Going Aganist the Crowd

The Going Against the Crowd Blogathon is hosted by Dell On Movies and KG’s Movie Rants. Basically, it’s a Blogathon to showcase the times you weren’t a sheep and went against the critical consensus as you are your own unique, individual person.  

The rules for participation are simple:

1. Pick one movie that “everyone” loves (the more iconic, the better). That movie must have a score of at least 75% on Rotten Tomatoes. Tell us why you hate it.

2. Pick one movie that “everyone” hates (the more notorious, the better). That movie must have a score of less than 35% on Rotten Tomatoes. Tell us why you love it.

3. Include the tomato meter scores of both movies.

4. Use one of the banners in this post, or feel free to create your own.

5. Comment on this post, or at Dell on Movies, with the two movies you intend on writing on.

6. Publish your post on any day from Monday August 22 through Friday August 26, 2016.

I’m going to honest here, John Hitchcock from Hitchcock’sWorld is far better at showing his disdain for this movie more articulately than I possibly could. So basically, if you want to see some good criticism read his review. Ever since I heard Jean Luc-Godard initially refused to subtitle his film named Film Socialisme I greatly disliked him, before I’d even seen any of his films. I sought to change that a few years ago and decided to watch Breathless…and what a mistake that was.

I’m not an expert (as is clearly evident), but plenty of experts have written essays about this film and the highly influential effect in had on the entirety of the French New Wave movement. I can’t deny that filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut (a much better and more likeable filmmaker) were hugely important and films such as Breathless and The 400 Blows (a much better and more likeable film) were also hugely important...but I just hate Breathless.

From what I remember of it, I loathed every second of it. I disliked the main character, his actions, the misogynistic treatment of his girlfriend, the way he embodied the stereotype that the French are arrogant (he fancies himself as much as he fancies himself the new Humphrey Bogart), the way he killed a cop, for no reason, and stupidly never got rid of the body. He’s dreadful person, and even bigger idiot, the idea we’re supposed to care or even become engaged with this guy is ludicrous to me. Even if he’s not supposed to be likeable, his dumb behaviour is just astonishing.

The film’s editing, which is supposedly ‘innovative and unique’ just looks like Godard couldn’t be bothered as the film’s editing is all over the place. His overuse of jump cuts gives the film a very messy, choppy look. Apparently Godard did this to trim down the running time, it’s either that or he just wanted to rebel against the cinematic norms. It’s a superficial film, remembered only for what it looks like rather than anything of any depth. It was ground-breaking at the time, but now it really should be film that should be confined to the history books.

I’m not going lie, unlike like most people on reddit and various other social media sites I don’t think Neill Blomkamp is anything to write home about. Yes, District 9 is a superb film that intelligently uses the arrival and treatment of aliens as an interesting allegory for racism and whilst it wasn’t exactly subtle it was streets ahead of his next film, Elysium, whose central theme of rich vs poor was so ham-fisted and obvious its actually one of very few films I hate. Why can’t black people and Latinos create a civilised world and why do they need the only white person still on Earth to save them?

Chappie is no masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, and as you can tell from the image above is was negatively reviewed by both critics and the Rotten Tomatoes community (even more so than Elysium). However, I really liked it. I even liked Die Antwoord in this film, who had plenty of critics commenting upon their performances in the film. 

Chappie was a film that was a little rough around the edges, but I found myself really engaged in the film because I cared about the central character which was bought to life due to a terrific Sharlto Copley who gives the film an emotional backbone. Because of this, the film overcomes its lame and dumb villain, its flawed story and inconsistent tone. It’s a film a bares similarity to Blade Runner where a robot, or machine, recognises its own mortality. I like it and didn't deserve the small critical mauling it got.