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For me the first thing that comes to mind is Tales from Earthsea. I don't think it's excellent or anything and has plenty of problems but people act like it killed their dog. While it has its problems that have been covered extensively, I think it has a beautiful atmosphere and art.
IMO it would have been better received if it wasn't advertised as an Earthsea adaptation and was just its own thing.
Kung Pow is a cinematic triumph
Edit: there's an animated cow so it counts
It may have a critical rating of 13% but it's audience rating is 69%.
Nice.
Rat Race is one of the funniest movies of all time, I didn't care what the ratings say.
Oh wow, it got bad ratings? 100% agree with you. Love that movie.
That's one of those movies that's better than it has any right to be. Remake "It's a mad mad mad mad world", and now we have Smashmouth? Nah.
Same with "Hot Tub Time Machine". Should be awful, is actually good.
Sometimes the reasons critics think movies are bad are actually features, not bugs.
Here's the flipside of this phenomenon:
The Little Mermaid (2023)
Absolutely awful, atrocious, lazy cinema. It had a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. When they do the whole under the sea scene, none of the sounds align with anything happening on screen. The plot was garbo. They've got a whole song dedicated to the cruelty of eating fish as if fish never eat any fish, and then that's still not as bad as the fucking "scuttlebutt" song.
Why did he have all of those daughters from around the world and no wife 🤔
Titan AE is at 61% on RT, but I fucking love it.
For me, Titan AE was the first Mandela effect. I clearly remember teaser trailers years before its release with a totally different art style. It looked like really good anime. Then once it dropped it was this weird amalgamation of Disney's Pocahontas and Fox The Simpsons. Still feels like a fever dream.
I liked Thor Love and Thunder, something I've been clowned on for every time I say it lol. I get why a lot of people hate it but it was enjoyable to me.
It's a story about fatherhood. I like stories about fatherhood. God Of War is pretty great. It's also a story about Thor becoming worthy not just to be the prince of Asgard, but its king, by exploring his tender side. I guess a lot of people complained that Thor used the Thorforce to give other people the power of Thor, but that's literally what Odin did in the first movie back when it was called the Odinforce. It symbolises that Thor has finally become the equal of his father, following in his footsteps while learning from his mistakes. Thor is finally ready to stop being someone's son and to finally grow up, while at the same time becoming somebody's father. Thor's defeat of the god slayer not through violence but through nurturing empathy, is a symbolic victory over the flaws of his father, representing that Thor will be a better god and a better king.
I see Thor 4 as a shining example of positive masculinity. It directly answers the question: "What is a man, if a woman becomes his equal?" The answer is "himself." And as cheesy as that may be, it's true.
The problem TL&T has is that it's in the MCU. Had it been a solo movie with no relation to anything else it would be better received... as a comedy.
Rotten tomatoes is rotten itself. Half the professional critics there have been bought and paid for. So many movies have a critics score of 20 and an audience score of 90, or vice versa. It's just a sad place, don't go there
My general personal rule is "If I'm entertained then it's good" hmrm I don't care what anybody says.
Not animated, but since you've hit the frontpage and everyone else seems to be ignoring that...
1994's Street Fighter. It's terrible, but Raul Julia hams his way out of the screen for you. It's Street Fighter: The Pantomime, and it's glorious.
Between that, Tim Curry in The Three Musketeers, and Alan Rickman in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, I can't decide which of them was best at saving a mediocre cocaine fuelled movie by playing a panto villain in the midst of undeserved po-faced seriousness.
The number of times I've watched a highly rated movie only to find it's not good. cough oppenheimer cough
watching oppenheimer felt like watching a 3 hour compilation of trailers for oppenheimer. everything was so dramatic, there was no downtime, and they always had some kind of music playing. it felt like every scene wasn’t allowed to last more than 5 minutes
I really enjoyed Oppenheimer and I'd say it's highly rated because it is good and lots of people enjoyed it, however nothing can please everyone and there's nothing wrong with that. You not enjoying the popular thing doesn't make it bad.
Anything fourth wave Marvel, people were done after infinity wars and just shit on anything since because it's too much nerddom on their systems. I still loved she-hulk but people didn't.
This was Sucker Punch for me
I still can't tell if Sucker Punch is an ingenious retelling of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or an excuse to film scantily clad women while pretending you have something serious to say, but it's certainly fun to watch.
Tbh, from all the shit Snyder has released since. It's mostly just spectacle for spectacles sake, but I had fun watching it, and the story inside a story inside a story aspect was fun
We're back: a dinosaur story
Rock-a-doodle
The Pagemaster
Once upon a forest
Aladdin 2 and 3
Jetsons: The Movie
I'm probably overrating these because I saw them as a kid.
The Aladdin live action remake was shat on mercilessly by the internet, but I thought it was a fun, true to the spirit of the original while introducing a few new ideas to keep it interesting, and (imo very respectfully) stayed out of Rob William's lane by not trying to recreate his genie. And Will Smith did a great job with his version.
/shrug
I didn't really follow the online conversations around the movie, but I did watch it and it's not entirely that long ago since I watched the animated movie either. If I was to try to judge the movie without the context of the orighinal, I'd say it was fine, nothing about it was terrible but I also didn't find anything about it particularly good or memorable. I think Will Smith did a fine job and I don't think he'd be anywhere near the top of the list of what I would criticise about the movie in that case.
But I do think context matters, and in context I think it comes out looking pretty poor. Genie as written for the live action movie pales in comparison to the animated one. In terms of craft I think the live action one feels like a soulless board-room directed husk, and I really miss the feeling of a creative voice in the whole thing.
If you're going to remake something, I it should be better, or enough of a reinterpretation to be considered distinctly different.
I am glad others liked it, but if I someone asked me which they should watch I would tell them the original animated movie because I think it is a better piece of entertainment, and that makes the modern one feel like an absolute waste of time, money, skills and effort that could have been spent so much better.
My rule is that if the critic score is too high I won't like it, and the audience score needs to be higher than the critic score and we have a banger on our hands
You just remind me I should check Tales from Earthsea.
By the way, congrats for this post, getting nice traction!
I love Van Wilder. The soundtrack is top-notch, it has superstar talent, and quite frankly, it's basically Deadpool without the superhero stuff. Last I checked it was below 20% on RT.
It's what? That's an all-time great comedy that I still quote. I tell people that worrying is like a rocking chair unironically.
Write that down.
Not animated, but trust me, if you'd actually watched Manos: The Hands of Fate, you would not have enjoyed it in any capacity.
As it happens, I just discovered this nice chap: https://youtube.com/@CinemaWins "Because liking things is more fun than not liking things."
Horror movies is a completely different scale. Subtract 2 for horror, just because. Witch sounds like a good horror title.
Subtract 2 for Horror
Are we talking about the Ghibli Earthsea movie? I actually enjoyed it, even though I read the books when I was younger. It was an interesting way to tell a large part of the story and doesn't deserve the hate it gets IMO. But it's also not an amazing adaptation either, it's in a weird spot.
This was The Emoji Movie for my kids. I refused to watch it because of obvious reasons, but they insisted and totally liked it. I finally gave it a watch and... It was totally fine. Pleasant at times, even.
Exactly the same, I still love Tales of Earthsea. It has its issues compared to the book, but it's still great. My conspiracy theory is that it's a plot by Hayao Miyazaki fans to discredit his son since the father didn't like it.
I really liked Under Ninja recently. Everyone's been shitting on the adaptation because it looks weird, telling to read the manga, but the manga is just as weird. The adaptation is really keeping the same vibe.
Tales From Earthsea wasn't even the worst Ghibli movie. That title belongs to Ocean Waves.
Are you my friend? I've had to stop taking any of his movie or TV show recommendations without extra verification. He thinks that everything he watches is great. I kinda envy how he can enjoy literally any TV show or movie.
I like the Vin Diesel film xXx. It's loud, dumb, and nothing like what I usually enjoy, but somehow it manages to scratch enough mental itches that I'll watch the whole thing through every few years.