Inspired by the linked XKCD. Using 60% instead of 50% because that’s an easy filter to apply on rottentomatoes.
I’ll go first: I think “Sherlock Holmes: A game of Shadows” was awesome, from the plot to the characters ,and especially how they used screen-play to highlight how Sherlocks head works in these absurd ways.
it didn’t come out in my adult life, but I’m really young so I get a pass.
Cars 2
a dope ass Pixar spy movie with Lightning motherfucking McQueen.
in this case I’m literally going"all of you are wrong" but IT’S FIREEEE
Sucker Punch (2011) (technically not made in my ‘adult’ life, since I was still a teenager, but semantics)
I genuinely love this movie and don’t understand how it’s rated so poorly. Sure it’s got that Zack Snyder-flair (but I think it actually works for this??) and it can seem a little gratuitous. but even then to me it seems like it’s done to make a point instead of just ‘hehehe hot girls in short skirts’. The action is awesome, the sets are cool af, the soundtrack is phenomenal, the cast is great, the plot is interesting, (and sure, maybe me being a mega gay means I’m giving this a higher rating then I otherwise might have) - it’s just overall a great movie to me. I do wonder how much of the ratings is a symptom that all women lead films suffer from review bombs by some upsetti-spaghetti men, but even I think this movie is not generally liked by most.
I enjoyed Waterworld (I know it’s 90s, but I feel it gets too much hate). The premise and aspects of the screenplay were ridiculous, but the set design and effects were fascinating, and I was surprisingly invested in the characters. Kevin Costner and the kid had good chemistry. Dennis Hopper was a campy joy to watch as the villain as expected.
This has always been easy for me because my favorite movie is “Speed Racer” which has like a 40% on Rotten Tomatoes.
A movie that was genuinely before its time. Would fit right in these days with “Barbie” and “Everything Everywhere All At Once”.
The Cable Guy
I really like Hardcore Henry, it was just a fun movie to watch but apparently the audience disagrees
The Book of Eli with Denzel Washington (who said his son got him to sign on to the movie) and Mila Kunis. It’s 47% on Rotten Tomatoes.
I really enjoyed the concept and story of In Time, which apparently has a 37% tomato meter and 51% audience score. That was probably the first less than 60% one I saw I particularly liked.
Edit: I take it back, I choose Elysium. It has a 59% audience meter and I frickin LOVE that movie, all the way down to the villain being super crazy and virtually unintelligible.
I, Robot, especially after reading the books. It functions as a combo of the books, but set roughly where the first book took place in, using a variant of the protagonist from the sequels. The robots taking over as they did, though, wasn’t really accurate, even just regarding the laws of robotics, but it worked for the movie’s conflict. In the books, they get a larger hold on humanity, but to help them go past Earth to become an intragalactic society. For a one-off, though, I can see the directions the movie took to give it that close-ended feeling. Also, the implications of robots and humans, and Spooner as a chracter were pretty faithful to the source material, IMO.
Rotten Tomatoes has both a critic score and an audience score.
If your pick has a low critic score but high audience score, that means it was formulaic or unoriginal but probably lots of fun.
Movies with a high critic score and low audience score are usually more artsy, film-festival stuff.
Chappie (32%)
I love that movie and have seen it several times. Directed by Noel Blompkamp (District 9) and starring Die Antwoord.
It’s extremely original and entertaining sci fi.
I liked Chappie a lot when it came out, I was and still am a fan of Neill Blomkamp’s work, but found this one harder to enjoy over the years the more I learned about how awful the two people from Die Antwoord are in real life.
I watched the interview with the kid they, “adopted” and it’s so sad.
Wow, I never would have guessed Chappie was even considered “bad.”. I love this movie and just recently watched it again and enjoyed it completely. It’s like a charming reverse RoboCop.
I liked that movie, although the couple from die Antwoord are terrible actors, I found it a bit distracting. I still recommend people watch it.
They are terrible actors but I think they were handled well. Because the characters were written for them, they really just had to be themselves.
I think their prominence in the movie is what resulted in such a bad score. Even without the personal controversies, they are polarizing artists. Few people have a neutral reaction to their stuff. At the time I was pretty into their music, so seeing them in the movie was fun for me.
Constantine - 46%
Predator - 34%
Ghost in the Shell - 43%
Hellboy - 17%
Robocop (2016) - 49%
Well, it seems like I have poor taste in movies after all.
Constantine is an awesome movie.
Ghost in the Shell (2017) was quite good.
Loved the characters, but the movie plot felt like a clipshow of a bigger plot that didn’t fit into 2 hours. I haven’t watched the anime but it probably was.
That’s exactly what it was. They just lifted their favorite parts from multiple different iterations of the story. The original movie and the original TV show, mainly. But those two don’t even canonically fit together.
It was a jumbled mess and it sucked. The original anime, its sequel, and the original TV show are all fantastic, however.
Tank Girl. No one liked that movie when it came out. I left the theater with the biggest grin on my face. Absolutely awesome. Still one of my favorites.
It was completely different than the comics but it was still very fun. Especially in 1995.
