So Shines A Good Deed In A Weary World

As any one of my friends or family can tell you, I'm extremely opinionated when it comes to movies, often times before I even watch them.

Typically, when a new movie comes out, I do a little research if it looks interesting.  I'll go online and check out wikipedia to see if the story is something I want to watch, or check the movie watcher forums to see what buzz is being created about the movie.  I'll also check YouTube for every available trailer out there.

But if it's not something I would want to check out, I just dismiss it to the "not gonna watch it" file and let it be.

I get a lot of guff about the films I let fall by the wayside.  For example, the movie Avatar.  I saw the previews, I read the wiki entry, and the forums, and it just seemed like a dumb movie to me.  So into the NGWI file it went.  When I tried to explain this to a group of my close friends, I got yelled at a lot for judging the movie before I watched it.

That reaction made me go watch it.  It was a dumb movie.

When I came back and said the same thing, and told them I had watched it, they were fine, and a few even agreed with me that the plot was akin to Smurfs or Ferngully The Last Rainforest.  It was a dumb movie.  So does that make it right that I judged the movie prior to seeing it?

I think so. 

There are a lot of movies out there that I will never watch based on just previews, or the general content.  I think it's good to have a little prejudgement.  For example, I don't need to sit through all 6 Saw movies to know that they aren't something I would watch.

While it's not surprising that some movies are completely devoid of talent, substance, and anything I would consider entertaining, there are the occasional movies that real me in with trailers, wiki, and YouTube only to slap me in the face with obvious regret that I watched it.

Most recently, it was the Death Race movies that did this.  The 2008 remake with Jason Statham looked good enough to rent and that lead me to rent Death Race 2 (which is actually the prequel to the 2008 one) and that lead to Death Race 2000 (which is supposed to be the sequel to the 2008 film, I know, it's confusing).  I was subsequently slapped in the face.

But it's not always action movies, or even sequels that do it me.  Almost everyone has seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and I wager at least some of my readers will agree with me that the movie was poorly done.  Specifically, the obscure scene with the tunnel and all that weirdness.  ( Which is explained here )  Regardless of my personal feelings on the movie, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is better because it lacks that tunnel scene.

So in the interest of avoiding such slaps, and allowing people to prejudge movies as they see fit, let me ask you, dear readers, what movies have you got something to say about, whether you've seen them or not.?