single-handedly hold a blockbuster in the way men can.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t have main male characters acting alongside the women. But they need to be interesting. Mad Max: Fury Road did an amazing job with this: Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron, is one of the most badass, interesting female characters of the last decade, but Tom Hardy’s Max doesn’t take away from her story. Instead, Max holds his own, and has a complex personality and backstory. They help each other out, have their own, original character arcs, and create an amazing story together.

We want strong female characters in film, but not cookie-cutter ones that are all strong in the same ways. We want a diversity of characterizations, and that extends to the characters they interact with: there’s no point in having a great character if she’s surrounded by characters we don’t care about and whose presence in the story isn’t justified.

This year, I hope we get more movies with strong female characters. But more than anything, I hope that they are given movies that deserve them, with male counterparts that are up to the task.