Movies: Pleasantly Surprised

[Kalashnikov2092]

Well, I was wondering what movies you guys have watched that have surprised the heck out of you and left you happy with the results. For me, it would have to be Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (went into the movie without reading the comics, when I left the theater I immediately went out and bought the whole series), Splice, Children of Men, and Equilibrium (late night television ftw).

 

[dead.juice]

Rise of The Planets of The Apes exceeded my expectations.
I didn't know Hollywood still had it in them to make something like this work, it was like a good Michael Crichton book.
Also Children of men. I didn't trust the trailers, I thought it was just gonna be some Indie Survival/Disaster-Lite drama with a original but underdeveloped setting. To say I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. I LOVE how it was done, from the world setting to the camera work, it was awesome. I hope to see that camera type in another movie.

 

[Lerasai]

Ten Inch Hero. I began watching it just for Jensen Ackles with a mohawk, but it turned out to be much more than that. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a funny but sweet movie. Also; Jensen Ackles with a mohawk.

 

[Terminate421]

How to Train your Dragon and Rio were the big ones for me

How to Train Your Dragon is a masterpiece of animation on my top 5 list of movies, tied with Ratatouille and the Toy Story franchise

Rio was a big surprise in the fact that:
A. it came out of nowhere
B. It was a massive step up compared to the shitty stuff Blue Sky animation has made
C. It was about Parrots, specifically Macaws. My 2nd favorite animal tied with Owls.

The Downside is that Rio had some issues that took points off of it. But compare the two movies to high schoolers doing projects at school (In fact lets throw other animated movies I saw between 2009-2011)

HTTYD made a project with all the accuracies and pictures necessary, with a little bit of cleverness thrown in.

Rio focused solely on the info, being perfect at that but feeling a bit....dry about two times through the whole thing (It had disney-styled songs, was not warned of this, the good news is that only one of them sucked)

Toy Story 3 sat next to How to Train Your Dragon and gave love notes to Up While also doing as well as the dragon movie

Up Sat there and did almost as well as Toy Story and HTTYD

Megamind was the one that got to a B+ and liked it, he was the quirky one who was also the class clown

Legend of the Gaurdians suffered from looking nice but sucking at info (It was enjoyable, only because it was about governments of owls killing each other with Avatar level animation, aside from that it was....average)

Avatar was a big fat C- (It COUNTS!)

Monsters vs. Aliens failed hard at everything

Dispicable me was attempting to do well but in the end was a C

Shrek 4 decided to skip school and egg my house

Ice Age 3 decided to shit on my desk

 

[chaosyoshimage]

Speed Racer was great. Every time I saw any promotion for it I thought it was dumb. But, what I got was a fun and trippy film that amazes me in how unique it is despite being based off of pre-existing material.

 

[Kenbo Slice]

X-Men First Class, I thought it would be good but god damn, that was a brilliant movie. Also Rise of the Planet of the Apes completely took me by surprise with how amazing it was.

 

[LobsterFeng]

...

I agree with this. In fact, most of Dreamworks movies really took me by surprise. I thought How To Train Your Dragon, Kung-Fu Panda, and Over the Hedge were all gonna suck, but now they're some of my favorites.

 

[Rainbowloid]

The only one I can think of at the moment is Megamind. Judging by the trailer, I expected it to be complete garbage. Then I heard people saying really good things about it and ended up checking it out for myself. I'm so glad I did.

 

[Marter]

The most recent one was Creep. It was actually a very effective horror movie.

 

[Dawns Gate]

Contagion, I thought it was gonna e one of those preachy scare-tactic type things but I thought it was fantastic.

 

[Avaholic03]

Moon. I don't know why, but I was expecting something like Sunshine (i.e. pseudo-horror sci-fi weirdness). It turned out to be much better and more profound.

 

[SpcyhknBC]

I really enjoyed Fright Night. I was kind of expecting a really crappy remake of a classic, but it was in my opinion ridiculously awesome. The casting was perfect and I really enjoyed how well implemented the vampire lore was.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Tangled

After the horror that was The Princess and The Frog I had unfathomably low hopes for Disney's latest. Especially since all the markting made it look like fucking Shrek, a movie I loath.

I ended up falling head over heels in love with this film though.

 

[Zantos]

The Indiana Jones trilogy. I thought with the amount of hype I heard from my friends about how amazing it was and how it's a travesty that I've never seen it. They were the first "classic films" I've "had to see" that actually not only lived up to, but exceeded my expectations.

 

[Ickorus]

Captain America, I figured it would be an excuse for the director to wave an American flag about for a couple of hours yet it ended up not really focusing on that at all and I can easily dmit I enjoyed it.

Another would be 'UP', didn't think I would like it but it turned out to be a really good movie.

 

[Crazy_Dude]

Captain America I was expecting an average movie. I didnt really like the idea of a superhero having an American flag as suit.

After I saw it I loved it. Hugo Weaving was perfect as The Red Skull it was the role he was born to do.

 

[Dethenger]

As Crazy_Dude said, Captain America.
I went in completely expecting a patriot wank-fest, AMERICA FUCK YEAH attitude. I was wrong, pleasantly so. As Movie Bob stated, Captain America is a good guy. Yeah, he's the ideal American, but overall, he's just a really good guy. My favorite line was when someone asked Rogers, "Are you ready to kill some Nazis?"
I expected some variation on "hell yeahs muhfuckah I'ma shove mah boot up Hitla's ass"
Instead: "I don't want to kill anybody. I just don't like bullies, I don't care where they're from."

 

[Frybird]

As Crazy_Dude said, Captain America.
I went in completely expecting a patriot wank-fest, AMERICA FUCK YEAH attitude. I was wrong, pleasantly so. As Movie Bob stated, Captain America is a good guy. Yeah, he's the ideal American, but overall, he's just a really good guy.

As they said.

Other pleasent surprises:

- The A Team (Movie):
Fun. A fun movie with fun actors and fun action scenes. I ended up not caring if it's close to the source or not.

- Repo! The Genetic Opera:
After a whole bunch of bad rep i stumbled across a video review that sung a quite different tune ( http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/teamt/paw/music-movies/29909-repo-the-genetic-opera ), wich made me check it out and made me quite like it.
While the Music and the Production Values aren't as top-notch as one might hope for, it's a very unique and, with a few exceptions (to pinpoint, "Mark it up" and "We started this op'ra shit") thankfully non-gimmicky and earnest Film that takes it's "Opera" Label very seriously with a distinct style and a multi-layered, somewhat tragic story.
Also, possibly the only thing in the world in wich i can appreciate Paris Hilton's Contribution.

And that said:
- Repo Men
I don't really see why it failed so hard, since it's the only one in a long line of fairly recent Action/Sci-Fi Hybrids i actually liked. Where i found Surrogates to be boring and bland, and Gamer to be headache inducing and infantile, Repo Men was a decently made, fun movie with good casting and chemistry between the characters.
Also, while it might come of as blatantly stolen from "Oldboy", there's an amazing extended action scene close to the end that really kicks ass thanks to it's grounded, gritty feel and great music.