The reverse of that post I’ve made a week ago…
Rules: pick one movie or series and explain why you actually enjoyed it despite the criticism.
For me: The JJ Abrams Star Trek movies, by far the best ST stuff ever made, I couldn’t take seriously the original universe with the dated effects and stiff acting, same goes for NG… These movies did ST actually great looking and much more believable, not just the effects.
So many. For an example, the Star Wars Sequels (and Prequels). I think they were fine. Okay, 8 dropped a bit and had a lot of bad moments, but altogether, they were enjoyable. I had fun watching them.
Are they Oscar worthy? No. Not at all, not by a long shot, but I had fun.
I think we as a society are way too polar, it’s either good or bad, trash or perfect. I think we’ve lost sight that things can simply be good, or fun. I had fun watching those movies. I don’t think Rise of Skywalker wasted my time. Could it have been better? Of course. Was the writing lazy? Definitely at times. Did I enjoy watching it? Yes.
Overall, I tend to just be happy to be watching anything star wars. None of the movies are that deep, I’m just in it to watch space wizards with laser swords flying around in space ships with robot sidekicks battling evil. As long as most of those boxes get checked, I’m pretty happy with any star wars media, and in my mind I’m right back to being a little kid watching Star wars for the first time. Anything more is just icing on the cake.
Now I can absolutely rank them and admit that some of them are better movies than others, and the sequels and prequels definitely drop the ball on that in a lot of ways
And while on the whole, the sequels and prequels aren’t great movies (arguably the OT aren’t even great movies if we’re being totally objective) I think that in a lot of ways they do a better job at universe building by dropping hints at other parts of the galaxy that we don’t get to explore right then and there, they just do a shitty job of following through on them and tying them together into a coherent narrative.
I think that just about any part of episode 8 for example could have been expanded out into a pretty cool movie or show, there was a lot to work with there, they just didn’t work together as the same movie
The force dyad thing between Rey and Kylo is pretty fucking cool
Casino heist or spycraft movies are a pretty tried and true movie formula, I probably would have saved it for something like a Solo movie, or maybe Andor. The stuff about the military industrial complex profiting off of selling weapons to both sides could work for either of them. Han is from Cornelia, where the arms dealers are building a lot of these battleships and such, and it’s also established that he’s a gambler so a casino makes sense for him, or Andor could work well with the gritty political side of things.
Fucking broom kid! Let’s get more non-jedi non-sith force sensitives
Finn was just criminally underutilized all-around
The Holdo maneuver was pretty fucking badass
You can argue about how the bombing run doesn’t make sense from a physics perspective, or was tactically stupid, but it was a cool scene nonetheless
I could go on, I think you could build out a pretty decent movie, show, or at least an episode or two of a show from any of those ideas if they just committed to the idea
Agree with all of this, other than the prequels, which I really didn’t like.
I don’t like you either
I’ll be careful.
YOU’LL BE DEAD
Yes, officer, this post right here… ;-)
What about me 👉👈
I love The Polar Express.
The most widely hated thing about it is the mocap. Not much to say here, I’m just straight-up not bothered by it. I think it looks fine. It’s not incredibly expressive like a stylized animated film could be, but it doesn’t look actively bad to me in any way.
The way the titular express inexplicably gains and loses rolling stock scene by scene and behaves in absurd ways like bending around the mountain are a common punchline. “BuT iT’s A mAgIc TrAiN!!!” doesn’t really solve it for me either. But on a casual viewing it’s mostly inoffensive. A silly curiosity.
Some say the plot of the film spends too much time aimlessly noodling around and throwing in needless filler scenes. Meh. If you ask me that’s where all the meat of the film is. The actual plot of the film has nothing interesting to say. “Kid doesn’t believe in Santa. Magic Christmas hijinks ensue. Kid believes in Santa now. The end.” Riveting. Nah, the so-called “filler” is absolutely the meal here.
The fact that the film literally has five named characters, and the main character isn’t one of them is hilarious. To even get to that number you have to count both the Scrooge puppet and the kid who the elves were monitoring in a single scene as characters, and after that, one of the remaining three is Santa Claus. Just more weight to my point that the story doesn’t matter, lmao.
Say what you will about the animation, but the cinematography is incredible. So many dynamic long-track camera shots from interesting angles. Especially whenever the steam locomotive is on screen. God, steam locomotives are so fucking cool. I don’t even care that it’s full of inaccuracies if you actually look up close. They put a lot of effort into it and that effort shows. It’s quite the treat.
The set design of the North Pole is fantastic. It’s admittedly kinda fucked that it’s modeled after a real world Pullman company town, but I guess it’s appropriate as a joke about the whole Santa’s workshop thing while also incorporating a neat little nod to real life railroad lore. Beyond that, it’s blindingly radiant of all that Victorian-era charm that most of the modern secular Christmas tradition is born from. The serene night snow amidst the rustic red brickwork illuminated by glowing amber gaslamps… augh, it’s so aggressively cozy!
All the pneumatic and other steampunk-adjacent elf tech is a treat as well. The film is certainly no slouch in breathing its own unique spin of whimsy into Santa’s toy factory. It’s not the most whimsical out there, but it’s definitely putting in work.
Alan Silvestri’s score is phenomenal. It’s all delightfully extra. Every single song in the film that’s an original composition is a banger and every song that isn’t an original composition for the film is part of that time-tested canon of hits from the 50s and 60s. I think a lot of people are fed up sick of the latter but, I dunno, I grew up listening to them on my Now That’s What I Call Christmas CD, and to me their sound is synonymous with that warm, nostalgic holiday cheer I get from the season. Even if I don’t get around to actually watching the movie, you know damn well I’m putting The Polar Express’s soundtrack in my December shuffle.
Genuine S tier Christmas film. Well worth every single fault.
YEEEAAAAAHHHHH!!! Polar Express rocks. It’s not necessarily good, but it is awesome.
I never understood the hate for it either. Sure, the animation is a bit dated and has some uncanny valley, but it’s a fun family movie.
Also has the greatest scene in cinema history: the train that drifts on ice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COdoHpU_a8U
It’s funny, I hadn’t watched it since I was a kid and it was on at my families house by chance during Christmas, I could not get through how uncanny valley it all looks.
That movie feels more ridiculous every time I watch it. I still like it though. One thing that’s always stuck out to me is the sound design. You practically don’t even need to literally watch it, the soundstage is so detailed that it’s practically like I’m there just by hearing it. All the little grunts and rattles of the train just so fucking cool
They fly a tank - it’s perfect!
You can’t fly a tank foo’!
Mythbusters covered it, and said that everything in that scene was within the realm of possibility.
I think they were bribed by Jessica Beil’s thighs
Aren’t we all…
You’ve just reminded me this is a thing, and I’m going to get high and watch it today.
Man I’d forgotten about that film but I also really enjoyed it. It was fully self aware and made no attempt to take itself seriously, and if you’re in the right mindset for that then it’s a great time.
Might have to watch it again.
Murdoch was dead on. I thought face was pretty good. Liam did a decent Hannibal and BA was fine.
What irked me was this weird back story of like… trying to let face taking over to lead the group sort of thing, plus the romance. It really rubbed me the wrong way.
Like, the A team isn’t some club, they’re this perfect storm of chaos towards bad guys, there isn’t so much a hierarchy as just this inexplicable plot armor and audacity. If it wasn’t all four it would all fall apart.
So many movies but let’s go with: Ghostbusters 2016. I had an absolute blast watching it and Chris played one of the best himbos of all time
My only real problem with it is that despite being all-woman led, it fails to be a feminist movie because Chris Hemsworth steals every scene he is in! Other than that it was fine. Not great but watchable
What? No, it’s a female gaze movie through and through. Like George of the Jungle back in the day
Now you’ve reminded me of this joke again.
Gotta love that narrator. One of my favorite narrators in a movie.
Ya, I didn’t think it was great but it wasn’t as bad as it was made out to be. It was fine.
I don’t think anyone hates it but Congo has a low rating online despite it being one of my favourite movies of all time. I can recite or word word
My young kid self was not ready for that movie.
Stop eating my sesame cake!
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Both feature Kevin Costner’s ass
Waterworld is Mad Max on a boat
The pitch was probably something like “What if Mad Max but instead of sand we have water?” And the producer guy would be something like “Will the people still be dirty even with all that water?” And the screen writer guy: “Wouldn’t be an post apocalyptic world if the people is not dirty”
I grew up with Men in Tights. My room mate grew up with Spaceballs. It was really fun to swap movies and show each other another Mel Brooks movie.
(If you dont treat those titles and movies, that sentence has a very different meaning)
For me, it’s the movie Waterworld. I cannot get enough of that movie. So many people hated it. 🤣
Haters: it’s just Mad Max on water
Me: that’s awesome
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Pretty sure when I went to WB world or whatever as a kid they had one of those 15min live shows of it. Jestskis and a few explosions. Surly it can’t be thst unpopular.
Solid Film. Quirky characters. Everyone seems to be having fun.
It inspired me to buy a kayak a few years back to have my Autistic Fish Man Summer.
I like Waterworld, and I like The Postman.
The joke in my friend group was that Waterworld was Dances with Wolves on water. The Postman was Waterworld on land. Dances with Wolves was the Postman with Native Americans. Toss in whichever parallel you feel works best to not actually say the movie you’re putting on.
Postman was great! The book is worth a read, too.
It’s a fine movie, but people really don’t like being reminded of climate change or other environment issues. Same thing with Avatar. If you cast an environmentalist as a villain though, people seem to like it.
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In my headcanon it’s some kind of smokable kelp wrapped in different kelp.
Have you ever smoked? When you’re addicted you’d trade in a chunk of gold for a cigarette if necessary.
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I’m taking a big risk after experiencing your last post, but… I actually really loved Prometheus. Alien is in my top 5 movies list, but I still enjoyed it.
I will give massive props to Riddley for taking a big risk and pushing into a new direction. I suspect massive meddling by the studios. Prometheus had a lot of interesting concepts that just never got a chance to be fleshed out fully. My guess Covenant was going to be the response to that but something happened between the two movies because Covenant is completely divorced thematically and story wise from Prometheus. I’m sorry Riddley never got a chance to live out this interesting new universe.
I notice that a big percentage of “hated” movies tie in with existing fan-bases. New movies in existing franchises, book adaptations, etc. Guess people go in with certain expectations and hate it when those are not met.
I didn’t know Prometheus was supposed to tie in with the Alien series (which I loved), so I had no expectations related to that. I enjoyed the movie and I was surprised at the end to see what looked like a Xenomorph.
That being said, I also have my share of movies I hated because they didn’t live up to my expectations from the books. I love the Harry Potter movies, but I was disappointed by how much they left out. I couldn’t watch The Expanse past the first couple of episodes because of how much was changed. And then there’s Foundation, which so ridiculously misses the mark that I’m able to enjoy as a series that just happens to share a title and some character names with the books, but is otherwise an unrelated story.
I don’t get the hate for it. It’s weird, tense, spooky and exciting with good looking scenes and interesting characters. It’s not a perfect film by any stretch but I goddamn love a psychopathic robot any day.
I don’t like the thesis of the movie. It had everything going for it, but the script. Ridley Scott seems to not like scientists seeing as how every scientist dies an ironic death.
I didn’t know it had a thesis. If it did, it’d probably be about retribution against the people who give technology to humanity and the dangers of having that technology. Like the myth of Prometheus.
Terminator Genesys. It’s loathed by terminator fans for a variety of reasons and I won’t defend any of the writing or casting decisions, but I do give it credit for trying to do something new with the story and time aspect. I think it could have been a lot better if they took a bit more time with it and recast a few characters, but overall it’s a popcorn flik to me, turn your brain off and enjoy.
A story where Skynet’s the good guy and wants to evolve humanity instead of killing it would be friggin awesome, but it makes for a better novel than action movie.
The trailer park boys movies.
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How could you not mention the cat ears on the male love interest? Easily the most iconic part
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This is one of my comfort movies. I really wish it had done well and I feel like the marketing team dropped the ball on it. The whole bureaucracy navigation montage was a fun ride.
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As someone who absolutely loved Cloud Atlas, I read the reviews for Jupiter Ascending hoping to be blown away yet again and I just couldn’t bring myself to even watch it. Considering The Matrix Resurrections was so bad I almost left the theater, I thought I chose right… Wachowskis have repeatedly missed the mark lately. Maybe I’ll give it a watch anyway.
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I honestly thought Morbius was a breath of fresh air for ditching the “Self-aware, meta, woke!” trends that MCU was chasing and just told a dark transhumanist story with super heroish themes.
Like I’d rather watch Morbius again than most of the MCU films made Post-End Game.
And Warcraft really wasn’t a bad movie at all, it was just bitten by the “Anything that is in the Fantasy Genre is automatically a LOTR ripoff!” bug that had been going around for awhile.
If it had came out around the time when audiences stopped caring about what critics think (Sonic’s 2020 film seems to be where that started), it would have done a lot better (Sonic leading the way for video game movies being taken seriously also would have helped)…
Hell if Warcraft (2016) had come out in 2020, that would have been after Blizzard’s fall from grace (“Don’t you guys have phones? No? Time to shit all over the WoW lore and ruin Overwatch then!”), meaning that people would probably
Finally, I’m still firmly in the camp that in 10 years people will come around on the sequels like they did for the prequels (Last Jedi might still be considered the “Not as good” one admittedly). I can’t say the same about the various “Franchise fatigue? What’s that?” shows that Disney
keptkeeps greenlighting though.“Alcolyte was a good show, but no one saw it? Damn, time to release Skeleton Crew I guess!”
Man, I’m so sad about the warcraft movie… partly because I agree with you and I think it was pretty good and it deserved sequels but also partly because it feels like it could’ve been better? Felt a bit hard to follow at times, and I remember reading some of Duncan Jones’ tweets that implied the final cut wasn’t his decision and that there was quite a bit of footage left out. Shame… They should try a tv series.
At this point I just want Blizzard to be forgotten
The twilight movie series. I’ve watched the entire thing at least 3 times, still love it. Meme scenes aside, they’re actually quite nice
Tank Girl, it got shit reviews when it came out, but has grown a cult following since then, https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tank_girl
I am also partial to Dude Where’s My Car
I made the mistake of watching dude wheres my car again recently. I enjoyed it as a kid, but the way that trans charcter was done really upset me. I entirely forgot she existed in the movie, but a cis actress who was dubbed with a cis man voice was used to trick the main charcters into making out and then played as gross out humor. Her whole storyline was just flat out upsetting stereotypes.
The tattoo scene is still a total gem, but the rest of it aged so poorly.
Pet detective was my favorite movie growing up, now I try to forget it exists. Most movies haven’t aged well in terms of casual bigotry of all flavors. Yet they still hold value, some more than others. It’s just important to remember they were products of their time. Which makes them good measuring sticks for how audiences have changed. Sometimes the real joke is what I used to find funny as a kid.
both awesome movies. don’t trust “experts”, siskel and ebert rated Tommy Boy the worst comedy they’d ever seen. fuck them lol
I don’t hate Tank Girl for what it is but for what it could have been. Like that was the greatest casting imaginable for Tank Girl in any era of film and the soundtrack was magical at the time. It had so much potential but got lost due to budget and film industry input
Zoltan!
