Best ideas/performances from bad movies?

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greycrusader
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Best ideas/performances from bad movies?

Post by greycrusader »

A question I've pondered lately, especially regarding superhero cinema, though it could apply to any "geek-culture" genre film (science fiction, fantasy, anime)-what concepts or characterizations (by a particular actor/actress) stand out as worth keeping canonically in otherwise badly-executed (or even just plain lousy) movies or television shows? For example X-Men Origins: Wolverine should mostly be ignored, but it did give us a pretty intimidating portrayal of Creed/Sabretooth, the kick-ass first half-hour with Logan and Creed bonding and fighting their way through every American war in the last 150 years, and Ryan Reynolds as sort-of Deadpool. Suicide Squad has Margot Robey as a dead-perfect Harley, and Viola Davis as Amanda Waller (even if classic Wallers should be fat-but hell, Hugh Jackman is 6'2").

Even extending this to animation, Avengers: Assemble! is inferior to A:EMH, but the Squadron Supreme story arc was really good.

Any other noteworthy citations for this category, which I admittedly just made up?

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MacynSnow
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Re: Best ideas/performances from bad movies?

Post by MacynSnow »

The first Hulk movie was aweful,but Sam Elliott as Gen.Ross was Spot on and he should've been keept for the MCU version...

The Daredevil movie was bad all around,but gave us an AMAZING performance by Michael Clark Duncan as Kingpin...

Jessica Jones is a bit hit or miss for me(Love the Noir and Pulpy atmosphere,but dislike some of the writing...),but i love David Tennant's verion of Killgrave...
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M4C8
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Re: Best ideas/performances from bad movies?

Post by M4C8 »

MacynSnow wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 6:27 pm The first Hulk movie was aweful,but Sam Elliott as Gen.Ross was Spot on and he should've been keept for the MCU version...

The Daredevil movie was bad all around,but gave us an AMAZING performance by Michael Clark Duncan as Kingpin...

Jessica Jones is a bit hit or miss for me(Love the Noir and Pulpy atmosphere,but dislike some of the writing...),but i love David Tennant's verion of Killgrave...
Despite the Hulk movie not being great (I didn't particularly like The Incredible Hulk either) the sequence where he's fighting tanks in the desert is still a favourite of mine, it's one of the few times we've seen the character show a power level similar to the original comic book version.
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Spectrum
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Re: Best ideas/performances from bad movies?

Post by Spectrum »

MacynSnow wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 6:27 pm The Daredevil movie was bad all around,but gave us an AMAZING performance by Michael Clark Duncan as Kingpin...
... and an incredible soundtrack. I played that thing for hours.
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Spectrum
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Re: Best ideas/performances from bad movies?

Post by Spectrum »

Both THIR13EN Ghosts and Event Horizon are both guilty pleasures of mine. If you dig into the background of each movie, they are absolutely incredible. However, they are both also pretty bad movies because of directing and acting choices. Gloriously beautiful yet horribly flawed.

Seriously, if you want a cast of freakish show super villains, look up the character bios on the spirits for THIR13EN Ghosts.
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Re: Best ideas/performances from bad movies?

Post by Bladewind »

Sort in the same vein, what really annoys me about most movies is how the villains are one shots.

Bats refusing to kill the Joker in the Dark Knight was awesome. Too many villains die at the end of one movie, forever removed from continuity short of a reboot.

As for the Hulk - I really liked what they TRIED to do with the comic panel style cut scenes.
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Ares
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Re: Best ideas/performances from bad movies?

Post by Ares »

greycrusader wrote: Sun Oct 07, 2018 4:01 pm
Even extending this to animation, Avengers: Assemble! is inferior to A:EMH, but the Squadron Supreme story arc was really good.
This was one thing that immediately came to mind.

I'm a huge fan of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (I think it equal to all but the very best episodes of the DCAU), and I HATE Avengers: Assemble with the fiery passion of a million Foreman Grills. The show is just . . . bad. And I tried to give it a shot, I really did, but the episodes can frankly be painful to watch at times, and the animation is inconsistent as Hell. Sometimes it's rock solid, sometimes it's breathtakingly gorgeous, and sometimes it makes my eyes OH THE PAIN WHY WON'T THE PAIN STOP IT HURTS TO LOOK AT.

But weirdly enough, the episodes where any member of the Squadron Supreme show up are actually . . . REALLY GOOD. Like, Avengers:EMH good. Hyperion's appearances in Season 1, the ongoing Squadron Arc in Season 2, they were really solid. I would have loved to see the Squadron stuff done in the Avengers:EMH series, because it would have been awesome (at least in the episodes where Jeph Loeb wasn't screwing over the creative team).

One thing that comes to mind was the Man of Steel film. The film brings ups several times the concept of choice, of how Krypton was doomed because it's people had essentially taken away their own ability to choose, instead making citizens that were essentially biological robots programmed for specific functions. Both Jor-El and Zod are trying to fight against this, but whereas Jor-El wants to give people back their ability to choose, Zod wants to simply control how the Kryptonians are made, tweaking society to create his ideal version of Krypton.

Superman is then unique among Kryptonians for actually being able to choose his own path, having the freedom to be whatever he wants. The movie creates this wonderful idea that Clark Kent can choose to do anything, and what he chooses to do is be a hero. Pa Kent says it very well when he simply says, "You just have to decide what kind of a man you want to grow up to be, Clark; because whoever that man is, good character or bad, he's... He's gonna change the world."

And then the movie completely wastes the concept by having Clark going around doing whatever the closest Father Figure in his life tells him to do. He doesn't save someone in trouble because Pa Kent tells him not to. He spends a lifetime trying to find out about his origins largely because Pa Kent told him to. He decides to be a superhero because Jor-El tells him to be. He decides to turn himself over to Zod because a priest tells him to. He is constantly doing what other people tell him to do instead of actually making his own choices.

What Jor-El should have been pushing for is for Clark to make his own decisions. Jor-El can tell Clark about why Krypton failed, why he's unique, that he has to choose, and encourage Clark to use his abilities wisely, but above all else he should be pushing Clark to make his own decisions, not just do what others tell him.

I like that they showed that Clark always had the impulse to help others, but I hated how they mired his childhood experiences with him being picked on, unpopular, an outcast, and how his life was governed by fear. How his father chose to let himself die rather than allow Clark to save him. It was a beautifully shot scene of someone doing something incredibly stupid.

What should have happened is that Clark saves Pa Kent, and when he does he looks at his dad and says, "This the kind of man I want to be." And then have the people of Smallville actively cover up for Clark, with the idea that Clark's powers are kind of an open secret among the town who are grateful for what Clark has done, so the people in the know keep it to themselves.

For that matter, why couldn't Clark have been someone who got along with everyone? He's a good guy, friendly, easy going, likes to help, and in a farm town he should have just been "one of the guys". But instead they had to turn him into Peter Parker.

Now having the government being cautious/suspicious of Superman made sense, the military being kind of squeemish, etc. That was good, because it built up to one of my favorite lines of the film. Namely, the scene where Christopher Meloni looks at Superman after being rescued by him and simply says, "This man is not our enemy." There was power in that simple statement, and how following it the military is completely on Superman's side.
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Chris Brady
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Re: Best ideas/performances from bad movies?

Post by Chris Brady »

The problem with the DCEU is Zack Snyder. The man can't do hopeful, and Superman IS the embodiment of hope.
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Ares
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Re: Best ideas/performances from bad movies?

Post by Ares »

Much as I hate 95% of the animated Justice League: War film, I did like the kind of physical threat they made Darkseid, where you could see the need for the League to use teamwork against him, and where he was not someone Superman could even fight solo. Unfortunately, to do that they basically removed everything else about Darkseid, such as his personality and schemer nature.
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Voltron64
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Re: Best ideas/performances from bad movies?

Post by Voltron64 »

BTW Ares, I think Meloni’s character should have been Nathaniel Adam that than Nathaniel Hardy.

Because, let’s face it caught in a explosion while simultaneously being shifted to the Phantom Zone would’ve been a perfect way to get DCEU Captain Atom.
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