Favorite movie panned by critics ....

I was always under the impression Last Samurai got excellent reviews. In fact, I haven't seen a bad one.

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Out of 173 reviews, The Last Samurai was 66% fresh on the Tomatometer. Not outstanding, but I would hesitate to call in panned.

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Well, the reviews I read were so-so. I thought it was an amazing, beautiful work of art, and I guess I mentioned it because it didn't really get the attention that I thought it deserved. I got quite a bit out of it (and I thought it had some significant things to say about life, culture, and technology), but I guess other people didn't enjoy it as much as I did. Several people even critized the end (claiming it was boring, obtuse, and anti-climactic), but I thought the end was superb, and very eye-opening.

The local critic bashed it pretty harshly, but most of her complaints were pretty superficial. She had issues with the representation of the boyish emperor and his voice (comparing him negatively to Michael Jackson, which was downright disrespectful), and she also critized the believability of Tom Cruise's portrayal of a samurai warrior (which he wasn't supposed to be anyway, and she should have realized that). She claimed that no audience could look past Cruise's previous "Golden Boy" roles and accept this one at face value, and she made a comment about him "not wanting to get his face dirty" (and argument that falls apart when you actually watch the film, although I believe she was referring to something else). She even compares Cruise and Russell Crowe, which I consider a crude, unfair, and trite comparison anyway. It seemed like she couldn't cast aside some of her own petty issues, and because of that, she missed the entire point of the film.

You can read her review of the film here.

After much deliberation, I would have to say:

Blade Runner

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Treasure Planet
Although I don't think this was completely panned, I don't think it was embraced either when it first came out. I think I read somewhere that this wasn't considered a success....but I LOVED it.

The Road to Wellville (1994)

Labeled "stupid" by more than one reviewer, The Road to Welville is still pretty funny and there's a lot more here than people give it credit for. It's not all fart jokes. Big criticisms at the time were the film's plodding nature and the superfluous John Cusack subplot, but I think it's a very watchable, enjoyable flick.


Joe's Apartment (1996)

This is just a flat-out guilty pleasure of mine; I fully understand how dumb Joe's Apartment is. But I still don't think it deserved the royal round of panning it got when it first came out. It's miles better than the lame-duck "comedies" that hit theaters every week these days. And I tend to be very forgiving of films that at least try to be unique and different, even if they ultimately miss the mark.

I have to go with The Invisible as being a movie that I found much better then critics thought it was. I can see why critics don't like it extremely well, it is a pretenscious and full of itself at points, but I didn't feel like that detracted from the fim in any way, as the whole film was created in that style.

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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

I loved this movie. There were so many things that you would miss if you didn't look closely, so you had to go back and watch it again and again. My favorite line: "Did you see what God just did to us?"

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Howard the Duck (Willard Huyck, 1986)

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A duck can fly with Tim Robbins without beating its... wings.


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Grandmas Boy (2006) it got horrible reviews and I think it was one of the funniest movies to come out that year.

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The Swarm (1978)
I'm not sure if it got panned when released. But it get's heavily criticised whenever it's on tv now. It's one of my 'guilty pleasures' films.And falls into the category of 'it's so bad it's good'.

Monkeybone (2001)

An inventive, irreverent, sweet and refreshingly unassuming film. It's got a great sense of humor and a surreal, unique portrait of an almost-afterlife. Maybe the biggest box office flop in history (cost $75 mil, made back about $7), Monkeybone's probably not everybody's cup of tea. But I love it. The entire cast looks like they're having a good time (Bob Odenkirk Alert!) and while I don't really rate Fraser as an actor, he's more than fine in this kind of light-hearted fare. I really can't find anything to complain about here - Monkeybone's a ton of fun and I wish more people had given it a chance.

This movie is for sure one of the funniest movies to come out. I throw this in ALL the time.

One of the best comedies around. It's funnier the more you watch it.

Are you insane? Monkeybone is unwatchably horrible. More than being rightfully ignored, all the copies should be rounded up and destroyed.

As far as being a notorious bomb, there have been bigger ones. The trio of shame is Cutthroat Island (1995), Town & Country (2001) and The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002). The Eddie Murphy bomb (a term which in the last couple decades has been redundant outside of cartoons) Pluto Nash cost at least $100-million and managed just over $4-million at the box office. Renny Harlin's would-be pirate epic cost $100-million (if not more) and couldn't quite reach $10-million in ticket sales.


But at least with Cutthroat, Monkeybone and Pluto Nash they do have effects and sets that you can begin to understand where at least some of that money went (though clearly none to a screenwirter worth a damn). With Town & Country, a laughless, witless supposed "romantic comedy" starring Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Andie MacDowell, Garry Shandling and a host of others who have surely all removed it from their resumes that was co-scripted by Buck Henry and directed by Peter Chelsom, it's impossible to fathom where the $90-million budget went...and it managed just under $7-million at the box office. Yowza.

Anyway, even thought the numbers for Monkeybone aren't quite as bad, it is just as horrible as those three movies lack-of-quality-wise. Some things are panned justifiably. Monkeybone is definitely one of them.


But, you know...enjoy it.

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The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford was excellent in my opinion yet got mostly mixed reviews.