History YMMV / WhatWomenWant

* AudienceAlienatingPremise: The remake being a {{Gender Flip}} of the concept, featuring a woman who is rejected a promotion over a male co-worker and told she doesn't connect with men. And for a dash of racial subtext, Ali is black and most of her co-workers, including her boss and the man who gets promoted instead of her, are white. The result is that the film becomes one of feminist empowerment, with Ali turning the tables on men who talk down to her and tell her to "stay in her lane", a complete reversal of the original film where Nick's behavior was thoroughly unlikeable and framed as such. Couple this with the facts that (a) the movie leans into male stereotypes hard while also daring to broach the much-reviled angry black woman stereotype for good measure; (b) the original film's reputation was mixed already; and (c) the general backlash towards remakes of old movies with women instead of men, and the result is a premise that audiences weren't really interested in, and the film didn't do very well at the box office.

** Creator/LoganLerman plays the young Nick, also appearing as his son in ''Film/ThePatriot'' earlier that year.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Several Music/FrankSinatra songs play during the film since Nick is a huge fan of the guy.
** As is director Creator/NancyMeyers; Sinatra often appears in many of her films.

* AudienceAlienatingPremise: The remake being a {{Gender Flip}} of the concept, featuring a woman who is rejected a promotion over a male co-worker and told she doesn't connect with men. And for a dash of racial subtext, Ali is black and most of her co-workers, including her boss and the man who gets promoted instead of her, are white. The result is that the film becomes one of feminist empowerment, with Ali turning the tables on men who talk down to her and tell her to "stay in her lane", a complete reversal of the original film where Nick's behavior was thoroughly unlikeable and framed as such. Couple this with the facts that (a) the movie leans into male stereotypes hard while also daring to broach the much-reviled AngryBlackWoman stereotype for good measure; (b) the original film's reputation was mixed already; and (c) the general backlash towards remakes of old movies with women instead of men, and the result is a premise that audiences weren't really interested in, and the film didn't do very well at the box office.

* AudienceAlienatingPremise: The remake being a {{Gender Flip}} of the concept, featuring a woman who is rejected a promotion over a male co-worker and told she doesn't connect with men. And for a dash of racial subtext, Ali is black and most of her co-workers, including her boss and the man who gets promoted instead of her, are white. The result is that the film becomes one of feminist empowerment, with Ali turning the tables on men who talk down to her and tell her to "stay in her lane", a complete reversal of the original film where Nick's behavior was thoroughly unlikeable and framed as such. Coupled with the fact that the movie leans into male stereotypes hard, the original film's reputation was mixed already, and the general backlash towards remakes of old movies with women instead of men, and the result is a premise that audiences weren't really interested in, and the film didn't do very well at the box office.

* UnfortunateImplications:
** As [[WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick Lindsay Ellis]] explains [[https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2mki34 in her review]], the film is not kind to women ''or'' men, both in how Nick sees them and in how the film itself presents them. When Nick first gets his powers, the women he encounters walking on the street are shallow stereotypes who think about stereotypical female things -- make-up, dating, dieting, sex, etc.[[note]]and the lone black woman Nick meets is mentally a SassyBlackWoman who compares his ass to Shaft. Because black people.[[/note]] Then Nick actually gets to know a few of the women in his life and his sexism does a complete one-eighty, and he tells a male co-worker later that he's realized men are stupider than women and all men are cheaters and liars who act that way because of penis envy. To say nothing that most of the men in the film (including Nick, at first) are horny misogynists who only see women as sex objects.
*** [[https://slate.com/culture/2019/02/what-women-want-revisisted-mel-gibson-helen-hunt-careers.html A modern review of the film]] called attention to Lola repeatedly rejecting Nick's flirtations, but once he reads her mind he realizes she ''is'' interested in him and is able to get a date with her by playing the encounter differently -- in other words, "no meant yes". Not to mention Nick using his ability to read minds to seduce Lola is rather dubious in terms of consent. And when Nick quickly decides he doesn't want to be with Lola anymore and starts avoiding her, she comes to the conclusion that, based on his sudden lost interest and his sensitivity and empathy, that he's ''gay'', and Nick goes with it to get out of having to explain himself.
** With the remake, [[https://variety.com/2019/film/reviews/what-men-want-review-taraji-p-henson-1203130439/ some]] [[https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/mar/15/what-men-want-review-taraji-p-henson-nancy-meyers-romcom critics]] [[https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/what-men-want-review-790616/ noted]] that instead of trying to offer insight on the inner workings of a man's thoughts, as the original film did with women, it just reinforces those stereotypes, showing men as mansplaining sexists who think with their penises and don't think much of women. [[https://www.vulture.com/2019/02/what-men-want-review.html Another review]] noted that one of the elements of CharacterDevelopment Ali goes through is... learning how to use her mind-reading gift to please a man in bed.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The sequence with Nick dancing (albeit, drunkenly) to "I Won't Dance" by Frank Sinatra. However, the scene may also just be RuleOfCool because it is massively fun to watch him dance around with his CoolHat.

* EasilyForgiven: [[spoiler:Moments after Nick confesses to having manipulated and gaslit her in order to steal her job (without explaining that he had acquired literal mind-reading powers), she forgives him and accepts him into her heart.]]

* EasilyForgiven: [[spoiler:Literally moments after Nick confesses to having manipulated and gaslit her in order to steal her job, she forgives him and accepts him into her heart.]]

* HarsherInHindsight: Creator/MelGibson in a romantic comedy with Creator/HelenHunt, a Jew. Think about it.
-->'''[[Series/LastWeekTonightWithJohnOliver John Oliver]]:''' Women! What do they want? It's a question that's plagued no less an authority than movie star [[SarcasmMode and noted humanitarian]] Mel Gibson. Not to be confused with his far less successful follow-up "Why Are Jews?"

-->'''Opening credits''': A Nancy Meyers Film
-->'''WebVideo/CinemaSins''': What the hell? *ding*

* HarsherInHindsight: Creator/MelGibson in a romantic comedy with Helen Hunt, a Jew. Think about it.

* HilariousInHindsight: At one point Mel Gibson's character uses the phrase [[Music/ArianaGrande "Thank you, next"]].

* RetroactiveRecognition: Both Creator/JudyGreer and Creator/SarahPaulson have roles in the film very early in their careers.

*** [[https://slate.com/culture/2019/02/what-women-want-revisisted-mel-gibson-helen-hunt-careers.html A modern review of the film]] called attention to Lola repeatedly rejecting Nick's flirtations, but once he reads her mind he realizes she ''is'' interested in him and is able to get a day with her by playing the encounter differently -- in other words, "no meant yes". Not to mention Nick using his ability to read minds to seduce Lola is rather dubious in terms of consent. And when Nick quickly decides he doesn't want to be with Lola anymore and starts avoiding her, she comes to the conclusion that, based on his sudden lost interest and his sensitivity and empathy, that he's ''gay'', and Nick goes with it to get out of having to explain himself.

* DontShootTheMessage: A common sentiment about the film is that the ''idea'' is great -- a sexist, toxically masculine man who thinks he's a suave womanizer gets the power to hear the thoughts of women, realizes that the women in his life actually kind of hate him, and he learns to see things from a woman's perspective and becomes a better person who treats them nicer. It's the ''execution'' that is lacking.

*** [[https://slate.com/culture/2019/02/what-women-want-revisisted-mel-gibson-helen-hunt-careers.html a modern review of the film]] called attention to Lola repeating rejecting Nick's flirtations, but once he reads her mind he realizes she ''is'' interested in him -- in other words, "no meant yes". Not to mention Nick using his ability to read minds to seduce Lola is rather dubious in terms of consent. And when Nick quickly decides he doesn't want to be with Lola anymore and starts avoiding her, she comes to the conclusion that, based on his sudden lost interest and his sensitivity and empathy, that he's ''gay'', and Nick goes with it to get out of having to explain himself.

** As [[WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick Lindsay Ellis]] explains [[https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2mki34 in her review]], the film is not kind to women ''or'' men, both in how Nick sees them and in how the film itself presents them. When Nick first gets his powers, the women he encounters walking on the street are shallow stereotypes who think about stereotypical female things -- make-up, dating, dieting, sex, etc.[[note]]and the lone black woman Nick meets is mentally a SassyBlackWoman who compares his ass to Shaft. Because black people.[[/note]] Then Nick actually gets to know a few of the women in his life and does a complete one-eighty, telling a male co-worker that all men are cheaters and liars who act that way because they suffer from penis envy. To say nothing that most of the men in the film are horny misogynists who only see women as sex objects.