While it is true that everyone is entitled to their opinion, it is also true that opinions are like [back]holes as everyone has one. None of this traverses into the realm of facts, though, as those are reserved for objective statements. Still, both have an equal power to rile folks up, and both have equal force to wreak havoc if the statement is absolutely ludicrous.
Enter folks on AskReddit who share some of the most far-fetched, weirdest, dumbest or just flat-out what? takes about movies they’ve ever heard said out loud in the wild. Scroll down to check out the best of the best opinions found in the now-viral Reddit thread.
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That Blazing Saddles was a racist movie when it infact condemns and makes fun of racists
Memory of my dad (passed away several years ago) practically rolling on the floor at the campfire fart scene. I smile everytime Blazing Saddles is mentioned.
I once saw someone comment they could not get into Ghostbusters because the CGI was so terrible.
The CGI
In Ghostbusters
That was made in 1984
I saw it in the cinemas when it came out in 1984 and thought the special effects were all fantastic. I still think it holds up even now, IMHO.
Doesn't quite fit this thread, but, after leaving Avatar 3D in 2009, we overheard someone say "why was it so blurry", for them to be asked "didn't you wear the glasses"? Dude sat through 3 hours of blurred film lol
"It's ridiculous, gorillas don't get that big." My ex's father after watching King Kong.
I knew a woman who saw Schindler's List and said, "It was just a sad movie about people in jail. Why would they even have kids in jail?"
Legitimately, that was her take. Her mother asked her if she liked it and she said, "It was okay. It was really long and old."
This girl was around 24-25 years old at the time.
Obviously that woman was dozing off in history class when she was at school
In an open class discussion about what movies we thought were best and worst a guy in my film studies class said he thought marvel movies were best because they have the biggest budgets, most effects, biggest stars, make the most money, etc and he thought Monty python movies were the worst because they were cheesy and not funny. He specifically cited the coconut horses as being stupid. I try to be open minded and not judgmental about people anyone and especially those who share my passions but I just couldn’t ignore how god awful of a take that was. He’s a studio execs favorite demographic I imagine
Some people can't handle British humour. Personally, I can't handle much American 'Humour' *shrug*
Every single critic in 1997 missed that Starship Troopers was satire. I think our timeline got mixed up with some Bizarro World timeline for a couple months.
Heinlein did social science science fiction. Starship Troopers speculated about a world where fascism and the industrial military complex that was ascending at the time continued that rise. Stranger in a Strange Land examined a future where beatnik/hippies became the norm. The moon is a harsh mistress speculates about a society based on libertarianism. All have flaws but they were earnest attempts to extrapolate different social theories into the future. Starshp Troopers though gained the largest audience though because Heinlein also did an amazing job of inventing the Gorilla suit. Its invention and the fight against aliens was supposed to be a McGuffin to examine fascism but people embraced the McGuffin over the theme. I don't blame them either. The story is a compelling page turner.
It was a little more than an exploration of different social theories... Splitting into multiple comments because it's a bit hard to follow. [1] When Heinlein began writing he was in an open marriage with a full-blown communist, and had just been through a beef with the Navy who refused him promotions because he was too left-wing-leaning. This is when he wrote Stranger in a Strange Land, but could not publish it until years later after he became famous for ST. SiSL is heavily influenced by the liberal views of his wife.
Load More Replies...There are still heated debates about whether the book is satire or not.
Load More Replies...If you only know the film was supposed to be satire b/c you read the book... then maybe the film failed.
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” - George Carlin
Load More Replies...No, I don't think every critic missed that. I think a lot of people just didn't like the movie, satire or not.
I agree. I just watched it again for the first time in at least 10 years recently. It was just a bad movie. Bad acting (laughable almost), bad directing, bad storytelling.
Load More Replies...Yeah, this was really weird on the part of the critics. It's so over the top I don't get how you miss that. It's like watching The Producers and thinking it's pro-Hitler. However, with the rampant stupidity of the loud and ignorant, a not insignificant amount of people would definitely take this at face value and most likely champion it's ironic messages. "Handing a child an assault rifle? Sounds like a great idea!"
I knew someone who thought The Colbert Report was serious. This is about the same level.
Load More Replies...Some people just don’t get Paul Verhoeven’s uniquely Zuid-Holland sense of humor. I mean, Showgirls??? A masterpiece!! My faves of his are Spetters (Splashes) & Keetje Tippel, but not sure if they’re available in English. I’ve also very fond nostalgia for RoboCop & Total Recall.
A lot of Paul Verhoeven's films are either satirical, or a commentary on a specific theme or idea of life. RoboCop is a satire of commercialism and of corporations. Also, side note, I'm going to meet Casper Van Dien (Johnny Rico from Starship Troopers) at ComicCon this weekend.
Showgirls, which Verhoeven also directed, is also satire.
Load More Replies...I got the satire part. I didnt like thst they ended the film torturing big puppy-Eyed "monsters" in the grusomest way. It showed they was unable to step outside their own satire and that they really didnt get the audience at that time. I wanted to love it, its just my thing, and saw it many times. It was always ruined by the endscene
I snuck in to see this film when i was 13, and even then I felt there was something off with the ultra-miitarism and "I'm doing my part" ads...
Great movie, and the references were about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face. Not sure how the critics were unable to decipher this.
Not to be that guy, but the book was f-ing amazing. the satire really shines through. The struggles of the grunt.
My favorite part of the movie is the little brawl in the soda shop has the Mazzy Star song Fade Into You playing in the background
Doing something people enjoy, but saying you're doing it ironically was probably the defining characteristic of the 1990s. So there's a really cool action-sci fi story with politics to make liberals' skin crawl. So do it anyway and call it "satire." "Sure, it's fascistic, but it's ironically fascistic."
Starship troopers is an amazing movie that still holds up. Do you want to know more?
The thing about Starship Troopers is that for veterans it's the same as any other war movie.
I dunno. Maybe satires based on source material the director himself admitted he didn't read missed the mark for a reason.
Oh I love this movie even more for the memory of my brother (who considers himself a great cineast and critic) ranting about bs propaganda all the way home from the theater until it me and two friends finally were able to convince him it was satire.
My guide channel described the movie as: "Futuristic Thriller about coed infantry trainees"... What?
I have no desire to see it, a roommate complained all day afterwards that it was different than the book and that kinda ruined it for me.
Especially the ending when the humans surrounded the alien like a bunch of ants their prey
Nope, didn't get it as a teenager back then, wasn't informed that it was based on a book by Heinlein, and just stopped watching after the first 20 minutes just got on my nerves. If that makes me the great social failure, be it. I've watched enough other movies, satire or no, and if I don't like one, I just don't watch it.
How are you going to judge a movie if you never watched the whole thing? Especially when the first 20 minutes are just character development and exposition.
Load More Replies...Years ago, some Christian movie about the nativity story had just come out. I was listening to the radio and one guy complained about the movie being too predictable.
I went with my best friend in high school to see “Backdraft”. It was a populat movie about firefighters and she was really into whatever Baldwin brother was in that movie. It was a pretty good movie. Some major plot holes and unrealism set aside by good acting and great sets/special effects. I was especially surprised by a small role by Donald Surherland who did an amazing job with just a fee minutes.
Came out saying I was pleasently surprised and glad she dragged me along to go see it. She was silent. I asked what was wrong and she said she didn’t like it. Her reason?
“There was too much fire.”
In a movie about firefighters.
My co worker says she won't watch Star Wars due to the opening text scrolls. Says if she has to read to know the back story it's a bad movie
Fear leads to the Dark side... fear of reading three paragraphs of text
A coworker went to watch Memoirs Of A Geisha thinking that Geishas were some sort of Ninja women. He had some very harsh criticism of the movie afterwards.
I think dingus there mistook geishas for kunoichis. There is a big difference but some geishas could very well be kunoichis in disguise. Dingus might want to watch his back now that there could be some sultry assassins lurking in his shadow with an intention to kill.
It's a heartwarming story, but it's just not believable. Which is why I give E.T one and a half stars. - Perd Hapley
My gf's brother-in-law said that Mad Max Fury Road was a bad film because it was implausible and made no sense how they all had so much gas to drive their cars in the dystopian wasteland.
But he loved Jurassic World. Guess that wasn't implausible.
When Prey came out last year there was an uptick of people complaining about the main character being a mary sue because she could fight the predator at the end of the movie. As if the entire movie… wasn’t about her journey to become a better hunter than the predator. Like that was the whole plot of the movie, she was as far away from a mary sue as you could get
I've noticed that a lot of internet dude bros label ANY overpowered female character as a Mary Sue.
Semi recently someone told me Back to the Future sucks because the incest is creepy.
Yeah. It's portrayed as creepy. Lorraine is being teased in-narrative for being such a prude as a mother when here she is going after her own son. And getting what she wants actually makes the creepiness dawn on her when she isn't even aware. Such a braindead take.
Yeah, that was a definite undercurrent through out all of this, and made this very much a farce. The thing with farces is, like satire, some people don't get what a farce is and thus don't get the movie at all. A lot of people hated the TV show Modern Family because they didn't get farce, and that show was a master of it.
Someone on here criticized Jaws for not explaining in detail why Brody was afraid of water.
I once had someone tell me that they thought the message of American History X was "racism is correct" because at the end >!the brother gets shot by a black kid!<.
A lot of antipathy towards The Godfather from younger whippersnappers these days, but my brother's take has to be the worst I've heard. He couldn't get through the first half-hour because:
* Nobody had been shot yet
* There's too much talking
* Marlon Brando scratches his face in an odd way
Ben Shapiro's take on Barbie.
He contradicts himself several times, claims there is no plot, then proceeds to explain the plot (according to him lol), claims all jokes are in the first few minutes, then shows many many jokes.
Me and my friend heard he did a take on it, we never watch him, but his stupidity was so laughable that we watched the full 45 min.
Some years back I read someone say Mad Max couldn’t be a feminist movie because the brides were too hot
So if you watched the trailers for Arrival [2016] then it wouldn't be unreasonable per se that you went into the movie expecting it to be an Independence Day style invasion movie since it is really particular about including like every single dramatic scene in the movie that might make it seem that way.
As a result plenty of people went to watch it and were kind of shocked that it wasn't really that, it was more about the nature of language and perception and it gets into some way more heady shenanigans as well.
I will never forget, end of the movie in the cinema, everyone standing up and kind of shell shocked by what they had just seen and this group of older ladies in the row ahead of us whinging very loudly about the film.
'It was so boring!' 'It didn't make any sense. Do they think we are stupid or something?'
Hmm, well, indeed.
It was better than any of the pew-pew alien invasion movies starring Badass McActionguy.
That “Dune” is a Chosen One cliche fest with some uncomfy imperialist vibes…which is exactly what I thought, until my sister, who had actually read the books, explained to me that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be set up in order to subvert the whole thing. Which I now think is brilliant.
That is a general complaint about the Dune series of books, actually. Not sure what your sister saw in them to counter that, so not trying to address that. While I'm going to be down voted by people not realizing I'm talking about the basis for the criticism and not my own thoughts or beliefs: The major issue critics have with it is it's a White Messiah story. Basically you have all these indigenous people sitting around doing nothing until the White Man shows up and tells them what to do and what's best for them, and they're so amazed by the magic white man they make him their leader. That's it in short form. People have written pages about it. Google it if you would like to know more.
Guy at the office said Batman Begins was stupid because "in the end he learns about the Joker's existence and in the other Batman movie, he finds out the Joker is the one who [ends] his parents, so the stories don't match. Also, the guy who kills his parents in BB is not even the Joker, like in the other movie" and in conclusion, Batman Begins was based on big plot mistakes. I tried to explain to him that the movies are from different directors and from different eras/universes and that what happened in the 1989 one doesn't have anything to do with BB. He laughed, called me a nerd and doubled down on his opinion.
Consistency BP. "... who [ends] his parents..." followed by "who _kills_ his parents".
My elder brother hated Zodiac because they didn't caught the killer at the end.
When the original 1987 *Robocop* was released, our local paper had a movie critic I had not read before, Laurie Horn, review it. She completely missed the movie’s outrageous satire and gave the film zero stars.
Among the things she noted was that the film was “very violent” and that the target audience was “immature boys”. That “the rest of the human race will want to stay far away from this witless and cynically exploitive film”. “If there was satire in the concept, (director) Verhoeven’s bloodthirstiness destroys it”.
She went on to write, after describing the scene where Robocop shoots a would be r****t through a woman’s dress (and hits his… uh… *privates*): “Humor like this is fit only for the likes of Klaus Barbie and Rudolf Hess”.
My guess is she didn’t like it.
My gf called Alien boring and fell asleep during it.
Wild.
Logan Paul is a goldmine but Armand white is the undefeated GOAT of dumb reviews
“none of these digital-cartoon characters reflect human experience; it’s essentially a bored game that only the brainwashed will buy into. Besides, Transformers 2 already explored the same plot to greater thrill and opulence"
-Armand white talking about Toy Story 3
Recently watched the 4th Toy Story and it was kinda delightful. I have no idea how any of them compare to Transformers movies as I haven't seen any, but my impression is that they're comparing apples to oranges?
"That was the most boringest movie ever." - some teenage girls about *Jurassic Park* according to RedLetterMedia
Well, I wouldn't bother with the opinions of people who use a term such as "most boringest"
Here is a s**t take. When I was seven years old I thought that Empire strikes back was the worst of the trilogy.
It was so boring compared to the other two.
Yeah, you're an idiot. At least you've come to terms with it and can talk about it now. lol Joking, of course. But it's easily the best of the original trilogy, in my mind. I know exactly what you mean though, it's the mid movie where nothing gets solved and stakes just get higher. It's the least satisfying of the 3 and the most frustrating. Which is exactly what it should be.
Sort of in the other direction, but it always annoyed the hell out of me...
Empire reviewer complaining about the first transformers movie:
> "it's nothing but a bunch of giant robots punching eachother".
I don't think it matters whether one thinks the movies are good or not, it can't be denied that the entire point of those movies (and all anyone ever wanted to see), is a bunch of giant robots punching eachother.
I got two of them, both regarding *The Batman:*
1. "The Riddler just suddenly turned evil by flooding the city when he had only been reasonably killing corrupt people beforehand." Ignoring the fact that he forced a man to drive into a crowded church earlier, almost killing a boy, and that he also targeted Bruce Wayne out of nothing more than self-admitted jealousy, the problem with this take is that Riddler wasn't targeting people out of a sense of justice or righteousness. At his core, he's an angry manchild lashing out against everyone he perceived as having wronged him, regardless of how justified it was. It's the extreme side to vengeance, a path that Batman learns he has to avoid.
2. "Everything after Riddler’s arrest was unnecessary." The ***entire*** point of the movie was that Batman couldn't figure out why his crusade against crime so far wasn't actually making anything better. Even after the top crime boss in Gotham was eliminated, things didn't magically improve. It's only *during* the supposedly unnecessary final act when Batman realizes that he inspired people who worshipped his methods while completely misunderstanding the point ("I'm vengeance.") that he realizes that what's missing is that in addition to punishing the guilty, he also needs to start helping the innocent. Said finale also gives him the perfect opportunity to do the latter. Without the final act, the whole movie is meaningless. And honestly, the scene where Batman's helping people on the rooftop is in my opinion, one of the best scenes in cinema I've ever seen.
My (ex) brother in law thought Eraserhead was "predictable"
Spoilers for Mission Impossible: Fallout
One of my professors in college got me into Letterbox’d and one day years later I saw he’d logged a review for Mission Impossible Fallout with one star out of five. When I read it, the review only consisted of “I can’t believe they managed to disarm the bomb with only one second left!” And like, dude? What kind of a movie did you think this was? Like, you chose to watch a Hollywood spy action blockbuster movie. Did you think it wouldn’t be like that???
Nostalgia Critic's review of Pink Floyd's The Wall
It really is like the Room of movie reviews. Its very awe-inspiring just how wrong everything in the review is. Everything take he has on what the songs are trying to say is incorrect. And its funny because the album and movie are very tailor maid for themes, if you were teaching a history class on the cultural effects of WW2 in Great Britain, the album/movie has everything.
It mentions PTSD of the war, treating children like another cog in the wheel and the brutality of their schooling. All of these are part of the album, and every take he has is incorrect on the authors intent.
Its mindboggling that he cares so much about the movie/album to wanna make a review about it, but at the same time, cares so little as to do 0 research on what the songs might mean.
And I'm not even the biggest Pink Floyd fan, but even I know what they mean by cultural osmosis. At one point he connects modern American schooling, to the schooling in post WW2 Britain. Its ridiculous where I ask the questions like "You've been reviewing art for a living for over a decade and you don't know how brutal British school children had it after WW2? How is that even possible?"
My main takeaway from his review is that every opinion about what the music about is wrong. Adding to that is that the parody music he does is also terrible, the animation in the review is bad, EVERYTHING about it just makes me feel bad, for EVERYONE involved
"Once Were Warriors will go down in history as New Zealands greatest romantic comedy."
I mean, although it's said a lot, it's said in a kiwi hard-case manner which is deeply sarcastic and delivered absolutely dead pan so that it is largely impossible to tell if it's sincere.
Erin Brokovich: I dated a guy for a little while about 10 years ago. I rented Erin Brokovich. He hadn't seen it. He was visibly disliking it about 30 minutes in and I asked if he didn't like it. He said, "Well, I really hate chick flicks." Apparently, to him any movie where the main character is a woman is a "chick flick".
Because boring is not real film criticism, it is just your opinion.
Load More Replies...I know someone who absolutely HATED the first LOTR-movie "fellowship of the ring" because she had no freaking clue what really would happend after that. That first movie ended with Boromir getting sent down the river on the elvish boat, and then Frodo and Sam walking towards Mordor on their own. But she was sort of like "was that all?" and apparently she had no idea that there was two other movies coming out after that. She probably never heard about J. R. R. Tolkien at all, and of course never read any of the actual books. But to claim the movie was "Absolutly awful" and total garbage - only because of this - sounds a bit over-kill in my ears.
I have two for LOTR. One of my colleagues in grad school thought it was "unbelievable" because "at least one of the hobbits should have died". When I pointed out that none of the hobbits died in the books, he then said that Tolkien was wrong. Another colleague refused to see the movie at all because "elves aren't supposed to be that tall"!
Load More Replies...I saw Fellowship of the Ring a few days after it came out. When the credits rolled (just as Frodo and Sam were setting off for Mordor), a guy behind me said, loudly "Wait, that's it?" His friend whispered, "You didn't read the books, did you?"
Guys, personal preferences are a real thing. Those who hate horror movies (or fantasy or sci-fi or whatever) will probably hate any movie on the genre(s), no matter how good. Then there are the individual prejudices, like being against women or POC as main protagonists. Honestly, their loss. That said, I think this article was meant to be about those who totally missed the message of a movie they may have enjoyed if they understood it. By that standard, more than half of the posts here don't apply, even if I rolled my eyes at all of them.
I saw someone review Genndy Tartakovsky's primal as "Creationist propoganda" or something like that because it had cavemen with dinosaurs and stuff. Its a fantasy. I mean, the second season had all kinds of mixed up time periods and stuff.
Have one from me. The movie Titanic would be so much better if every scene containing Leonardo Dicaprio was removed.
I read a review for The Sandlot that complained about the unrealistic portrayal of the neighbor's dog, completely missing the representation was of the boys' perception. Brilliant movie, dumb reviewer.
My dad’s review of Elvira “it was ok but too much singing.”
my husband hated the movie A Walk In The Clouds (Keanu Reeves) said it was boring. i get it really, romance isnt really a guy thing. i hated the movie The Devil's Advocate (also Keanu Reeves) now dont get me wrong. i love Keanu. but that movie was all kinds of messed up and disturbing as hell. lol see what i did there? edit to add: i wont say its the best movie but a good relaxing movie to just it and enjoy is Elizabethtown (Orlando Bloom)
Erin Brokovich: I dated a guy for a little while about 10 years ago. I rented Erin Brokovich. He hadn't seen it. He was visibly disliking it about 30 minutes in and I asked if he didn't like it. He said, "Well, I really hate chick flicks." Apparently, to him any movie where the main character is a woman is a "chick flick".
Because boring is not real film criticism, it is just your opinion.
Load More Replies...I know someone who absolutely HATED the first LOTR-movie "fellowship of the ring" because she had no freaking clue what really would happend after that. That first movie ended with Boromir getting sent down the river on the elvish boat, and then Frodo and Sam walking towards Mordor on their own. But she was sort of like "was that all?" and apparently she had no idea that there was two other movies coming out after that. She probably never heard about J. R. R. Tolkien at all, and of course never read any of the actual books. But to claim the movie was "Absolutly awful" and total garbage - only because of this - sounds a bit over-kill in my ears.
I have two for LOTR. One of my colleagues in grad school thought it was "unbelievable" because "at least one of the hobbits should have died". When I pointed out that none of the hobbits died in the books, he then said that Tolkien was wrong. Another colleague refused to see the movie at all because "elves aren't supposed to be that tall"!
Load More Replies...I saw Fellowship of the Ring a few days after it came out. When the credits rolled (just as Frodo and Sam were setting off for Mordor), a guy behind me said, loudly "Wait, that's it?" His friend whispered, "You didn't read the books, did you?"
Guys, personal preferences are a real thing. Those who hate horror movies (or fantasy or sci-fi or whatever) will probably hate any movie on the genre(s), no matter how good. Then there are the individual prejudices, like being against women or POC as main protagonists. Honestly, their loss. That said, I think this article was meant to be about those who totally missed the message of a movie they may have enjoyed if they understood it. By that standard, more than half of the posts here don't apply, even if I rolled my eyes at all of them.
I saw someone review Genndy Tartakovsky's primal as "Creationist propoganda" or something like that because it had cavemen with dinosaurs and stuff. Its a fantasy. I mean, the second season had all kinds of mixed up time periods and stuff.
Have one from me. The movie Titanic would be so much better if every scene containing Leonardo Dicaprio was removed.
I read a review for The Sandlot that complained about the unrealistic portrayal of the neighbor's dog, completely missing the representation was of the boys' perception. Brilliant movie, dumb reviewer.
My dad’s review of Elvira “it was ok but too much singing.”
my husband hated the movie A Walk In The Clouds (Keanu Reeves) said it was boring. i get it really, romance isnt really a guy thing. i hated the movie The Devil's Advocate (also Keanu Reeves) now dont get me wrong. i love Keanu. but that movie was all kinds of messed up and disturbing as hell. lol see what i did there? edit to add: i wont say its the best movie but a good relaxing movie to just it and enjoy is Elizabethtown (Orlando Bloom)