The original Stargate film. I thought it was fun especially with the super-tech Egyptian aliens thing. Apparently I wasn't alone as the movie made a popular cult science fiction series.

I thought Troy was awesome.

I really like how they portrayed Hector: when I read about the battle in Greek mythology, I felt indifferent about Achilles killing Hector, maybe a vague sympathy, but nothing strong....watching the movie, they made me loathe the anticipated fight where Achilles would slay Hector.

The dialog was very strong (Priam trying to convince Achilles to give him back Hector's body was pure gold), and most characters were well nuanced as evidenced by the fact that with the exception of Agamemnon & bro, I didn't want any of the characters to die, though many did.

Also, the army fights were fluid and to the point as opposed to the endless, boring, falseto epic affairs that the LoTR army fights were.

The original story is overated. I'm glad they gave a modern spin to it and kept the Gods out of the storyline.

This story was about men and their struggles.

I think most of the famously maligned films fall into three categories:

- movies in a series that were poor (Rocky and Star Wars for example)
- movies that were hyped and failed to reach high expectations (Waterworld)
- movies that have plenty of famous actors or based on famous IP (Dune)

Most movies I dislike and remember disliking, are always linked to failed expectations because of the above three - Prometheus, for example.

And unfairly maligned? Definitely Temple of Doom (it's actually my favorite Indiana Jones movie because of the setting) and I'll think of others later ;). But Dune is part of it too.

Especially Lo-Wang. Then it's just badass in addition to being art.

I _like_ it as well. The Woman Of My Dreams (tm), however, _loves_ it, and whenever we watch it, I have to accept that I'll have no chance against Ewan McGregor for about 90 minutes. ;)

Also, I think that the line "I only tell the truth!" has strong potential for an Internet meme, if someone would just pick it up and post the scene on youtube. There are _so many_ situations in every average forum discussion where you could link that. ;)

Final Fantasy: Spirits Within.

I mean, it doesn't have a great story, but holy crap does that movie look amazing. It makes me sad that it bombed so hard that it was abandoned and nothing came of it. I think a reboot of it with the same cast and an improved script would be an amazing movie.

Huge divide on this when it came out, 50/50 on love hate.

I also enjoy "The Phantom" and "The Shadow" which are horribly maligned (not necessarily unjustly...). Wonderful time killers.

Troy absolutely butchered the source material, which is luckily sublime enough to not make the film unwatchable despite of itself. However, I think I remember a complaint by a movie critic that Pitt comes across as too arrogant and vain. What's next, a Hamlet that's too melancholy? Casting Brad Pitt as Achilles was a good, albeit very obvious choice. And that's really the only way I can think of the film as unjustly maligned.

Spirits Within made two mistakes imho. First, they focused too much on technique, and neglected the storytelling (and the script wasn't to good, as you already said).

Second, the movie didn't _appear_ to look as great as the marketing campaign tried to tell us. They basically fell into a psychological trap: By making the characters look "almost" real, and focusing on the technological aspects in their marketing, they directed the viewers' attention to these almost real graphics. Viewers compared them to real movies, and found them to be still lacking.

Incidentally, I know many people who felt that the graphics of "Shrek" (also released in 2001) were better than those of "Spirits Within". From a pure technological perspective, this is nonsense. However - Shrek never pretended to be anything else but an animated movie, so it was compared to other animated movies, and within this frame of reference, Shrek's graphics looked very good. "Spirits Within" however had attached itself to a different frame of reference, to that of real movies with real actors - and within that frame of reference, it was still lacking.

The Libertine, a 2004 period piece and bawdy costume drama about infamous rake & satirist John Wilmot of Restoration-era England. It was a box office flop; largely dismissed by critics (all of those dreadful Pirates of the Caribbean movies got better reviews, except the last one) and overlooked by audiences, but I think it was a work of minor genius dramatizing the life of one of Britain's most notorious hedonists. IMO it's Johnny Depp's best career role, one which he tore into with lyrically nihilistic gusto, and one he probably understood viscerally as well. Great supporting cast with Samantha Morton, John Malkovich, and Rosamund Pike, and the London of Charles II is shot as a swampy, torch-lit bog virtually dripping with atmosphere.

8MM, 1999 dramatic thriller by schlock-Meister Joel Schumacher. His name is mostly associated with the 90s Batman movie atrocities, though occasionally he directs a decent film ("Falling Down" and "The Lost Boys"). "Decent" may be a relative term--his directing instincts are definitely exploitative, but they can be engrossing, which I thought was definitely the case with 8MM. Critics panned it as prurient, nihilistic trash but I thought if one could make the leap viewing it through a Conrad-ian Heart-of-Darkness lens then one could get something out of it. Everyone loves David Fincher's "Seven" and this is scriptwriter Andrew Kevin Walker's second effort (even if he clashed endlessly with Schumacher), so I think it's worth a re-appraisal. I can only handle Nick Cage in small doses but I loved his wise-cracking leather-clad punk sidekick played by Joachim Phoenix, and the villains were played by great character actors (James Gandolfini pre-Sopranos, Anthony Head, and especially Peter Stormare).

Creation, a recent 2009 biopic on Charles Darwin. Definitely lukewarm reception by critics despite the fact it was handsomely made and meticulously researched (with the usual bits of historical license necessary for a dramatization), and I think Paul Bettany's best role since "Dogville," especially after appearing in some egregious crap. It had trouble finding a U.S. distributor due to continuing zeitgeist of anti-intellectualism in this country, specifically with evolution in certain quarters. Though despite all the silly controversy and right-wing feathers it ruffled it's far from a liberal, left-wing polemic they were railing against (obviously having not seen it anyway). It's more like a character study about a man and his relationship with his family, and his need to balance the solidity of his private life (and ultra-religious wife) with his public work and views. Though films like this are better at generating controversy than box office returns, and it failed to pick up critical accolades or an audience; bit of a shame, really.

All I can think of at the moment!

My God--I've never heard such a succinct, accurate one-sentence nugget about Citizen Kane's cinematic clout before--on a video game forum of all places. I'm totally stealing this.

Check, check, mate.

As far as films with monolithic, unassailable reputations go which are name-checked as standard-bearers for art or "reeking of quality," to quote an old Pauline Kael witticism, I'd rather watch "Casablanca" a hundred times before visiting "Citizen Kane" again.

I happened to really like "Last Year at Marienbad" as a tragicomedy of non-communication, but comic only in the most deadpan way as our romantic "hero" impotently tries to sway our diffident heroine into his recollection of thinking, again and again and again to no avail (like a pick-up artist doomed to one routine), in the most glacial of cocktail parties in an aristocratic estate purgatory, where the trees don't cast shadows but the doomed players do. Like the ultimate New Wave "Groundhog Day" 30 years before the fact. When I watched "Melancholia" last year (my favorite of 2011) I though of Marienbad during many of Kirsten Dunst's scenes traipsing the grounds outside in an emotional Wagner cocoon.

However, I'm an unapologetic arthouse buff (considering I work for one) and proponent of Eating Your Cultural Vegetables. I watch films like "Stalker," "Balthazar," "The Second Circle," "The Turin Horse," "Gerry," and "Meek's Cutoff" for "fun." Not always, but I take cinematic art and film criticism seriously.

Highlander IV, ain't that bad. It carried on well from the series. Highlander V is that bad.

Prince of Persia may not have been very faithful to games but I thought it was pretty entertaining
Star Wars Prequel Trilogy 2 was bad but 3 was great and 1 was decent -Jar Jar
Indiana Jones 4 while not as good as the originals its more of a Indiana Jones film than 2 which was weird compared to others (2 still better though)
Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny a funny film about the D what more could be asked for
X-Men Origins Wolverine although this may be because after it got more flack than X3 I was confused as hell
Iron Man 2 while not as hated as some films still gets its fair share while I found it pretty fun to watch even if not Iron Man 1 good

Ah, I think I remember watching and enjoying "The Shadow". When I read your post, for a moment I was confusing the title with "The Spirit". Now that is one justly maligned movie, heh.