5 Recent Movies That Are Better Than People Say

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Posted 2020-04-14 by Steven G ⇒ follow

Opinions are like nostrils – we all have them. (The PG version… like it?) And nowhere is this more obvious than in the realms of pop culture. Or maybe politics. Oh, yeah, and religion… I'll start again.

When it comes to popular culture, the opinions as to what is good and what is bad divides people like few other topics. What one person says is great another might think of as less than pond scum. No-one is right. Obviously. (Although, for the record, the Twilight and 50 Shades series, books and films, are bad. Yes they are. Don't @ me.) I have also stated on WeekendNotes on many occasions that I have a love for bad movies (no, not the aforementioned two series… no way…) and this potentially makes me a weird person to be looking at this particular topic.

However, in my opinion, some films get a bad rap when they don't deserve them. Oh, don't get me wrong, I think Triassic Attack is a bad film, but it is really enjoyable to watch. That's why I recommend people have a look at it. No, some films are regarded as not that good and, I feel, are genuinely under-rated by critics, audiences or both. Yes, none of these are classics; I am not going to claim that any of them should have won all the awards ever. But they are, in my opinion, unfairly tarred as "bad". So, I will try to defend them.

A few caveats. By "recent" I mean "since 2015". Why? Well, I had to find a defining point or else this list could have gone back eighty years (and, no, I am not joking), and 5 years ago seems about right. And I mean I think these films have positive points that outweigh the negatives to make them decent. And, finally, as much as I like Melissa McCarthy's The Happytime Murders (2018), I am not going to try to convince anyone else in the world it is good or enjoyable. It is to me, but I am quite happy to live in that minority. Probably even more so with Pixels (2015).

And so, on with the list!
Ghostbusters (2016)

And, speaking of Melissa McCarthy, why not start with a film that polarised people from the time the trailer was released. No, sorry, from the time the concept was released. "Female Ghostbusters? Why, next they'll want the vote!" seemed to be the general consensus of those strange online denizens who write this sort of thing. Well, it's not bad. Is it great? No. But Ghostbusters II (1989) was also not great. In this reboot/remake/rewhatever, there are some good jokes, some good special effects and some great physical comedy. There are some glaring things wrong, sure – the Ghostbusters themselves being interchangeable is the worst. They all want to be Venkman (the Bill Murray character from the original). Slimer wasn't necessary and his wife was nothing. Quite a few jokes either fell flat or over-stayed their welcome. However, the positives really made up for it. And one of the best things was Chris Hemsworth playing against type as the dumb blonde (gender-swapped) and showing he is hilarious. Yeah, not a bad film, all told.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

Critically panned, the fifth film in the Jurassic Park franchise made a lot of money, but is generally looked down on. Well, I liked it better than the two original sequels to the first (and best) Jurassic Park movie. The tone is different, and I think that could be a lot of the problem. This isn't about man trying to cope with the dinosaurs they created and escape being eaten – this is about man trying to cope with the dinosaurs they created as animals and a new species. The ecological undertones are quite overt. That scene on the jetty with the death of the brachiosaurus is actually heart-rending. There's a sub-plot with a clone that pays off at the end, and then the world that is left is terrifying – dinosaurs in our midst! Yes, there are some plot holes – the whole blood transfusion thing (xenotransfusion) makes only a little sense, volcanoes don't work the way they did in the film and the position of the mosasaur lagoon changed between this film and its predecessor – and it is visually very dark. I quite like Chris Pratt and Dallas Bryce Howard (her character here is much better than in the previous film), and, all up, it is not a bad film.
Justice League (2017)

Another film that made a lot of money, but critics and especially comic books fans generally felt it was only "meh" at best. But, really, at its core, it was a standard and mostly harmless action-superhero film. Where Batman Vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice is let down by "Martha", a terrible Lex Luthor and trying to cram too much into one film, this film is much simpler. Batman – and Ben Affleck is really good in the role – gathers the heroes he knows of in order to fight an intergalactic threat, helped by said threat attacking the Amazons and Atlantis, they bring Superman back from the dead and bring down the big bad, who is only a medium bad in the whole scheme of things (I'm a comic book nerd – sue me). Simple? Look, yes, the CGI is too much at times, it is visually too dark too often, backstory is eschewed (Cyborg?), and deus ex machina lives in the DCEU. But it is not quip-heavy (hello, MCU!), the superhero actors are amazingly effective and it had a definite ending and yet left itself open for the future movies well. Definitely not a bad film.
Ocean's 8 (2018)

Another all-female sequel! But this is definitely a sequel, not a potential reboot thing. Critics weren't harsh but meh about it, it made a profit but audiences were meh about it, and it sort of faded. But it should not have. This is the best in the recent Ocean series since the first one (Ocean's 11 with George Clooney). Yes, I liked this better than the two male-cast sequels. The trap is as intricate, the way it is carried out is as convoluted as any plan thus far, and there is a twist ending that works nicely. It is surprisingly well done. There are some issues, of course. Continuity errors abound. Luck plays a huge factor in nearly everything. Rihanna simply cannot act. But, in all, it is a really strong addition to the Ocean's universe (Oceaniverse?) and a fun way to spend a couple of hours. Oh, and Sandra Bullock is so good!
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

Terminator was a horror movie with sci-fi overtones. Terminator 2 was a sci-fi movie with some cool special effects. Then… Terminator films became a hodge-podge of canon-destroying story-lines, nonsensical story beats and acting that… is just sort of there? I guess? Well, along came Terminator: Dark Fate, which suffered at the hands of critics and audiences because of the trash that had come before it. But this film is actually a direct sequel to T-2. The rest have been conveniently ignored (I believe "retconned out of existence" is the technical term). Seriously. And that is a good thing. Why didn't the terminators from the future keep sending terminators to kill John Connor? Well, in this film, it's because they succeeded in killing him! And so his mother, Sarah Connor, goes all insane. But the future has been changed (it's really convoluted) and there is no SkyNet and no John Connor, so they must now save a different person who will change the future. Wow. And the T-800 that killed John helps them all. With the original actors (Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger) back and more character development than there has been for a while, it is the best since T-2. However… Some of the time travel inconsistencies run deep, the younger actors need more lessons, the dialogue sometimes drifts into "people don't talk like that" territory, and there is a general feeling overall of "haven't we seen this before?" Look, it is a lot better than its box office failure would indicate. Just ignore the movies since T-2 and you'll be fine.
Five recent films that word of mouth seems to have said are not good, but which I think have more than enough positives about them to make them worth tracking down and watching during this time of lockdown and nothing else to do.

So, what recent films did I miss out? I am sure not everyone will agree with all of these choices, but that's fine. Opinions are still like nostrils. I hope you at least find something worth watching here.

Happy viewing!