There seems to be some movies that, when they first come out, get mixed to positive reviews from critics and the public but then as time goes on, the consensus is they just really aren’t that good.
The Dark Knight Rises seems to be an example of this. It was reasonably popular when it came out last summer but now, it gets taken for granted that it was a failure and even people who defend it don’t give it much more than “It was pretty good”.
More recently it seems like “Man of Steel” and “Star Trek Into Darkness” are spiraling down to this same zone.
Why does this happen? Is it simply the they just mediocre movies and now the hype machine has worn off? Is it that they lack the one “thing” that makes them rise to being classics (e.g. The dark Knight having The Joker)? I’m not sure but I have seen it over and over. Do you agree? Can you think of other examples?
If a movie doesn’t completely stink on the screen, high expectations, crowdbuzz and wishful thinking can mask its problems. Until you think about it a little, maybe read a clear-headed review, start to agree that the plot holes are too big to ignore, realize that Benedict Cumberbatch brought a Hepburn-like two emotions to the role…
As much as I liked TDKR, I couldn’t get past the revelation that Brucie had been hiding out for eightfuckingyears. The longer I think about it, the harder that gets to swallow. Nolan needs to do a Lucas on the film and make it something sort of reasonable, like… three years. If not two.
I think there is a media groupthink principle in operation here. Movie reviewers, and to a lesser extent, fans, are not really an independent bunch, much as they like to claim otherwise. Once it becomes clear which way the herd is moving, they move along with it. When a movie first comes out you get a bunch of paid for reviews praising it mixed in with a bunch of honest opinions, after a time, a direction is set, trending one way or another, and most follow it.
The hype machine ran out of money. Or they turned it off. After the first and second theatrical runs and the DVDs are released and action figures and toys are on the store shelves, they’ve pretty much squeezed all the blood they can out of that stone, so on to the next stone.
Something like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves? It was a sensation when it came out and a huge hit with critics and multiple demographic groups, because it perfectly captured that early-1990s trendy culture.
Now, It only comes up as a punchline and I can’t imagine anyone sitting through it (very long, very serious, very PC, preachy, Kevin Costner, Bryan Adams power-ballad… blech)
I think “Avatar” might be in this camp, as well. When it came out, it was hugely popular, and pretty well-reviewed (83% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes). But, now, 4 years later, it feels like it’s sort of been forgotten, and Cameron’s recent announcement of three sequel movies seemed to be greeted with yawns.
There’s definitely an element of this, but I think the contrariwise effect also occurs, particularly among fans - i.e. people get so caught up in the hype that, if something isn’t overtly awful, their immediate response is adulation. As time passes and the hype effect recedes, the problems with the film become tougher to ignore.
“The Phantom Menace” is sort of the archetype of this effect - there were many, many fans who insisted when it came out that it was every bit as good as the original trilogy, because they were emotionally invested in the idea that Star Wars had to be good. I’m guessing you won’t find too many of those folks now.
Of the movies cited by the OP, I think “The Dark Knight Rises” most closely follows this model. Batman fans are some of the most vociferously defensive fans out there on the internets, and “The Dark Knight” was such an unqualified success, while being perhaps the best version of the “gritty” Batverse ever put on screen, that fans could barely comprehend the idea that the sequel might not be even better. And because TDKR more or less maintains the tone of its predecessor, and still features some of its more obvious strengths (strong acting performances, grounded action sequences, plus some fan service), fans could offer basic justification for considering it a good movie. It takes someone with a bit more distance from the franchise to acknowledge the deeper flaws with the film - the subpar dialogue, incoherent plot, inconsistent characterizations, etc. Non-fans had that distance going into the film. (Most) fans eventually got that distance with the passage of time.
Hailed as a great film when it came out, won Best Picture and a slew of other Oscars, then a couple of years later Hype Backlash set in, and nowadays it’s pretty much forgotten.
I have come to believe that there is a Hype Machine™ associated with the release of a movie. Just like a campaign to get an actor to get an Oscar within a specific category, there is a bid at the opening of the film to position it a specific way.
Some movies never have a chance of living up to their positioning, and some hit it out of the park and hold onto it. And some…kinda work; like the positioning seems to work at that time.
People really wanted TDKR to work - 'cuz Batman is cool, 'cuz Christopher Nolan is an auteur and brought cred to comic book movies. And, 'cuz, a good, big movie is really fun if done well
My son and I saw it, walked out and started talking to each other in that mock-intense voice, alternating between Christian Bale and Alec Baldwin and Will Arnett off 30 Rock. Not a good sign.
I’ll go with American Beauty - it was lauded as deeply insightful and won Oscars and shit. But hasn’t it fallen out of favor and is seen as a bit too precious for its own good?
I would agree - a lot of hit films come from some film festival where it was the winner or audience favorite, gets a lot of buzz and everyone runs to see it. Later, most will think it was a bit pretentious, or obscure, or derivative, or whatever - and the bloom is off the rose.
The film, Beasts of the Southern Wild was just recently on cable - missed it when it was in theaters - and I was totally underwhelmed. Sure, I can see how that little girl was a surprise at how good she was in that role, but the film itself was meh…for a low budget, OK, but not a film I would ever need to see again, nor would I be sorry if I had never seen it.
I am not picking on that film - I am sure there are some who loved it - but back when it first came out, the hype was HUGE and it burst onto the film fanatics radar and became a “must see”.
There was a time that everyone had to have bell bottom jeans, there was a time that every woman had to have leg warmers, and a lot of films that are must-see, cutting edge later become small footnotes in film history at best.
A few more recent Oscar nominees that have not exactly become classics:
Secrets and Lies
In The Bedroom
The Hours
Lost In Translation
Good Night, And Good Luck
Babel
Atonement
Not to say there are no fans of the films above, but the huge hype for these films in their heyday has certainly died out.
Good call with “The Phantom Menace”. When I went to see it at the cinema, as soon as the opening titles and fanfare came up, I was like a small child again. The movie kept me completely gripped all the way through, because I hadn’t seen any new Jedi action in 30 years. When I came out, things that stood out in my mind were all the good bits, like the Darth Maul light sabre fight (still the best bit of light sabre fighting in any of the movies IMHO).
It was only after multiple DVD watches that the glaring problems started to stick in my mind.
Sorry, no. While it had a reasonable degree of critical acclaim and was certainly very popular with crowds, there were a lot of flim critics who pointed out the essential weaknesses and superficialities from the very beginning. Ditto for Cameron’s next masterwerk, Avatar. (Curiously, Carmeron has been previously capable of wrestling complex storylines and deep, multifaceted characters from very thin premises in films like Aliens, The Abyss, and True Lies, all of which are better films than Titanic.)
The Dark Knight Rises was a grim movie, and while it may not have risen to the level of The Dark Knight and has plenty of absurdities, I don’t think anyone can deny that it was a hugely ambitious film that succeeded in creating the essential mood and was well-crafted.
Star Trek: Into Darkness, on the other hand, was pure shiite from the get go; just a tenuous and mostly nonsensical plot which existed purely as an excuse to string action set pieces together, and also borrowed essential characters from The Wrath of Khan for absolutely no reason whatsoever except name recognition. This is hardly suprising; the previous Star Trek reboot was less a retooling of the original Star Trek franchise than an unconscious ripoff of the vastly superior Galaxy Quest, complete with the plot-stupid “chompers” presented without a shred of irony. J.J. Abrams has the cinematic sensibility of a gaggle of eight year old boys and may very well be the worst writer/director/producer working in mainstream cinema today. These movies are due every criticism levied upon them and more for the fault of being shitty movies, period.
Happens to lots of movies, for reasons others have noted. Hype is a powerful thing.
My most recent favorites that this has happened to are Avatar and Prometheus.
ETA: To clarify: those movies are my favorites because I hated them from the get-go and am finally glad to see the rest of the world catching up to me.
I refused to see that in the theater, because it got mixed reviews and to me, that’s not a good sign. I finally saw it a couple years ago AND.LOVED.IT. But I could see why some people might not like it, because they’re living it IRL.
I think you’ve got that backwards. Anyone who hasn’t gone through some period of being Lester Burnham doesn’t get it. To them, he’s just a creepy burnout pedophile doing incomprehensible things.
