What successful or popular movie that many loved you just HATE?

I find nuggets in them. Iron man 3 had issues, but I was fascinated by the portrayal of Tony stark's ptsd after the battle of new York. Sure, seeing a bunch of robots is fun, but it's not really engaging. The intersection of everyday life, mental trauma, and super powers and responsibilities is fascinating to me.

I mean they're silly by default. They are not supposed to be high art. I like half of the MCU. Raimi spiderman Is as silly yet I consider it a masterpiece of a film, 2 even more.

My problem is witg cg fights. I feel like I'm just watching a three hour long cut scene.

Kind of agree with you. I liked it until endgame, but it was a downward slope afterwards

With so many a-list actors, they all get different story arcs, and fight for screen time, so there isn't time to tell a nuanced or interesting story, and when they're together it's just an orgy of showing off how cool they are

It makes me feel snobbish to say you have to be literally juvenile to enjoy it. I just don't get it. There's no suspense at all, no surprise in anything. They're all boring, intelligent characters. Even as films aimed at kids they're bad, but I'm eternally surprised at the traction they get with 20s-30s..

Oh, yeah, that space library bullshit was so fucking bad it made the rest of the movie bad retroactively. Well, maybe he could save the Earth by screaming "Murph!!!1!1!!1!" a little louder. Or more often.

I didn’t like the ending, it seemed like kind of a big letdown. I don’t remember it, I just remember being surprised at how bland it was when the rest of the movie had me on the edge of my seat.

honestly, i disagree. i really don't see the big problems with the ending. i actually even like it.

the library (called a tesseract in the movie) is constructed by the future humans, who have control of 5d space, and who include Murphy, who actually lived in the room connected to the tesseract. it's built to look like that, so Cooper, a 3d being, can actually understand it. it's basically stretching out time and gravity into a 3d space. the library is not something the black hole made up because Cooper loves Murphy (which i thought what happened on my first watch), it's what the future humans made with the help of the black hole. love ties thematically into it, 'cause Cooper loves and knows Murphy so well, he knows how to tell her the quantum data from the black hole, or something. and Cooper, or the future humans for that matter, can't say or do anything directly, 'cause in the past, they're only able to affect gravity (and because of the construction of the tesseract, Cooper can only control the gravity of that one room.) the reason for why the future humans don't go just directly do it themselves is explained as them not being able to pinpoint a specific space, or time for it, which is why Cooper, who can traverse the tesseract for a specific point in time and space in that room to tell Murphy the quantum data, which allows the future humans to do all of the crazy 5d stuff.

anyway, sorry for the rambling. Interstellar is my favourite movie, and i really love even the ending of it. multiple scenes, including the ending, make me bawl like a baby, like no other movie has done to me, and i love all the hard sci-fi it has. sci-fi so hard, that physicists learned something new about black holes, because of the equations used to make the black hole cgi in it.

For me interstellar suffered from it's hype. i expected a great, innovative movie and found it... okay.

Interesting opinion. The ending of Interstellar made me cry like a baby. Shit was great.

That's very valid but there's one thing I don't understand : how can the ending affect the whole experience? To me that's like saying "sex is meh because the shower afterwards is boring". Don't know if I'm making sense lol

To me, most endings are mediocre because endings are just very hard to write. It is very rare to have both the elements for a great story, and the setup for a great ending. In that context I feel like investing too much on the ending hurts the whole experience, whereas a weak ending just hurts the last ten minutes.

For me I really hated the audio in that movie. It was the most stereotypical Nolan BWOM crap throughout and yet the dialog was whisper quiet.

Oh and the plot was just Contact again…felt really unoriginal

To me, it's one of those movies that seems like it could have been great, and as you say it had cool concepts and high stakes scenes. But there were just too many places where the characters were dumb, and they had to be dumb in order to make the story work, and then story itself is pretty weak. To me, it's not a terrible movie, but I've never understood all the hype around it.

Yes. Fucking yes. That movie and everyone in it is so dumb, I wonder who the people raving about this hot garbage are.

I was done with this movie from the start. The story about setting the table differently because of the dust?! GTFO That’s why cabinets have doors on them! I was too miffed after that

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.

Hey, Rubber was a phenomenal movie.

I wonder... is it because you have little/no experience with small town America? I loved Napoleon Dynamite partly because it's somewhat nostalgic for me. The movie appeals to people who grew up in the sticks and knew people like Napoleon Dynamite.

Hard disagree, lol. That’s a classic.

I tried to watch it a couple of times and never finished it. Apparently, it's a fairly divisive and hard-to-predict pick for recommendation systems as well.

It really was popular because its humor was so “fresh.” This was just before internet/youtube culture took off and most Americans hadn’t seen such a dry, peculiar film about their own culture. I fucking love it but it’s certainly not for everyone, that’s for sure.

100% respect your opinion. This isn't me telling you you're wrong, just sharing my experience with the movie.

When my wife and I first watched it, after we finished, we looked at each other and were like, "what the fuck did we just watch?". We thought it was awful.

The next morning we were quoting it and laughing our asses off at the utter absurdity of the movie. We now both love the movie.

Edit: grammar and stupid autocorrect

I only watched it once and it was just terrible. I would maybe give it another shot, I don’t really remember it much anyway.

Agreed. That book was recommended to me by a few fellow sci-fi book fans, so I gave it a shot. Couldn’t get through it. It read like a 6th-grade kid’s fanfic about the 1980’s. Bad writing, bad dialogue, ham-fisted plot.

The book is straight garbage. Probably the biggest Gary Stu ever. The movie is actually decent by comparison, because it removed a lot of cringe and toned down the main character.

Yeah, if OP thought the movie was heavy on the “good job being a teenager in the 80s!” content, they should steer well clear of the book.

The thing that baffled me about that movie was how many "startups" used it as reference for what they were trying to create. Like, did I watch the same movie? Real life was so shitty they had entire blocks of people living in trailers mounted to each other vertically. They used the matrix or whatever it was called to escape. And you want to create that for real?

Why don't we turn the world into a real life Mad Max while we're at it.

Wasn't it supposed to be bad though? Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought people liked it because it was ridiculous and campy.

The movie did ruin the Iron Giant, though.

RPO is bad, yes. But Spielberg is a good director and that's why the movie is at least entertaining. I hate-read the book, but I still enjoy the movie.

Agreed. The movie is just a fun action film wirh no brainpower needed. If you go into it with no expectations it’s fine.

The book? The author insists on yanking you out of the story with listicles of callbacks and references to obscure ‘80s shows or whatever. The main character is just an ass, and is also conveniently capable of meeting every challenge thrown at him despite being an impoverished basement dweller. The book became a slog of contrivances to get from A to B with “Aren’t all these retro references cool?” jammed in at every opportunity.

Very weird take. Everyone I've ever talked to loves that book. I honestly cannot picture any conceivable reality where the movie was better than the book.

Oh wow, complete opposite here - I thought Prometheus was hot garbage.

"Hey everybody, let's just remove our helmets in this totally unvetted environment, we're all scientists but trust me, this is supes safe!"

"Aw look at the little alien snake, so cute, better get real close!"

"I'm clearly showing symptoms of exposure to some alien pathogen, but let's just hide it from the entire crew, including my girlfriend, who I will be fucking."

"Oh, a huge ring is rolling toward me and I'm gonna get crushed, better keep running in a straight line!"

I mean, come on.

angry upvote

But honestly, fair. Alien is a 50-year-old movie, so when viewed with a modern lens it might not seem to be anything special.

Part of the legendary status of Alien is just how influential it has been. Before Alien, a horror-scifi movie would be some schlock about flying saucers piloted by men in gorilla masks terrorizing Hollywood. Audiences certainly weren't expecting a psychosexual thriller about forced oral insemination and mpreg.

And the android! Robots in movies were walking vending machines, and yet the robot in Alien is just some guy until he starts to malfunction. Plus in the context of the franchise, it makes you distrust every single android in each subsequent movie, and might even leave you guessing who else in the cast could be a robot in disguise.

Other movies have done it better since then. We all stand on the shoulders of giants after all. And the funny thing is, a lot of the time when you look back at the movies that spawn the tropes, they don't seem that impressive because they haven't been totally refined yet.

I have a soft spot for Alien, it's my favorite in the franchise. It relies so heavily on practical effects, it's got those retro-futuristic computers which I adore, and the smart woman saves the day (sort of) after all the dumb men tell her she's wrong. And yet despite what I just said, I don't think anyone is actually very dumb, the characters are all quite human and I understand and relate to their motivations.

It's a movie that feels far more modern than it is. You might even forget that it's fifty years old until you see that explosive finale in gloriously bad 70's CGI

I also liked Prometheus. It's not the best in the franchise but it's certainly not the worst, and it doesn't deserve as much hate as it gets in the community

I loved how Alien brought together horror and science fiction. If it didn't do anything for you, as you admit that you're not into horror, then fair enough.

Now, I'll throw in here that I can't abide Aliens. To me, it betrayed the horror elements of Alien, making it more akin to some dumb action movie with some added schmaltz thrown in. Unlike many, I actually consider Alien3 the better film than Aliens (certainly not Alien), in that it does try to bring back the horror elements and darkness in a different way. Still, I can understand why many deride that film. The Assembly Cut does make amends, and is possibly worth watching if you didn't care about the theatrical version.

FWIW I'm using the downvote button as a "You didn't explain", "That's a band not a movie", "That's a show not a movie", "That's a genre of animation, not a movie" button ;p I'm definitely clicking it far more often that I typically do =p

It's wild how many people can write but not read.

Speaking of downvotes, I don't think comments in a moderated forum should even have a downvote button. Every situation where a comment can be legitimately downvoted, like spam or bigotry or trolling, the comment should just be reported and removed by a moderator, instead.

People's intuition about downvoting is simply that it's the opposite of an upvote because that's how it is presented in the UI. That might make sense for articles, but not for comments.

Zeus being a caring father?

This was a really popular opinion at the time if I recall.

Counterpoint: it's one of the better Disney movies IMO. The gospel soundtrack slaps, and Danny DeVito, James Woods, and Susan Egan are all perfect in their roles.

Also, I blame Meg at least in part for my lifelong weakness for skinny dark-haired sarcastic women. But that's on me.

The cycle:

Step 1: (as a child) "wow this movie was great, I love Greek stuff!"

Step 2: learns a ton about Greek mythology over the next many years due to interest sparked by the movie

Step 3: (likely as a teenager or older, re-watching it one day) "holy shit this movie is absolutely nothing like Greek mythology, why did I ever think it was good..."

I've rewatched some of the old Disney classics and I was thoroughly disappointed by Hercules. I personally don't care that much about the mythological accuracy of it but it was just kind of meh my memorys of the movie were much better.

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.

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.

I had listened to the audio book before I saw the movie. The movie is so off the mark on the ridiculous life of Forest Gump. My favorite part of the book is that Jenny leaves him, she doesn't die, she leaves him because he becomes a major pot head.

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.

If anything, Forrest Gump is a satire of The American Dream^^^TM

Only guy to have such a successful life without doing anything unethical is a mentally challenged, politically unaware, and extremely lucky, who does everything he's told without questioning it.

There's a YouTube video that's like "What if Forrest Gump took place in modern day."

And it's wonderful, he gets beaten up during the George Floyd protests by police and thinks it was because he called for a cab not knowing calling for a taxi was illegal. (The cops misheard him and thought he shouted "ACAB"), then later he decides to go on vacation to the Capitol because he's a patriotic American and he's always wanted to see it, he goes there and meets other excited patriots who seem to be having some kind of a party (It's January 6th 2021)

It's a movie with 95% dialogue, and he decided to put loud droning music under every conversation so you can barely hear the people talking.

The audio mixing in his movies is genuinely terrible. If you aren't watching them with subtitles, you're probably missing half the plot because of background noise.

Nearly all Nolan stuff. His movies are cold and impersonal, and his characters are just dull (and he can't write a woman character that's not one dimensional). I can't remember the name of any of the characters bar the main ones. I feel like that's his main job and he can't do it. Everything else in the movie has a team of people (sound, lighting, design etc) but his area is always the let down.

That Bane movie was one of the most comically bad I've ever seen. Terrible acting, ridiculous plot points, dozens of plot holes.

I think Nolan is good at putting things together, but he lacks emotion and depth.

Nolan is so overrated his Batman trilogy sucked except Heath Ledger as the joker. Everything since the WW2 film he did has been overly pretentious.

I felt like I was taking crazy pills while watching it as I tried to reconcile what I was experiencing vs what I heard from others.

Oof. I love that movie. I thought it was extremely well chorographed. The fight scenes were awesome. Weird how opinions differ.

The socio hierarchy stuff is the point of the movie. Well done metaphor. Thought provoking even if you hate the exposition.

I will eat your best tasting babies for not being in line with the movie critic hierarchy. Back of the train with you.

The show does a better job, but the premise itself is such a stretch

THIS! Me and my mom thought it was a fun fantasy story from the commercials. The kids going into the forest into another realm of fantasy creatures. All of that in the commercials was just 1 scene in the movie, and the rest was boring or heartbreaking. I will never forgive their marketing team.

Okay but like the whole point I feel is that tragedy is impossible to avoid. It's supposed to be a slap in the face. If you haven't forgiven it, then the film achieved its goal.

My ex would cry just bringing this movie up. She made me watch it but I was around 23-24 so I don’t remember it.

Read the book in 4th grade, due to the marketing I did not have any interests seeing the film but judging by your comment it seems they more or less kept in line with the source. It is not a happy story.

Your friend Leslie is dead

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.

I think Basterds was his first movie that casually re-wrote history, which threw off the movie's tone for me. Like a historical "what if" movie. And every movie he's done since then has the same feel to me now.

Tarantino films are a process of him masturbating over old movies and extracting pleasure in people not getting all of his references

Django riding in his purple clothes on top of that ultra green grassland with Skrillex blasting - fuck that shit

I thought the nuclear explosion was pretty disappointing. It was hyped up so much and it's just like, a normal explosion zoomed in. It didn't look like a nuclear bomb went off to me.

If you know the actual story of Oppenheimer, you know the movie is garbage. It made it about this mostly fictitious investigation before Congress because of a pretty feud

Yes, I think an already 3hr film should be even longer. Just torture the audience at this point.

Admittedly I haven't watched it, but at this point wouldn't it be a better idea to divide it into two parts?

Bruce did die from that fall, but they established in the first avenger movie that he can't die, anytime he does, the Hulk takes over and heals.

And the problem is further minimized when smart hulk is revealed with no effort at all in the next film. I hated it.

I'm sorry but all the previous Thor movies (and the one after this) are ASS. Ragnarok is the only good Thor movie.

Literally everything Taika watiti touches turns to shit. I don’t understand his appeal. He’s like a 14 year old in the head that can’t take anything seriously. I know if I’m watching one of his shows or movies it’s just going to be lame joke after lame joke and then at some point he will remember he needs to get a story in and rush everything.

Also, I can’t stand anything JJ Abram’s touches. I know a lot of people say that now post StarWars disaster, but I remember being very disappointed when I heard he was directing the first sequel and people were acting like I was crazy. I absolutely hate his “mystery box” story telling because I either never cared about “item A” or I know the payoff for discovering what “item A” actually is I’d going to be lame.