Underrated Movies

[Gelfling Girl]

Road to El Dorado~ One of my favorite Dreamworks movies. I think Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is good as well.

Finally watched it last night. So awesome! Especially the music.

 

[ryhoyarbie]

Got another one: Glory, the civil war movie with Matthew Broderick, Denzal Washington, Cary Elwes, and Morgan Freeman. That beats the pants out of so called "masterpieces" such as The Dark Knight.

The score by James Horner is outstanding.

 

[Drtooth]

Yeah, I found the trailer by chance surfing the web in 8th grade before it came out and really wanted to see the movie. I just happened to find a half-multiplex/half-indie theater (mostly playing the "bigger" limited releases) that I've gone to for years but neglected once a bigger theater opened closer to me that started playing it and of course I saw it! I haven't seen it since. Again, I haven't seen it since but that's the movie I credit with me getting back into musicals which lead to an illustrious four years as part of my high school's drama club. It's just too bad people didn't give it a chance. It's become one of my musicals and I'm not even familiar with the stage version of The Producers.

The worst part of it, if I can remember, it was during the Oscar season, and all the slightly big half Multiplex type theaters were ALL showing special showings of movies they refused to air in the first place. So I couldn't even see Producers there. The limited release killed them. And Rent sucks. That got a slightly better release.

That beats the pants out of so called "masterpieces" such as The Dark Knight.

Okay, you know what's OVERrated? This whole retroactive hating of the Chris Nolan Batman movies. Come on. We're getting absolutely bludgeoned with all these lame Super Hero comic book movies with characters that the general public thinks they just found out about. I mean, they made a Jonah Hex movie and it bombed. The general public doesn't know who or what Jonah Hex is. And most of them are just mindless Pop corn films at the hands of toy companies. Who do you think ruined Spider-Man 3 by shoving way too many villains into it? We might as well get one GOOD Super Hero/comic book movie while we're at it.

Secondly, after all the crap that Joel Shoemaker (which really SHOULD have been his career choice) pulled with the Batman Franchise, turning Two-Face into the Joker, absolutely everything that happened with Batman and Robin... treating the gritty Tim Burton movies like the 1960's cartoon series... You know how many missteps they had with Batman after that? And while Batman Begins made a modest amount of money, they could very well have tossed it into the same "forget about it" pile the Superman Returns movie (which was supposed to also save that respective franchise) was thrown into. And by actually waiting it out, they made a sequel much MORE successful that the first. If they only gave Superman another chance.... they wouldn't need to scrape the bottom of the barrel for comic book films.

Yes, the Civil War movie was brilliant, but can't we also have a great superhero film too? Not any more toy and video game cross promotion first crap like Batman and Robin and Spider-Man 3?

 

[ryhoyarbie]

I'm not into the whole superhero film thing, so I don't watch them when they come out. Superhero movies have run their course and need to go away. Give me a movie with good characters and a good story. I don't need flashy effects or a bunch of crazy action scenes. That's maybe why I think The Wizard of Oz, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Twelve Angry Men were some of the best films I've seen.

The Dark Knight, when I watched it several more times, was better than I expected. However, I still think it's an overblown film, just like Avatar and Titanic. But I know what you're trying to say. Hollywood just passes out superhero movies like it's nothing to them and most of the time they're mindless shady films with too many special effects that dumb down the audience.....You can say the same thing with most of the stuff Hollywood is churning out now a days.


Back to the topic at hand......

Lone Star was a very, very, very underrated film that came out in 1996. That's another movie that was about characters, acting, and story telling. I highly recommend the film to anyone. It stars Chris Cooper, Matthew McConauhey, and I believe Powers Boothe.

 

[Drtooth]

I'm not into the whole superhero film thing, so I don't watch them when they come out. Superhero movies have run their course and need to go away. Give me a movie with good characters and a good story. I don't need flashy effects or a bunch of crazy action scenes. That's maybe why I think The Wizard of Oz, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Twelve Angry Men were some of the best films I've seen.

The Dark Knight, when I watched it several more times, was better than I expected. However, I still think it's an overblown film, just like Avatar and Titanic. But I know what you're trying to say. Hollywood just passes out superhero movies like it's nothing to them and most of the time they're mindless shady films with too many special effects that dumb down the audience.....You can say the same thing with most of the stuff Hollywood is churning out now a days.

That's what bugs me. Super Hero movies do deserve to be made... problem is, we're not getting super heroes that deserve movies, or ones that do, but get really bad ones (Fantastic 4). Some of these characters just work better in animated form.

As for the Dark Knight, I think the problem is the oversaturization of junky comic book popcorn geek chic fare, it's starting to blend in. Add the fact that there are so many crappy movies that are overhyped that take away from movies that actually deserve the hype they got. I still say DK at least gets super hero movies RIGHT. They dealt with multiple villains in both films, but they came across as natural. Like the thugs Batman would actually face in a single day. Twoface wasn't even acknowledged as Twoface, and I give them credit for keeping his appearance in the movie under wraps. They didn't even have figures of him until well after the film came out. Meanwhile, no lie, Venom was only in Spidey 3 so they could sell toys. And a LOT of Spidey fans weren't happy with the portrayal and even inclusion of that character.

As far as the comic movie goes, it is all boom booms and fake geek chic and X-Box 360 games... why can't we have ones like DK that are actually smartly written on TOP of the boom booms? I give Watchmen credit in that aspect, but it's something someone ELSE said and something someone ELSE had already written smartly. But at least Burger King toys weren't the first thing they thought of when making it.

And yes, we would all like to see those hand crafted old timey movies, but even then when Hollywood tries to make those sorts of movies, they ONLY do so to win awards that forcefully push an agenda to make them look like they care, all the while being able to churn out right wing action films that actually make money and the ones people actually watch. I want to see a movie that wins an Oscar that isn't criticizing a war 5 years after it's not controversial to do so, or anything else like that. Precious didn't win, and that was by far a film that had something more important to say. And organically.

 

[ryhoyarbie]

I still say DK at least gets super hero movies RIGHT. They dealt with multiple villains in both films, but they came across as natural.

I actually think Batman Begins was horrible in trying to deal with two villians. It was more of how Bruce Wayne became Batman type of film with the villians being secondary characters trying to cause some mayhem who were boring.

I think for Two-Face, the writers should have made the character get crazier as the movie goes on, showing Harvey Dent becoming more unstable from all the pressure that is being placed upon him until he finally snaps and Two-Face emerges and the Harvey Dent is lone gone.

 

[frogboy4]

I don't believe super hero movies or any type of movie have run their course as long as there's a story to tell and a quality team leading the project. It's easy to lump everything together because many films deserve that, but I also fear blanket statements. Either way, we're getting comic book films for years to come. Some will be good, some won't.

 

[Drtooth]

I think when it comes to comic book based movies, there inlies the problem... people generally think Comic book=Super Hero, and Marvel and DC have too strong a hold in that market for any smaller, independent comic super guys to get their chance in there. Sure, we had Kickanus and Scott Pilgrim manage to break through that ground, but there's just SOOOOO much weird and wild stuff that deserves the big screen treatment. A The Tick movie is SCREAMING to be made. Dude needs a come back from that TV show and bad.

Not to mention the fact that comic book movies aren't all super hero movies. Persepolis? That was a comic book movie (and highly HIGHLY underrated for the look alone. I'm kicking myself for never going to actually see in in theaters and waiting for video). Even that Harvey Peakar movie was based in comics. And if there are 3 non-Super Hero type comic movies that need to be made... Usagi Yojimbo, Groo the Wanderer, and a Disney Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck (NOT Ducktales. There should be NO Launchpad or Webby anywhere near there) all need some sort of treatment as far as I'm concerned.

But on that note getting back to the subject... underrated comic book movies? Simple... All the animated Lucky Luke and Asterix movies. At least here... and I don't know about the live action ones. I heard the last Live action Asterix film did gangbusters, but it also won the European equivalent of a Razzie Award. I would say, I highly recommend Asterix in Britain, The 12 tasks of Asterix, and Surprise at Caesar (or something like that) the most. As for Lucky Luke... only saw the first 2, and I recommend Ballad of the Daltons over Daisy Town.

Also on that note... The First and fourth TMNT movies. The second one, I'll deal in overrated movies, and the Third one, while I don't think it deserves some of the chastising it gets, I think a certain amount of the chastising fits. At least Casey was back in there. But the first one showed how to get a comic book movie done right. Yet no one considers it a comic book movie. Cartoon got in the way. Sure, they gave April her cartoon job (news reporter... no way they could make her a scientist), and changed up a few things here and there for the sake of the story.... but they managed to keep the tone of the comics and just blend in a teeny tiny amount of the cartoon series that made it popular... all while being a separate entity itself.

Meanwhile the fourth one REALLY didn't get the respect it deserved, not even from the fan base. I guess too many people wanted a "Let's go out and beat up Shredder for 90 minutes" movie. They took a story line that would have came right out of Tales of TMNT (the side comic) and managed to make a decent floating sequel without turning it into a lame revenge plot, managing to get Karai into the movie without dumbing it down and explaining her to everyone. it almost felt like an episode of the last TMNT series. But with much higher budget. Too bad that it got a PG rating, when we all know PG is basically just a souped up G rating nowadays.

 

[crazed gonzo fa]

Superhero movies have run their course and need to go away. Give me a movie with good characters and a good story.

Run their course? What exactly are you basing this statement on? The fact that they're a lucrative property, have made several billion dollars, and have recieved good reception (most of them anyway) would hardly suggest that they've "run their course".

As for giving us good characters and story, a good number of them do just that. It all comes down to personel taste, but to say they're at their end is really, rather inaccurate and assuming way too much.

 

[Drtooth]

Run their course? What exactly are you basing this statement on? The fact that they're a lucrative property, have made several billion dollars, and have recieved good reception (most of them anyway) would hardly suggest that they've "run their course".

As for giving us good characters and story, a good number of them do just that. It all comes down to personel taste, but to say they're at their end is really, rather inaccurate and assuming way too much.

Exactly how I feel. Again, it's oversaturization. Look at Elmo. Would we collectively dislike him as much if he was only on one or two episodes a season, and didn't hijack a 15 minute segment of the show? For me, it all comes down to quality. I was never impressed by the X-Men movies... I heard terrible things about Wolverine, and I desperately want Disney to yank the agreement with Fox over those characters. Plus, we're really getting so many at once, studios are having to gamble with lesser known ones. Iron Man? No one expected that to be a hit. other than the ACDC song, he isn't referenced all that much. Spidey, Wolvie, Hulkster, Supes, and Bats are the only ones the common general public knows. They've been on TV and referenced everywhere forever. DC tried a Jonah Hex movie. If I didn't see that Batman TAS episode, I wouldn't know who he was.

That said, considering Dark Knight did leaps and bounds over Batman Begins, I'm disappointed they didn't give Supes a second chance after Superman Returns didn't do as well as they hoped it would have, but it was far from a real flop. There was to be a Justice League movie, but that died when the strike happened. Wonder Woman is left in limbo, no thanks to more studio shenanigans... something about not making a female the star of an action movie no thanks to stink films like Aeon Fluxx and Underworld. And yet, I find it ridiculous they would think a Jonah hex movie would take off. Maybe it's because they had to turn it into a Megan Fox sexy sexy picture.