The "It wasn't as bad as people said it was" thread.

[Nate Grey]

Spider-Man 3, It's Pat, and Hudson Hawk come to mind.

[Powerboy]

ROFL, you still trust the shill media.

I was looking over videos and articles from people about why they hated "The Last Jedi" and I think that, by and large, they have legitimate complaints. I liked it on a fun level as simply a decent action movie but I realize it ignores established facts and continuity of the SW universe as well as having other faults.

I stumbled onto an article about why critics and audiences so often disagree, an article that seemed to be about "The Last Jedi" but was really just using it a springboard for the critics vs audiences discussion.

I think one of the biggest differences is that professional reviewers are trained to believe that possibly the greatest sin a reviewer can ever commit is to judge a work by outside standards rather than on it's own merits. Unfortunately, they tend to consider even other movies in the same series to be outside standards. Judging a work as bad because that's not how you wanted the story to go would be another false standard, the argument of personal preference.

Of course, there are endless problems with "The Last Jedi". Hyperspace doesn't work the way it worked in all previous Star Wars movies. Instead of going into another dimension, now it's suddenly just going really fast so now a ship can ram another ship by going to hyper-speed. Wow, they should have just had some automated droids in ships go to hyper-speed and ram the Death Star back in the first movie.

Sneaking in endless social messages, some very forced and badly presented.

Pointless subplots that took up a half hour and ended up being meaningless (Finn and Rose's little trip where they met the Collector, I mean Benito del Toro who I cannot believe was ever, for one nano-second, considered for the role of Khan Noonien Singh).

Nauseating speeches about love coming from someone who prevented a heroic sacrifice and herself caused the deaths of numerous fellow soldiers by doing so.

Constant three ring circus surprises done simply for the shock value and because they were unexpected with no regard whatsoever for whether they made any sense or were dramatically fulfilling. In fact, in most cases, they were surprises specifically because they made no sense.

Characters being there and some being killed with no background or explanation for who they were to begin with (I'm thinking about Snoke).

Jedi suddenly having powers quantum leaps beyond anything they ever had before and even "Force Ghosts" being able to do things vastly beyond what they ever could before.

And, of course, that thirty years later, the Empire (oh, sorry, I mean the Black Order) is still around and it's all just a rehash of the original trilogy.

[LoganAlpha30X33]

Spider-Man 3, It's Pat, and Hudson Hawk come to mind.

I've always loved Hudson Hawk, I think that many reviewers and such seem to think that every movie is trying for an Oscar rather than some just being made to be fun movies and such...like how years ago Ebert and Roeper bashed the Scooby Doo movies, sure they're not the greatest but they weren't trying to be, all that after E and R were saying that they'd hated Scooby Doo anyway so...

[The Kid]

Wolverine: Origins. There, I said it.

lol I came here to say this. I liked it more than The Wolverine which to me was just boring. Origins was at least really stupid fun at parts and I enjoyed Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber in that movie

I also really enjoyed Iron Man 2 which many consider to be one of the worst MCU movies. It def had a lot of flaws but the parts I liked made up for it. I loved Downey Jr's performance in that movie, imo it's his second best in the series after Civil War and Justin Hammer was too underrated. They need to bring Sam Rockwell back in a future MCU movie. Hilarious villain

[Tuck]

And, of course, that thirty years later, the Empire (oh, sorry, I mean the Black Order) is still around and it's all just a rehash of the original trilogy.

I mean, that's the situation Johnson was handed. But pretty much everything else he did was about changing things. He smashed Abrams's stupid mystery boxes (which lead to his television shows meandering into incoherence) and decided instead of telling a story about a special family and a battle between black-and-white good and evil, we'd go with the idea that anyone can make a difference and things are more complicated than the rebels make out.

(And while I understand if someone doesn't like that because the idea of Star Wars being a simple morality tale in an ocean of navel-gazing grey was a core draw for them, The Force Awakens had the new trilogy on track to just rehash everything.)

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I also really enjoyed Iron Man 2 which many consider to be one of the worst MCU movies. It def had a lot of flaws but the parts I liked made up for it. I loved Downey Jr's performance in that movie, imo it's his second best in the series after Civil War and Justin Hammer was too underrated. They need to bring Sam Rockwell back in a future MCU movie. Hilarious villain

The one redeeming thing about IM2 (to me anyway) was the debut of War Machine.

[The Kid]

The one redeeming thing about IM2 (to me anyway) was the debut of War Machine.

Yeah War Machine playing a big role in the climax was awesome. One thing I do wonder about is how Howard would have done with the part. I love Cheadle as an actor and as War Machine but Howard was always more physically imposing and seemed more like comic book Rhodey

[Cyke]

ROFL, you still trust the shill media.

This is really misleading, and it goes back to the nature of data aggregation. 90% of critics liking the film doesn't automatically mean all those critics gave it high marks. It could very well be that the vast majority of critics barely gave it a thumbs up but that still counts as a positive review.

Data aggregation can tell you which critics and how many of them liked a movie, but without a uniform rating across all critics, there's no real way to gauge how much they all liked the movie. Individual critics can tell you how much they liked/disliked a movie, but something like Rotten Tomatoes can't tell you by what degree right off the bat (is it as 3 star movie? A 5 star movie?), which is why they link to the individual critics they cite.

[Tuck]

This is really misleading, and it goes back to the nature of data aggregation. 90% of critics liking the film doesn't automatically mean all those critics gave it high marks. It could very well be that the vast majority of critics barely gave it a thumbs up but that still counts as a positive review.

Data aggregation can tell you which critics and how many of them liked a movie, but without a uniform rating across all critics, there's no real way to gauge how much they all liked the movie. Individual critics can tell you how much they liked/disliked a movie, but something like Rotten Tomatoes can't tell you by what degree right off the bat (is it as 3 star movie? A 5 star movie?), which is why they link to the individual critics they cite.

Rotten Tomatoes does put an average rating on each movie, it's just that no one pays attention to it. (It's 8.1/10 for Last Jedi).

I don't know if it's a complicated mess like Metacritic's scoring system or simply that they scale everything to 10, but it is there. (It's 85 on Metacritic.)

Even if we want to quibble on the aggregation of the scores, critics like the movie well enough. A common statement is that it was the best Star Wars movie since Empire. It's hard to argue there isn't a critical consensus.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Yeah War Machine playing a big role in the climax was awesome. One thing I do wonder about is how Howard would have done with the part. I love Cheadle as an actor and as War Machine but Howard was always more physically imposing and seemed more like comic book Rhodey

Perhaps, but I thought Cheadle was the better actor, even if he wasn’t as physically imposing as Howard.

[Midvillian1322]

lol I came here to say this. I liked it more than The Wolverine which to me was just boring. Origins was at least really stupid fun at parts and I enjoyed Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber in that movie

I also really enjoyed Iron Man 2 which many consider to be one of the worst MCU movies. It def had a lot of flaws but the parts I liked made up for it. I loved Downey Jr's performance in that movie, imo it's his second best in the series after Civil War and Justin Hammer was too underrated. They need to bring Sam Rockwell back in a future MCU movie. Hilarious villain

If Ironman 2 and Thor 2 are the worst movies u can make your doing something right. they are fine movies just not up to par with other films. Especialy since Ironman was pretty perfect Ironman 2 being just ok hurt it. And everything is better with a little Sam Rockwell

Origins definetly had some fun parts but the cgi on the claws and some of the story beats were really bad. And what they did too Deadpool was unforgettable. especialy since Wade was so perfect earlier in the movie.

[AnakinFlair]

Amazing Spider-Man 2. I never saw what people hated about it.

Hudson Hawk was a fun movie.

I liked Howard as Rhodey, except for his voice. It always sounded like he was huffing helium.

[Indian Ink]

I'm trying to think of a movie that was as bad as people said it was. I'm sure there were plenty, I'm just coming up blank on it at the moment.* Most of the time for me it's a, "oh just guess it was ok in a mild fun, sort of way." The fact that I'm not paying to see most of these in the theatre might make me more forgiving. I still haven't seen the last two Star Wars films, but I suspect I'll find them watchable, but have no desire to ever see them again as well.

*Ok, just thought of Highlander 2.

[Jim Kelly]

I wonder what amazing, impeccable masterpieces of cinema are some people used to seeing that they think everything else is such trash.

[Powerboy]

This is really misleading, and it goes back to the nature of data aggregation. 90% of critics liking the film doesn't automatically mean all those critics gave it high marks. It could very well be that the vast majority of critics barely gave it a thumbs up but that still counts as a positive review.

Data aggregation can tell you which critics and how many of them liked a movie, but without a uniform rating across all critics, there's no real way to gauge how much they all liked the movie. Individual critics can tell you how much they liked/disliked a movie, but something like Rotten Tomatoes can't tell you by what degree right off the bat (is it as 3 star movie? A 5 star movie?), which is why they link to the individual critics they cite.

It was also nonsense to imply that critics praising a movie means they are in the pockets of the movie studios, especially since critics commonly detest the big blockbusters and praise the small movies. The praise for the Last Jedi is relatively rare overall when you look at blockbuster reviews. I think critics by and large approach what makes a good or bad movie differently than those of us who are the movie going audience does. One difference is that they tend to look at the themes a movie was trying to present and judge how well the director and the movie presented those themes while an audience member will tend to look more at whether he or she liked the themes. This is certainly not to say that critics cannot also be biased.