10 Brilliant Movies With A Terrible Concept
Harry Potter as a farting corpse? Sounds sh*t.
"Don't judge a book by its cover."
You've probably heard that phrase a million different times, and even though we're all told not to, we just can't help but take things at face value; it's so easy to decide what you're going to get, based on what you see in front of you.
Movies are no different. We're all guilty of this: seeing a trailer or promotional image, shrugging, and not showing a film any further interest, all because of that one quick look that might not represent everything it has going for it.
A lot of the time, this is the right decision - nobody's going to call you out for dismissing every Transformers trailer as overcooked CGI nonsense - but occasionally, a movie can rise above the fact that it might seem like a bad prospect, delivering something truly special in the process.
It's virtually a guarantee that you've seen one of these movies and loved it, despite thinking that it seemed like a terrible idea on paper. And if you haven't yet progressed past the latter stage... just give them a chance, will you?
10. 21 Jump Street
The Concept: Based on a forgotten 80s TV show and starring Channing Tatum in a leading role - an actor who had never displayed sufficient comedic chops in any of his earlier movies - 21 Jump Street seemed like it was set up to fail from the very beginning.
Tatum and Jonah Hill looked like a ridiculously mismatched pair, and at this point, the "high-school comedy" had been done to death. This seemed like a minor blip on the radar, at best.
The Movie: But fortunately, 21 Jump Street was a lot smarter than anyone expected.
On the surface, it looked like a dumb, formulaic comedy, but by embracing and often subverting teen movie tropes, Lord & Miller's hilarious script was able to rise above them, packing a wit and sense of self-aware humour that felt refreshing in a market saturated with samey comedy movies.
This was also the movie that turned Channing Tate-yum from a wooden jock into a bonafide leading man - which, ironically, was a transition he made while playing a wooden jock. Smooth.