Sometimes movies make pretty bad first impressions. Years or even decades later,
however, fans and critics alike can change their tune, and once-reviled releases are shown a whole
new level of appreciation. Here are some of the movies that are better than you actually remember.
In space, no one can hear you scream — but in the movie theatre, lots of people can hear you getting
mad. And boy, did Alien 3 make people mad. After Ridley Scott directed one of the greatest sci-fi
films ever and James Cameron followed it up with one of the greatest action films ever,
David Fincher's third installment in the Alien franchise was...
well, it wasn't the greatest anything. Critics and audiences despised Alien 3, though the
film's box office wasn't that bad, earning $54 million domestically and $158 million worldwide.
Arguably, however, Alien 3 committed the worst of all cinematic sins — it
was disappointing. Following two of the greatest genre films ever is a tough gig
to say the least, especially when your movie was supposed to be the cinematic swan song
for one of the most beloved movie characters of all time.
It was a big ask, and for some reason Fox handed the reins to first-time feature film director
David Fincher. Alien 3 was an inauspicious debut for the future maestro, who, at 27 years old,
basically told the head of Fox to fire him — and has since disavowed the film itself.
But Alien 3 is actually pretty good. In addition to featuring one of the most iconic shots of the
entire series, the film has a great otherworldly vibe, focuses on a pretty cool prison planet,
and sees Sigourney Weaver deliver an incredible performance. While it suffered in 1992 for its
close proximity to Alien and Aliens, its reputation has only improved after two
decades of further disappointments and duds in the franchise. And while Alien 3 is far
from Fincher's best, it does demonstrate the early signs of his remarkable creative vision.
Baywatch was once inexplicably the most watched TV show in the world,
with a staggering weekly audience of 1.1 billion people in 148 countries. This, of course,
was despite the fact that it really was kinda terrible. Nonetheless, with numbers like that,
it was inevitable that Hollywood would want to make a movie based on the show,
especially during this modern, IP-hungry era. So muscle-bound movie stars Dwayne "the Rock"
Johnson and Zac Efron donned the board shorts and brought the slo-mo run to a whole new generation.
Unfortunately, the whole new generation wasn't interested. Baywatch earned a disastrous 17
percent Tomatometer score, and not even the Rock's 180 million Instagram followers could
save it at the box office. Baywatch earned $58 million domestically and $177 million worldwide,
a mediocre total saved only by its modest $69 million price tag. And while Baywatch isn't "good"
per se, it's still a cheeky send-up of its genre, featuring a roster of super-charismatic stars.
At the very least, the movie more than deserved its 2017 Razzie for "So Rotten You Loved It."
Superhero movie fans had dreamed of seeing Batman and Superman share the big screen since, well,
basically forever. Granted, nobody wanted to see them punching each other in the rain
while a flimsy Mark Zuckerberg rip-off waxed poetic about grandma's peach tea,
but hey, you take what you can get.
"The red capes are coming, the red capes are coming! Mmmmmm."
Indeed, it seemed that there was trouble afoot when Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice moved its
release date to avoid Captain America: Civil War — shocking fans who never thought they'd see the day
when the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel tucked tail to avoid Captain American and Iron Man. Then,
when it was released, Dawn of Justice shocked critics and fans alike in the worst possible way.
The movie's grim tone and convoluted plot totally missed the mark on what made these
characters so beloved, and it quickly lost favor with moviegoers, underperforming with $330 million
domestically and $873 million worldwide. Dawn of Justice didn't win the 2017 Razzie Award,
but Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill did take home the trophy for "Worst Screen Combo."
While the movie's reputation is truly horrible, the shock of Dawn of Justice's disappointment was
by far the worst thing about it — and, honestly, it's probably a little better than you remember.
The movie's unabashedly bonkers storytelling stands out when compared to, say, the MCU's
standard "house style" or Justice League, which was neutered into focus group-approved blandness.
Basically, Warner Brothers gave Snyder $263 million to bring his creative,
insane vision to life, resulting in one of the most bizarre blockbusters of all time.
And it's never, ever boring — which is more than you can say for some superhero movies.
Who watches the Watchmen? Not many people, apparently. After Zack Snyder spent a modest
$60 million sum on 300 and paid Warner Brothers back with almost half a billion in worldwide
box office sales, the studio confidently cut him a $130 million check to film their most
challenging property: Watchmen. Ever since it changed the face of comics in 1986,
many filmmakers had yearned to bring Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' masterpiece to the big screen,
only to declare the dense tome "unfilmable."
Watchmen's journey through three decades of development hell is
like walking through a graveyard of great directors: Terry Gilliam, Darren Aronofsky,
and Paul Greengrass all joined and then left the project. Given that critically acclaimed crew,
it's surprising the one guy who finally figured Watchmen out was Zack Snyder.
And despite what the history books say, he actually did a pretty good job.
Watchmen earned respectable Rotten Tomatoes scores from critics and fans, but it bombed at the box
office, earning $107 million domestically and $186 million worldwide, a steep 60 percent drop from
the less prestigious property 300 — while costing twice as much. Nobody likes a loser, of course,
and Watchmen's poor box office performance has earned it a great deal of unfair criticism,
with some fans even saying it hewed too closely to the beloved source material. While Watchmen is
nowhere near as good as the groundbreaking graphic novel, it's still a pretty solid adaptation,
with some great superhero costumes, impressive fight scenes, and pitch-perfect performances from
the cast. Thankfully, in the wake of HBO's critically acclaimed Watchmen TV sequel,
Snyder's film has received a much-deserved reappraisal from fans and critics alike.
Making a movie about Pearl Harbor inevitably demands the talents of a filmmaker with grace,
maturity, and skill. So naturally, the job went to Michael Bay. Bay's Armageddon came
in second in 1998 to Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, so Bay figured he'd mix the two
and throw in a touch of Titanic for good measure. But Pearl Harbor wages war against World War II,
recreating this pivotal historical event not in the hyperrealistic, documentary style of
Spielberg but the hyperkinetic, video game style of, well, Michael Bay. You don't feel
like you're in Pearl Harbor so much as in the middle of a video game about Pearl Harbor.
In other words, it's a lot, and while critics tried to sink it with a 24 percent Tomatometer
score, audiences saluted it with a $198 million domestic and $449 million worldwide take.
Nevertheless, its critical reputation never really recovered. While Pearl Harbor isn't great,
however, it does deserve a rewatch. There have been great war films and bad war films over the
years, but there have been few that care so little about asking the cliche "big questions" and care
so much about blowing stuff up real good. Pearl Harbor is like watching a man-child get to play
with $140 million worth of fireworks on the 4th of July. It's a nonsensical
series of colorful explosions and paper-thin patriotism, sure, but man, is it entertaining.
First, let's get one thing out of the way — Godzilla is not a Godzilla movie. G-fans
immediately condemned the character as GINO, or Godzilla In Name Only, and Toho Studios even had
the real Godzilla mop the floor with "Zilla" in 46-seconds flat in Godzilla: Final Wars.
History has labeled Godzilla a flop, largely due to the film not living up to its insane hype.
However, the movie had the biggest opening weekend of 1998,
and that was despite opening on a Wednesday and critics absolutely nuking it into oblivion.
"Direct hit, but the target is still moving, sir." "Well circle around and fire again!"
But it wasn't beauty that killed the beast, it was word-of-mouth, as Godzilla's short
legs only managed a $136 million domestic and $379 million worldwide gross. Moviegoers chief
complaint? It wasn't Godzilla. Godzilla doesn't hide behind buildings, he knocks them down.
Godzilla doesn't run from the military, he blows them up. Godzilla doesn't lay eggs, he... well,
nobody's really sure, but he definitely doesn't lay eggs. But while Godzilla isn't Godzilla,
it's still a perfectly acceptable summer popcorn movie about a giant nuclear sea iguana who just
wants to lay his or her eggs in peace. Just call it something else and enjoy it for what it is.
Waterworld is pretty much synonymous with the term "box office bomb." The bad buzz from
Waterworld's trouble-plagued shoot, combined with poor critical reviews, killed whatever chances it
had of scoring big with audiences. In the end, the movie underwhelmed with $88 million domestic and
$264 million worldwide — which isn't bad for an original sci-fi — but thanks to its absurd $175
million price tag, the movie needed to be rescued from drowning by its home video and cable sales.
A high-concept, apocalyptic, sci-fi fantasy like Waterworld needed all of the pieces in
place to work, and unfortunately for the film, none of them did. The result is an ambitious,
creative misfire with a critical and financial reputation much worse than it deserves.
Years after its release, critics and fans are rediscovering the film,
and finally acknowledging it wasn't really a box office bomb — or a particularly bad movie. Thanks
to the nerve-racking recession of the polar ice caps, it might even be scarily prescient as well.
Arnold Schwarzenegger reached his peak in 1991 with his biggest hit — and the highest-grossing
movie of the year — Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Going forward, then, there was only one character
big enough for Arnold to play — himself. So, Schwarzenegger reunited with his Predator director
John McTiernan in the pseudo-spoof Last Action Hero, in which a lonely, 11-year old Arnold fan
is transported into the latest movie starring the One-Man Austrian Army. It was a fairly
clever story, one that allowed Schwarzenegger to make fun of his big screen persona, while still
getting to be a total badass who killed villains in creative ways while dropping corny one liners.
"Don't give up your day job."
If you were like the pre-teen boy in the film, Last Action Hero was the perfect introduction
to Schwarzenegger. Chances are, Last Action Hero was the first Arnold movie a lot of millennials'
moms and dads allowed them to see thanks to its PG-13 rating. Alas, cranky old critics couldn't
stand it, and it suffered for having the bad timing of opening one week before Jurassic Park.
Last Action Hero wasn't a hit with critics or Arnie's R-Rated fans, and it even earned a Razzie
nomination for Worst Picture, but for the 11-year in all of us, it's still a pretty awesome movie.
Mars Attacks is a movie not meant for this world — because it deserved far,
far better. Warner Brothers gave Tim Burton an $80 million budget and an all-star cast to make
a spoof of the 1950s sci-fi schlock cinema Burton had adored as a child. Critics were underwhelmed,
however, and audiences were even less impressed, as Mars Attacks crash-landed with $37 million
domestic and $101 million worldwide, making it probably Burton's biggest bomb.
So what happened? Well, the Christmas season release date was a failed attempt
at counter-programming, and it also had the misfortune of opening six months after 1996's
biggest hit, another little sci-fi flick called Independence Day. Just one year later, another
alien-invasion comedy, Men In Black, became the biggest hit of the summer, and that one had the
advantage of having Independence Day star Will Smith on the cast. However, while those two movies
took the extraterrestrial subject matter somewhat seriously, Mars Attacks lampooned it mercilessly.
In the end, Mars Attacks just got buried between two much bigger, more popular alien movies.
But to a certain viewer, it's actually kind of brilliant, with its madcap humor and mischievous
sense of fun. Besides, wherever you think Mars Attacks ranks in sci-fi canon, it at least
deserves kudos for being the only alien invasion film clever enough to not kill the aliens with
nukes, bombs, or bacteria — but with Slim Whitman records. You gotta give it credit just for that.
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