I think for me it’s alien: covenant. I was really interested in the ideas explored in prometheus and covenant just expanded on them. I don’t get much into the details of why it is or isn’t a good movie.
Luckily, though, HBO ran raised by wolves which really delved into ideals about AI and planet seeding etc. So that itch got way scratched even if the run was cut short.
Tron: Legacy
Also Ready Player One. I like the movie where the person go into the computer :)
That’s one where I really think they missed the mark compared to the book. I thought the book was really well done, and had a great premise. Idk the movie just left a sour taste in my mouth. I highly recommend reading/listening to the book
I saw somewhere on reddit recently calling the book worse than the movie. I liked the book only because I got to envision my version of all the nostalgic iconography. I’m not sure why reddit was hating.
Reddit is full of idiots who don’t have opinions and just jump on the bandwagon
I’m glad that you enjoyed it, but listening to the audiobook was one of the most aggravating reading experiences I’ve had. There were cool bits, but every chapter or two my eyes would glaze over for a minute as Wil Wheaton read off a list of things from the 80’s for a paragraph or two, interrupting whatever flow the book had going on at the time to cram ‘memberberries down my throat. I prefer the movie because I can look at the ‘memberberry references without them interrupting the other cool bits.
Okay that’s fair lol, I didn’t know wil read it. I listened to him in Third Eye and he got… Annoying
I like the movie where the person go into the computer :)
Even Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace?
I didn’t know they made a sequel
Now I’m scared
Lol, I really like premise too. It can be done better, tho.
That’s why I support all sorts of sci-fi that is complete garbage. I want the genre to thrive and if we stop showing up Hollywood stops giving money.
I like the movie where the person go into the computer
Have I got an MST3K for you then… Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
It’s a work of art.
A simple tropey story to hang some amazing visual and aural art off.
I watch it often.
Give me the soundtrack, that’s all I need.
Love it. Sad Daft Punk may not release anymore music.
I still hope that Disney throws a small fortune at them for the Tron 3 OST
Last thing I heard was that the soundtrack is being made by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. It’s the next best thing, if you ask me.
Yeah, sad about Daft Punk but this is the next best option I could think of
I think one of them is going deaf sadly
Wait, people dislike Tron? I had no idea
I still think League of Extraordinary Gentlemen got unfairly dragged. 16% on Rotten Tomatoes.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/league_of_extraordinary_gentlemen
A lot of people were confused about Dorian Gray, but adding him was pretty inspired.
Watched it not long ago. Didn’t realize the people rating it have no appreciation for decent movies.
It wasn’t phenomenal by any means but it was quite entertaining for the duration of it.
I still think League of Extraordinary Gentlemen got unfairly dragged. 16% on Rotten Tomatoes.
It is a pretty mediocre movie overall, but it is just a lot of fun and I have watched it a dozen times.
Definitely not a 16%'er.
For critics, yeah I think it is 16%er but that is because critics are looking for different things in movies than the audience who wanted to see the movie.
Surprised it hasn’t come back as a streaming channel series of films like “Knives Out”. It’s got a lot of potential.
I remember screening league of extraordinary gentleman and all I could think is it was probably not for me. Not to say someone else wouldn’t like it. I feel like not everything should be rated based on its wide spread appeal.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
pretty sure I watched it in the theater while it was new and I didn’t think it was a waste of time but it is forgettable. It’s only really remarkable thing is being Sean Connery’s last movie
As a “last movie” it’s kind of infamous, like Raul Julia as Bison in “Street Fighter”.
I don’t disagree that it’s a terrible movie, it’s just a terrible movie that I happened to really like.
Bladerunner 2049.
I know a lot of people disliked it compared to the first one, even Ridley Scott himself. But I love the direction Denis Villeneuve took this film in.
I love BR2049. In fact I think I liked it more than the original, and that’s saying something.
Gorgeous film
Did people dislike it compared to the first one? It’s got an 88% on rotten tomatoes, and anyone I’ve talked with about the films prefers the second one.
I agree with you, by the way, I just don’t think that’s the unpopular take (Ridley’s opinion is meaningless at this point).
This is my all time favourite movie, whereas the first probably isn’t in the top 5, low top 10 max.
One of the few sequels that did credit to the original. Like the original Alien trilogy, it’s best if you consider them movies in the same universe but different genres. Like, Aliens (I) was a suspense; II was a sci-fi action; III was a horror thriller.
Maybe the Blade Runners weren’t so very different in genre, but yeah - good sequel, and in its way faithful to the original.
I love that movie!!!
13th Warrior. Solid action. Antonio Banderas and Vikings. Dudes taking care of business.
Was that the one loosely based on Beowulf? I saw it in the theater and didn’t have a problem with it.
Aha!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_13th_Warrior
“based on Michael Crichton’s 1976 novel Eaters of the Dead,[5] which is a loose adaptation of the tale of Beowulf combined with Ahmad ibn Fadlan’s historical account of the Volga Vikings.”
Crichton, man. His influence was just astounding. Obligatory “fuck cancer”.
I like that movie quite a bit. Watched it many times. Didn’t realize it was so critically disliked. :(
When you die can I give that to me sister?
I enjoyed it for the most part, but the scene that’s always stuck with me is when Antonio Banderas’s character learns to speak the Viking language. Hearing the way he said “I listened” made me want to listen more to see what I could learn.
This is one of those that HBO or something played non-stop for no apparent reason. It took me like 20 times clicking past it to finally watch it all but in the end I was ok with it.
Definitely a 10/10 movie for me. Without hesitation.
Sucker Punch. Objectively, it’s not really that great of a movie. But it’s one of the most fun movies I’ve ever seen. It’s got over-the-top action sequences, an amazing soundtrack, and a genuinely unique idea for a story that I haven’t really seen done before.
The final cut ended up removing a very key scene that ties a lot of the story together, which I honestly feel is part of why the movie was so poorly-received, because the theatrical release just doesn’t make sense and ends abruptly. If you decide to watch it, try to find a version that has the deleted scene with the High Roller near the end. It’s a full five minutes of dialogue that ties the entire story together and Warner Brothers scrapped it and it drives me so crazy. It’s like an “I Am Legend’s deleted ending” level of directorial blunder, IMO.
Agree. I don’t think Snyder can make good movies, but he makes fucking epic music videos. And that’s how I view Sucker Punch.
I’d like to add that their soundtrack is amazing!
Jupiter Ascending is, in my opinion, a masterpiece. Bees can sense royalty? Fantastic. The bureaucracy android having to bribe his way through the system he was literally created to navigate? Marvelous. Don’t even get me started on the air roller skates. Eddie Redmayne’s four million year old teenager was perfection too. Two volume levels: harsh whisper or screaming.
It was marketed as some kind of amazing epic, so people approached it wrong I think. It was a Wachowski film. What were they expecting? I went in there assuming it’d be like their Speed Racer movie, but in space. I was not disappointed.
Second vote would be for Speed Racer, lol.
My biggest issue with that movie was the complete lack of chemistry between Mila Kunis and that beefy guy who was her love interest. I found that painful to watch.
“Ninjas? More like ‘Non-Jas’. Shame what passes for a Ninja these days…”
And with that, John Goodman became my favorite, ever. :)
I saw this years ago in a sci fi double feature at this big old cinema in my city, had Interstellar followed by Jupiter Ascending. I loved it, this very serious dry high concept hard sci fi followed by fuckin rocket boots!
Lol about Jupiter ascending. I wanted so bad for that movie to be good just because mila kuntis. I cant call it a masterpiece.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Tron Legacy
Guyver: Dark Hero
Strange Days (get the ultimate extended edition fan edit if you can.)
Wild Wild West
Demolition Man
Judge Dredd
Highlander II
…
Jacob Barlow vs the Demonic Toys
There are a lot of fun movies that are considered garbage.
Demolition Man was prime AF!
What seems to be your boggle?
Mostly this:
Highlander two? Man, you do you, but that’s an acquired taste. I’d have a hard time picking to place it above or below Rise of Skywalker.
If you enjoy so bad it’s good: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale.
Everything goes above Rise of Skywalker. Even Human Centipede.
Judge Dredd was quite good even though Stallone took the helmet off a bunch. IIRC he was willing to do the whole thing in helmet, but I bet the money guys needed to see his face.
Never thought I’d see the Angel Family on film, that was wild!
Bonus: The actor playing psychotic cannibal Pa Angel would go on to be the kindly farmer Herschel on Walking Dead.
Damn, never made that connection about herschel. I like Stallones dredd just because it’s so quotable.
Eat recycled food. It’s good for the environment and okay for you.
Karl Urban did a better Dredd. He doesn’t take off the goddamn helmet for even one second :o
Oh, he definitely did, but I think the Stallone version better captured the absolute bonkers feeling of the comics.
I just hope the next time someone tackles it we get the Dark Judges storyline, but that might be too expensive to pull off outside full animation.
Wait… Stallone Dredd, or Urban Dredd? Because the Stallone one was awful and a crime against the source material, while the second should have had an immediate sequel.
League I can’t even put into the “so bad it’s good” category, as much as I’d like to. I think I can’t forgive them for wasting such a cast and such a source on the result.
I hated Legacy, but entirely for reasons having to do with loyalty to the original; it isn’t faithful to the original vision, IMO. That aside, I can grant it was better than it was received.
🤝 on Strange Days. Fantastic soundtrack, too. Did it get bad reviews? I thought it did reasonably well.
Same for WWW - didn’t it do well? I thought it was brilliantly irreverent of history. Fun times. Same for Demolition Man!
Highlander II, though… No. Just no. A running joke with a couple of my friends is that they insist we all saw it together in the theater, but I insist I’ve never seen it. They say it was so bad that I just blacked out my memory to avoid the emotional trauma of having seen it. Honestly though, I have no memory of the film yet a deep revulsion at the idea of watching it.
Stallone Dreadd.
I am in complete agreement with everything you said about it being a crime against 2000 AD Dreadd, yet if one can excize rob schnider from it? It’s popcorn. I’ve asked a few fan editors to have a crack at it because for me it has the same issue as Constantine. It is its own thing I can both appreciate it for being its own thing while also being a crime against the source material…
Urban Dredd? I kept hoping netflix would pick that up as the pilot to a mega city one police proceedural. that was just some solid movie making and wish we’d gotten more, though conceed ‘what would you do for a sequel?’ thus the idea of direct to stremaing platform show giving any of a number of plots time and space to breathe.
For me Tron Legacy was a case of ‘disney squandered what they had, then when that one airbrushed movie bombed and they got the MCU they shelved Tron’ … likely permenently. Had a fun soundtrack. Ya the father/son story is a cliche but it’s more an excuse to tour the world more than anything. I liked Legacy’s look as both Kevin’s use of late 80’s ‘money is no object’ hardware vs late 70’s likely PDP based hardware alongside software changes. After all by the end of the eighties the Unix Wars had happened and the landscape had changed. Plus Uprising, while flawed, had promise and showed what life was like in the early days of the regime when CLU kept a facad of normalcy.
Strange Days feels like one of those movies a LOT of people sleep on and gloss over. I am seriously recommending finding the fan edit scene and seeking it out, because the work done just… elevates it.
I can respect your opinions of Highlander II. again, fan edits do a lot to save this one for me but even at base ‘eh it’s in the slush pile of shit movies I can run in the background. It’s goofy it’s dumb… run with it.’ Then again I’ve kinda hated most of the highlander movies past the first one for having very little that interests me. Though I did love the show. It was a fun ride even when it got weird. Though I will admit it is guilty of helping popularize the ‘katanas are just better’ trope.
See, Constantine I had no issue with because I had never read the source. I thought it was fine, as a movie.
Urban Dredd almost makes me cry. It was so good, in so many ways. Maybe it, too, wasn’t faithful to the source, which was pretty intentionally campy and Dredd was more grimdark than even the comics. But I just loved Urban’s Dredd; he is Dredd for me. An Urban-less Dredd is like imagining Deadpool without Reynolds. Sometimes the actor embodies a character so well it overshadows even the source.
I agree completely with what you day about Legacy. Tron does and should reflect the technology of the times; computers have gotten more glossy and organic. I just love the inner universe and aesthetic of the original Tron, and it’s hard to compete with first love.
Yeah, I think Strange Days was just too weird for the time. I think if it were released today it’d do better. The target audience was still too niche, maybe, back then. I need to watch it again; I haven’t seen it in forever.
I think it’s best if we just not speak of Highlander. The first is among my favorite movies, and as you say the series was surprisingly not at all bad. But all of the sequel films (3, right? God let it be only 2 abominations)… best left in the oubliette of forgotten memories.
The Day After Tomorrow - It’s campy but underrated
Had one gag that made me literally LOL… intentionally…
They’re trapped in a library, debating the morality of burning books in the fireplace to stay alive.
“How about all these tax books, can we burn these?”
Also:
“Is there a chance that it will run…” grabs a bottle “…on this?”
“Are you mad? That’s a twelve years old scotch!” reveals cups
Despite not rewatching this movie in over a decade, I think about it monthly.
How is this movie underrated?? It’s popular af!
Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. Yes it’s utterly ridiculous. I don’t care, it’s still a masterpiece of absurdity to me. That 13% on RT is a shame.
Also how has it been 23 years since its release.
My girlfriend got me plastered and showed me this fever dream of a movie. 10/10 experience
That movie rules. Shaolin Soccer is also pretty good.
You’re thinking of Kung Fu Hustle, which is brilliant in every way.
And I think it doesn’t qualify, because it was fairly well reviewed and did quite well at the box office.
Yes, that’s the one! Now I guess I have to watch Kung Pow as well.
Shaolin Soccer is the greatest masterpiece ever created with film.
Kung Fu Hustle is Kung Pow, but good.
Great recommendations in here. One thing that surprised me personally was
civil war (2024)
great movie, had a blast. Was surprised rotten tomatoes / IMDb seemed to hate it.
My running theory on this is the Americans really didn’t like how close it hits home/stings, and just gave it a bad rating
I wouldn’t say 81% fresh and a 7/10 are necessarily bad. I might rate it a little higher personally, but those are decent scores.
Though as Coaxil says, given curent events I’m not sure I can ever re-watch it. :(
Oh cool, its audience score seems to have improved considerably compared to last time I checked‽ That is good news for the filmmakers.
the hitting close to home part - yeah I get it. If you are in a red state I hope you stay safe and find a way out of the situation. It sucks so bad if the government stops working for you.
Super Mario Bros (1993)
It was objectively a trainwreck but it was awesome when you were 8 and It brought video games to the big screen for the first time. I will always love it.
I think everyone should see the 2019 Cats. I was not bored, and I had a strong emotional reaction to the movie. Was it shit? Oh absolutely, in ways that I didn’t even know movies could be shit. But it was not boring! So if I were going to recommend a movie to someone who hadn’t seen it yet, Cats would be near the top of that list.
Movies that I actually love despite them having poor ratings…
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Event Horizon - 6.6 IMDB / 35% RT - Haunted house in space. Great performances from a great cast. Properly fucked up. Love seeing blue collar workers in scifi.
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Death to Smoochy - 6.3 IMDB / 42% RT - See Robin Williams go hard on the R-rating playing a children’s show host on a downward spiral. One of my favorite Williams performances.
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Legend (1985) - 6.3 IMDB / 41% RT - Shot entirely inside of a huge bag of cocaine. All vibes, don’t question any of it, logic has no place here. Watch the theatrical cut with Tangerine Dream, because the director’s cut with Jerry Goldsmith is honestly just vague fantasy noodling, and the 80s power jams are at least 40% of the charm.
Wait. Event Horizon has bad ratings.
That movie rocked.
I really like the fanon that it’s a prequel to Warhammer 40k before the Gellar Field was invented.
If Event Horizon has bad ratings that is my answer, love that movie, I thought it was universally considered good though.
I saw part of Cats, but I refuse to watch it until they release the butthole cut.
I think the thing with Cats is that it’s totally OK if a broadway musical has no plot and doesn’t make sense, you’re going for the experience.
Film has a history of narrative and you just can’t drop in a word like “jellicle” and expect to get away with it.
OTOH complaining about jellicle in Cats would be a lot like walking out of a Smurfs movie complaining about “Man, they sure do say ‘Smurf’ a lot.”
I think the thing with Cats is that it’s totally OK if a broadway musical has no plot and doesn’t make sense
As a lover of musicals, HELL no! Cats is probably the worst musical I’ve ever seen and that’s INCLUDING every amateur production. Yes, school play originals too.
Apart from the not making sense, it has ONE great song (the others ranging from awful to meh), which it repeats so many times that you’re on the verge of getting tired of it by the time the Elder Kitty reveals that cats aren’t dogs.
-10/10, would force Trump, Musk, Putin, and Netanyahu to watch on repeat until they die as punishment for their crimes against humanity.
-10/10, would force Trump, Musk, Putin, and Netanyahu to watch on repeat until they die as punishment for their crimes against humanity.
OnlyESPECIALLY if it’s “the butthole version”. :)
Shit, I forgot about Legend! I didn’t consider it because I thought it did OK, critically.
Shot entirely inside of a huge bag of cocaine.
I’m saving that one; it’s funny, because it’s true. You can also say that about Caddyshack, except that the latter was literally fueled by cocaine - I think it’s been confirmed that almost everyone involved was high during filming.
I’ve seen two versions of the film; one I don’t like as much only because small differences cause cognitive dissonance - I have the first version I saw mostly memorized line-by-line, and the other version is just enough off to feel awkward. I thought they were just different cuts for different media - film vs VHS, for instance - but now I wonder which is “my” original. Probably not the director’s cut, since I’m pretty sure I first saw it in the theater, and then repeatedly on cable which was probably just the theatrical release.
Are you sure no Tangerine Dream is in the theatrical release?
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Well it’s not a shit rating but I do think A Knight’s Tale is way better than its mediocre scores. Perfect comfort movie.
‘but it’s not historically accurate!’
Y’get to see heath ledger in armor win the girl, bust heads, and have a grand time doing it! All to a solid soundtrack.
No idea what the actual ratings are, but the live action remake of Aladdin was absolutely shat on by most of the internet. The original Aladdin was one of my absolute favorites as a kid, so I was gonna see the remake good or bad, and… honestly, fucking loved it.
I’m guessing the main breaking point for people was the lack of Robin Williams’ Genie, but Disney had the option of trying recreate that genie without Robin Williams or completely remake that character’s personality. Had they gone with the former, it 100% would have 1) flopped, and 2) been kinda disrespectful to Robin Williams imo. Starting fresh was the correct choice. And Will Smith did awesome with his version of Genie.
Beyond that, it introduced just enough new shit to make it not just feel like a frame-by-frame copy/paste of the original; but overall kept the same fun mystical vibe of the original.
It earns its spot on the shelf, imo.
What constitutes a “shit rating?”
Big Trouble in Little China is 7.2/10 on IMDB, and it got positive reviews; it was, however, a commercial failure, making only half what it cost to produce. Great movie.
Wizards rates only 6.3/10 on IMDB, although it did well at the box office. That may be my favorite movie of all time.
Dredd failed at the box office but gets a 7.1 from IMDB. I think it’s grossly underrated.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 6.4 and generally gets poor reviews; it did fine at the box office. But I love that film.
If you want you get esoteric, Lord Love a Duck (1966) was a financial failure and gets only 6.3 from IMDB, but it’s wonderful.
Disney’s 1979 The Black Hole gets a 5.9 and didn’t do well. It’s a lot of fun and the ending is an acid trip.
The Prophesy (1995) got really bad reviews and 46% on Rotten Tomatoes, proving there’s no accounting for taste. Absolutely worth watching.
Hawk the Slayer (1980), 5.3, is in the “it’s so bad it’s good” category. This includes Zardoz (1974), and Krull.
And, Dune (1984). 6.3 IMDB, total loss at the box office, and one of the best movies of all time. I kinda think Herbert might have hated it where he’d have liked 2021, but the cast, the atmosphere, the music, the hyperbolic representations of the characters; it is a masterpiece. And it features a young, mostly naked Sting (which is the lure I used to use to get my girlfriends to watch it).
S.O.B. (1981). 6.4 IMDB, but 81% RT. Box office failure. Hilarious, and a topless Julie Andrews (sigh).
Red Dawn (1984). 6.3/48%. Not my favorite movie, but worth a watch. Surprising decision to not utterly vilify (unhumanize) the Russian antagonists.
I just ignore imdb all together. The ratings they give are not useful and seem almost random.
Yeah, normally I do. It just happened my quick-n-dirty web searches were returning mostly IMDB and rarely Rotten Tomatoes, so that’s what I used.
Great choices, I gotta watch the ones you mentioned I haven’t seen yet.
Wait what? Big trouble in little china got- Pardon I’m gonna need to process that for a moment as that’s one of the few things me and my stepdad will call time out on arguments on. It’s a great carpenter adventure movie. It’s literally a sendup of the modenr john wayne archatype. Hell, jack isn’t even stupid, he’s just, to borrow a tv tropes term, wrong genre savvy. Also I recommend the boom comics when/if you can.
it contextualizes him refusing to kiss Grace Law at the end and… it is utter heartache in the best way.
Dredd … needed a netflix mega city one police proceedural followup. with Urban’s Dread showing up a couple times when thigns get above everyone’s heads both to prevent his overuse and to remind everyone WHY he is feared.
I’m gonna admit i saw the Dune novels as overrated, but i liked that the 80’s movie tried to have fun while telling the story.
Well at the point red dawn was made, we were starting to thaw on the russians, even as Regan kept juicing the Empire of Evil rhetoric. The message ‘war destroys everyone’ is a good one.
