Rules: explain why
Ready player one.
That has to be one of the cringiest movies I’ve seen, is tries so hard, too hard with it’s “WE LOVE YOU NERD, YOU’RE SO COOL FOR PLAYING GAMES AND GETTING THIS 80S REFERENCE” message and the whole “corporation bad, the people good” narrative seems written for toddlers… The fan service feels cheap and adds nothing to the story.
Finally, they trying to make the people believe that very attractive girl with a barely visible red tint spot on her face is “ugly”… Like wtf?
Yet it received decent reviews plus being one of the most successful movies of that year.
Mortal Engines. I have not read the source materials.
Amazing concept, fantastic visuals, weak story, weak characters. Apparently just accidentally spliced in the end of Return of the Jedi instead of finishing the movie.
Deadpool.
I’m not sure if I absolutely hate it, but I definitely don’t get the hype—especially with Deadpool and Wolverine. There were some funny bits, but I feel like most of it is almost Family Guy-tier reference humor.
The plot feels as unimportant as ever—there are no real stakes or anything significant going on. It’s all about the “jokes,” fourth wall breaks (which get tiresome almost immediately), and Ready Player One-level “recognize the character” moments.
Maybe the last part is the biggest reason why I don’t connect with it. I’ve never really been into comics outside of film and television. But I feel like that shouldn’t be the main driving force for a movie anyway—or at least not for a good movie. Like, Ready Player One was fun, but not good.
Saw.
It is on the very tiny list of movies that I am actively angry I watched because I’m never getting that time back. It is one of the single worst movies on “Tell don’t show” that I felt like I was being actively gaslit by the writers because what they were telling was opposite of what they were showing.
“Jigsaw tricks people into killing his victims” says the cops, and says all the people watching the movie. NO. He kills people and gives them a potential for a way out. Setting up a maze with cutting wire and a door sealing off if you don’t make it in time isn’t “tricking someone” it’s killing them with extra steps. It’s like blaming fucking landmine victims “Well if they didn’t step there they’d be okay”. Legit the logic that movie gives I find my blood pressure rising just going into it again.
And the ending. I guess spoiler if you haven’t seen the movie, I’m not gonna bother to figure out the formatting for it so here’s your warning to stop reading. The surprise twist was why my friends made me watch this movie, the logic above was explained and how clever Jigsaw was they said I’d like it. I’m not a horror guy but I love Scream because holy fuck it was clever and well done. Saw, the victims are looking for where Jigsaw is watching them and I just said “He’s the dead guy in the middle of the room.” and questioned why would I come to that so early in the movie my reasoning was simple. It was a dumb movie that was up its own ass so much to say that it was clever that was the obvious “clever” haha we got you option it could be. Anything else would have actually been clever.
I compare Scream and Saw so much. Scream is a very clever movie masquerading as a dumb movie that deconstructs a genre and pulls of a fantastic twist that if you didn’t see it coming will shock you and when you go back there’s all sorts of clues. Hell, part of the twist is realizing they put thought into the killer instead of just “slasher villain #85” that the genre had done for so long, but if you know what’s happening the movie is winking with you with such amazingly dumb and clever things like “He’s behind you Jamie”. Saw is a dumb movie that masquerades as smart, it wants to be clever and philosophize at you and wants to pull off a twist that is unearned because there’s no clues for the twist, so unless you watch a lot of movies and realize this one is up its own ass, of course you’re going to be surprised. It’s like a guy who built a tesla coil and (think he) knows how it works and no one else does so he shows up in a cheap top hat and a wand and expects everyone to applaud like he’s David Copperfield. Sure, everyone loves tesla coils, but that reaction is unearned.
From what I understand from others who’ve seen the rest, even what little cleverness goes away on the character and it just becomes a show to watch more elaborate ways to see people get hurt. It’s the only way I can comprehend that the series is loved by as many as it is. I work in healthcare, I can see plenty of that on the day to day basis.
Dune
Boooooooring
I really enjoyed them because I really enjoyed the books as a child.
A combination of nostalgia and a great portrayal of a very familiar story.
Having said that, I certainly appreciate that they’re actually crap for everyone else: and that’s perfectly fine.
No movie makes everyone happy, that’s probably for the best.
Literally every thor movie OTHER than Thor Ragnarok. They’re just stale and full of lore that I don’t care about, also the older ones are so dark I can’t see anything. Ragnarok is SO funny to me and I was hoping Thor: Love and Thunder (the sequel) would be like that too but it was just too lore heavy for it to really latch onto me :(
Perhaps I just have the brain of a 12 year old that laughs at a guy getting hit in the head with a big rubber ball but like I’m in the movie for a good time, not note taking 😭Ragnarok and Guardians Of The Galaxy feels like fun short story books that’s like 200 pages and has images while the others feel like the 4th book in a series that’s like 500 pages each.
that being said I know hardly nothing about the marvel universe past basic stuff, so it’s probably just me 😅
(also I don’t know box offices, I just know what my peers opinions are on them)I only liked the first Thor movie, can’t even bring myself to watch the latest one
Much of this thread be like…
I mean… what did you expect? You came to a thread titled “What successful or popular movie that many loved you just HATE?” It’s going to be full of unpopular opinions that people are going to disagree with. Coming in and hoping to agree with everything is being that guy on a Lemmy thread.
Lord of the Rings.
I understand and respect the seminal role LotR (Book) has as a fantasy work. I have to, as a fantasy nerd myself.
I also believe that those three movies that everyone loves could be edited down into one and not much would be lost.
God DAMN do those films drag ON and ON and ON.
The books, too, drag on like Tolkien was being paid by the individual word. Thankfully with books I can set the pace at which things go.
Literally one of complains I’ve seen is that cuts too much stuff and you’re complaining about the exact opposite
Elf.
Once you’ve seen the first 3 minutes and get the premise, then the entire rest of the film is so predictable in its jokes and situations that I derived absolutely zero pleasure from watching it and it just grated the entire way through.
Films can be funny because the initial premise leads to really entertaining, unexpected or clever situations… or a film can super straight up and shallow in its humour.
I really don’t get why Elf is so incredibly popular.
Christmas movies are loved bc of how comforting they are, the message 99% of the time is “i didn’t believe and now i do”. Honestly though it’s still unbelievable to me he ends up with a romantic love interest bc he’s basically a huge 5 year old, which was the joke the whole time. And it’s one of my fav xmas movies.
If the story had gone the other way it’d be accused of being “born sexy yesterday”.
Blade Runner.
Maybe it was more impressive when it came out, but I watched it for the first time a few months ago and it was shockingly below my expectations for the reputation it has. Confusing plot, forgettable characters, a (very cool! yet) shallow, uninteresting setting.
I had heard that famous “tears in the rain” monologue some time before watching the movie and thought “wow, that was awesome. I can’t imagine how much better it is with all the depth and context that the movie will add.” Nah, it’s from a character who we know basically nothing about and comes out of nowhere with no connection to any part of the story-- if anything, the context of the movie detracts from the cool monologue by turning it into a “what is this guy even talking about” moment.
Thematically it had potential with questioning the line between the humans and human-like robots, but they don’t go anywhere interesting with it. When it’s a theme that’s been explored by everything from Ghost in the Shell to Fallout 4 to Asimov, I’m gonna need at least a molecule of interesting development to happen before my jaw drops.
2/10, not recommended.I still recommend checking out Blade Runner 2047, I just watched it yesterday and thought it was awesome if not a bit long-running
Starring literally me.
Barbie movie, it just didn’t have any interesting message or pov that isn’t already repeated on a weekly basis in the NYT articles
Edit lol don’t read my comment if you’re too sensitive and easily butt hurt, but it answers the question in the title 🤷♀️
I’ll disagree having come in as a complete outsider to the demographic for that movie who only watched it because of the love it had. I was pretty damn impressed with the movie as an overall. The story, yea, you’re not wrong, it’s not absolutely worldbreaking of a message. But it’s one of those movies the work put in to it impressed me, in a time where CGI allows for cookie cutter movies to be made rapidly with green screens knowing the work behind it was fucking impressive to me. Also knowing how much they worked on the history of the IP, and getting the company to try to make a movie that called out its own product as problematic while celebrating it in an era where everyone is too timid and wants to make every movie palatable for everyone, or “family friendly” was ballsy as fuck and I’ll respect it.
But hey, I’m a cinema nerd who loves the weird lol, I respect your thoughts and you’re right, the baseline message didn’t say anything new to me.
I have a different exposure to feminist movies, so I guess I use that as a barometer. I think older movies with the same themes as Barbie were already highly successful in providing a nuanced commentary on gender power and equality in society, and the role of women, sometimes chosen and otherwise. So that’s Legally Blonde, Persepolis, Wild (w/ Reese Witherspoon), Mystic Pizza, Bridget Jones Diary, and Waitress and some others I am definitely forgetting.
Okay, I have a soft spot for Legally Blonde thanks to a civics teacher who said it did a better job in talking law than many procedural law movies. Now I wanna go watch it again, thanks for reminding me it’s out there!
I think frankly the thing that Barbie did that’s worldbreaking in the territory of these movies was not in the movie itself which is fascinating to me. I don’t have cable so dunno advertising there, but Oppenheimer coming out at the same time, no ads, just a few movie previews, the biggest ads were all the interviews with the cast. Barbie… could not get away from it, the ads were everywhere. So my thoughts were “okay, Mattel is definitely backing this.” Then I started hearing people talk about it and it was honestly surprising that Mattel was backing as well as it did, but okay, then when watching the movie that was the part that ended up shocking me.
I’m so used to executive meddling in movies, studios being cautious and companies being overprotective of their IPs that has ruined so many movies, that here was Mattel allowing themselves to be portrayed as definitely the bad guys, still their logo plastered all over VERY up front. I realize they got good advertising with the movie but I’m trying to remember another movie that the parent company backed while being made fun of this strong and the only one I can think of is Deadpool 3 and honestly that was easy because trying to tone it back would have lost fans, this had all the opportunity to not go over well.
Harry Potter.
Before JK went mask off, I had dropped the books about half way though for being increasing annoyed with how they ended. Never any change to the status quo except Harry actually regressing in character development. I watched the first movie, but that was around when I dropped the books and never looked back.
I was able to just quietly keep my opinions to myself, but with with JK becoming increasing unhinged with both her tweets and books, I haven’t felt the need to be polite with the “separate the art from the artists” types. Especially when they just assume that you’re a fan if you don’t correct them.
I’m just gonna hop on to say that there is zero world building in Harry Potter. I know that’s because it was written for a youngish audience, but like the only things that are ever built on are used directly for the story in that book, then mostly left alone.
No one comes back years later with a Time Turner and wrecks havoc, for instance.
The few comparisons to Tolkien I’ve heard of her works are so unbelievably unfounded and off base.
Not to mention she’s a TERF
I’m just gonna leave Shaun’s review here.
Harry Potter unintentionally made a whole subgenre of fiction that could be called “Harry Potter, but fixed”. Little Witch Academia’s workers union episode was great and Reign of the Seven Spellblades is a mid, but still fun anime that seemingly takes aim at opposing Harry Potter and JK(specifically, her anti-trans shit) at every turn. I haven’t read it, but Shaun seems to think that The Hog Father is a direct reaction to the house elf shit in HP.
Hogfather as in the Discworld novel? I could have sworn that was older than Harry Potter.
Edit: it is, but surprisingly only one year older than the first Harry Potter book.
JK Rowling holds a very common position amongst older feminists and really doesn’t deserve the constant rape threats for funding women’s refuges. I’m pushing back on the party line here, and no, I don’t believe trans people deserve to be killed, or any bullshit like that. I promise to hide them in my non-existent attic if it comes to that.
Edit: the books did get progressively worse after the third or possibly fourth one, though, and the films aren’t very good.
Her or her friends are running those charities. It’s a way to hide money from tax collectors.
Looking back with adult eyes, her books push a very pro-Class based society. That’s why nothing ever changes.
Edit: The books got progressively worse because JK wrangled more and more control away from her editor.
I’m not sure about the ownership of foundations, charitable funds and the like; some degree of corruption wouldn’t surprise me unfortunately.
I will say that she won’t have been deliberately pushing class-stratification given her socioeconomic background, however the whole setting is heavily influenced by Victorian-era children’s novels about boarding school adventures which were absolutely saturated with classism.
They surely needed a team of editors towards the end.
JK was never poor. Her “homelessness” was couch surfing between friend’s houses in Edinburgh.
If she didn’t approve of the class system, then why was the sorting hat never wrong? Having kids switch houses between school years would have been an easy to to signal character development for a younger audience. Her class system is depicted as shitty, but something you just have to accept as true and deal with to become stronger. Look at how they treat the one character to oppose slavery. Even our MC, who’s an outsider to the wizard world thinks it’s weird to be opposed to slavery.
Well, you’ve clearly made your mind up.
Right back at you.
The Shawshank Redemption. My boyfriend at the time absolutely loved this film. I can’t stand it. Blokes in prison are so Noble and Misunderstood. They deserve to be free! Bleurgh.
Andy was literally innocent
I’m curious to know how that was your takeaway from the movie. The protagonist was wrongly imprisoned and I thought the film thoroughly demonstrated the worst of humanity in some of the incarcerated, juxtaposed against the corruption of prison staff and the protagonist’s own struggle for a pretty powerful message.
Maybe I need to watch it again. It’s been years.
The major dynamics you’ve got in The Shawshank Redemption are:
-
The prisoners. Most of whom are genuinely guilty of the crimes they’re imprisoned for or close enough. Many are alright people who did something extremely dumb when they were young, often because they had few opportunities.
-
The prison guards, most of whom are actual monsters who get off on abusing the prisoners, chief among them the captain of the guard (the guy who just about throws Dufresne off the roof that one time) and the warden, who carries himself like a preacher but is genuinely fucking evil.
-
Andy Dufresne, a man imprisoned for a crime he was seriously thinking about but didn’t commit who plays the ultimate long game.
“Noble and misunderstood” is probably stretching it a bit, but the film does ask who here is the real problem.
-
“Sit down I’ve got a movie I want you to watch. It’s called What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.”
- some dumb wrong people I know
Interstellar. Slow, stupid and the ending. That fucking idiotic ending. I still regret the 3 hours of my life I lost to it.
I can’t stand Love Actually. It’s too schmaltzy and none of the characters are likeable. Especially the young boy.
