What is a movie that "looks like" it would suck, but actually is well written and acted and a good time?
What is a movie that "looks like" it would suck, but actually is well written and acted and a good time?
Original question by @Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Moon. Fantastic mostly 1 man show.
We were having a movie night in our neighborhood a few years back where we got a bedsheet and a cheap projector. We hooked it up to a laptop to project a movie on someone's garage for the neighborhood kids.
We ended up projecting The Lego Movie and most of the kids lost interest about half an hour in - and were falling asleep and ready to go home.
I'll be damned if it wasn't one of the best animated movies I've ever seen. I sent my wife home with our youngest just so I could stay and finish the movie.
Alita: Battle Angel.
The film looks stupid because they gave the main character giant anime eyes.
In the context of the film it makes sense and I think the look is meant to mirror the anime it is from... but for the film it still makes the film look stupid. Now the film itself is far from perfect, there is at least one storyline that is utter dogshit. However! The film ultimately was solid.
Sadly it ends setting up future films that will never happen, but I think it's still enjoyable overall.
The Lost City with Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, and Daniel Radcliffe. It seems like a tropey romance-action flick, but is more a parody of genre clichés. The writing, acting, and humour are pretty good.
The Adventures of Baron Von Munchausen, it's like a Monty Python movie but with American actors and an evil Robin Williams.
Tucker and Dale vs Evil.
It has a silly/dumb sounding name, a premise with every likelihood of being schlocky garbage, and no budget or marketing to speak of. And some of the cast certainly act like they know they're in a low budget flick just phoning it in. Yet Tyler Labine as Dale and Alan Tudyk as Tucker bring so much humor and endearing energy to it as a couple of misunderstood sweethearts, that it is one of my all-time favorite films.
Tank Girl. It may just be a guilty pleasure but I'll defend it.
I guess Starship Troopers is THE movie for this, although I'm always suprised to find out people used to like it unironically.
Due date, with Robert Downey Jr and Galifianakis is a surprisingly earnest soft remake of Planes, Trains and Automobiles and nobody remembers it exists.
Speaking of unexpectedly fun raunchy comedies, Booksmart.
I want to say The Long Kiss Goodnight, but man, the action in that is janky in exactly the ways modern action movies get right, so it can be a rough watch if you're not ready. It also reads worse now that there's a million John Wicks. Still, ahead of its time and actually well written.
Does Slither count? I feel like it's on that Tremors territory where everybody knows it's cool and ironically that thing, so it may not count. Somebody said Cabin in the Woods below, so... maybe it does count.
Oh, Ready or Not. It's actually really funny and kind of a looser take on Knives Out as a horror movie. Good stuff.
The original TMNT movie should have sucked. How they snuck that tone into a whole movie before they made them tone it down for censorship and toyetic tie-ins is anybody's guess.
Brick doesn't count. Does Brick count? I think it doesn't look like it'd suck, it's just people don't know about it. I mean, if I tell you "film noir by way of high school drama" you may get the wrong impression, so... maybe?
And I mentioned it below, but 2001 Metropolis is awesome despite a lot of people not being able to get past the designs or even being aware of what it is.
I honestly thought Wonka was going to suck, but it turned out to be a pretty good film!
A movie made by a student of the film academy, and it was made with a ridiculously low budget of course, but still contains some wild special effects and a spaceship and an alien creature and a title song written especially for it. Looks quite a bit outdated (and I wonder if it looked that even then when it was new :)), but still a lot of fun, and even a message about artificial intelligence:
"Dark Star" by John Carpenter
The live action Chip N' Dale Rescue Rangers remake on Disney+ is SOOOOOO much better than it has any right to be.
It should be terrible, unwatchable, irredeemable garbage.
It is probably one of the best "kids" movies I've seen in the last decade.
Cocaine Bear (2023) is surprisingly good. You think it's gonna be one of those overly campy movies like Sharknado, but it's pretty well written. I mean, don't expect too much, it's still a very solid 7/10. But the thing it understands best is it actually takes enough time at the beginning of the film to develop extensive cast of weird characters so once they all get thrown into the blender (cocaine bear) you actually care enough about them and what's going on to care about the outcome.
So many movies these days forget you really need to care about those characters.
Fun time, give it a go some night when you're bored and got nothing else to do.
There's a B movie that I really like but it's name is off putting to say the least. It's a solid movie, its funny and silly but most of the cast play serious characters just dealing with something absurd. It's a cat and mouse detective story and the film is free to watch on places like Tubi.
It's called Butt Boy
Man Bites Dog (C'est arrivé près de chez vous)
A mockumentary made by student filmmakers. The plot is that they are doing a documentary following the life of a serial killer.
The dark humor of this movie is incredibly disturbing but it's really a movie to watch.
The movie is available on archive.org : https://archive.org/details/man-bites-dog
Dog Soldiers.
It is known as the British Predator. You can see the low budget on the screen, but my god it's excellent. Do not watch the trailer, it's shit and will give you a bad impression of the film.
I watched Pig just recently almost as a joke. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Alien vs. Predator... Lance Henrickson and a cast of nobodies with an intersting plot. I went in expecting full-on crap and got a real banger instead.
Alien Resurrection is low key great and philosophically engaging movie.
Cinderella 3: A Twist in Time 🤷🏿♀️