There is no doubting the fact that film is a wholly subjective medium but when it really comes down to it some films are just plain bad. There’s no other way to describe them. Some films just completely ruin the basic elements that make a movie like plot, character development or acting. Yet somehow, every now and again, a really good movie will get released and panned by critics and audiences alike.
Some of these films are later looked back on as misjudged masterpieces or some of them are forever relegated to “worst films of all time” lists. The 5 films that I’m presenting here aren’t “so bad they’re good” like Plan 9 From Outer Space or The Room. These are 5 films that are legitimately very good yet somehow have gained horrible reputations.
5. Prometheus
I saw Prometheus at a midnight screening the day it came out and was enthralled from beginning to end. I can understand how the film’s script can leave some people feeling they’ve been cheated by the “more questions than answers” approach but a lot of the questions have simple answers. Such as: why did David put the black goo in Holloway’s drink? Simple, David was told by Weyland to do “whatever is necessary”, so he did. David has no care for human life because he doesn’t understand it, he’s almost the opposite of the Replicants from Ridley Scott’s past masterpiece Blade Runner.
The nature of the script just makes the movie better because it allows the viewer to think about their own answers to certain questions and piece together for themselves how Prometheus ties in with the Alien franchise. The people that seem to complain the most about how much they hated Prometheus are devout fans of the Alien franchise. This has always confused me because Alien is one of my favorite movies and I think the Xenomorph is the greatest monster in movie history yet I felt like Prometheus honored its source material brilliantly while still being able to build a new and convincing world around it.
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12 Comments
Prometheus is an awesome film, I don’t know what peoples’ problems are.
Prometheus: it is generally liked. Although I hate Rotten Tomatoes and other aggregate sites, it has a 75% rating, meaning 3 out of 4 liked it.
Spider-Man 3: 63%
Heaven’s Gate: learn a little history. No one hails the film as a masterpiece, even with its new cut. “One of the greatest injustices of cinematic history,” are you serious? Try look at Welles’ films that were destroyed.
Godfather 3: still a ‘fresh’ rating, and if you compare it to the other two, which you should do, it sucks.
Lastly, your reasoning is weak. Other than your Heaven’s Gate argument, which is still pretty empty because most great Westerns have a moral complexity, these reasons describe how the films are moderately average.
http://www.leftfieldcinema.com/misunderstood-modern-cinema-heaven%E2%80%99s-gate
http://www.empireonline.com/features/50-worst-movies-ever/
http://listverse.com/2010/05/20/top-10-worst-movie-sequels/
http://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/2012/06/why-prometheus-is-inexcusably-bad.html
I’m sorry I didn’t do enough research for you but next time maybe try basing your opinion off of something other than a Rotten Tomatoes score
They have these exact same posts for Bergman films, Kane, 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Fact of the matter is, most of the people enjoy the films you’ve listed.
I agree,love all of them,some films are overly criticized and some films just get away with it.
I seem to get in trouble with cinephiles because I’m able to reconcile “good films” against “fun” films. Alien Ressurection isn’t good. It’s goofy, the ending is kinda weak (because they probably killed most if Africa by crashing the ship) the CG aliens are awful, but dammit! It’s fun! Lol. I’d say the same about Blade: Trinity. It’s formulaic, the acting (even with the good cast) is pretty weak-but it’s fun. One film I would add to your list, though, is Watchmen. One if my favorite movies, I’ve heard a lot if people say they hated it, mostly due to the ending-which I thought made more sense than the graphic novel (blasphemy, I know). It gave a justification for people to fear Dr. Manhattan, and gave a good reason for his leaving at the end. Other than that, it was spot on-casting, story, pacing, tone, all fantastic. Though T.; up there will probably say it has a positive Rotten Tomatoes score, I’m still hard pressed to find comic/film geeks that really liked it. I would also add Kingdom of Heaven. Is it Braveheart or Gladiator? No. But it is a well acted, well told epic and take if redemption. The studio hacked it to bits-but I highly recommend the direct it’s cut to anyone who hasn’t seen it, I don’t care if its damn near 4 hours long-it’s a good 4 hours that I never feel is wasted. And finally, and I’m sure ill be banned from the thread for this, but I REALLY love the director’s cut version of Dardevil. He was always my favorite Marvel character (I’m a DC guy) and I thought he was done justice in that film-but remember, the only good comics movies at the time were the Burton Batman’s, Superman, and Xmen. There have been superior comics movies since then, obviously, but Ghost Rider it isn’t lol. I’m still hoping for a Bradley Cooper starring reboot…sorry to be long-winded, but I loved your article and these films really sprang to my mind when I saw the article!
You really nailed it with that list, quality films that get a bad rap. I cant help but bring the Star Wars prequels to mind though when I think of awful movies that actually arent too bad. If they werent “Star Wars” they would be pretty rad flicks. Would they be great/classic Sci-Fi? No way but definitely would be must see for any sci-fi fan.
I was actually going to put all three prequels on here but somebody wrote an article pretty recently about how the prequels actually help Star Wars so I didn’t want to repeat anything. I definitely agree though, having the title of Star Wars gets them way more hate than they deserve
I agree about Prometheus in particular, but I’d hoped there was more scope to this article. Heaven’s Gate aside (which several people have passionately and admirably defended) your focus is just on sequels that might be perfectly decent films in their own right but suffer by comparison to the originals. Some totally different examples would definitely have improved it.
And yes, like one of the above posters said, most of these films do have positive ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. I agree that you need to do more research than that (Metacritic for one), but you can’t deny that RT gives a better picture of a film’s general reception than one
opinion-piece article. It’s just that the real vocal haters (or fanboys) who are the minority make their voices heard much louder. I suppose though that by writing on such a website you’re targeting precisely those sort of people- the ‘real’ film fans- rather than the majority of people who will either enjoy or not enjoy a film and then let it rest….
Rambling slightly…your thoughts anyway?
Good read nonetheless
I really wanted to like your opinion on Spider-Man 3 but i just couldn’t understand with most of what you said.
I agree that Venom was a dark mirror image of Peter and it was also a good idea to make Sandman likeable. On paper it all sounds great but on the film they just couldn’t make it.
If I remember correctly Sandman meets with his daughter at the beggining then the whole film just forgets why he does the things he does. If he wants to help her daughter why does he team up with Venom? Could Venom help him? I don’t think so.
And Venom… I don’t think he should have the beefcake he is in the comics but Topher Grace isn’t bad because he’s thin. He’s bad because he’s even a whinier little b*tch than Tobey Maguire. And he’s Venom is way to over the top with horrific dialogue and make up. He’s the Mr Freeze of the Spider-Man franchise.
I think he thought venom could’ve helped him somehow
It’s a fair list. There are a number of movies that I hear bad things about, but when I see ‘em they’re just fine, or even good.
I think Watchmen was mentioned in comments. I didn’t read the graphic-novel before going in, but I liked the film from frame one. I never understood why it got ripped up so many.
I’ve heard Ishtar isn’t even that bad a flick.
Contact gets picked on, and it’s in my top 10 list.
I might check out Heaven’s Gate. Never seen it.
Xmen, the last stand I think gets ripped up worse than it should, I may be way too lenent here, but I thought it was enjoyable.
I do not agree with the Star Wars prequels: take out the “star wars” and I may have gone to see the first movie in theaters, but they never would have got me in theaters for the next two. I’d rent ‘em sure cuz it sci-fi, but they not good.