Film critics might provide an invaluable filter between audiences and bad movies, but they
don't always get it right.
In the case of these secretly amazing movies, most reviewers majorly missed the mark.
For those that put stock in the Rotten Tomatoes score before ponying up ticket fare, these
are the movies you might've missed the first time around.
And be warned, there are spoilers ahead.
The Cell
Directed by Tarsem Singh, The Cell is not a movie for everyone.
But critics who accused the movie of being shallow and derivative might have been a bit
too harsh in retrospect.
The film tells the story of Catherine Deane, a child psychologist who uses some impressive
tech to enter the subconscious of a comatose boy, hoping to bring him back into the real
world.
Thanks to her unique set of skills, she's asked by an FBI agent to explore the mind
of an unconscious MAN who'd imprisoned a girl in a bizarre death trap before having a seizure.
Now, she only has hours left to live, so Deane is tasked with finding her whereabouts.
But this is easier said than done, since his subconscious is a nightmare world of torture
devices, horned monsters, and living dolls that resemble his victims.
It's an S&M fever dream where corpses are bathed in blood, horses are dissected with
glass slides, and men have their intestines slowly pulled from their bodies.
So, The Cell is full of depravity, but it's still pretty gorgeous to look at, thanks to
some horrific tributes to artists like Damien Hirst, Odd Nerdrum, and H.R. Giger.
And the costume game is at its finest with designer Eiko Ishioka's array of jumpsuits,
demonic purple wings, and sadistic sci-fi masks.
Better still, the sets are practical, the performances are on point, and the result
is something big, bloody, and perversely beautiful.
Of course, they didn't all get it wrong.
Roger Ebert was one of the few critics who actually liked it and in fact declared it
was "one of the best films of the year."
The Hunted
When it comes to nail-biters, William Friedkin is one of the best in the business.
After all, he's the guy who made films like The French Connection and The Exorcist.
In The Hunted, he gives us a chase movie for the ages, even if critics weren't too impressed.
The story follows a tired tracker named L.T.
Bonham who used to teach Special Ops soldiers, but unfortunately, his training was a little
too good.
After seeing some pretty horrible things overseas, an old pupil has lost his mind and now spends
his time picking off deer hunters.
So Bonham is brought in to give his student one last lesson.
Tommy Lee Jones is amazing as the weary survivalist, a man who knows what he has to do, but that
doesn't mean he has to enjoy it.
"This yours?"
"What the…"
As for Benecio Del Toro, he's both scary and sympathetic as a man who's seen and spilled
far too much blood.
Friedkin expertly follows these two as they chase each other down, and when it comes down
to the final showdown, there are no showy ninja moves here.
It's painful, brutal, and in your face, which pretty much sums up the entire feel of this
underrated thriller.
Constantine
When Constantine was released in 2005, it had a devil of a time with moviegoers.
It lost money at the domestic box office, and critics did their best to exorcise the
film from theaters.
But those reviewers must've been in league with Lucifer because Constantine is one hell
of a movie.
Granted, it doesn't have much in common with Hellblazer—the comic it's loosely based
on—but nevertheless, it's an amazingly fun film noir about a chain-smoking cynic who
deports demons for entirely selfish reasons.
As a kid, he tried to take his own life, and now he's damned for all eternity.
So his plan is to exorcise his way to heaven, and he finally gets a chance at saving his
soul when a cop asks him to take on a strange case.
Directed by Francis Lawrence, Constantine plunges our hero into a world where otherworldly
beings spend their evenings at a supernatural club, and heroes blast demons with a crucifix
shotguns.
In this freaky film, cats can guide you to the underworld, holy water is stored in five-gallon
jugs, and angels dress to the nines in killer pinstripe suits.
John Constantine is one of Reeves' best performances.
The man is playing a mash-up between Sam Spade and Neo from The Matrix, expertly blending
a snarky sense of humor, detached detective cool, and secret side of antihero empathy.
Then there's Tilda Swinton as an incredibly suave Gabriel and Peter Stormare as the sleaziest
Satan of all time.
With all that awesomeness, it's baffling the movie did so poorly, but to all the critics
who've hated this film, Constantine has a little message for you…
Knowing
There's no denying that Nicolas Cage has had a checkered cinematic career…
"huh HAAAA!"
...but faithful fans are rewarded every so often with a legitimately great movie like
Joe, Adaptation, Bad Lieutenant… and Knowing.
Though almost every film critic wishes the last movie would disappear in an extinction-level
event, Knowing is genuinely thrilling and poses some interesting philosophical questions.
When it's not freaking you out, it's making you think, which is why Roger Ebert was the
lone holdout who declared it was one of "the best science-fiction films" he'd ever seen.
The plot revolves around a rational professor, played by Cage, whose son discovers a 50-year-old
document covered in numbers.
Despite his skepticism, Koestler realizes these numbers are a code predicting the dates
and body counts of major disasters.
And as he digs deeper into the mystery, he realizes something bad is looming on the horizon.
With the unsettling appearance of some otherworldly strangers, Koestler begins questioning everything
he's ever known about the universe.
With director Alex Proyas at the helm, Knowing is just brimming with dread, the same creeping
kind of fear you'd find in a movie like Signs.
Plus, the film grapples with concepts like free will versus predestination, a deterministic
universe versus a random one.
You might not like where the movie eventually sides, but it's a film that takes chances
and generates ideas that are well worth exploring after the credits roll.
"And you have to do it.
You have to.
Or I'll fire you.
Do you understand?"
Super
Before directing Guardians of the Galaxy, James Gunn put his stamp on the superhero
genre with Super, an upbeat version of Taxi Driver where the supposed heroes take out
drug dealers with pipe bombs and claws.
If you can stomach the gore, then you'll find yourself nervously chuckling along with one
of the best—and nastiest—superhero satires.
The plot follows a schlubby cook named Frank whose wife has just left him for the world's
sleaziest drug dealer.
But after receiving a vision from God—one involving razor blades and tentacles—Frank
believes it's his divine mission to become a superhero, fight crime, and rescue his wife.
And accompanying him on his quest is a comic book nerd who has way too much fun breaking
legs and bashing heads.
Disguised as the Crimson Bolt, Frank uses a pipe wrench to punish both child molesters
and people who cut in line.
The violence is shockingly hard to watch, and as a result, Super feels like we're watching
a schizophrenic madman who's building towards something terrible.
And it's that over-the-top bloodshed that angered so many critics.
But the violence here is kind of the point.
If superheroes existed in real-life, they wouldn't be the most stable people on the
planet, so Super is a savage and side-splitting response to every comic book movie to ever
come out of Hollywood… which is kind of ironic considering what Gunn would later sign
up to direct.
"Face the wrath of the Crimson Bolt!"
The Majestic
In between Stephen King adaptations, Frank Darabont decided to make a movie in the style
of Frank Capra.
The result was The Majestic, a film so sweet and nostalgic that it's shocking to think
the same director would later make The Mist.
But while that grisly creature feature is about as pessimistic as movies get, The Majestic
believes in old-fashioned ideas like right and wrong and freedom of speech.
The story follows a blacklisted screenwriter named Peter Appleton who get amnesia and winds
up in a sleepy little town where he's mistaken for a long-lost World War II vet.
And since he can't remember who he is or where he came from, Peter accepts the story and
bonds with his new dad and a wary love interest.
Eventually, Peter's memories come flooding back, threatening his new existence, and things
get even more complicated when he's called upon to testify before the House Un-American
Activities Committee.
But Peter rises to the occasion and delivers a rousing speech in defense of the right to
say and believe whatever you want.
Jim Carrey is on the top of his game here, delivering a dramatic performance that's right
up there with his roles in The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
And The Majestic is an inspiring little film, the kind we hardly see anymore.
Vanilla Sky
The world of Vanilla Sky is filled with Monet sunsets and Bob Dylan streets, but that doesn't
mean you'd want to live there.
Why not?
Well, it's also a world of crazy stalkers, creepy face masks, and a dreadful feeling
that something awful is waiting in the dark.
Based on the 1998 Spanish film Open Your Eyes, Cameron Crowe's fifth feature marks the spot
where many believe he started losing his touch.
Despite its reputation, this Tom Cruise film is a massive mindbender with more layers than
Inception and more twists than Memento.
And Cruise is really earning his paycheck here as David Ames, an ultra-rich playboy
who has his life ripped apart and then starts losing his mind…maybe.
The superstar really sells David's growing fear and paranoia, and his relationships with
the women of the film are masterfully crafted, highlighting two very different sides of the
same man.
The movie is also filled with some pretty horrific images and genuinely disturbing moments,
from bizarre bedroom body-swaps to grotesque shots of Cruise's face.
There's also a fantastic soundtrack that features one of the most disturbing uses of a Beach
Boys song you'll ever hear.
The Book of Eli
This movie starts off with Denzel Washington shooting and eating a feral housecat... and
it only gets crazier from there.
Set in a post-apocalyptic world, The Book of Eli takes place in a time when moist towelettes
are used as currency, people pay to charge their iPods, and the local saloons make their
money selling water.
It's a dusty and depressing realm where those who can read hold all the power, and faith
is more powerful than a loaded gun.
The sci-fi western follows Washington as Eli, a holy warrior wandering across what's left
of the United States.
Accompanied by a machete and Mila Kunis, Eli is carrying the last remaining
copy of the King James Bible, and he hopes to get the holy book to a safe place on the
coast.
Unfortunately, a small-town dictator wants the book for himself, knowing it can help
him establish his evil empire.
Only Eli isn't giving up the Good Book so easily, and instead of turning the other cheek,
he's prepared to take eye for an eye to make sure the relic makes it safely across America.
In addition to some masterful action scenes—The Book of Eli is a powerful commentary on the
power of religion, but ultimately, it's a story that's also all about the power of the
written word, and how books can shape entire civilizations.
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