Weekly Discussion: Movies you love that had poor critical reception

Thanks to @iCarly Rae Jepsen for this week's topic recommendation.

What are some movies with poor critical reception that you ended up loving?

 

The Wachowski's Speed Racer is one of my favorite films. It's so vibrant and colorful and energetic, and it's all in service to a really beautiful statement.

Popstar recently did extremely underwhelming business but I enjoyed it a hell of a lot.

Terrence Malick's latest films, Knight of Cups and To the Wonder, have been divisive but he's stronger than ever.

Ryan Gosling's directorial debut, Lost River, wasn't exactly good, but was far more interesting than I thought it'd be. I kind of hope it gets rediscovered. At least for Benoit Debie's cinematography, it's a beautiful film to look at, and I actually think it handles some aspects of femininity and objectification better than the Refn films Gosling is influenced by.

Showgirls is a Paul Verhoeven film, which means it should be appreciated for a lot more than being the film where Jesse from Saved by the Bell played a stripper. It's as strong as most of his filmography, a subversive and possibly too biting and straight a satire to be understood for what it was when it came out.

 

It is harder than ever to determine a unified critical reception. There are groups of critics that will praise things like The Avengers or Jurassic Park 7 but write dismissive reviews of art films. It gets even harder to find a consensus when we talk about older films, where there is a critic or organization ready to reclaim every forgotten film as a misunderstood masterpiece and every film in the canon as problematic in some way. A film like The Tree of Life had a mixed reception when it premiered at Cannes and hated by people that stumbled into an art film by accident, but it is much more universally beloved today. Almost every film I have had praise for over the years has been praised by the cinephile community but would cause a walkout if I showed a random sample of people on the street.

Two films that come to mind are MacGruber and Haywire, disliked by people in my personal life. Again, they are appreciated by more knowledgeable people, but their qualities are missed by the mainstream audience that saw them.

 

Wet Hot American Summer was what inspired the idea

also
Can't Hardly Wait

 

To the Wonder.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

I'm sure others I'm forgetting.

 

Popstar didn't do well at the box office but reviews were pretty good, weren't they?

Also, I need to check out the Speed Racer film. I barely remember the show but I see a lot of people saying the film is a lot of fun.

 

I still think Batman V Superman. It had many, many flaws but I enjoyed it. Critical panning was so over the top.

Revenge of the Sith is also overly panned. I actually really like it.

 

I don't think the BvS criticism was over the top. It was a terrible movie. I still went in wanting to enjoy it despite the bad reviews but I completely hated it. To the point where I probably won't watch it again even after it comes out on Blu ray. It was just such a mess, way too much slow-mo for some reason and I have no idea why it kept flashing back to Bruce's parents getting killed. I could barely make it through the whole thing.

 

I wouldn't necessarily say I love it, but I think Freddy Got Fingered probably is/was very misunderstood.

 

I can't think of any movies that I love that critics hated but I still have something that kinda fits.

Adam Sandler films, especially the Grown Ups films. I don't love them but I watch them way more than most people. They're great background movies but I also love to just watch them and laugh at how bad they are. It's weird haha

 

Oh it was a struggle at times and I don't see a huge amount of rewatch value either. Some reviews read as if the world was ending though.

 

"Sisters" didn't get great review and myself and my girlfriend really enjoyed it when we watched it.

 

I guess there were probably a few reviews that took it too far. I didn't actually read too many full reviews for it so I can't say but I'll take your word. There are some people who think critics were paid off my Marvel or just biased against DC films which is crazy. I think most people wanted to enjoy it because it seemed like an awesome idea but it ended up being bad so it got bad and some people can't accept that. I'm glad you're not one of them though haha

 

Yeah, getting paid of by Marvel is probably just made up nonsense. I did want to love it, should have known after Man of Steel though. That had a great trailer and I haven't watched it since the Cinema. Probably going to be the same story with BVS. I really liked Affleck and Gadot though!

 

I thought The Watch was hilarious.

 

Same here. It's not good in a conventional sense, but it's fun in a "watch me waste studio money" sort of way.

 

I actually just watched this recently after falling in love with The IT Crowd. I had watched it once before and thought it was pretty dumb and not very funny but I enjoyed it more the second time. But that may have just been because I knew who Ayoade was and thought he was hilarious after watching IT Crowd haha.

 

Empire Records was the first one that came to mind for me.

 

National Treasure!

Now You See Me!

 

What movie have I loved that wasn't panned by critics?

Observe and Report is pretty much go-to response. It is the blackest of black comedies, and as a result, I think it was too much for a lot of people. But I honestly think it is one of the best, most biting, most unflinching deconstructions of American machismo ever put to film. It is Taxi Driver played as a comedy, and it bums me out that Jody Hill hasn't had another feature film since this one. It is one of my favorite films, and I honestly think in the next 5 to 10 years it's going to get a serious reappraisal.

In addition, I thought Land of the Lost with Will Farrell was pretty funny, and, even with the unfortunate white-washing, I thought The Lone Ranger was a really fun, quirky action picture, though definitely far too long.

Actually, I just remembered, I thought Mortdecai was pretty funny too. Me and my brother went to see it together and we both enjoyed ourselves.

 

Disagree with you about BvS, but big ups for Revenge of the Sith! It certainly has its flaws (*cough*HaydenChristensen*cough*) but of the prequels it is by far the best one.

 

I can't imagine Tommy Boy has a very good Rotten Tomatoes score, but that movie is a classic

 

I'm going to second MacGruber, as that is seriously one of the better SNL films. While it, of course, doesn't come anywhere near the greatness of The Blues Brothers and Wayne's World, I'd still slot it in as the third best SNL film of all time, maybe fourth after Wayne's World 2. There's an enormous drop-off in quality there between #2 and #3, of course, but that's just a testament to how truly bad almost all of SNL's films are.

In the same vein, Hot Rod is another comedy film involving SNL vets that is way better than its reviews. Those would probably be my biggest two.

 

Shit, probably a lot of movies. I tend to like things.

Batman V Superman, Dreamcatcher, Only God Forgives, Gigantic, Sucker Punch, every horror movie...off the top of my head

 

I think it'd be harder for me to find movies I love that aren't critically panned lol.

Drive Me Crazy, Crossroads, Step Up, most scary movies...