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Hello and welcome to a slightly rambling thread.

This is brought to you by my just having watched The Great Wall.

Now sadly, that film took a bit of a critical kicking. 35% on Rotten Tomatoes, average seem to be around 2/5.

But for the life of me, the only reason I can think of is sheer snobbery. No, there's not a great deal to the plot. But it's still all very well done. Plot rattles along at a decent pace. The acting is good for what's ultimately a silly monster movie. The effects are frankly jaw dropping. And best of all? No sodding shaky cam, or action so fast you can't tell what the eff is going on

I mean, it's not about to win any Oscars beyond possibly effects - but so what!? Sure I only paid £10 for the DVD, but had I been to see it in the cinema I'd struggle to say I'd have felt short changed.

A series advantage for me is the mixed use of English and subtitles. The language barrier is addressed in character, and used to good effect. If it's not western actors on screen, it's subtitle o'clock - a nice touch which mean I paid more attention than I otherwise might. And having been made with subtitles in mind, you don't miss any action desperately trying to follow the dialogue, which can be a downside to other subbed films.

So as I said above, the only thing I can put the crap reviews down to is sheer snobbery.

But what other films do you feel the critics just plain got it wrong on?

Bonus points if you say Dredd!

Don't think you're going to like this, but...Man of Steel.

It didn't actually get panned by critics (55 rating on Metacritic - 20 positive, 24 mixed, 3 negative), but it's certainly a better cast, acted and conceived film than Superman Returns (72 on Metacritic). SR was some kind of weird critical darling, rating AHEAD of Batman Begins (only 70) and only a little behind the new WW film (76). None of that right there makes much sense to me.

MoS isn't a 10/10 movie, but too many critics beat it up for not being Superman '78. I feel like attitudes toward MoS may have softened a little since. *shrug*

Dread, Rocky Balboa, Creed. All where amazing films. And some critics where too damn harsh on em at times..

Both Rocky sequals kinda carry on the spirit of the other 5, Champions are in the mind not just the guy who hits hardest.

Critics actually didn't hate Dredd it was audiences that didn't show up. It was later on Bluray that people started getting into it. Similar to the original Austin Powers and Office Space where the movies didn't get recognized during their initial theater run.

Dunno. I've seen various reviews for Dredd where the critic clearly chose to do no research into the character. At least one criticised Justice Department for being fascist.

I mean. Way to miss the point!

Man of Steel is a valid one. Remember, this is all about opinion. Don't matter if the next person doesn't agree. Just say your piece all the same

Some of the panned films... Yeah I liked them more than the ones that got multi star reviews, Oscars and more.

They tend not to take selves as overly seriously as the ones who do win x awards and more.

Oh, you're going to hate this, Doc...

But I maintain that Batman Vs Superman is one of the most unfairly bashed films of recent years. It's perhaps not perfect (though I'd say the Extended Cut is damn close, and if that version had been released up front I don't think it'd have been nearly as badly received, it cleans up 90% of the issues in the theatrical release) but of the reviews it got on release, so many seemed to focus on how it wasn't 'fun' (as if all comic book movies had to be) or complained that it was too complicated (it really wasn't) or seemed to conflate a personal dislike of the visual and directorial style with those things being inherently bad.

When I came out from seeing that film, I was genuinely blown away, and to this day I still can't understand how BvS gets so heavily slated when complete messes of films like Marvel's Age of Utron get a free pass. Preemptively, no, I'm not a Marvel basher at all, I love most of their output but AoU is a very poorly put together film from a directorial and narrative standpoint, far moreso than BvS.

I'd say the same for Man of Steel, the Amazing Spidermans and X-men 3 and Origins Wolverine; I watch the films, I enjoy them immensely and I really don't see the problems that people seem to have with them.

Hey, all opinions are valid, especially in this thread!

Next one for me? It's a film series. Namely, Resident Evil. Yes some are a bit up and down, but having now rounded off the series I think it's perfect 'Hobby day' bingeing.

The effects are reasonable enough, the plots joyously and knowingly silly, and nobody is pretending they're great works of art.

They're just solid popcorn fare. Enough callbacks to the source material, but arguably wise enough not to try to recreate the claustraphobia of the games in a fourth person Medium.


And? Finally? Ghostbusters: Answer The Call. It's a fine movie!

I think critics have a different set of criteria they are looking at then simple entertainment.

It is like the difference between a casual soccer fan, and a premier league pro analyst.

While I most certainly do not agree on calling Great Wall a good movie (but my complaints are more about culture fusion and sketchy concept), I do agree, that Dredd is a great movie - almost ideal comic book adaptation, and most certainly best to date.

I also agree that Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman are highly underrated, but I recon that this is not because of their production value, but because of jumping onto unprepared audience (Marvel universe made a gradual introduction to high-level superpowers, DC just jumped in with city-leveling individuals and repeated the very problem with Superman comics themselves).

But those are not amongst the highest ranking "critics got it wrong" titles on my personal list. Higher up are such films as Interstellar, 12 monkeys, Tron: Legacy and I, Robot. Not all of them scoring low on RT, but "critics flame war" about 12 monkeys being sci-fi or not is classic.

 Easy E wrote:
I think critics have a different set of criteria they are looking at then simple entertainment.

It is like the difference between a casual soccer fan, and a premier league pro analyst.

But your garden variety or average punter likely couldn't give a monkies about whether Francis Ford Coppola made better use of light in that movie that's so obscure you can't get it on VHS let alone modern mediums.

All I really want to know is 'if I pay the price of admission, will I be entertained?'

I mean, they don't always get it wrong on my count. Gods of Egypt was a load of waff. As was Assassin's Creed. But those films had actual, quantifiable flaws (nonsensical plots, god awful miscasting, nothing to do with source material or reason source material is popular etc). Likewise Uwe Boll is objectively a bloody awful director.

But when you feel some genres suffer simply because the genre is considered 'art'? Well, who cares. Is it entertaining? Does the plot make sense. That pretty much all I need to know.

One critic I do respect is Jonathon Ross. And that's for the simple fact he tends to review as an example of the genre. And if he rubbishes a given film, he'll give you pointers to movies which just did it better. That to me is useful, constructive criticism.

That is why I basically ignore critic reviews for the most part, and (if I look up reviews at all, which half the time I don't as I usually decide whether or not I want to see a film from its trailers) only really look at fan reviews as they do tend to get the point a bit more... put simply, 'are you not entertained?'

One recent review I did rather enjoy was the BBC's Mark Kermode's review of Logan, you could pretty much see him squirming in his seat admitting that a comic book movie genuinely had some artistic merit to it!

It's a shame, because I find Mark Kermode frequently a highly entertaining critic, even if he struggles to be even handed

Still haven't seen Logan....

Of course, in this day age I think and hope we can agree there's an easy ranking of movies.

1. Cinema Job. For me, that's anything Marvel, Star Wars or promising epic, Return of the King style battles.

2. Punt on the DVD job. Keen to see it, but happier to pay £10 for the DVD than shell out near double that for the cinema experience.

3. Yeah I'll wait for Netflix/Rent off Amamamazon (this is how I eventually saw MoS, BvS and Suicide Squad. Personal taste, I feel I made the right call on those three)

My examples for each grade are just that Be kind of a Richard move to lambast critics for talking rot, and then do the very same!

Seems a fair system. I tend to head to the cinema for anything that'll be a bit of a spectacle or effects-fest, stuff like Star Wars, comic book stuff, Bond movies ect, but if that's not a major part of the attraction I have no problem waiting for the Blu-ray. At the cinema, I simply want to see cool shiny stuff on a massive screen with loud boomy sound!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


One critic I do respect is Jonathon Ross. And that's for the simple fact he tends to review as an example of the genre. And if he rubbishes a given film, he'll give you pointers to movies which just did it better. That to me is useful, constructive criticism.

Do you mean Jonathon Woss? I didn't know he did film reviews.

One movie that I didn't realize had awful critical scores was The Grudge with Gellar the Vampire Slayer. I was genuinely creeped out by that movie the first time I watched it.

I think the issue with The Grudge is that it just doesn't match up to the original, and was pasted because there's such little need for Hollywood remakes of very recent foreign language films.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Dunno. I've seen various reviews for Dredd where the critic clearly chose to do no research into the character. At least one criticised Justice Department for being fascist.

I mean. Way to miss the point!

I don't believe it was said that all reviewers liked a thing or that only 100% positive reviews were the point of this thread.

I still maintain the Affleck Daredevil took way more of a beating than it deserved

Admittedly it wasn't great but lots of the later Super movies lifted many of the elements of DD and seemed to get away with it

I find critics are generally pretty in line with what I think about films, but I think many people confuse personally liking something with that thing being good. There are lots of reasons to like mediocre or bad films/books/games. I loved the hell out of Too Human, but it was a terrible game. I still like all three of the original Pirates films, even though I think Dead Man's Chest and At World's End were pretty mediocre. I think Alien 3 has generally been bashed far more than it deserved, but it's still pretty bad.

I watched Great Wall just to see how bad it was and it was pretty bad. Having good effects and a not horrible plot doesn't make up for just being mediocre all around and being super duper cheesy. I'd almost accuse the film of being Chinese film makers trying to pander to Western audiences in the demeaning kind of way Western film makers usually try to pander to the Chinese. The only thing I think the Great Wall is useful for is as a trick question. Add it to a list of films including Blood Diamond, Freedom Writers, and Gran Torino. Only three of the films are White Savior Narratives. Can you correctly identify which ones

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
I think critics have a different set of criteria they are looking at then simple entertainment.

It is like the difference between a casual soccer fan, and a premier league pro analyst.

But your garden variety or average punter likely couldn't give a monkies about whether Francis Ford Coppola made better use of light in that movie that's so obscure you can't get it on VHS let alone modern mediums.

All I really want to know is 'if I pay the price of admission, will I be entertained?'

I mean, they don't always get it wrong on my count. Gods of Egypt was a load of waff. As was Assassin's Creed. But those films had actual, quantifiable flaws (nonsensical plots, god awful miscasting, nothing to do with source material or reason source material is popular etc). Likewise Uwe Boll is objectively a bloody awful director.

But when you feel some genres suffer simply because the genre is considered 'art'? Well, who cares. Is it entertaining? Does the plot make sense. That pretty much all I need to know.

One critic I do respect is Jonathon Ross. And that's for the simple fact he tends to review as an example of the genre. And if he rubbishes a given film, he'll give you pointers to movies which just did it better. That to me is useful, constructive criticism.

That's one thing unchanged from far back as ancient Rome.

Entertain the plebs.
And I mean that in a good way99% of us watching ain't experts, or have a interest in art or such of a film. We go to be entertained. We judge it on that fact firstly, not how good the make up was etc.

Here was the method I used on Warseer in the Mini-Movie Review thread when it started way back in the day....

The movie rating system is easy:
Destroy it- Terrible in almost every level. The perfect storm of incompetent film making, uninspired, thoughtless, and boring.
Pass- Watchable, with some mild entertainment value. Don't go out of your way to see it.
Rent it- Worth your time and energy. You will take something from this movie. It may not be entertainment, but it will be something.
Buy it- This movie deserves to be watched again and again.
WOW- This is simply one of the best movies ever, and everyone in the entire world should see it.

I have to admit, I even got a bit loose with the WOW because sometimes I put WOW next to movies that had to be seen to be believed. The Apple I am looking at you!



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:
I find critics are generally pretty in line with what I think about films, but I think many people confuse personally liking something with that thing being good. There are lots of reasons to like mediocre or bad films/books/games. P

Exalted for this!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Hello and welcome to a slightly rambling thread.

This is brought to you by my just having watched The Great Wall.

Now sadly, that film took a bit of a critical kicking. 35% on Rotten Tomatoes, average seem to be around 2/5.

But for the life of me, the only reason I can think of is sheer snobbery. No, there's not a great deal to the plot. But it's still all very well done. Plot rattles along at a decent pace. The acting is good for what's ultimately a silly monster movie. The effects are frankly jaw dropping. And best of all? No sodding shaky cam, or action so fast you can't tell what the eff is going on

I mean, it's not about to win any Oscars beyond possibly effects - but so what!? Sure I only paid £10 for the DVD, but had I been to see it in the cinema I'd struggle to say I'd have felt short changed.

A series advantage for me is the mixed use of English and subtitles. The language barrier is addressed in character, and used to good effect. If it's not western actors on screen, it's subtitle o'clock - a nice touch which mean I paid more attention than I otherwise might. And having been made with subtitles in mind, you don't miss any action desperately trying to follow the dialogue, which can be a downside to other subbed films.

So as I said above, the only thing I can put the crap reviews down to is sheer snobbery.

But what other films do you feel the critics just plain got it wrong on?

Bonus points if you say Dredd!

Agreed for the most part - when I decide if I want to watch a film - I watch the Trailer and maybe listen to friends who have seen it - but film critics - not a chance. Thus it is extremely rare I will watch a film i don't like.

They suffer from the same bais that everyone else has and few if any even pretend to be objective, so why would I ever listen or read what they say..

The wall - saw it at the cinema and enjoyed it - its not a favourite but perfectly fine film - but its not the sort of film that Film Critics like - or are paid to like. Agreed so much on Shaky cam - horrible.

I recall so many of them saying how awesome the Star Wars prequal was when it came out - which was a joke - they were either too scared to say it was crap or were paid not to.

Films I find poor and yet we are told to like: Anything by Christopher Nolan. But apparently you HAVE to like them or you "don't understand them"

I know I have a "terrible" taste in movies (I love The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, X-men: The Last Stand etc.), so I've long since given up using anyone else's opinion to judge whether I'll like a film or not.
But I do like reading what critics have to say just for those moments when they get a bit silly.

One of my favourites was from a few years ago, and one of the critics I used to follow got massively caught up in the hype for Avatar.
When the first Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes came out a few weeks later he gave it a low score (1 or 2 stars out of 5) because "Had this movie come out earlier it would have easily earned a rating of 4/5, but with Avatar having so completely changed the whole experience of movie watching forever, it would be a crime for me to recommend any other film when it's still possible to go watch Avatar again."

What was that guy smoking? Changed the movie-going experience forever? But there was no Colo Clawfish in Avatar...

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
What was that guy smoking? Changed the movie-going experience forever? But there was no Colo Clawfish in Avatar...

I t did. It must have been the part that I slept through. Ferngully II now in 3D was boring as .

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I think the issue with The Grudge is that it just doesn't match up to the original, and was pasted because there's such little need for Hollywood remakes of very recent foreign language films.

That may or may not be true, however, I would not have watched some foreign film called Ju-on back in 2004. I would have watched Gellar the Vampire Slayer in nearly anything, though

Plus not all of us are blessed with having access to the movie libraries of Japanese, Chinese, or other international horror or whatever films.

That Guy: Ju-on was better!
Frazzled:What? Where did you see that?
That Guy: I saw it in Japan
Frazzled: Now this is where I punch you in the face really really hard.

Man of Steel is very, very good. It is also deadly serious. Critics who didn't like it had trouble squaring their genre expectations with the actual film. MoS is only marred by the lack of chemistry between Cavill and Adams. The script got their relationship exactly right (the tone of this film will not brook swept-off-their-feet romance); it's just that the actors don't connect. Moreover: in an era of boring, forgettable villains (even Disney cannot figure out villains), General Zod is convincing, absorbing, and brilliantly portrayed.

At 44% (Metacritic), Batman v Superman got off easy. It is certainly one of the worst films I have ever suffered through. I cannot think of a single redeeming feature of that bloated, absurd, unrelentingly stupid disasterpiece, except that it provided about a month's worth of jokingly screaming MAAARFFAHH at my friends.

 Manchu wrote:
Man of Steel is very, very good. It is also deadly serious. Critics who didn't like it had trouble squaring their genre expectations with the actual film. MoS is only marred by the lack of chemistry between Cavill and Adams. The script got their relationship exactly right (the tone of this film will not brook swept-off-their-feet romance); it's just that the actors don't connect. Moreover: in an era of boring, forgettable villains (even Disney cannot figure out villains), General Zod is convincing, absorbing, and brilliantly portrayed.

Y'know, I actually read reviews of MoS that asked what happened to all the Terrence Malick-y stuff from the trailers. Of course, those shots were mainly used to denote flashbacks and were never intended to be the overall style of the film. But it suggests that there were at least a few critics going into MoS expecting a dreamy tone poem of a movie who instead got a very grounded, first contact summer action flick.

Of course, many more expected an updated Superman '78. Looking to the sports world, few coaches want to be the first one to follow a legend with a given team, and I think MoS was in a similar spot. It's a very difficult position to be in and 'win'. Expectations become unreachable, and all over the place. To think that there was even one critic thinking that he/she was about to watch 'Terrence Malick's Superman' is simply nuts.

I think that the MoS sequel will be better positioned for a positive reaction, even if nothing is really different about it.

 Manchu wrote:
Man of Steel is very, very good. It is also deadly serious. Critics who didn't like it had trouble squaring their genre expectations with the actual film. MoS is only marred by the lack of chemistry between Cavill and Adams. The script got their relationship exactly right (the tone of this film will not brook swept-off-their-feet romance); it's just that the actors don't connect. Moreover: in an era of boring, forgettable villains (even Disney cannot figure out villains), General Zod is convincing, absorbing, and brilliantly portrayed.

At 44% (Metacritic), Batman v Superman got off easy. It is certainly one of the worst films I have ever suffered through. I cannot think of a single redeeming feature of that bloated, absurd, unrelentingly stupid disasterpiece, except that it provided about a month's worth of jokingly screaming MAAARFFAHH at my friends.

Did you mean Humourless ?

Its certainly not serious in terms of how mad and silly the plot is - most especially every moment on Kyrpton - Oh look here comes Supermans Dad on his flying dinosaur! Everyone is set in their role in their society - well except him becuase he is a genius Ninja - wow. We are doomed - our planet is doomed - what can we do - oh get on board our ultra powerful massive spaceships - why would we do that It has a some good moments - but a shockingly dull final fight scene.

Marvel get that superhero stuff is nonsense and call it out -"The city is flying, we’re fighting an army of robots and I have a bow and arrow. None of this makes sense." but they take them time to make you feel for the chracters - silly or not.

Wonder Woman suggests that finally DC have got the memo they missed since Burtons Batman.

Sups vs Bats - plot was bad but without the truely dire portrayal of Lex as a twitching, Joker wannabee it could have been good - Angry Bats was good, Sups worked well, Wonder Woman was a joy to behold....