So, I start another thread on a universally panned movie that I didn’t find all that bad. I’m starting to scare myself.
But seriously, what’s so horrible about Gigli? I saw it for the first time today, expecting weapons-grade crap, but got what I consider to be pretty standard Hollywood fare. Was it great? No. It wasn’t even that good. Just average. But no worse than that. Definitely not worst-movie-ever material.
So, what sucks so badly about Gigli? What makes it so much worse than hundreds of other Hollywood films?
I think it was just collateral damage from the fact that Affleck and Lopez where so overexposed at the time. I never saw anything horrific about the movie either (I’ll never watch it twice, though.)
I think it was the fact everyone hated them for sure plus the fact that they were both playing roles that nobody would want to see them play. Ben Afflick really didn’t suit the role he had, and even though I thought Jennifer did suit her role, I don’t think her Wedding Planner fans related to it. I didn’t hate Gigli, I kind of liked it but at the same time I could see that it was a bit strange. It’s kind of funny because I’ve always like Ben Afflick as the sad sack and I love to see him bawl his eyes out but I recognize that it can be really awkward. When he starts to blubber there’s something very embarrassing about it because he really goes for it and his whole face contorts and stuff threatens to come out of his nose. He could probably reign that in a bit in the date movies. I think that may have really contributed to people laughing at Gigli.
I think pokey’s analysis is correct, an over reaction to the two participants. I remember when it came out it plummeted to the bottom of the IMDb bottom 100 list, beating out the then-perrenial holder Manos, the Hands of Fate but I see since then it has struggled up to 56, just above It’s Pat. Not good enough to tempt me, though.
It’s not, same as Ishtar, Waterworld and many other movies that critics decide are the worst ever, and the gullible public goes along with like leemings.
It wasn’t all that bad. I mean, it wasn’t good by any means, but it doesn’t come close to belonging in the Bottom 100. I’d wager that 90% of those IMDBers who gave it a “1” never saw it.
The one scene that will always stick with me – Gigli listening to a conversation between Autistic Kid and Girl With Accent and reacting to what they’re saying to each other – even though he’s about 100 yards away. :smack:
The movie could benefit from some editing (not just for length, but for some cohesiveness), but when I watched it I was never bored. I can see what attracted the director and various cast members to the script, and it’s kind of a glorious trainwreck. I DEFY YOU to find another movie where Ben Affleck cuts the thumb off a corpse in a hospital morgue while his mentally-disabled sidekick sings “Baby Got Back” a capella. And then there’s the whole monologue about why vaginas are awesome. And the “gobble, gobble” speech. What the film lacks in coherence, it tries really hard to make up for with audacity.
Gigli isn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen. That award goes to no-budget losers like Manos The Hands of Fate and Monster-A-Go-Go. Gigli may be the worst film I’ve ever seen that was made by a major studio and starred multiple people I’ve heard of at the height of their careers. In other words, the worst movie I’ve seen featuring people who should have known better, and who could have walked away.
No plot. Horrible, unlikeable, characters. Zero chemistry between the stars. Too dark to be a light comedy. Not dark enough to be a dark comedy. Too boring to be a thriller, and too dumb to be a drama. Just a bad, bad, terrible movie.
I do suspect that the hyperbolic hate for this film, it was awful but not the end of the world, was because critics, seeing nothing good to write about here, turned instead to trying to outdo one another with catty bad reviews.
I started a thread about Gigli a couple years ago and thought much the same as you did.
My OP from that thread:
Being contrary by nature and doubting the movie could be as bad as what everyone had made it out to be, I put *Gigli *on my Netflix queue a couple months ago and finally got around to seeing it today and having just finished it a couple minutes ago, I have to say, it’s really not all that bad.
Sure, the dialogue is pretty atrocious in parts; the characterization, when there is any, is pretty spotty; and the acting caused me to wince a couple times but, overall, I don’t think it’s much worse than most of the other typical Hollywood fare and, as I suspected, most of its criticism was based largely on it being a Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck vehicle.
With that being said, the “Gobble, gobble” scene *was *as bad as everyone said it was and there was another line, about fifteen minutes before that that was awe inspiring in its bizarreness: Brian, the boy that Affleck and Lopez had kidnapped, was sitting in the car watching Ricki (Lopez) talk to her girlfriend and then told Gigli (Affleck) that they “make [his] pee sneeze”. I wasn’t sure I heard him right and was replaying the line in my mind when just a moment or two later, he stared down at his crotch and said “God bless you”.
*Completely *stupid but yet I laughed. Hard. And then I rewatched it and laughed again.
This movie is by no means the next Casablanca (or even the next Showgirls if that’s your thing) but if you don’t mind shutting off your mind for a couple hours and aren’t repulsed by the idea of Lopez or Affleck on your TV, there are worse ways to kill time.