I’m not an author, and the Depression-era Deep South is not an area of my expertise. I’m simply explaining what the criticism is. Take it up with those critics; I’ve included several links to that criticism of the movie and book.
The first link below contains this definition:
https://pwperspective.com/editorial-its-time-to-kill-the-white-savior/
Ha! This reminds me of something.
There is a reddit sub dedicated to the Mandela Effect, where every ‘change’ is discussed the death. Most people there (slight majority) understand it to be faulty memory, while a significant minority believe it to be a supernatural phenomenon where people can switch timelines and whatnot. The main point is that you can name any example (objects in mirror “may be” closer, Fruit Loops, Berenstein Bears, etc…) and find endless discussion of that example in countless topics.
But as far as I’m aware, nobody there has ever brought up an alternate ending to Big.
Shit, don’t point them to our board. 
Objectively, it’s a great film that that reflects both Arthur C Clarke’s marvellous imagination and Kubrick’s prowess as a director.
Objectively? I do not think you understand the meaning of the word.
Pauline Kael from the New Yorker called it a “monumentally unimaginative movie”.
Renata Adler from The New York Times described the movie as “hypnotic and immensely boring,”
Joe Morgenstern of Newsweek called the ending annoying and banal.
Etc.
I didn’t. I understand and approve of the female empowerment theme, but it was applied with a sledgehammer, the male characters were all one-dimensional (although I suppose this was a nod to the thousands of one-dimensional female characters in films), and, as noted, the ending kind of sends the message that female empowerment is ultimately destructive.
Ruined by the whole “we need to put Charlie in peril” change to the story, which Dahl himself complained of. Other than that, it’s an awesome film and much better than the Tim Burton one.
There are many valid criticisms of 2001 (particularly “hypnotic and immensely boring”) but describing it as “unimaginative” must involve watching it in the Bizarroverse.
Have we had any naysayers to Galaxy Quest yet?
The Black people in the story aren’t fully human, they exist to show the nobility if Atticus and are often presented as almost childlike. It’s telling that the most beloved story about racism in America is told from the perspective of white people. It is a fable to make whites feel better.
I’m hardly the first to make that point.
https://pwperspective.com/editorial-its-time-to-kill-the-white-savior/
In what way would white people “feel better” after experiencing this book/movie? That a Black man can be convicted in spite of evidence of his innocence? That trials at this time, in this place were used to enforce racial superiority? That doing the right thing has no chance of achieving justice?
Just what are white people supposed to feel better about? If anything, it should make white people uncomfortable. Indeed, it is that very discomfort that is the reason this book is frequently banned in red states.
FWIW, back before I hated the Harry Potter book franchise (for a variety of reasons of which Rowling’s transphobia is only one), I loathed the first movie. The acting was wooden, the visuals were unimaginative, and it felt like it was checking off boxes for scenes from the book. I almost walked out of the movie.
I guess it is time to state what should be obvious: There is NO movie that all would agree is good if not great.
There are scores of folks who dismiss entire categories of movies with a very broad stroke.
Forrest Gump? I don’t like Tom Hanks movies.
Toy Story? I don’t like animated movies.
The Exorcist? I don’t like horror movies.
12 Angry Men? I don’t like courtroom movies.
Pulp Fiction? I don’t like cursing in movies.
Blade Runner? I don’t like science fiction movies.
Cinema Paradiso? I don’t like foreign movies.
Saving Private Ryan? I don’t like war movies.
To Kill a Mockingbird? I don’t like black & white movies.
The Godfather? I don’t like mob movies.
Jaws? I don’t like movies that require a bigger boat.
While this is a fun conversation to have, and I am enjoying the thread, the answer to the OP’s question is no.
mmm
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a solid effort for this question.
It’s a well done movie. It’s a modern movie, in color with good practical effects. Though it is an action/adventure movie, it isn’t a niche movie, no wizards or space aliens or mystery or rom-com. It’s a period film, so it doesn’t rely on having to live in the era. It’s very much a journey, not destination, type of movie. It has enough humor to release the tension without being a comedy or making characters into clowns.
It’s also not a slow burn, where you have to let it simmer for a while before it gets interesting.
Forrest Gump? I don’t like Tom Hanks movies.
Toy Story? I don’t like Tom Hanks movies.
Saving Private Ryan? I don’t like Tom Hanks movies.
Fixed that for you
But, as I and others have noted, it’s possible to say “I don’t like that type of movie, but it’s still a good movie (of its type).”
I don’t want to turn this into a high jack about the movie, read the two articles I linked and do some more research on critical re-evaluation of the book and movie. Here’s another link to get you started:
“Like many Americans, I read Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” as a high school student. In a curriculum devoid of explicit discussion about the impact of implicit and structural racism on both blacks and whites, the book stood out from the whitewashed reading list as one that directly engaged with the topic of race. It did so, however, in a matter quite conventional: Atticus Finch was the white savior, a good white liberal whose ethics and values compelled him to defend a black man who had been falsely accused of rape – and all this during a time when many whites would just as soon have lynched the accused without trial. Harper Lee won a Pulitzer Prize for tackling racial inequality, no surprise given how America likes its stories about race: centered on innocent white protagonists benevolently exercising power, with black characters relegated to the margins even in stories about their own oppression.”
Atticus Finch presented an enduring model to which many white liberals still cling. But besides being a fictional character, Atticus Finch is a myth. And a dangerous myth because he keeps good white liberals from reconsidering the fact that they live in white neighborhoods; from challenging administrators about the racial segregation of their children’s schools or white supremacy advanced in the curriculum; or from acknowledging how they benefit from a system that keeps people of color laboring in their homes but excluded from their social and professional spaces. Like Finch, it is sufficient that they simply “do their best to love everybody.”
As someone mentioned up thread, whatever movie is chosen, it will have to appeal to old white men given the demographics here.
There is no movie that everyone is going to agree is good, anything that appeals to the majority will be seen as anodyne and insipid by others. It’s not how art works, it can’t and shouldn’t appeal to everyone. There’s no point in getting triggered if someone doesn’t like the movies you do.
But if I don’t like Tom Hanks, and think he’s a bad actor, can I say a movie with bad acting is good?
I just skimmed her review. I’m not sure if she simply missed the point or the core themes, misconstrued what was going on, or if the entire screed in question was just a huge pile of sour grapes topped with a generous helping of ye olde sci-fi ghetto snobbery-a meta commentary that has very little to do with what was actually on the screen. She calls attention to the hippies who would lay down, stoned to the gills, as the light show sequence plays. But if she considers this specific film to be “unimaginative”…
It just amazes me that the other beings on this planet can have radically different reactions to a work of art. On another board I’ve taken part in certain discussions of the work of my favorite musical artists, and there are invariably people who think that what I consider to be their top cuts are yes boring, or ordinary, or just incomprehensible (reading between the lines I’ve gathered that in more than a few cases they yes just simply missed the point).
Meanwhile they will praise to the high heavens something which I do consider to be utterly ordinary if not trite. And I just sit there and wonder why (and how) we would possibly ever have such radically different takes, esp. when we ostensibly are both big fans of the artist in question. [which when it comes to musicians that only one of us likes makes said gaps even more incomprehensible]
How can anyone reasonably say that Tom Hanks is a “bad actor” though? He might not be your exact cup of tea, but surely the weight of critical consensus has to make one agree that he isn’t “bad”, right?
In fact, going back to Apollo 13 for a second, I would dispute that he plays
He’s a fricken’ astronaut! I can’t remember a single moment of that movie where he displays any fear whatsoever, actually. He tries to reassure his family, sure, and has some doubts about the risks he is taking (largely for personal glory, not the greater good). But fear? Nah.
Because he plays the exact same character in every movie. He’s liked precisely because he’s safe and predictable. When you buy a ticket to a Hanks movie, you know exactly what you’re going to get: you’re not going to walk out of the theater troubled or confused; your going to feel fine and unchallenged. Some people don’t like that in a movie.
Unless…everybody agrees that good films and films they dislike aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. I can wrap my head around that (I don’t think everybody can) but disliking a film makes it almost impossible to assess if a film is, nevertheless, good.
Can you define what you mean by good?