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.
I like these threads when people complain that “old classic movie” is formulaic and trope ridden or unoriginal… seemingly forgetting these films set the tropes, formulas and genres that all subsequent film makers hopped-on. That’s why, in retrospect, it appears clunky.
In another similar thread somebody said the band Queen were boring… yeah, maybe now. But fifty years ago when they first released? Not so much.
The Greatest Showman is a masterclass in style over substance—a glittery spectacle that sacrifices depth and integrity for catchy tunes and flashy visuals. Beneath its feel-good facade lies a shallow, formulaic narrative that romanticizes P.T. Barnum’s exploitative history while failing to give meaningful voices to the marginalized characters it claims to celebrate.
The musical numbers, though undeniably infectious, feel jarringly modern and out of place, prioritizing audience pandering over authenticity. Despite its popularity, the film’s sanitized themes and lack of emotional nuance reveal it as more empty circus than cinematic triumph.
If you’re looking for substance, you’ll find the tent empty.
Forest Gump. The 1994 Best Picture nominees were some of the most highly competitive the Academy has ever had, and they went with the one that was just a straight-up terrible fucking movie. It has no value except as nostalgia bait for Americans and propaganda for those who want to believe in the myth of American individual exceptionalism.
Its musical score is also probably the worst thing I’ve ever had the misfortune of performing in an orchestra. Dull and repetitive.
And its most famous line is straight-up bullshit. I’ve heard the book does it differently, but the movie puts “something that kinda sounds deep to a 14 year old” over a level of rationality that stands up to 20 seconds of thought from an average person. A box of chocolates tells you precisely what you’re going to be getting.
The book is WILD! Gump goes to space, there’s a lot more racism and sexism in the book, and Gump doesn’t come off as a lucky mentally challenged, but overall nice guy. He ends the book looking like a racist asshole, and criminal, IIRC. I read the book as a teenager after seeing the movie and that was the first book that I decided that the movie was actually better.
Can’t help but love that you’re criticizing the line as faux-deep when it was delivered by someone with a mental disability.
A box of chocolates tells you precisely what you’re going to be getting.
This is probably one of the weakest arguments against this movie—and there’s plenty to criticize. Labeling the chocolates was not always a common practice. It’s something mass produced chocolates started to do. There was a time people bought from a confectioner and there wouldn’t be labels. That’s the context of the line. You can criticize this line but the labeling isn’t the problem.
Oh wow you just described my distaste for all Lego movies and Wreck it Ralph.
I’ve never seen Ready Player One because it sounds just like these movies and you just confirmed it.
The Millenial nostalgia train is so very cringe, it tries way too hard to make us feel like our time was the peak of culture and it’s patronizing.
Disney’s Hercules.
Because it completely butchers greek mythology. Of course, that’s to be expected from a kid’s movie (especially Disney) but I’ve been a greek mythology fan from an early age and this movie really disappointed me as a child.
Zeus being a caring father?
And a loyal husband ha
Oh I have another one. Thor Ragnarok. People loved it because they liked the Thor character and found his earlier films too dull or something, but I loved that they were unapologetically serious about themselves, using comedy in ways that felt very authentic to the characters.
But Ragnarok? It came out later the same year as this excellent essay about bathos, and it was dripping in it. I was hyper tuned to the problem with bathos, and it leaned even harder into that took than nearly any other MCU film did.
What sucks so much is that it had the bones of a really good dramatic story. The Bruce Banner/Hulk storyline had built up over multiple previous films, and come the climax of this film it’s established that he’s in Bruce form now and has enough control to stay that way, but if he transforms into Hulk it’ll be a big deal and he may never be able to be himself again. So they arrive in Asgard at the climax of the film and it’s pretty urgent. In a dramatic moment you can see him steel himself to make the sacrifice; he jumps out of their aircraft onto the rainbow bridge, clearly intending to transform into Hulk to fight Fenris.
…and he splats. Faceplants on the bridge. Still in human form. It’s played for laughs. The ultimate conclusion of Hulk’s story in this movie and probably the most important moment of his arc over the entire MCU to this point, and it’s undercut by a joke. Not even a very funny one. A slapstick joke that would make Charlie Chaplin cringe.
And it means nothing, because the very next shit, he’s transformed anyway and throwing Fenris around like a doll.
Not to mention it undermines the verisimilitude of the movie. I can suspend my disbelief in these movies pretty hard, but Bruce Banner, in human form, is meant to be painfully average, physically speaking. He should have died from that fall, given he didn’t transform. That’s certainly not the worst thing about the moment, but it is was the sprinkling of salt on top of the wound that just made it that little bit worse.
That moment was the worst bit, but the film as a whole was full of lazy humour and bathos, and it was really just the worst example of what was wrong with a lot of MCU movies at the time. I was shocked to hear so few people came away disliking it in the same way I did.
2001: A Space Odyssey was rightfully not well received when it was first released. It is incredibly well crafted in terms of visual effects and has about 30 minutes of great, tense sci-fi in it. Shame about the other six hours (perceived) of tedium. Even in the late 60s people in ape costumes smashing things while the soundtrack goes aaaAAAaaUuuAaa wasn’t interesting for more than a minute, don’t even get me started on the stewardess, docking, moon journey or the damn screensaver. Which, yes, is iconic, but 20 minutes?
It does make sense that people would get high before subjecting themselves to this and then put on a Pink Floyd album during all the tedious scenes.
2010 is a better movie. It starts with dialogue and knows when slowing down increases tension.
This thread confirms my theory: For everything universally loved there is a person on the internet that thinks it’s shite.
Comic book movies.
They have dominated the box office over the last 10-15 years, there are infinity reboots/origin stories, and all of them use the ”man, I really hope the bad guy doesn’t use the super heroes loved ones as hostages" as a plot point. All of them are so predictable.
Napoleon dynamite was fucking garbage and don’t think it should have ever existed. No humor and barley anything. Honestly feel like the movie rubber was better
What?!?
What?!?
As an older millennial, that movie was a work of art. I was about 20 when I seen it, stoned, and I couldn’t stop laughing.
When this movie came out, between the hype and fandom I just couldn’t stand it. Didn’t watch it until it had been about 5 years because of my personal cringe factor with the whole thing.
Once I watched it, I still didn’t get it but the fucking movie kept playing in my head so I rewatched it. Fully fell in love and I still watch it abt 5x a year because it’s one of my comfort movies.
Yeah it’s dumb, pointless, and I honestly wouldn’t recommend it for a first time watcher today. But I fucking love it, it’s a soothing balm to my soul and gives me momentary respite from all … this.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Absolute incompetence start to finish. Low IQ fans go “Woooo! Vader’s a BADASS!” ignoring how it completely fucks up the opening of Star Wars.
How does it completely fuck up the opening of star wars?
I upvoted you because it’s my favourite star wars film and I’ve never heard anyone dislike it
It get’s a lot of hate, especially from armchair critics. I’m an armchair critic myself, but I truthfully do not understand the hate. Everytime I rewatch Rogue One, I try to find reasons to hate it, but it’s pretty watchable if you ask me. People hate Jin and complain that her character and motivations make no sense, but I disagree. Her decisions are logically consistent with what she learns about her father as the movie progresses.
Anyway, I enjoy it every time I watch it, which is far more than I can say for the vast majority of Star Wars movies and shows produced in the 21st century.
The only thing it messed with was one line about Bothan spies?
That line was about the second death star from RTJ.
Bothan spies was Jedi, not Star Wars. :)
Inglourious Basterds.
However much I liked all the Tarantino flicks before this one, I just cannot get into Inglourious. Also, everything Tarantino made after that movie is also tainted by the same uneasy feeling I get. If pressed to guess why, I’d say he took the stories out of the ‘now’ and transported them to other times and places, which just does not seem to agree with me.
For me, Inglorious plays like a short film anthology and its praise comes from how good some of those shorts are. The opening (farm) scene and the bar scene are masterful examples of suspense. I never praise the film as a whole, but I will always praise those two scenes.
The John Wick series
Watched them all over the course of a weekend - its the same fucking moving over and over and over and over again. The amount of disbelief I needed to suspend got exponentially larger so by the time I got to the last movie I just couldn’t take it anymore. There is no real plot or any development of characters, it’s just implausible fight scene after implausible fight scene.
I think if I put a few months between each movie I wouldn’t have this opinion - on their own the movies can be mindlessly entertaining but all together was too much for me.
I haven’t seen them, but based on your description, I think this xkcd explains how these movies were conceived:
(source)
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 help run an orphanage. That’s when I found out there’s no way to contact Lumos. They claim they help children with parents stay out of orphanages, and I wanted to contact them about such a situation but it was literally impossible.
As for your edit: absolutely. Those books desperately needed editing.
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.
I couch surfed at some point. Definitely homeless…
The sorting hat pissed me off because its songs made it clear that the sorting was nonsense but she didn’t continue that storyline, she seemed to change her mind.
JK Rowling was never poor. She grew up in a £15m mansion and her “homelessness” was living in her sister’s mansion. Her mystique was manufactured.
Well, you’ve clearly made your mind up.
Right back at you.
I just did a poo.
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.
