Michael Bay and Bumblebee, laughing all the way to the bank.
Around our house we call Transformers 2 " The Revenge of the Box Office." In just a week Michael Bay's critically-drubbed sequel to his diverting 2007 machine dream has already grossed $419 million worldwide. The steaming pile of steel is on track to be the most popular film of the year.
Transformers 2 is a textbook example of the critic-proof flick, one that draws on audience goodwill generated by its first installment. Other examples: the Back to the Future, Pirates of the Caribbean and Matrix sequels and also the Star Wars prequels.
Other titles? This list from filmmisery is a good place to start, although it does not include groaners such as The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo, live-action films based on the beloved TV cartoons. Your nominations? Are critics are out of touch with pop tastes? Is the critic-proof flick the product of what happens when good marketing happens to bad movies? Your theory?
I never walk out of movies, but Knocked Up truly tested me. I had heard and read glowing reviews and was anxious to see it. So anxious that I arranged for my kids and their friends to see an age appropriate movie with a babysitter at the exact same time as Knocked Up so a fellow mom and I could view this critically acclaimed modern rom com. But for the fact that we were paying the sitter and would have been required to return to collect our offspring after the films, we would both have gladly eaten the ticket price to avoid the miserable 2 hours we spent enduring sophomoric toilet humor and the unsuccessful attempt to make us suspend our disbelief and accept Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen hooking up (ok, blind drunk on her part, maybe) but then as a true couple? Come on. Not to mention that the movie clearly was peddling anti choice propaganda; nary a mention of abortion as even a possibility? The fact that Paul Rudd co-starred was the only factor that kept me from repairing to the lobby for the duration and comparatively happily watching the paint peel.— socialgrace- I think any James Bond flick is critic-proof. Not to suggest that 007 is the equivalent of "Transformers" (although "Quantum of Solace" veered closer to that charmless turf than I'd like). But any Bond picture will make a mint, regardless of what every critic in the world might write.— wwolfe
- Carrie, There has ALWAYS been a split between critics and audiences, whether it was paintings in a cave to Greek choruses to let's make the latest video game into a movie.... It also works in reverse: I have yet to find a non-critic who liked "Lost in Translation." Critics hailed "Big Night" as a great comedy, and when my family was coping with a tragedy I brought it home to give us some laughs: what a sad movie! "But they said it was a comedy...." I also remember hearing a reading of a critic's year in review that savaged Hollywood...in 1939! Wasn't that supposed to be THE year for movies, and this critic bemoaned the lack of good films? Bottom line: critics don't pay to see movies, so Hollywood for the most part doesn't care for the critic's think.— jonc
- Everyone hated Harry Truman (then), too, but now we love him, when viewed through the rosy lens of time and distance--as well we should--so it is interesting to give a lot of these movies a second look. One critic-bashed movie, if I am correct, was Frank Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," which was vilified as anti-government, socialist, rabble-rousing sedition when it had its ballyhooed Capitol premiere in 1939, but is now beloved, and thought to be almost flag-waving, patriotic Capra-corn when viewed today. The converse of that construct is the widely celebrated "High Noon," which was universally praised by critics as the height of intellectual cinema, the so-called psychological Western--"now the Western gets serious"--on its release in 1952; upon revisiting, Fred Zinneman's film reveals itself to be a ham-handed, plodding and completely unsubtle attempt at "message" moviemaking that pales in comparison to its more crafty contemporary efforts by such brilliant lights as Ford, Hawks, Boetticher, Mann and Fuller. (I will now brace myself for the onslaught of revilement.)— Nancy KC
- The real problem isn't that the blockbusters are critic proof, it's that too many great films are also critic proof. Wendy and Lucy won the Film Comment critics' poll award but that doesn't mean anyone went to see it. Yes, I think there are more than a few people who are motivated to seek out non-multiplex films because of reviews, but it's still barely a ripple in the ocean.— ChristopherL
- It seems that the reason these movies do well is because they are based off things people already know they like ie. cartoons, books, or sequels of movies they enjoyed, the fans already exist and no critic is going to dissuade them. I read reviews because I don't know much about a film besides a brief trailer or synopsis, so I've come to respect certain critics' opinions to let me know what is worth going to see. However, I know personally that I'll end up seeing pretty much any DC or marvel comics adaptation and any Will Smith movie, even if my trusted critics try to persuade me otherwise...— allison811
- Predator II did $57M in worldwide receipts. The definition of awful.— A Friend
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