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Ok my topic about disappointing movies was pretty successful, so I'm going to bookend it with one about movies that were in your opinion surprisingly good. I imagine this thread won;t be as big as my disappointing movies thread but hey, you never know.

"Amazon women on the moon". A low budget parody of late night tv, circa 1987. I found it fairly amusing and entertaining.

"Catwoman". Ok, most people hated it and I should have for several reasons, mostly how nauseated I am of the superhero movie genre as a whole, but this was made a bit before they started jackhammering them down people's throats in ad campaigns that seem to be based on nazi blkitzkreig tactics. What made the movie surprisingly good to me was the central plot element that a cosmetic maker created a cosmetic that made people look years younger but literally turned their skin to stone. Given that people will pay to be injected with botox, which mean botulism toxin. Botulism toxin in an incredibly dangerous agent which is used as the basis of some of the most deadly chemical weapons on earth. When you consider how many people will willingly use this which even under the best on circumstances tends to leave their faces frozen in a rictus that makes them resemble victims of the Joker's smilex poison I could actually accept the premise of catwoman's main plotline. I'm not saying it was a great movie but given how horrible the reviews were I was surprised when I saw it finally.

"Iron sky". Low budget plus a laughable premise managed to get together and have a kid who i liked. The movie was just so laughably absurd and ham acted it became good in the sense that the adam west batman series was good. Avoid the sequel like covid, tho.

"Batman return of the caped crusaders" I was surprised by this one in that in an age of parody and mockery movies (Like the scary movie series, meet the spartans, vampires suck, ad infinitum) it was a very well done tribute to the campy and silly batman series made with respect. It's easy to parody batman and almost hard not to, but the movie succeeded in being far from an insult to the old series. The sequel was good too.

"Moontrap". Ok, I watched it due to it starring a star trek ilumni, but would have liked it if it hadn't. Another low budget flick that delivered a good bang for it's buck. Another case of "Avoid the sequel" unfortunately.

"Tankgirl". Ironically being released at the same time as "Waterworld", TG had an oddly similar premises (TG was a disaster film about a lack of water, WW was a disaster film about an excess of water.) and likely cost maybe 5% what kevin costner's tired mad max at sea drama cost yet managed to be far more entertaining.

All these movies surprised me by being more enjoyable to me than I really expected them to be. What pleasant surprises have you gotten from a movie?

Tank girl was awesome.

"Aquaman" They really tried to abandon all of the super seriousness of the DCEU and just kinda had some fun with it. It was like their Thor. It also had a dope aesthetic

When I saw the trailers for the first Thor film, I thought it looked like an absolute train wreck but ended up going to see it anyway because I'm one of those weirdos who absolutely loves going to the theater. I left the film thoroughly impressed, and Thor has been my favorite Avenger ever since.

 Frazzled wrote:
Tank girl was awesome.

Whilst I've mellowed on it over the years I suspect rewrite by committee is mostly to blame for source drift

[/b]Logan[b]

The X franchise was spiralling the drain and Mr Jackman sensibly sat out of the tail end so wasn't expecting much out of it, never been so glad to have been so wrongfooted, bestest non-super super film ever

Thor: The Dark World -- Yes, I like this film, screw all the haters

House of the Dead -- Uwe Bolls first video game film. God it is a trainwreck but I saw it in theatres with my friends and it was so bad it was kinda good? We sometimes get together to watch it again because its so gloriously stupid and has nothing to do with the videogame at all.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen -- Okay, this is a terrible film granted. The first time I saw it it was 1 in the morning and I was so completely smashed that It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen.

Oh Lordy.

I’ll get back to you on this one!

But? Immediate examples?

Ghostbusters Answer The Call. Is it as good as it’s predecessors? No. Does that mean it’s therefore devoid of all merit? Nope. It’s a fun film.

Terminator Dark Fate. Given out of then 5 films, only 2 had been any good? I was apprehensive about the 6th. But you know what? It stands on its own two feet, and is pretty bloody ace.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also?

Guardians of the Galaxy.

At. The. Time.

You may have noticed I’m one of life’s highly irritating natural optimists. Given how pretty much no-one had even a passing knowledge of those comics? I expected it to be the MCU’s streak breaker. I really did. I mean, who at that time had even heard of them?

Managed to win tickets to a pre-release screening. And it knocked my socks clean off.

I feel this qualified because nobody expected it to be anywhere near as good as it is. Everything about it is brilliant and entertaining.

Definitely with you on Guardians. I had an inkling it would be good, but not as good as it was.
When you think about it, it's a fresh achievement even for the MCU - it had already successfully pulled off the first mainstream superhero ensemble with the first Avengers movie, but that was using heroes that had their own lead-up films to support it. Guardians introduced us to a completely utterly new cast of no less than five heroes, gave each of them substantial screen time without sacrificing the wider Infinity Stone plot, and still managed to slot nicely into the wider universe without having any prior connections even hinted at. That's one hell of a writing accomplishment.

Another one I'll add here is Love Actually. It's the only "chick flick" I enjoy to this day, probably because of its focus on characters rather than plot - I find most romantic films waaaay too predictable, and also incredibly unrealistic because their conflicts would unravel if the main characters just sat down and actually talked for five minutes.
In contrast, Love Actually has realistic characters with realistic relationships and issues, and it makes those characters much easier to identify and empathise with.

Also - I've gotta add Seven Pounds. I've never been one much for stories set in the "boring" real world, and while I've always liked Will Smith, I didn't think he had much chops as a serious actor. I'll admit, the first half of the film was sloooow building up and I could have given up on it - but I was warned in advance that I needed to watch the whole thing.
It's one of those films where even describing it would give too much away, it's all tied up in the last 15 or so minutes and it's an absolute gut-punch of a heart wrencher. Make sure you watch it - but make sure you have your loved ones on speed dial for immediately after.

Dead Snow; somehow manages to walk the line between a scream-esque deconstruction of zombie movies and a damn good zombie slasher film.

Also, Iron Sky flies right through ridiculousness and out to glory on the other side!

Pitch Black. Saw the trailer and thought it looked like a rubbish Alien rip off. Got a free ticket to a midnight screening along with a bunch of friends and thought it was absolutely awesome. Vin Diesel was scary as hell as Riddick.

You may have noticed I’m one of life’s highly irritating natural optimists. Given how pretty much no-one had even a passing knowledge of those comics? I expected it to be the MCU’s streak breaker. I really did. I mean, who at that time had even heard of them?

I had. Except it was the 1990 series, set in the 31st century.
[Which overlapped a bit with the team introduced in 1969 and appeared in fits and starts over the 70s]

And I was really confused, since the movie wasn't the characters I remembered from the comic at all, except for a bizarrely distorted Yondu. [And they're essentially the 'Ravager' leaders you see at the end of GotG 2 for Yondu's funeral]

So while I'd heard of it, I had really low expectations for the film. Post 90s in comics is essentially no-go territory for me, and I've little patience for retcons and restarts.

But the film did a good job with the random team of morons.

Lone Ranger. A silly premise trying to resurrect an ancient property nobody under fifty cared about, and what they ended up with was a second go at Pirates of the Caribbean that fixed a lot of the things they did badly on the first go.

Split. Mainly because M. Night had been pitching bombs since The Village, Signs, or The Sixth Sense depending on the individual's opinion.

Dredd. Relatively low budget, went under the radar, based on a relatively unknown comic, and was following up Stallone's abomination. It might be the best action movie I've seen since The Matrix. It's one of those rare films that is even better when heavily analyzed.

Birds of Prey. It bombed and reviews were middling. There were several moments in it where I was grinning ear to ear. I wouldn't call it a particularly good film, but it's far better than I expected.

Edit: Also Aquaman. Did anyone expect it to be that good? The character has been the butt of jokes across multiple forms of media for decades and the DC had struck out with BvS and Suicide Squad beforehand. Again, not a great movie, but perfectly acceptable as a popcorn superhero flick.

Definitely agreed on Split - did you see Unbreakable yet? That's really good too - though, although I've not seen it, my understanding is that sadly Glass doesn't measure up to their standards.
Dredd was fantastic, but I was expecting it to be, because pretty much every role Karl Urban touches is gold. If you want amazing things, give him the lead!

I really really liked Aquaman - but I have to admit I wasn't surprised by its tone after seeing Wonder Woman the year before. That was the tonal shift for the series I wasn't expecting (although I was still very much looking forward to it anyway).

Ha this will be a good one - for me its Suicide Squad. Hear me out though - I saw it long after release and had heard like 1000 times it was the biggest pile of crap ever made and an offence to god by then.

Given my EXTREMELY low expectations going in I was surprised and thought it was pretty watchable overall. Not great mind you, but I felt there was potential just spoiled by some odd plot and character choices.

A Knights Tale.

Nothing about that film should work. The trailer didn’t do it any favours either.

Yet it’s brilliant!. Not even Guilty Secret brilliant.

I'm still amazed that the first Mortal Kombat movie was enjoyable and not a train wreck. With the second one being completely abysmal, it only highlighted how surprisingly good the first one was.

Resident Evil series.

Sure they suffer from sequelitis, and none of them are approaching great. But they’re still bloody good fun, and I’ll watch them at the drop of a hat.

Girls und Panzer.

Don't judge me XD It's tank porn intersperced with ludicrously wholesome anime moments and I enjoyed it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Resident Evil series.

Sure they suffer from sequelitis, and none of them are approaching great. But they’re still bloody good fun, and I’ll watch them at the drop of a hat.

Somewhat comparable, Underworld and its initial sequel. Absolute nonsense, but still enjoyable.

 LordofHats wrote:
Girls und Panzer.

Don't judge me XD It's tank porn intersperced with ludicrously wholesome anime moments and I enjoyed it.

I see you're a man of culture too

i picked up the movie and the series on a ridiculously good sale a few weeks ago. I watched the series when it came out but haven't checked out the movie yet.

I agreed with a few of the movies folks mentioned.

Split, Dredd, Aquaman, Birds of Prey are all very enjoyable movies.

One film I really like, and would like to see more of is the Netflix film Spectral. It's pretty cool sci-fi ghost war movie

 jaredb wrote:
I agreed with a few of the movies folks mentioned.

Split, Dredd, Aquaman, Birds of Prey are all very enjoyable movies.

One film I really like, and would like to see more of is the Netflix film Spectral. It's pretty cool sci-fi ghost war movie

Is that the one with the semi invisible russian people that ends with that all out battle scene on the bridge? If so, I agree.

 ScarletRose wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Girls und Panzer.

Don't judge me XD It's tank porn intersperced with ludicrously wholesome anime moments and I enjoyed it.

I see you're a man of culture too

i picked up the movie and the series on a ridiculously good sale a few weeks ago. I watched the series when it came out but haven't checked out the movie yet.

The movie is more of the series, so if you like one you'll like the other. Pretty good epic battle in the movie too (though there's some characters from an OVA or something who confused me cause I haven't seen it).

I'm about to recommend a movie that's really awful on most levels.


It's budget was clearly at best a few thousand dollars, it was badly filmed, calling most of the acting wooden would be an insult to lumber, the messaging was heavier handed than the stature of liberty and all in all it was pretty bad in most ways.

But it has some interesting points. It deals with the nature of humanity and raises issues that at the time were beyond cutting edge, issues that weren't raised again until movies like blase runner and the original ghost in the shell anime.

It's called "Creation of the humanoids" and deals with a lot of really deep issues despite it's incredibly poor production values.

It manages to have some pretty good and clever lines. A robot (android today) tells a human "I know who my creator was, you have to take yours on faith." (BUUUUU-uuuurrrnnnn!)

Other good lines were:

"If a Man Loses His Leg, Is His Soul Affected?"

"I didn't like being old. I really didn't like being dead."

"They re-died."

"How do you apologize to someone for killing them?"

"Do I still have a soul?" "Hmm, no, I don't think so, but you remember having one, and that seems to be enough."

This really cheap little movie has some SF credentials to it. One of the stars was the canadian actor "Dudley Manlove", who played the alien eros in the legendary "plan 9 from outer space".

Also, the humanoid (android) makeup was done by Jack Pierce, who created a lot of the universal horror makeup jobs in the 30's and 40's, including the original frankenstein and the mummy played by karloff. CotH was his last movie.




Here's a review on site dedicated to cyberpunk sf films.

https://static.anarchivism.org/cyberpunkreview-archive/www.cyberpunkreview.com/movie/decade/pre-1980/creation-of-the-humanoids/index.html

Yeah, this movie wasn't just surprisingly good it some ways. it was damn near shockingly good.

This would be good for a remake done seriously.

Wonder if Pterry might’ve seen that? The lines you quoted have a distinct Discworld feel to them.

I’ll have to give it a watch some time. I’m always up for wonky movies which didn’t quite succeed in telling what was really a pretty interesting story.

Is that on Tubi? Where did you even find that movie?

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Resident Evil series.

Sure they suffer from sequelitis, and none of them are approaching great. But they’re still bloody good fun, and I’ll watch them at the drop of a hat.

Somewhat comparable, Underworld and its initial sequel. Absolute nonsense, but still enjoyable.

My problem with Underworld is they go for a very dark pallet in the film. So unless you've got the screen setup just right you can easily end up squinting half the time to see what the heck is going on.

 Overread wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Resident Evil series.

Sure they suffer from sequelitis, and none of them are approaching great. But they’re still bloody good fun, and I’ll watch them at the drop of a hat.

Somewhat comparable, Underworld and its initial sequel. Absolute nonsense, but still enjoyable.

My problem with Underworld is they go for a very dark pallet in the film. So unless you've got the screen setup just right you can easily end up squinting half the time to see what the heck is going on.

On the other hand, Kate Beckinsale in skintight clothing.

As for surprisingly good movies, I second Thor: the Dark World.

Hmm, perhaps Overlord? I mean, I was expecting a crappy cheesy zombie flick. Then it turned out to be a more traditional war movie then it turned into this wonderful creation.