Films you thought would be rubbish but turned out to be good...

[synsei]

To compliment the 'Nominations for the absolute worst movie ever...' thread I thought I'd throw this one into the mix too.

My first nomination for this category is Battle For Los Angeles. I was expecting this to be a typically gung ho, cheesy, 'America saves the world' action flick and it doesn't disappoint, however it has an intelligently written script and the character development is pretty good to the point that I actually cared about what happened to them. I really enjoyed it actually which came as a very pleasant surprise.

[MartinT]

Spot on, Dave. I was similarly impressed with Battle for Los Angeles, in fact I didn't really want to watch it for fear of it being the usual dire crap.

The other one that really impressed me was Monsters, where the aliens form an eerie backdrop to a rather well executed relationship story.

[synsei]

Okay, here's another one for you: Set the 'Way Back Machine' to 1982 and don all your best New Romantic clobber once again, if it still fits.. hehe

I was a very regular cinema goer back then and my friends and I had been to see all sorts that year, Tron being the real biggy. My mum decided that my sister was missing out and more or less forced me into taking her to see a film of her choice. Not impressed in the slightly, I grudgingly took her to see The Dark Crystal one Saturday morning. We took our seats and I settled down to what I thought would be a very boring hour and a half. Well, I don't want to go into too much detail as it will all get just a little bit soppy, but I exited the cinema with a new found respect for Jim Henson...

[Macca]

City of God - so many people raved about it I caved in and bought a cheap copy - thought it would be some worthy but boring foreign film (Brazilain, in Portugese with subtitles). Blimey - how wrong was I?

[synsei]

City of God - so many people raved about it I caved in and bought a cheap copy - thought it would be some worthy but boring foreign film (Brazilain, in Portugese with subtitles). Blimey - how wrong was I?

I've yet to see it Martin, that's another entry on my list

[Macca]

I've yet to see it Martin, that's another entry on my list

Get it watched, Dave! It grips you from the first couple of minutes and doesn't let go. Some of it is pure genius filmmaking.

[morris_minor]

I nominate "Plan 9 from Outer Space" - so bad it's terrifically good . . .

[synsei]

I watched a film last night that blew me away, in fact it was quite a difficult watch in places, not because it was bad or anything, it's just that the subject matter was disturbing. T'is called The Magdalene Sisters and it's on BBC iPlayer just now...

[Macca]

'Commando' with Arnold Shwarzenegger. With anyone eles in the title role this would be a dire piece of crap but Arnie tackles his lines so badly, like a fat man trying to climb over a big boulder, that somehow it actually works on a level not intended. I've watched this film about half a dozen times it always cracks me up.

[walpurgis]

The grandkids live with me and I have to 'endure' their taste in movies to an extent.

Recently, they've watched "Mr Bean's holiday" a couple of times and I was expecting it to be childish crap basically, but it surprised me. You have to tune into Rowan Atkinson's bizzarre character of course, but it's actually a good, clever, well made and funny film! I was pleasantly surprised.