This is a tricky topic and is purely opinion, but something I wanted to address in my return to writing. There are certain movies that everyone, including a lot of critics, seem to love that I just don't care that much for. I'll share my reasoning and thoughts, but remember, this isn't a slam or a personal attack if you like these movies. On to the list...
7. Love, Actually
See, I don't mind romantic comedies when they are really good, like When Harry Met Sally or Garden State or Say Anything. This movie has a lot going for it... an amazing, diverse cast, the director behind the great British comedies Mr. Bean and Blackadder, a Christmas theme, but it just seemed bloated and overstuffed. Everyone seems to be having a good time making this, and I don't know how many smirks and chuckles there were, but there are very few actual jokes.
This also seems to use every single cliche about love and every obvious rocom situation it can toss together (I realize the director also did Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral, but he didn't need to recycle the better parts of those movies). As a result, the characterizations are fairly thin and the more interesting (I personally did enjoy Bill Nighy's aging rock star and the pairing of Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson) are lost in giant sea of plots. The overall acting quality ensures its not an awful movie, but I don't understand why its considered a modern romantic classic at all.
6. Nell
Jodie Foster has amazing talent, but for me, this is Jodie Foster's "Simple Jack." (Tropic Thunder reference). Its amazingly self indulgent, cliched, weird, and unrealistic. Foster at this point had won Best Actress for both Silence of the Lambs and the Accused and this was her big followup to Silence. A lot of people seem to forget that she did get nominated for Nell for best actress for both the Golden Globes and Oscars and the movie was up for the Best Drama Golden Globe. Nell also gives us the worst Liam Neeson performance that I'm aware of as the obvious "romantic" lead. Just a lazy character arc, easy acting choices, and a part that literally any middle aged actor could play. Critically acclaimed, I just didn't like any part of it.
5. Avatar
What I liked about this movie: the spectacle of seeing it in theater in 3-D. It was really amazing and cool to look at, it reminded me of Jurassic Park the way it took technology to the next level. The low gravity world especially was amazingly photorealistic, seemed believable, and all the little details with the plant life and such was a joy to look at. That all being said... once you get past the visuals, the rest of this movie (acting, script, and editing) ranges from mediocre to awful.
Acting... Sam Worthington might be one of the blandest actors working today (except for maybe Channing Tatum), I mean hes in great shape and sounds intimidating, but fell flat here. The dude playing the General tore pages out of the Hopper/Malkovich book of cheeseball villain performances. Sigourney Weaver didn't have much to do besides look concerned... Giovanni Ribsi seemed really miscast... That dorky guy from Dodgeball seemed really out of place... and all the blue cat people were recycled characters from Dances With Wolves... Wise Chief, check. The love interest, check. The angry warrior guy who doesn't respect the lead, check.
Script, wow... totally uninspired, goofy, and obvious. The story about disrespecting native peoples and technology (I'll go with some less obvious examples of Medicine Man) , or trying to fit into a foreign less technologically advanced culture (Last Samurai) or the little guys beating the technologically advanced (Endor in Return of the Jedi)... This has been done so many times and the problem was that Avatar brought nothing new storywise to the table at all. All in all, not a total waste of time, but man, not deserving of the #1 movie all time of box either.
4. Crash
This actually won best picture and by the end, I was hammered over the head with the amazingly unsubtle message that racism is A) still very prevalent B) bad and C) Everyone's racist. Most of the acting was decent, but the obvious silly dialogue and huge cast made it seem fairly disjointed. This movie has loads and loads of characters who have clever intersecting lives I'd have liked to have seen the movie focus more on the pair of cops played by Matt Dillon and Ryan Phillipe. There are movies that do the whole "ensemble story" thing really well; the underrated Syriana and Babel to name a couple recent examples. This movie's clumsy "important society commentary" took away from fairly strong acting and that's part of why most people probably forget it won best picture less then 10 years ago.
3. Cars
I really enjoy most of the Pixar films (I own both the Incredibles and Wall-E with the Toy Story trilogy being a definite future buy) which is why this one sticks out like a sore thumb to me as far as overall quality. The story here is amazingly basic and cliched: an arrogant city dwelling champion has to go back to the country to rediscover what made him happy/successful. Then, we have the Pixar cliche checklist...
Stranger in a community or group? Check.
Brooding moment from a main character? Check.
Goofy sidekick with a heart of gold who forms a comedic duo with the straight laced main character? Check.
Obligatory love interest interrupted by some awkwardness? Check.
Group full of wacky members with their own useful quirks? Check.
The new relationships threaten to go downhill when something happens to separate or alienate the stranger? Check.
I will admit that some of the throwaway gags are somewhat funny (the car talk guys and Jay Leno cameos, the fact that the "cars" womens bathroom line is super long compared to the mens, and the Richard Petty crash tribute at the climax. I'm also scared for the sequel this summer in which the cars are secret agents (why can't we get Incredibles 2?). Considering the enduring popularity of the merchandise and video games, I just don't get it.
2. Moulin Rouge
I have similar problems with the cliche storm that forms this movie.. Its a super derivative plot chock full of romantic archetypes, with a super hammy villain, where everyone breaks out into song... Moulin Rouge was the first original musical to be released for a really long time and while I understand the point behind the cliches (its trying to be the ultimate musical) I don't like that there are no original songs. The adaptation of a wide range of well known famous songs works pretty well for the most part, but Id like to have seen at least one memorable original instead of a constant mash up.
On the positive, I do appreciate the choreography and cinematography as well as the extremely opulent costumes and sets. Baz Luhrmann has always been an extremely visually dynamic director and this movie fits his overall style. However, the rapid fire editing in some of the more frenetic sequences make it difficult to take in the grandeur of whats going on.
This film also contains one of my least favorite cliches from an editing/storytelling standpoint: telegraphing the ending in the opening couple minutes by telling the whole story in flashback. This can work well in certain cases (Usual Suspects and Memento are excellent examples) but by telling the audience about the women he loved (obvious past tense) lets everyone know whats going to happen to Nicole Kidman's character. Like Avatar, I can't forgive the beauty for the bad writing.
1. Seven Pounds
Will Smith... The funny thing is that his obviously terrible movies (Wild Wild West, Men In Black 2, Legend of Bagger Vance) are recognized as such while his better efforts like Ali and Pursuit of Happyness have gotten much acclaim. While I Am Legend definitely had problems, I can blame most of them on a poorly edited and rewritten ending. This movie, I blame solely on Will Smith going for some Oscar Best Actor awards. I feel like Smith (and Russell Crowe in Beautiful Mind) got snubbed in favor of Denzel at the 2002 Oscars (I thought Denzel in Training Day should have won best Supporting Actor as the lead was Ethan Hawke).
Seven Pounds was a critical miss (only a 26% on rotten tomatoes and a 4.6/10 on metacritic) yet it still made $167 million worldwide on a $54 million budget and has a 7.6/10 positive rating on IMDB meaning that a lot of people think this is a legitimate good movie.
Spoilerwise, I'm not going to get into massive detail, but the whole premise of the movie is fairly obvious despite the "shocking twist" that shows up towards the end complete with stirring musical score. Smith angsts his way through one of the goofiest, illogical series of plot contrivances I've ever seen. The only other actor who escapes this storm of silliness is Rosario Dawson who puts up a fairly believable showing as the love interest.
Heck the opening scene in which Smith's character calls 911 to report a suicide, the operator says "Who's the victim" to which Smith replies "I am" is a great example of the "telling the movie backwards" plot that makes the final reveal super obvious. For example, I'm pretty sure that keeping a box jellyfish as a pet wouldn't work in so small a tank and would be illegal. There are other plot holes concerning how Smith is able to do what hes doing and why no one else tries to stop him. The end result is an admirable act of redemption completely lost in melodrama and complete pretentiousness. I just don't understand how anyone could like this overly maudlin movie or consider it good.
Next up, the reverse: 7 movies that I love that everyone else hates
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