Is The Tuxedo (2002), so bad that it's good?

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The movie was a flop as I understand, and audiences and critics hated it. And I can sort of see why cause it's so stupid, but it's so stupid to the point where I kept laughing hysterically throughout. I saw it back when it came out and thought I would give it another watch and I still find it's so stupid that I was laughing hysterically.

So is it so bad that it's good, like a recommendable guilty pleasure?



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Comedy might be the only genre where "so bad it's good" doesn't apply, though. "So bad it's good" gets attached to non-comedy films that are trying to be serious and fail in a way that is considered funny (so it may be a bad serious film but a good funny film). Since a comedy is trying to be funny on purpose, a bad one is both a bad serious film and a bad funny film so there's no good to be found in it at all and therefore you cannot call a comedy "so bad it's good".

But of course, humour is subjective and all that. If anything, The Tuxedo is the kind of movie that knows how stupid its concept is and just rolls with it - after all, isn't it just another excuse for Jackie Chan to get into wacky hijinks?
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I watched it once. An old friend I knew had a collection of 90s to early 2000s films and Tuxedo was one of them. I remember enjoying it immensely. I saw it was on Netflix and immediately put it on my list to watch again to see if it was still as funny as I remember it. I haven't given it a revisit yet because I've been watching stuff like Happy As Lazzaro as of late but I am excited to see.
Plus, I'm pretty sure the intent was for the film to get so outrageous that it becomes funny. Like What's Up Doc? or Monty Python and The Holy Grail
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Comedy might be the only genre where "so bad it's good" doesn't apply, though. "So bad it's good" gets attached to non-comedy films that are trying to be serious and fail in a way that is considered funny (so it may be a bad serious film but a good funny film). Since a comedy is trying to be funny on purpose, a bad one is both a bad serious film and a bad funny film so there's no good to be found in it at all and therefore you cannot call a comedy "so bad it's good".

But of course, humour is subjective and all that. If anything, The Tuxedo is the kind of movie that knows how stupid its concept is and just rolls with it - after all, isn't it just another excuse for Jackie Chan to get into wacky hijinks?
Oh okay, well perhaps it knew it was stupid and just rolled with it then. So maybe it was all intentional. However, if this was the case, then why did the movie do poorly back then with people I know all hating it back then?



Yeah, in addition to the comedy thing, there's production quality, too. This is a major Hollywood production, too, which is another thing that gets in the way of so-bad-it's-good.

Anyway, it's possible for a film to try to be silly or over-the-top and just come off as stupid instead. It's a balancing act. One The Tuxedo clearly didn't manage.

Also, a lot can happen in editing. Sometimes a film is trying to be a lot funnier or more serious during filming but it clearly doesn't work and it's edited to emphasize something else. A lot can go wrong during a production.



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Oh okay. Well I meant so bad that it's good in terms of the scripted material, while acknowledging the production is still high quality.



Yes, understood. But most of the so-bad-they're-good cult classics have obvious technical flaws, too, that add to the effect. It's almost impossible for a major studio film not to be fairly well-polished in a total sense, which means when it's bad it's more unremarkable than bad in an entertaining way.



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That's true. Would a movie like The Birth of a Nation (1915), be considered a so bad that it's good film? I am going by the scripted material but obviously the production is still top notch.



I don't even really understand how The Birth of a Nation would qualify. That question makes me think we're on totally different pages about what so-bad-it's-good means.

A film becomes so-bad-it's-good when it has earnest ambitions but comes off facile or silly. It is the silliness despite its seriousness that makes it funny and entertaining. It's the cinematic equivalent of a kid in his dad's clothes, or a puppy trying to scare someone off by growling. It's the gulf and dissonance between its ambitions and its reality that makes it entertaining (or "good").

Occasionally older films can reach this level, but only if the viewpoint in them is hilariously retrograde or it relies on now outmoded special effects. Just being old, and having pure technical limitations like film quality or sound, doesn't really fit the bill.



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Well The Birth of a Nation had earnest ambitions but it came off as unintentionally silly to me because of how the subject matter was presented, which made it funny and entertaining for me, but that is just how I saw it.



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I'd argue there's not such a thing.

And Birth of a Nation is a masterpiece and one of the most important films in cinema history. Period.



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Only saw it the one time. Went through a big Jackie Chan phase. Hewitt was one of my first actress crushes, but it's a by-the-numbers dumb fun movie. I barely remember anything about it, which tells how memorable it struck me.
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Oh okay, I just like the humor and the chemstry, even though they gags are stupid, they are so stupid they are awesome, for me. But other than, nothing memorable.



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Bringing up Birth of a Nation does raise the question of how much so-bad-it's-good entertainment you can genuinely get out of a film that harbours such regressive viewpoints (especially when you have to square it with the fact that it is technically competent, at least by 1915 standards). At least with The Room you can square the sexism against the female characters with the knowledge that it's essentially the work of an eccentric weirdo casting himself as a character that everybody likes so its problematic aspects are sufficiently contextualised and make it impossible to take seriously.



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Well even though The Birth of a Nation is well made on a technical level, I thought it was so bad, it's good, in that the concept of the plot is ridiculous, as well as other specific story elements throughout the movie The idea that once black people were set free, they would immediately rise up and start a coup d etat. Not just a few of them but all of them according to the movie.

But also other moments throughout that make you laugh unintentionally, such as a black man declaring his love to black woman now that she is free, and this is so unbearable for her that
WARNING: "SPOILER" spoilers below
She throws herself off a cliff, and actually kills herself over this
, and how Jesus comes to actually be with the Ku Klux Klan at the end. We watched this movie in film school and we were hollowing with laughter, especially at this moment.

So I guess reasons like that are why I found it to be so bad that it's good, but not in how it was made, since it was made well... just in the story elements themselves.



Welcome to the human race...
I mean, that stuff is definitely bad and a big part of why I ultimately don't rate Birth of a Nation as a masterpiece. I just wouldn't consider it to be so-bad-it's-good because there's something just a little too insidious about it all.



mattiasflgrtll6's Avatar
The truth is in here
I'm curious about The Birth Of A Nation, but kinda scared to view it at the same time. I wonder if I'll be able to see its artistic merit or if it just will feel like watching Der Ewige Jude again. Same thing with Triumph Of The Will, which actually gets more widespread praise curiously enough.



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Oh I haven't seen Der Ewige Jude. I saw some of Triumph of the Will cause I had to edit footage out of it for a history project. I found it be quite flat and dull and boring compared to The Birth of a Nation, which still has some so bad it's good entertainment value out of it, at least for me.



mattiasflgrtll6's Avatar
The truth is in here
Der Ewige Jude is by every definition a bad movie, but it's so sickeningly hateful in tone that you're fascinated by it all the same. It's one of the most prime displays of the evil that was going on in Germany at that time.