Movies you didn't expect to like

You aren't impressed by the concept, you're turned off by the trailers, you have to be dragged into the theater...and you come out declaring it your new favorite film. Surely we've all experienced that at least once, right?

• Iron Man: I don't think I'd ever even seen a superhero movie before this. I had no idea who Iron Man was, nor did I have any idea who RDJ was. But my mom was a fan of him, and I was so fed up by my dad and brother that I agreed to go see it with her just to get out of the house. And thus began my love affair with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
• X Men First Class: It was a humid summer afternoon, my brother was at camp and Mom and I had several hours to kill before it was time to pick him up. We looked at what was playing, and she picked this. Having been turned off by the trailer when we went to see Thor, I wasn't too enthusiastic about it, but I played along. All I really knew going in was "Mutants, Prof. X = good, Ian Mc Kellen = bad, Hugh Jackman = Wolverine." Long story short, I got a crash course in X-Men 101 and we both came out as Michael Fassbender fangirls. Also, I'm pretty sure my interest in Ho Yay can be dated from this film. Time well spent.

edited 11th May '12 8:25:04 PM by Mort08

• Inglourious Basterds - I was put off by Tarantino's work in Grindhouse (Death Proof's Developing Doomed Characters moments were very boring) so as I went to see IB in cinema I was expecting another poorly done exploitation throwback. The film turned out to be really engaging, with great suspense moments and good climax.

The recent three stooges movie. the trailer really put me off, but when i did see it, i found it to be pretty good, and a lot less stupid than the advertising would make you think. //

there's more, but that's the big one

Real Steel - Did not expect a movie about boxing robots to be that entertaining, despite the cliche Sink Or Swim Parenthood, Children Raise You plot.

500 Days of Summer. I thought it would be another corny romance movie, but definitely not.

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. I found the title, the concept and the trailer risible, so I didn't bother going to see it in the cinema. I only watched it at all because of a friend's recommendation.

Agreed on both Iron Man and X Men First Class.

Also, Titanic. The guy who did The Terminator, The Abyss, and True Lies was going to do a sensitive romantic movie with that over-hyped pretty boy Leonardo Di Caprio and we already know the ending??? Yeah sure. That'll work.

I wound up seeing it 5 times in the theaters and buying the DVD.

The Dark Knight. I wasn't particularly impressed with Batman Begins and I couldn't see how the alleged Oscar Bait performance of the Joker was supposed to help things. Now, 2nd best Super Hero movie ever made.

edited 11th May '12 12:08:59 PM by TheStarshipMaxima

Hey, I didn't think that movie would be that good either. It was just one of the only movies showing around midnight.

Thor is the main recent example I can think of. A loopy sounding comic book character, a not-very-famous male lead, a pretentious director, and Natalie Portman, whom I normally detest? But the reviews kept coming back remarkably positive, and a family member finally dragged me to it, and...wow, that movie worked way better than it had any right to.

I'm forever encountering examples among older films, because if it stars someone I like and s/he's playing someone appealing, I can usually get some kind of entertainment value out of it, no matter how bad the reviews are. Dracula AD 1972? No, it's not much of a horror movie; yes the teen culture stuff was outdated by the time it was released; yes it has the world's worst case of Dawson Casting, but...I like several of the cast members and enjoy their interactions, and the whole thing's just loaded with Narm Charm.

The Texican? Who cares if it's a remake and all the people who are into B-westerns claim the earlier version is much better? Not to mention the funky dubbing, lack of action scenes, etc. You get to see Audie Murphy do his "I'm just an ordinary Joe Blow like you except that I can kick your *** into the middle of next county if you give me cause" shtick, you get to see Academy Award winner Broderick Crawford being all slimy and muttering incomprehensibly like a humanoid Jabba the Hutt, and you get one of those obnoxiously catchy and repetitive soundtracks that a lot of b- and c-list Italian and Spanish westerns have, and that's good enough for me.

edited 14th May '12 7:51:57 AM by odadune

I have to agree on Thor. I really wasn't expecting the majority of the plot to be a superhero version of Othello, with a dash of Hamlet for good measure.

I also watched Captain America recently, and was incredibly surprised to find that it was more than the jingoistic mess the trailers made it out to be. It has a strong atmospheric feel to it, and seemed far more grounded than any other superhero movie I've seen recently.

Never Trust a Trailer is probably responsible for most of these. Fight Club was certainly a case of this for me.

Kung Pow Enter The Fist. It looked really stupid, like Seltzer And Friedberg-stupid, but my older brother persuaded me to see it, and now I love it. My favorite line in the film is "He is an idiot. We have deliberately trained him wrong.".

The Mummy

{{I,Robot}}

Clueless

I guess Iron Man qualifies for me. I watched the trailer and thought "guy in robot suit fights terrorists" looked like the plot of the dumbest movie ever (I did not actually realize that it was based on a comic book). I rented it after a friend bugged me to do so, and while it wasn't one of my favourite comic book movies, I enjoyed it.

Ditto Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, which the trailers (in my opinion) made out to be a crummy B-movie. I was never so surprised as when I saw it was getting good reviews, and was impressed when I watched it in the theatre. One of the top five movies of 2011 (not a great movie year overall), in my opinion.

edited 31st May '12 10:46:21 AM by WarriorEowyn

Fight Club. It had Brad Pitt in it.

Bedtime Stories and Click. I like Adam Sandler, but I originally didn't think either of these movies would be good till I saw them.

edited 31st May '12 4:21:59 PM by Premonition45

I didn't, but my sister did. My sister's friend had dragged her kicking and screaming to see The Last Airbender. When she came home, she told me it was amazing. I didn't believe her and she eventually revealed that it was one of the worst movies she'd ever seen, including much of MST3K. That same friend did the same thing a few weeks later with How To Train Your Dragon, which I expected nothing of because it's Dreamworks and I'm a Pixar junkie. When she returned home from that movie, she told me it was the best movie she had ever seen, bar none - and, judging by previous experience, I didn't believe her. She kept at it, though, until she practically shoved me into the theater. It's still her favorite movie of all time.

Thor. It turned out better than expected.

Donnie Darko. Mind=blown.

Immortel (ad vitam). I can watch it over and over :D

Bloody Mallory. Mallory(a bitter widow almost sacrificed by her demon husband), Vena Cava(a transvestite demolition specialist) and Talking Tina(a mute girl telepath) fight vampires, demons and the Pope. It had a share of lame jokes, but, turned more hilarious than I expected.

edited 31st May '12 5:44:11 PM by googlebot

On Donnie Darko, is it worth watching the Director's Cut?

I honestly don't know if the one I watched was a director's cut.

edited 31st May '12 5:36:49 PM by googlebot

Flash Gordon, though mostly for Queen's soundtrack.

Disturbia. Minus the fairly meh obligatory teen romance subplot, it was a good thriller. I might even say it was more enjoyable than Rear Window, but I'm sure I'd have my leg broken by an angry mob of purists.

The Smurfs, admittedly it's still a bit bad and parts of it need work but it turned out to be a lot of fun and not as bad as all the critics made it. Besides it gave us Hank Azaria as Gargamel (He was such a Large Ham) and Neil Patrick Harris with a crowbar.

Bicentennial Man. This may be the worst case of Never Trust a Trailer I have ever seen. The trailers made it look like Mrs Doubtfire IN THE FUTURE!, when, in fact, it's a rather touching story about love and what humanity really means.

edited 2nd Jun '12 9:06:32 PM by Premonition45

I just got back from a preview screening of Rock of Ages. My view of musicals has been colored by the stereotypes of Bollywood, Glee, and High School Musical. I've told myself I'll never pay to see a Tom Cruise movie because of his affiliations.

Rock is a fine movie. It's a microcosm of rock and roll idealism, superstar excess (see: Hey Man), and the moral crusaders against it. Doesn't take itself seriously in the least. Russel Brand steals the show as Lonny.