Yes. A much better movie than I expected.
I agree. Very enjoyable.
Another one… Spiderman. I am a huge comic fan but had low expectations for the movie. I didn’t even see it until it was at a second run theater. I ended up smiling the whole time and loving every minute of it.
I was out of the country and not keeping up with any of the recent releases, but had heard Tron was being remade or there was a sequel or something. I downloaded the original late last year and watched it, and realized it had dated pretty badly after enjoying it a lot about 25 years ago when I was a kid. I could’ve watched it (the new one) in 3D at a cinema I’m not into gimmicky things or paying out to see a kids film in a cinema filled with kids (my assumption - it was made by Disney, after all). :smack:
So, I watched Tron: Legacy a couple of nights ago at home, with the sound turned way up because I’d heard the Recognizers made the cinema shake and there was a pretty decent soundtrack too.
Oh.
My.
Og.
I’ve been a massive Daft Punk fan since the early 90s, I like films with a bit of subtext, I dig sexy, clinging, shiny costumes on the ladies, plus I’m not tech-savvy enough to question how a laser can put a person in a pc. I also enjoy a respectful wink and a nudge to other films of a similar ilk and don’t view that as stealing or lacking in imagination. I’d have laughed if Jeff had turned around and said “Great kid, don’t get cocky” but I still was grinning from ear to ear throughout every scene inside the mainframe.
Donkey Punch was loaned and recommended by a (younger) friend, so I thought I’d have a watch even though it’s full of kids and they probably just have some angst about hair and clothes. How wrong was I! 
The Dream Team with Michael Keaton. It was badly promoted, but what a tight, fun little comedy.
As I’ve said before, The Terminator really took me by surprise. I expected it to be people running around LA in cheap makeup shooting each other up. What I saw was an incredibly literate, witty, and informed piece of science fiction. I still think that, overall, Cameron has never topped this. I loved T2, Aliens, and was blown away by the visuals of Avatar, but nothing beats the cold, gritty, sarcastic wit and hard-edged storytelling of the original Terminator.
I expected Robocop to be a really stupid, hackneyed bit of popular SF. again, Ed Neumeier’s script was a piece of well-informed science fiction dark comedy, referencing C,M, Kornbluth’s The Marching Morons and skewering SDI, modern “newsbreak” culture, and other icons while telling a coherent, touching, yet far-out story. The sequels couldn’t come close to this.
Agreed.
.
Peking Opera Blues
What I expected: It was the first film in a Hong Kong Film Festival here in Los Angeles. I expected some kung fu/action mishmash that would be entertaining and commercial.
What I got: A wonderful amalgam of comedy, action and suspense…starring 3 wonderful actresses. Great film. One of the few unexpected movie orgasms Ive experienced.
I think I mentioned both of these before, but:
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: EXPECTED crappy teen movie about a nerd somehow winning the girl of his dreams GOT really niftily-crafted movie about a not-so-repressed nerd having awesome manga/video game style battles to win the girl of his dreams
The Rocker EXPECTED somewhat meh movie about a loser discovering how to be an adult while helping teens grow up GOT a terrific (and funny) movie about how growing up isn’t all that great and how staying true to yourself is the shiznit
I must beg to differ. As good as T1 is (and it’s awesome!), T2, Aliens and True Lies are all better IMHO.
De Gustibus non disputandum est
The original Terminator may have been rougher around its edges and not as polished in its effects, but it was a purer and less “commercial” story, I thought. Finally, I thought, someone made a story about an unstoppable killer thing where it isn’t converted by “the power of love” or somesuch.. He was a pure and simple killing machine, and the story played it straight. With T2 we had the Killer Robot Learning the Meaning of Love, dammit. Cameron did a creditable job with it, but it felt like compromise.
Mind you, I loved T2 and Aliens (not True Lies), but the original was The Real Thing.
I haven’t read the whole thread yet, but a quick Control-F revealed that Hot Tub Time Machine hasn’t been mentioned yet. I was bored, it kept showing up on Netflix instant so I decided to put it on in the background one night. It very quickly became the foreground, it was funny as hell and I plan to watch it again one of these nights. As I like to tell people, I went in expecting Bill and Ted and ended up with Back To The Future. It’s the name that scares people away from it. I have yet to convince anyone in my family or a single friend to watch it, simply based on that alone and if their sales are hurting at all, that’s probably why (and Darryl from The Office isn’t that great of an actor).
When I mentioned this movie in pretty much an identical thread, another poster said one of their friends called it “much better than a movie called Hot Tub Time Machine has any right to be”
I also just recently watched Sex Drive since it was on TV when I turned the TV on. It was good enough that when I had to leave the house I recorded the last 45 minutes of it so I could see how it ended. The thing is, it’s my understanding that there’s a lot of this type of movie out right now so it may be no better or worse then any of the others. But considering this is one of the few I’ve seen, I thought it was pretty funny.
**Up
**
What I expected - Old, crogidy Ed Asner learns to love kids from this fantastic balloon ride.
What I got - One of the most heartfelt, emotionally satisfying introductions I’ve ever had. Without saying a word, Pixar made me care about drawing. Honestly, it only took 10 minutes into the film for me to realize I’m watching something completely different than I expected.
Not exactly a movie but Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV).
*I expected *a cheesy horror-comedy like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (movie).
*I got *a deep and warm story about living and dying and loving and high school and not being ready for the world and a whole lot more.
Another one would be Love, Actually. I thought it would be a barely tolerable paint-by-numbers rom-com to take the wife to. It turned out to be funny, witty, and touching.
Your Highness.
Kidding, kidding. It was crap.
Flash Gordon. I expected cheesy 80’s fantasy. I got so much more.
That’s a good one. I have no idea why I watched it the first time, but it’s now one of about 8 DVDs I own.
A couple of Nicholas Cage movies from the '80s: Valley Girl and Peggy Sue Got Married. Just nice touching movies. I was driving cross country and saw Valley Girl, which I hadn’t even heard of, in some crummy hotel in Indiana or someplace. I guess I liked it as much for the escape than anything else.
The Joy Luck Club. I heard it was good, but didn’t expect to like it as much as I did and the ending was very moving.
I had less then zero interest whatsoever in watching that movie. None at all. For exactly the reason you stated. I was in college and some friends and I had ingested some, well, magic mushrooms and were wandering around the campus and at some point made it back over to my dorm/apartment were my roommates and a couple of other people were about 10 minutes into it. We hung out for a while in the common area and we went into his bedroom to say bye and my friends (I think it was me and two or three other people) all kind of did that ‘stand in the doorway with our coats on to see what everyone is watching’ thing for about 2 minutes and we slowly all sort of migrated over to the bed and couch. About a half hour later I think I melted into the couch and gave up trying to leave the apartment.
I’m glad I didn’t. It turned out to be a pretty great movie. It wasn’t even until I had been watching it for 20 minutes or so that I even asked what movie it was. If I had asked as soon as I walked in and was told it was Fight Club, we probably would have just said ‘bye’ and took off. I probably still wouldn’t have seen it.
12 Monkeys:
The ads for it all made it look like some pretentious art-house piece of trash by folks who haven’t a clue about science fiction. I only watched it because I was at a friend’s house, and he was watching it. But it turns out to be the best time travel movie I’ve ever seen, and the folks who made it knew exactly what they were doing.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl:
I don’t think anyone expected this to be anything other than a forgettable two-hour ad for Disneyworld, but of course, it turned out to be a great, fun, funny, sexy adventure romp.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - went because it was Heath Ledger’s last movie and because Terry Gilliam, but I didn’t have such high expectations because Ledger died only 1/3 through filming and The Brothers Grimm was only so-so. Got a dark, wonderful story, great stand-ins, and Lily Cole was surprisingly great.
Wild Target - was expecting another in the current line of decidedly British crime movies a-la *Lock, Stock… *or Snatch, for some reason. Got delightful black comedy that reconfirmed my lust for Emily Blunt and also had good turn by Rupert Grint (Bill Nighy was excellent as always, as was Rupert Evert)
Actually, that reminds me - 51st State, the Samuel L. Jackson-in-Britain movie, was universally panned, but I quite enjoyed it.
The Shawshank Redemption. It didn’t do well in theatres, mostly I think cause of the title, but it is regarded as one of the best movies based on a Stephen King work.