I can think of two movies which I quite enjoyed, but not because of the “main” characters and the action/storyline therein, but rather because other characters and storylines were so much fun. (As distinct from a movie which has universally bad characters/storylines/dialog but which one enjoys due to the effects or the action scenes or the soundtrack or something… I’m talking about movies where the people making the movie clearly thought that the most important part was X, but it was Y that really made the movie fun.)
Demolition Man - The action/fight scenes with Stallone and Snipes were workmanlike and forgettable at best. What really makes the movie fun, though, is its satirical vision of a future society, particularly one that involves (a) a young Sandra Bullock, and (b) the mysterious seashells in place of toilet paper. The movie even made Rob Schneider tolerable, for goodness’ sake!
Can’t Hardly Wait - One of the better high school movies of the past couple of decades. But all the supporting characters (including those played by such actors as Seth Green and Lauren Ambrose) are much more interesting than the rather cliche and pointless “main plotline” involving Ethan Embry and Jennifer Love Hewitt.
I don’t think Westley and Buttercup, in The Princess Bride, are nearly as interesting as Inigo Montoya, Fezzik, Prince Humperdinck, or even Miracle Max. Westley and Buttercup are the frame, while Inigo et al. are the masterpiece.
This is not uncommon. In many movies, you have the hero, strong, handsome, moral – and dull as dishwater. The sidekicks are allowed to be wacky, flawed, wisecracking – in short, interesting. Too many examples to cite. Name the Disney pic of your choice.
Loads of Abbot and Costello pictures come to mind.
Seriously, many of A & C’s movies were lame romantic/musical comedies built around no-name stars and starlets. Bud and Lou were often secondary characters in their movies, even though they’re the only thing anybody remembers from those pictures.
Check out “Buck Privates” or “One Night in the Tropics” to see what I mean.
what astorian says about Abbott and Costello is also true of the Marx Brothers movies, esp. “A Night at the Opera”. Kitty Carlisle & her boyfriend are supposedly the main characters.
I think the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” (the only one that counts) fits the OP. Orlando Bloom & Keira Knightley are ostensibly the hero & heroine; completely upstaged by Captain Jack Depp.
(As for LOTR, I think Frodo’s story was the most imp. arc in the book. not so much in the movies, unfortunately).
I would let Zooey Deschanel suck me mightily any day, though I don’t give a damn about her movies.
There are a lot of movies that fall into the OP’s category. Some are probably deliberate. Full Metal Jacket has a protagonist who is completely uninteresting - he hardly has any personality at all. He’s sort of a stand-in for the viewer, a guy who just happens to be witnessing all of these insane things all around him, and can’t do anything about it. Then there are movies where it’s unintentional, like Star Wars. Or The Hoober-Bloob Highway. In the latter, I found the walking mandolin to be way more compelling than the title character.
The TV series Rescue Me centers on Denis Leary’s character, but his self-destructive womanizing alcoholic I-see-dead-people routine is just tedious. The supporting cast’s antics are much more entertaining.
Todd Wolfhouse wasn’t that funny, but all the other side characters (Gam Gam, the Aussies, the Germans, Landfill, Barry, and Fink) all had some unique trait that made them funny.
The English Patient. I am fairly indifferent to the Rafe Fiennes/Kristin Scott Thomas romance, but enjoy the Juliette Binoche framing story, especially her romance with Naveen Andrews.
Bridge on the River Kwai. It’s easy to forget that William Holden is even in that movie. Remember him, the guy who escapes Camp 16, meanders through the jungle, reaches the Army base, and goes back in to blow up the bridge? No — it’s all about Col. Nicholson, played by (now Sir) Alec Guinness, and Col. Saito, played by Sessue Hayakawa.
The funny thing is that I did forget this just last weekend. There was a feature with David Lean on the A Passage to India DVD I had rented; Lean was talking about working with William Holden and I was thinking “What David Lean film was William Holden in?” It wasn’t until they showed a clip from the end of Bridge on the River Kwai with Holden in it that it came back to me. Guinness is the one one remembers.
