The Purge

ORPHAN (2009) comes to mind.

You mean the complete opposite? Movie was awful.

Trollhunter:




Dead Snow:




Both very solid....subtitled, but solid.

No no . I had zero expectation to the point that this was going to be a -7 on a 1-10 scale.

And it turned out to be 2. So in my book it's a positive EV of +9

Yeah this one belongs in the other thread, movies that could've been good but weren't. Interesting concept, Ethan Hawke as your lead, had potential but was beyond terrible. I didn't care at all about any of the characters, laughed out loud while the boyfriend was dying (I'm not putting in spoiler alerts cause this movie doesn't deserve any), the ending had me yawning and wondering wtf at the same time, total waste of 2 hours and now they're making a sequel.

Transformers 4

I thought You're Next was surprisingly good. Much better than Purge and in the same vein/theme as The Strangers. Not QUITE as creepy as The Strangers but a really entertaining movie, imo.

the hell you say?

Pain & Gain seemed like it would be absolutely horrible and I had super low expectations even after positive reviews around here, but it was pretty good.

Great movie... that area above santa barbara is where I am from. Still have a place there and there is no place like it in the world.

Locke The entire movie takes place in a car, with a guy talking on bluetooth, with no car chases or explosions. This is actually my favorite movie of the year so far. Tom Hardy is brilliant as a man with a big dilemma, and the decision he makes by making this drive will forever change the course of his life, and you are with him for every moment. Hardy is officially a member of the "If he's in it, I'll go see it" category after his performance here.

This is a good one. Given how god awful terrible other SNL sketches turned movies are, if that's all you knew you'd assume this would be awful and it was actually quite entertaining.

some of these movies im like, what did you expect, with the people involved why is it a surprise that they were good?

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - expected it to be awful and it ended up being one of my favourite movies of the year.

Just about to start a marathon of all the ape movies, looking forward to this and conquest the most.

Wow do you work in the biz or something!?

when I heard they were making 21 Jump St. into a movie i thought there was no way in hell it could be good... And I actually like Channing Tatum but I didn't think he could do comedy... Low and behold I got free tickets to a screening so I went, and it was hilarious and Tatum was great... And now it's somewhat of a modern comedy classic. But that idea sounded like a train wreck at first

while the story makes a complete circle, pay attention to the production aspects as the movies roll out. wen I was growing up I had a best friend who's mother worked on a couple of those later movies and they really began suffering from cost pressures later in the series and you can see it in the makeup and art direction... anything after "Beneath".

If you have spent any time in california you will recognize Silverdo canyon and Irvine outdoor areas in some of those movies. the first two were beautifully awesome... not so much later.

Chronicle Oh dear lord, another found footage teenage PG-13 crappy movie. Instead you get a great story, realistic depictions of what would be done with those super powers, some really clever ways of getting rid of the shaky cam, a terrific 3rd act, and actual character arcs. I was pleasantly surprised by this movie.

Fight Club.

I remember when it was coming out everyone was like "wtf? A movie about a club where guys just fight eachother?" It was completely perplexing that Brad Pitt would do such a silly movie - even though it showcased his chiseled torso. None of it made sense. And the previews dumbed the film down, which ended up being genius. All I remember them showing was the on-the-surface fight stuff and nothing that showed the film's true hand. Jennifer Aniston hosted SNL while dating Pitt and mentioned the film in the monologue and they did some dumb little fight club thing - again making the film appear as shallow as the title suggested.

Then it became a cult classic and then just a mainstream classic.

i mean i could understand thinking fight club would be bad if you never read the book, had never seen a fincher film, and didn't know pitt and norton were starring in it.

I actually didn't know any of those things going in. I was floored within 5 minutes and watched it again that same night.

The Lego Movie was really ****ing good. I didn't see that one coming at all.

To the Moneyball & Social Network people - the formula for making a bad movie good is having Sorkin write your script.