# Critically Panned Movies That You Love **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 20, 2009, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264 "2009-11-20T05:58:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/41 "2009-11-20T18:41:00Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …obligatory Hudson Hawk post. I’m never early enough to these threads. ---
**Author:** ![statsman1982](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@statsman1982](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/statsman1982)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/42 "2009-11-20T18:43:56Z")
Here’s one more that I just thought of: _Last Action Hero_. The concept of being able to enter the universe of one’s favorite movie series has always fascinated me. And the second half (roughly) where the movie characters enter the “real” world and discover that the movie tropes they’ve gotten used to don’t apply is also very cool. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand what’s so bad about this one. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/43 "2009-11-20T18:50:44Z")
> [@TreacherousCretin](#): > > Two by Joel & Ethan: > > - Intolerable Cruelty > > - The Ladykillers > > I think they’re hilarious. Seconded on both counts. I also second **Showgirls** , **Death to Smoochy** , and **Road House**. I first saw **Showgirls** a few months ago, expecting a bad movie like MST3k bad, or **The Room** bad. What I got instead was a clearly well _made_ film that was actually pretty funny. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/44 "2009-11-20T18:57:46Z")
> [@fusoya](#): > > I never understood why **Armageddon** gets crapped on so badly. Its a damn action movie - it does exactly what its SUPOSSED to do, and does it well, IMO. I hated it the first time I saw it, then I started thinking of it as a comedy and I loved it. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/45 "2009-11-20T19:00:15Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > Also _Moonraker_. I thought it had some of the coolest gadgets and one-liners of the series. Yes, the Stars Wars stuff at the end was a bit much, but if it wasn’t for that I’m convinced that this would rank, alongside _The Spy Who Loved Me_, as the best of the Roger Moore films. Seconded. Sure, they’re completely over the top, but it’s a really entertaining nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/46 "2009-11-20T19:02:14Z")
> [@BomTek](#): > > I loved The _Whole Nine Yards_, and I think it got something like 9% on RottenTomatoes. Of \*course \*you can see the plot “twists” coming, and of \*course \*Kevin Pollack’s accent is silly, but it just seemed like the people making it had so much fun with it, and I’m attracted to movies like that. The sequel didn’t appeal to me at all, though. > > ETA: Don’t know what I was thinking… it actually got 45%! I’ll still avoid the sequel, I think. Also, I second _Daredevil_. I didn’t know it had done that badly. My dentist \*\*loved \*\*that film. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/47 "2009-11-20T19:09:19Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > I love the music in that movie (Van Helsing) as well. I wish there had been a sequel. Love the music, too. I often use it as background music for our D&D group. Based on the ending, it sure seems like Sommers was setting up for a sequel, but the poor box-office showing undoubtedly killed that. Too bad…I agree, VH and Carl made a fun team. ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/48 "2009-11-20T19:09:24Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I never understood the hate for _Death to Smoochy_, myself. It’s hilarious. Agreed! I love this movie. Perfect story of how good intentions can be corrupted. I can understand the panning, though – it’s sort of a nonspecific parody (Ed Norton is basically playing Steve from “Blues Clues” AS Barny the Dinosaur…which is weird), and Catherine Keener, Robin Williams, and Steven Wright are all masters are rubbing people the wrong way. ---
**Author:** ![melodyharmonius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/melodyharmonius/32/21310_2.png) [@melodyharmonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melodyharmonius)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/49 "2009-11-20T19:12:59Z")
> [@statsman1982](#): > > - > > Tank Girl\* is great. Lori Petty really was perfect for that role. And good looking too!😃 She’s also very funny and cool in real life. I went to her Dragon\*Con panel one year, and she walked in with 4 bottles of red wine (she had finally located the only walkable liquor store to the Con and didn’t have time to go back to her room first.) She drank the first one, didn’t care for it, and offered it to someone in the crowd. Did the same with the second. And even though she was drinking - it was really just sipping that one glass - said she tried to drink one glass a day for her health. That aside - I like Tank Girl better after hearing her share about her experiences as an actresses and now a writer/director/producer. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/50 "2009-11-20T19:24:36Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > … > Also _Moonraker_. I thought it had some of the coolest gadgets and one-liners of the series. Yes, the Stars Wars stuff at the end was a bit much, but if it wasn’t for that I’m convinced that this would rank, alongside _The Spy Who Loved Me_, as the best of the Roger Moore films. I agree completely. _Moonraker_ also has the hands-down coolest boat chase of the entire Bond series. I loved it when his speedboat was laying mines and blowing up the pursuing bad guys. I really enjoyed _The Hidden_, a late-Eighties movie about an alien badguy hiding himself here on Earth; it got very mixed reviews. I recently saw _Amelia_, the Earhart biopic starring Hillary Swank. I thought it was fine, but the reviews were pretty bad. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/51 "2009-11-20T19:33:31Z")
never mind ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/52 "2009-11-20T19:37:44Z")
_Agnes of God_ got very mixed reviews, but I thought it was very good, mainly because of Meg Tilly, who was amazing. Whatever happened to her, anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/53 "2009-11-20T19:59:42Z")
> [@typoink](#): > > … and Catherine Keener, Robin Williams, and Steven Wright are all masters are rubbing people the wrong way. Catherine Keener can rub me any way she wants. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/54 "2009-11-20T21:06:16Z")
> [@statsman1982](#): > > _The Jackal_ had me right from the title sequence. I think the critics were mostly disappointed that it wasn’t as good as the original, which was very, very good. ---
**Author:** ![tmoh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e5b9ba/32.png) [@tmoh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tmoh)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/55 "2009-11-20T21:06:20Z")
I don’t know anyone who’ll admit to liking _The Happening_, but it certainly worked for me. Sure, the premise is loony and the ending’s kind of anticlimactic, but the rest of it’s a pretty effective horror movie if my reaction (that is, a month’s worth of nightmares) is anything to go by. And while I don’t think it made any points re: people’s need for control that haven’t been made before, I doubt anybody else has conveyed them in quite the same way, and that was interesting. Also on the Shaymalan front, _Lady in the Water_ is one of my favourite movies ever, and I’ve not seen very many good reviews of it either. What strikes me as especially unfair about this one is that all the negative comments I’ve heard about it focus on either the Shaymalan’s-character-as-Mary-Sue thing or the way the movie critic character gets killed; when I watched the movie for the first time, I didn’t see either of those things that way. Shaymalan’s character isn’t the Infalliable Hero so much as he’s a MacGuffin, and the story isn’t really about him. The critic’s death didn’t come off, to me, as an attack on real-life critics; it’s played for (admittedly somewhat dark) humor as a way of pointing out traditional movie tropes (since the whole film is really about stories and their archetypes), and he’s such a jerk beforehand so we don’t feel bad for laughing at it. ---
**Author:** ![Surly\_Chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Surly\_Chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surly_Chick)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/56 "2009-11-20T21:29:21Z")
_The Prophecy_ - Christopher Walken at his creepy best. And a smokin’ hot performance by Viggo Mortensen as Lucifer! ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/57 "2009-11-20T22:57:43Z")
> [@tmoh](#): > > Also on the Shaymalan front, _Lady in the Water_ is one of my favourite movies ever, and I’ve not seen very many good reviews of it either. Though it’s not one of my favourites ever, I agree with your assessment. The critics took the critic’s death as a personal attack on them, and reacted accordingly. Really stupid. I also like _The Village_, and think most of the critics against it should get over themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Maiira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Maiira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maiira)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/58 "2009-11-20T23:10:16Z")
**Newsies**. I know it’s not a good film, but goddamn if I don’t love it to pieces. The songs are catchy and the guys are hot. Also, Christian Bale can do no wrong. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2009, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/59 "2009-11-21T00:05:36Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > My wife and I really like **Daredevil** , though the director’s cut is a lot worse. I think Daredevil is a great superhero movie. No idea why people hate it so. > [@statsman1982](#): > > Here’s one more that I just thought of: _Last Action Hero_. The concept of being able to enter the universe of one’s favorite movie series has always fascinated me. And the second half (roughly) where the movie characters enter the “real” world and discover that the movie tropes they’ve gotten used to don’t apply is also very cool. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand what’s so bad about this one. Agreed to both o’ youse guys. I don’t even like Daredevil comics, I frankly have always thought he was one of the worst characters in the Marvel Universe to have his own long running title, but I rented the movie on DVD (not director’s cut, just the regular one) and thought it was really good. Last Action Hero, I think the first people to see just didn’t get. They expected an action movie and got an action satire. So they start bad mouthing it, and pretty soon, everyone thinks it’s horrible. But it’s not, it’s so totally not. Ranks right up there with Kindergarten Cop as one of the best funny Arnold movies. I also like the Star Wars prequels and Terminator 3-4. I don’t care that they aren’t as good as the earlier ones, I still like 'em. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2009, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264/60 "2009-11-21T01:20:15Z")
I was going to post about **Rumble in [del]Vancouver[/del] the Bronx**, but I looked it up on Rotten Tomatoes and it inexplicably got 78%. I watch that movie every time it’s on, but it’s _awful_. But apparently the majority of people agree with me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critically-panned-movies-that-you-love/518264.md?page=4)