Live Die Repeat /Edge of Tomorrow
As much as I hate Tom Cruise as a person this movie was one of the most fun sci-fi action flicks I have seen in a very long time.
Same. This was actually an incredibly solid movie. And I also dislike Tom Cruise.
I rewatched Oblivion with him in it, and though I had fond memories of that movie it didn’t hold up nearly as well.
I’d agree with that sentiment.
I agree. Didn’t expect much but really enjoyed it!
Into the Spider-Verse.
I was kind of aware of that sort of plot line in the comics. And I loved The live action Spider-Man movies.
Was blown away at how complete a package it was: visuals, score, writing, voice acting. It was just an all around great movie.
It’s a perfect movie. The art, the music, the recursive pacing, everything about this is composed absolutely perfectly. I don’t remember if my expectations were high or low for it but it’s so, so good.
Mad Max: Fury road far exceeded my expectations.
I’d heard good things about the movie, and actually went in with reasonably high expectations of it, and it completely amazed me anyway. Just an incredible spectacle of a film.
Tropic Thunder. Went in knowing it was a new Ben Stiller movie and nothing else.
I love Tropic Thunder, and I hate Ben Stiller movies!
I remember sitting in the theatre and the intro commercials integrated seamlessly with the previews and it was just hilarious from the start.
Dune
My expectations were sky-high for Dune and they were still exceeded.
I was going to say the same. It’s a hard book to bring to the screen but damn they nailed it. The cinematography is phenomenal as well. I can’t wait for part 2! The second half of the book is definitely more suited for a movie format than the first.
I’ve genuinely been trying to understand how people like the movie so much. The first time I watched it, I thought it was bad. So I came back to it a little while later and give it a second shot. Maybe I was just in a bad mood that day? Everyone seems to love it. Nope, still bad. Even gave it a third shot a few weeks ago and it felt even worse.
I read the first 3 books a few times, but I always try to put aside the source material when it moves to a new media. And the movie seemed to me like it was just a string of barely connected scenes, tied together solely because they shared characters. It was almost entirely just book references without trying to make a story out of them. It was entirely spectacle, and they still couldn’t really get the scale right, which I think bugs me more than anything. It shows these giant buildings and ships that hint at vast crowds of people, and we only ever see a handful at a time on screen. Even “crowd” scenes are sparse. It feels like they’re trying to make Arrakis feel giant and daunting to show the difference between the expansive dessert dwarfing crowds, then realized they didn’t have the money for crowds so they just zoomed in on 4 people.
And they should have ended the story sooner. End with the climax battle and them getting to safety and save everything after for the next movie. Use that new time to actually get me invested in the characters, or the setting, or the story… anything. Make the first movie about palace intrigue as they know they’re in danger and not sure who they can trust and gaining allies. Instead, all of that got like, one scene each and only makes sense if you’ve read the book. The best thing I can say is they put a tiny bit more effort in to showing Paul using the Voice before it’s relevant to the story. So at least they cared enough about grounding that. Just not about literally anything else.
I desperately want someone to win me over and tell me what makes this a good movie. I feel like I’m missing something.
The new Dungeons and Dragons movie. It was a blast
I think people only complained about the owlbear because everything else was so damn authentic. The lore, the feeling of a DnD session, the classes, etc. And to top that of: It was just a good movie. Even for a non DnD player it is worth watching as a comedy/action movie.
What was wrong with the owlbear? Owlbears are authentic to DnD.
Owlbears are monstrosities not beasts and therefore the druid probably shouldn’t of been able to shapeshift into one (I think. I’ve never actually played as or with a druid)
Haven’t played a druid either, but just checked the Player’s Handbook, and the Owlbear is above the combat rating that a Druid can Wild Shape into as well. But hey, it’s cool so i give it a pass.
Afaik using wildshape to become an owlbear would be possible! Albeit only with one specific druid subclass, circle of the moon, which allows for higher challenge rating forms, and the requirement that a druid be lvl18+. I don’t think any of them were near that point lol
What a fun movie. I hope they make more.
My first thought as well. I figured I’d enjoy it, but it was better than I expected. Very well done all around.
Bullet Train was fun as hell.
Edit: I just realized that I saw John Wick based on, “Hey I want to see a movie today. John Wick? No idea what this is, but if it’s in IMAX it might be fun!”
It was.
The new Puss In Boots. I went to see it mostly for my husband who likes Puss, but oh my goodness it was actually REALLY good. The animation was really interesting.
You beat me to this answer. I knew it was going to be good because of its phenomenal word of mouth and I was still surprised. There are so many cool details that no one will notice on a first watch, but show how much care the creators had for it. By way of example, Death can be seen in the crowd during the opening giant fight (he was there to witness each frivolous end, after all), and the numbered cards denoting each death have the silhouette of Death holding his shotels in the corners.
This!!!
Train to Busan. Shit was INTENSE.
The New Jumanji. The first one, I never saw the second. I expected it to be a dumb, corny movie made just to fill the years reboot quota, but it was a VERY enjoyable movie.
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Both Prey & Bullet train I was expecting average action movies, and both ended up being some of my favourite movies last year with great rewatchability.
Zoolander. Thought it looked bad from the trailers. I was wrong.
Coco.
I went into thinking it’d just be another generic Disney animated movie that my sister kept pestering me to watch.
Ended up crying at that last 15 minutes of the movie. Wow was it good.
Same! It’s so good!
Free Guy! I had very mediocre expectations for that movie, but I ended up loving it.
I worked on it. It was really fun to work on too. I got to meet Taika Waititi at lunch one day. He introduced me to the TV show of WWDITS.
I’m not super into celebrity culture, but i’d love to hang out with Taika!
I’m not either but he is incredibly approachable and gregarious in person, so I wasn’t at all worried about him going to his people afterward and having me fired like some celebrities
spoiler
(Martin Lawrence/Jake Gyllenhaal)
might.
Yeah. I signed up for a goofy explodey movie, and got a lot more in quality and fun and heart than I expected from “Free Guy”. Even the science fiction premise details were far better researched than they needed to be.
2 movies immediately come to mind, and I think it’s because I went in with an expectation that the movie is gonna suck.
- Pacific Rim
- District 9
It’s probably been 10 years since I watched either of those movies so I’m not sure how they have aged…
District 9 was very good! I think that was my first bluray.
Yeah. Pacific Rim was a breath of fresh air just to be getting a Yaeger/Kaiju movie at all. Then to watch it and discover it was made by a true fan of the genre, just fantastic.
I knew I was going to love Pacific Rim (giant robots and monsters? Sign me up) but I didnt expect the horror element of it and exactly how menacing each kaiju would be. I can easily rewatch it many times.
To the original question, from recent memory a film that surprised me was Dungeons and Dragons Honor among Thieves. The IP didnt have a great track record in film, but this one was entertaining, funny, heartwarming, and highly recommended.
