10 Beloved Movies…That I Hate

Everyone has them – the movies that are massive hits that does nothing for them. Maybe they’re extremely popular, were critical hits, huge financial successes or scooped up all the awards. But you just don’t see the big deal. Here are some of mine.

American Sniper

Urgh, this movie was foul. A ridiculously popular Oscar bait movie glorifying a soldier who shot enough people to make most serial killers cringe. The movie does nothing but paint every issue of modern combat in black and white terms. American’s are good, and the people they shoot at are bad. Further to that the movie banks of the audience already hero worshiping this guy. I’d never heard of him before watching the movie.

District 9

“But it’s all about the racism in South Africa!” cry the masses. Well, yes…I got that. It was blatantly obvious. Did you know that Frozen was really about sisterhood? Once you strip out the obvious symbolism there’s not a lot of elevate this movie above standard sci-fi action cinema. The director clearly lost his passion for the news reporter footage gimmick part way through filming and it feels more like a hindrance than a creative outlet. The praised role of Wikus (Sharlto Copey) as being a narrow minded bureaucrat out of his league gets left by the wayside when he stomps down the street in a robot suit, firing missiles at tanks, to serve a ‘climatic’ finale. Much like the rest of Blomkamp’s resume, it’s a bland sci-action film hinged on a gimmick. Thank god his pseudo-sequel to Aliens fell through.

Boyhood

Currently sitting on a ridiculous 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, this is a film whose fans seem happy to heap scorn on the few who didn’t buy into it. Thought it has to be acknowledged that the film is a daring production, the concept itself being fraught with potential pitfalls, but as a viewer we’re only left with the final product and that’s not reflective of the overall journey. Director Linklater adapted the story to what was happening in the actors lives during the the annual filming session, leaving the film disjointed. It’s more like a series if vignettes than a running narrative. Whilst the core group of performers do well they are not matched by the supporting cast, with some scenes delivering some hilariously poor drunk acting. Viewed on its own without the context of the film process it’s a generic story of a boy overcoming middle-class white American struggles whose pretensions try and carry the film’s many flaws.

Avatar

This one gets the nod for pulling in the biggest cinematic box office of all time. It made billions of dollars. Billions. That’s a lot of people buying tickets. There were articles about people suffering a depression because the real world didn’t seem good enough after seeing Pandora, the fictional planet the film is set on. It has to acknowledged that it’s a very pretty movie. Very, very pretty. But the story is complete arse. It’s slow, boring and does little to change up the formula we’ve seen time and time again. It’s been compared to Dances With Wolves, Fern Gully and Pocahontas and justifiably so…it uses the exact same plot as these and dozens of other stories. The environmental angle is more forced than a Captain Planet episode. It was worth seeing on the big screen but has no rewatchability. I don’t know why people talk about the sequels, they’re going to be the same with less innovative technology behind it.

Forrest Gump

I have no idea why people keep this movie on such a pedestal. It’s sugary to the point of inducing cavities, ignores character development in favour of catchphrases and racial stereotyping and fails to challenge the audience in any meaningful way. War is bad, racism is bad, HIV is bad, famous people are good. It’s a pointless movie that somehow picked up major accolades over the likes of Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption, movies which continue to be considered classics. Even author Winston Groom wasn’t impressed with this adaptation, claiming it ‘took off the rough edges’ and sanitised the more taboo topics. 

Shakespeare in Love

Of all the movies to take home the Oscar for Best Picture (over Saving Private Ryan!), this is the fucking worst. 4/4 from Ebert and 92% on Rotten Tomatoes for a tacky, cheesy rom-com with Shakespeare flavouring. The movie attempts to riff on the Bard by depicting him falling in love with an actress pretending to be a man to play Juliet and basing the play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ on their affair. It’s crummy, filled with nudge nudge, wink wink references to famous literature toned down enough for the popcorn crowd. Worst of all, they gave an Oscar to Gwyneth Paltrow – the worst person in Hollywood – for her lacklustre attempt at a performance. Even if the rest of this film was good, that alone would make the list.

Tropic Thunder

Ben Stiller has given us a couple of laughs via Zoolander and…maybe Zoolander 2? It probably won’t be good. On the whole I don’t get the the appeal. His ‘trademark’ anger isn’t any funnier than Adam Sandler’s ‘trademark’ anger or Will Farrell’s ‘trademark’ anger, and his comedic timing is just poor. His stretches every joke beyond the point of comedic value. Think about the scene where he’s licking the severed head’s neck stump – it goes on and on past the point of shock value. Tropic Thunder is one of the worst offenders. This film could’ve been a good hour shorter if they called cut when the jokes were still funny. Then there’s the ever popular Tom Cruise cameo, which is Tom Cruise in a fat suit. Ironically they make fun of fat suit movies in Tropic Thunder, implying the humour is base level. They have a point.

Transformers

“How can you hate this, it’s just awesome robots fighting!” Well, it takes an hour for Optimus Prime and the bulk of Autobots to show up, then another hour before Megatron joins the fun. That’s a lot of time of Optimus Prime and Megatron not kicking each others shiny metal asses, and way to much of that gormless piss-ant LeBouf trying to appeal to the target demographic. Now someone is going to point out Megan Fox in the comments, but that’s not enough of a reason to sit through this garbage.

The Passion of the Christ

This isn’t the the blockbuster hit that some of the movies on this list are, but it does hold the distinction of being the highest grossing R-rated film released in the USA, and it went on the become a cultural phenomenon. But it’s awful. It holds little to no interest as a stand alone story. The audience gets dropped into the action with the assumption they’re familiar with the Bible already and jumps back into pointless flashbacks so often that it can’t maintain momentum. Most of the flashbacks are ridiculous, with the scene of Jesus inventing the modern table being downright perplexing, and when we do return to the main story it spend so much time in slow motion the original running time must’ve been about 20 minutes. We sit through two hours of whipping and Jesus falling over again and again for the ultimate message of…crucifixion sucks? It all seemed rather pointless.

Ice Age

Am I the only one that finds Ray Romano’s voice very annoying? Sitting through a feature film listening to that droning…yet the 5th full length film in the series is on the way, not to mention the countless shorts, video games and other knock offs. What you mostly hear about is the rat thing chasing the acorn, a premise with as much comedy value as the fucking Minions. It’s a lazy attempt to ride the Disney coat-tails with little in the way of creativity.