Movies That Were A Lot Better/Worse Than You Expected

Cafe Society
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Better than I expected: The newest Star Trek movie. Actually, this was a bit complicated because two people whose taste in movies I respect had complete, polar disagreement on it. Also, I’m not a fan of Star Trek (though I’ve been a Star Wars fan for years). So I was a bit wary about it going in, but was also willing to give it a chance. I LOVED it. In fact, I love it so much that I watched it twice in a row today (since it’s just come out on Netflix instant queue). I know it completely screws with canon, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t ten times better than any of the Star Wars prequels.

Worse than I expected: to be honest, District 9. Actually, I really did like it quite a bit, and still think it’s a great film…but I just don’t want to see it again. I think part of this is because I was disappointed that they didn’t show the scene I most wanted to see (the alien interview).

A straighter example of worse than I expected: The Black Dahlia. How the heck does a gruesome murder case end up being BORING? And yet, there it is. Easily the dullest flick I’ve seen in quite a few years (and I didn’t even finish it!).

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She gave a nuanced, dark performance in a movie I wasn’t even going to see… Hellboy. Ended up liking the acting quite a bit.

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Liked more than I expected to:

Scott Pilgrem vs the world - fucking awesome movie

The Hangover - laughed until I had tears streaming from my eyes, as did the people I saw it with

Shrek - the same, loved the sequel too but what came after is best left unmentioned

Watchmen - it had been so massively hyped that I was convinced I’d really dislike it and that it would just be a bunch of EPIC EXPLOSIONS!!! but it was actually an incredibly intelligent and well-acted movie

Stranger than fiction - the trailer made it out to be this whimsical comedy but it was actually incredibly moving, I ended up crying in the cinema

Pirates of the Carribean - looked like a shit kids movie, turned out to be AWESOME!

Underworld - expected it to be a bit of a naff action movie but was instead was presented by a really dark story with a complex, twisty turny plot and completely morally grey characters. Loved it! The soundtrack rocked too (in fact they did for all the movies, highly recommend them to anyone who likes rock).

Worse than I expected:

Prince of Persia - okay it was based on a computer game movie but it had a great cast and surely some potential? I walked out at the end saying “That was the worst film I’ve seen this year” and everyone around me agreed.

Pirates 2 and 3 - oh how the mighty have fallen. I wish I’d walked out of the third one.

Tomb Raider - my first words after the film finished? “What the fuck was that?!?” Again I know it’s a computer game adaptation but come on!

Avatar - yeah it’s pretty, now where’s the story? Oh, there isn’t one. Fine. I’ll just sit here for the next 3 hours and try not to be bored.

Alice in wonderland - what a complete fucking mess, and will someone PLEASE get Tim Burton to start branching out and using more than the same two actors?

Clash of the Titans - dire. Just dire. I could see where the paint was still wet over the numbers.

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I thought the first Lord of the Rings movie was going to be a bunch of fanboy crap, with people in bad costumes leaping around with swords and speaking in terrible accents.

I was pleasantly surprised.

Also, I got dragged to the recent Will Ferrell movie The Other Guys and wound up laughing my ass off throughout the entire thing, which was quite a surprise as well.

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Heh, I thought you were going to say Sweet Home Alabama.

Pandorum got smashed by the critics even on sci-fi websites, but I thought it was really quite good, despite the tropey premise.

Star Trek was a horrible idea - I hate the OS, and what little merit there is in it is in it’s actors long playing the same characters. But what a fantastically fun movie!

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It’s called Tremors. :smiley:

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I only watched Rent because Rosario Dawson was in it and I had an open slot in my Netflix queue. I mean a musical about homeless homosexuals and drug addicts with AIDS? It turned out I loved most of the songs. I never would have suspected that Detective Green could sing.

Another movie is Ratatouille. I mean a cartoon about a talking rat? It turns out it was excellent. I have a friend that can’t watch it, because she can’t get past the whole rat thing.

Netflix and especially Netflix Instant View has introduced me to a lot of movies that I wouldn’t have watched if I had to go to a movie theater or spend 3 bucks at the video store. The Lives of Others was great and so was The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo, although I nearly bailed at the scene with Lisbeth and her parole officer.

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I recently saw Grand Torino and it was much better than I expected. All I knew of the movie going in was that Clint played a racist retired auto worker having problems with his Hmong neighbours, which did not sound promising.

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My wife chose the movie last weekend and we saw Going the Distance.
Yeah, it’s a “Romantic Comedy,” but unlike most rom-coms, they actually remembered the “Comedy” part. I laughed quite a lot.

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Sorcerer – the remake of Le salaire de la peur – with Roy Scheider. I don’t know why I thought it would be good, but I made a real effort to track it down and a few years later haven’t managed to sit through more than the first twenty minutes.

Benjamin Button I thought would be good, especially with the cast, but pretty much hard sucked to me.

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I got dragged into watching Waiting one night by a friend with legendary taste for bad movies. I liked it enough to not only buy it, but I also replaced my DVD with the Blu-ray.

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Based on friends’ recommendations I expected I would love both There’s Something about Mary and Pulp Fiction. I loathed them both with a vengeance.

Since I really enjoyed El Mariachi and Desperado I figured I’d like Once Upon a Time in Mexico. I’ve never enjoyed a movie less. Johnny Depp’s wasted performance gave the movie its only entertaining moments.

I figured, given my general dislike for Will Farrell in anything that I’d hate Stranger than Fiction when my wife rented it, but it turned out to be quite enjoyable.

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Stranger than Fiction and The Truman Show. Two movies with stars whom I really dislike, yet the movies were fantastic. I think if you can get Will Farrel and Jim Carey away from their shtick, they can do some good work.

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I don’t think it’s been mentioned yet but the Bill Murray thread reminded me how incredibly over-hyped and critically fawned over Lost In Translation was—What a mediocre movie, somehow elevated to the status of brilliance. (and if it matters, Bill Murray is in 2 of my 10 favorite movies of all time—I was all set to join the lovefest that everyone else seemed to throw for Lost In Translation)

Also, I have always disliked Jim Carry, but only due to seeing him on interviews like Letterman, Conan, Jay Leno etc, (where he behaved like an juvenile attention seeker) plus a few brief views of MAD TV. I always avoided his movies, but one day decided to watch Man On The Moon at the dollar theater. I thought his portrayal of Andy Kaufman was drop-dead perfect, and indeed one of the best bio-pics of all time. As much as I respect how excellent Jim Carry was, Man On The Moon remains the only Jim Carry movie I have ever watched.

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Jim Carrey also has Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I enjoyed immensely. Say what you want, but the man can act.

ETA: Hmm, that last sentence came off a bit more confrontational than I intended. Lemme try that again: Jim Carrey has some silly, dumb stuff, but he really can act.

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I too was very pleasantly surprised at Pirates of the Caribbean and* Moulin Rouge*. I was expecting There’s Something About Mary to be humorous, but I didn’t expect it to be fall down funny.

But the movie that surprised me the most was Gone With the Wind. I finally saw it when I was about 35 or so. I was expecting a ‘grand’ movie, a sweeping tale of love and loss set against the backdrop of the Civil War. Boy, was I mistaken. It’s definitely all of that, but there was so much more. I was floored, and finally understood what everyone was making such a big fuss about.

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Be careful what you wish for.

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Prizzi’s Honor got nearly universal praise from the critics, and my wife and I were very much looking forward to seeing it.

God, did it suck!

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I may have said this in a similar thread but Starship Troopers. I went into my seat wanting and expecting a plot something like the book; since it barely acknowledged anything from the book it really sucked big time on a certain level. But the effects of the battle scenes totally blew me away - were far better than I expected. And the story bits and pieces picked for the movie made some sense of story if not of plot. So it fits both categories of the OP at the same time.

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I was cleaning and moving furniture in the family room last night and picked 2012 off Netflix for background noise.

I won’t pretend it was a good story or anything but for a film I didn’t have to pay a lot of attention to (plot: “shit falls down”), it was good cartoonish fun and I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to.