Home > Blogs > Sir Critic on Cinema > Archives > 2008 > July > 09 > Entry
Wow! The movie wasn’t terrible after all!
One of my favorite experiences at the movies is when one surprises me by being good when I didn’t expect it to be.
I try to go into every movie with a positive frame of mind, but there are some I can’t help but dread. Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle and many of Michael Bay’s films spring to mind.
A few movies, however, clear the air of dread and end up being rejuvenating. The first example that I always think of in this situation is The Brady Bunch Movie, which totally blindsided me.
I was never a fan of the TV series, which was aggressively chirpy for my taste, so I wasn’t looking forward to a long version of it. But that’s not what I got. It turned out to be a smart, funny parody. Director Betty Thomas cleverly filmed the scenes in the house with the show’s flat, overly bright TV lighting, which amusingly contrasted with the “real” world outside. The movie kidded its subject, but did so affectionately, much like Disney’s Enchanted did last year.
On top of all that, the cast included some standout players, including Christine Taylor (Marcia Marcia Marcia), who later became Mrs. Ben Stiller, appearing alongside him in Dodgeball and Zoolander, two other pleasant surprises.
And speaking of Monsieur Bay, The Rock was a surprise too, at least in retrospect. That was my introduction to him, and while I found his style to be over the top (of course), Nicolas Cage, Sean Connery and Ed Harris compensated for that by giving the story some humanity.
Then Bay made Armageddon, and he’s been pulverizing humanity ever since. The Rock remains his one decent movie. I would welcome another, but I shan’t hold my breath.
So tell me about films that exceeded your expectations. What movies had you convinced they were going to be mediocre at best, and then they turned out to be quite a bit better? Surprise me!
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Ask the Audience
Comments
By SRCputt
July 9, 2008 12:30 PM | Link to this
This immediately reminds me of Frank Gabrenya of the Columbus Dispatch and his review of Tommy Boy, which pleasantly surprised him. Me, too. I wrote a review in college expecting to hate The People Under the Stairs and found myself surprised that it worked.By Allie D.
July 9, 2008 12:19 PM | Link to this
This has happened to me a few times, though the one I’m about to mention may not qualify exactly, but here goes. The movie is Jackie Brown. And the reason I’m saying that I was dreading it is because I was allowing myself to fall victim to people’s overly-inflated, strange expectations that they had in the immediate aftermath of Pulp Fiction, when this movie was released. They said it was boring, uninteresting, not worth seeing, etc. As a result, I never did go to see it. Several years passed. My husband purchased the movie, in fact, but I still never popped it into the DVD player. Then, out of the blue about six months ago, I decided to do just that. I decided to see Tarantino’s “lesser” movie. Boy was I astounded. Not only did I think the movie was fantastic, I think it is actually his best movie. I was blown away, to say the least. Granted, I’m not sure if I’d have thought this ten or fifteen years ago, but I sure do now.