This past weekend we saw Ant-Man and the Wasp. Fun movie! It goes about where you think it would, not a lot of big surprises, but it has a funny script and lots of eye candy. The writers put a lot of work into finding creative applications for the shrink/grow powers.
Really, though… If I was to actually write out a list all the things I liked and disliked about the movie, I think the list of bad things would be longer the good. It’s a bit shallow, there’s a lot of Deus Ex Machina, and it tends to handwave a lot of the hard-to-swallow details.
It also had one too many villains. The FBI and the supervillain were enough of a threat to carry the movie, but the writers decided to add a silly black market tech dealer to pad the movie’s runtime. But my biggest complaint is probably the abundance of spoilers in the trailers. I can’t tell you how many times they’d do a cool shot and I’d think, “That was awesome, I wish I hadn’t already seen it in the previews.”
But you know what? I still love the movie. It’s flawed, but fun. On paper it almost looks like a failure, but the film is more than the sum of its parts. Some people won’t like Ant Man & The Wasp, and if you ask them why, they’ll list everything I said above. So why do those flaws add up to a bomb to them, while I can look past the movie’s shallowness and have a good time?
I have a theory that people actually have no idea why they dislike things. You watch a movie and hate it on a subconscious emotional level, but your brain won't accept "I hate it because I hate it", and has to fill in the logical reasons you feel that way.
For example, I know someone who hates the sitcom Friends. Her reason? “Everyone is always so mean to each other!” I’ve never actually noticed that about Friends, but I suppose it’s there if you really look for it. Snarky comebacks are a big part of the humor, though I’ve never seen it as mean; if anything it’s part of the bond that holds the group together.
But here’s the thing – this same friend likes several other shows where the main characters are flat-out jerks, all the time. So that’s a big part of my theory: Whatever someone tells you they don’t like about a movie/show/book/etc, you can find examples of media they enjoy that contain those elements.
Her real reason for disliking Friends? Probably the show simply isn't in sync with her sense of humor. Humor is far from universal, and everyone has a unique funny bone. If Friends made her laugh, she'd like it. Not laughing gives her more time to notice the show's flaws. Her brain won't accept the vague "it's just not for me", so it gave her the flimsy excuse she uses.
Now, if I’ve learned one thing in life, it’s that you can’t talk people into liking things, any more than you can talk them into liking a food. You can shoot down all their complaints one by one, doing extensive research to prove why the plot holes they found weren't really plot holes, but it won't help. So I’m not posting this to convince anyone to watch shows they know they don’t like. I’m just pointing out your reasons for not liking it may not be what you think they are.
I used to know a couple who hated anything mainstream. Their logic was that most people are stupid, so if most people like something, it must be stupid. Except… some things really do become popular because they deserve to. And what if you see a sneak preview of a movie, before it has time to be popular? Do you have to wait until the box office results are in before you decide if you liked it?
I had one friend who hated Forrest Gump because she didn’t like the ending – she wasn’t sure Forrest was capable of taking care of a child by himself. Even if I shared her concern, that’s only a reason to hate the ending, not the entire movie. Surely, while watching the movie in the theater, she’d already decided whether or not she liked the movie by that point. If she'd had an emergency and had to walk out before Jenny died (um, spoiler alert I guess), would she have felt differently about the movie? I doubt it.
Titanic gets a lot of haters because it was so overhyped. As I’ve said before, that may be an excuse to hate the advertising department, but don’t take it out on the movie itself. I’m not saying I’ve never been annoyed by hype (See Ant-Man & the Wasp above), but I do try to keep a movie and its marketing as separate entities in my mind.
One thing I’ve heard people say about both Friends and Big Bang Theory – “They don’t talk or act like real people!” This one sets me off for a couple of reasons. First off, nobody in Star Wars talks like real people either, that’s why it’s fiction. I can’t remember the last time I went to Toshi Station to pick up some power converters. Behaving like real people is not a requirement in fiction, in fact, making dialogue too realistic makes shows hard to watch. Real people clear their throats, start sentences and change their mind, use the wrong word, stutter, and display all kinds of verbal tics that would make me change the channel.
That said, the characters on Friends and BBT remind me more of my real life friends than the people on most sitcoms. Maybe you’re just hanging out with the wrong people. Chandler Bing’s snarkiness is practically the foundation of my marriage. And BBT characters actually make specific references to current media, while other sitcoms seem to be vaguely aware that Star Wars might have had robots in it or something. Yes, these characters sometimes do unrealistically dumb things to move the plot forward, but the alternative is a plot that never moves forward.
I do it too. If I were to give you a list of things I hated about Batman & Robin, it would probably include things like Batgirl not being Commissioner Gordon's daughter, or Bane being a mindless henchmen instead of a criminal mastermind. But to be honest, I probably would have ignored both of those details if they had occurred in a better movie. Would I whine because the Joker wasn't chemically bleached in The Dark Knight? Of course not, so obviously messing with comic book continuity alone doesn't make a bad movie.
I could even go on to mention the flashiness of B&R, and how it wasn't as dark and broody as the other Batman movies, how it hyped up the cheesiness and had a lot of bad acting and silly dialogue... but a lot of these problems were present in Batman Forever, which I loved. A lot of the goofier points of B&R were an homage to the 60s TV series, which I also loved. Is the world no longer ready for a humorous Batman? Well, that "Brave and the Bold" cartoon series was pretty popular, so that's not it.
I know one guy who hated 2012 because he thought he saw a plot hole. He was wrong, and I explained it to him... he still hates it, but at least now he hates it for the right reasons. But plot holes shouldn't be dealbreakers anyway. There are some pretty popular movies with well-publicized plot holes. Citizen Kane, My Cousin Vinny, Ocean's 11... and yet people still love them. But they see one continuity error in a bland movie, and suddenly that's the sole reason it sucks.
And some people simply go into a movie with the wrong expectations. I know one guy who hated Revenge of the Sith because it didn't explain the existence of the evil cave on Dagobah. That's like the very definition of "I hate it because they didn't make the exact movie I would have made." I knew a woman who hated "There's Something About Mary" because... and I quote... "They never did explain what it was about Mary." ...You can't argue with that.
Typical fanboy review:
That movie was terrible, it wasn't enough like the book/comic/cartoon, the director didn't use any of my ideas, and anyone who liked it is an idiot. That one scene where they showed the watch on his left wrist, then when the camera angle changed it was on his right, just ruined the entire movie for me. Doesn't the director even read my blog? Why can't they make a serious movie about a guy who shoots cufflinks out of his ears? I felt like the director wasn't taking it seriously. Has the director even read this comic? Issue #193 clearly states that Captain Cufflink is allergic to shellfish, and yet they show him eating lobster?
A couple of those might be genuine concerns, but the truth is that you would accept all of those issues if a good movie was wrapped around it. There are some legitimately bad movies out there, ones that earned their 0% rating on RottenTomatoes. But the movies that are well-liked, that just don't click with you? It's okay that you don't like them, I just wonder if you really know why.
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