Against the Crowd Blogathon 2016

We’ve been following Dell on Movies and taken part in a few of his brilliant blogathons for a couple of years now, and I was so happy to see in our Blogger feed that he was hosting his Against the Crowd blogathon again, this year in partnership with KG’s Movie Rants! We somehow missed last year’s edition so there was no way I was going to let that happen again. Especially so soon after watching a ‘must watch classic’ that I actually kind of hated, and have been too scared to review…

As always, a blogathon comes with a set of rules, and here they are in Dell’s own words:

1. Pick one movie that "everyone" loves (the more iconic, the better). That movie must have a score of at least 75% on rottentomatoes.com. Tell us why you hate it.

2. Pick one movie that "everyone" hates (the more notorious, the better). That movie must have a score of less than 35% on rottentomatoes.com. Tell us why you love it.

3. Include the tomato meter scores of both movies.

4. Use one of the banners in this post, or feel free to create your own.

5. Comment on this post, or on KG's Movie Rants with the two movies you intend on writing on.

6. Publish your post on any day from Monday August 22 through Friday August 26, 2016.

Even better, check out Dell’s original post here to find out more and to check out the other banners.

Let’s kick this off!

The Departed (2006)

Everyone loves The Departed, right? It’s ranked #42 on IMDB’s Top 250, and it features some of the biggest names in the movie industry, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg and Jack Nicholson to name just a few. There’s a cop who’s undercover as a gang member, and a gang member undercover as a cop, there’s backstabbing, deceit, lies, etc. I lost track of who was actually working for who very quickly, and boy was it a long movie!

Spoiler alert right now for the very few who haven’t seen this...was it really worth anything in the end anyway? I spent the last 20 minutes or so with my jaw on the floor because it was just such a ‘WTF’ moment. In fact, let me tell you a funny story. On the way home from our honeymoon, my husband and I couldn’t get seats next to each other on one of the flights, so we caught up at JFK once we landed. I asked him what movies he’d watched and he said he watched The Departed. ‘Ugh!’ I cried out in the middle of Departure Gate 18. ‘I hated that movie. Everyone just died in the end anyway!’. That’s the moment my husband told me he’d ‘started’ to watch the movie. He still had half an hour left. Sorry, love. He has since seen the ending, and explained (at length) the importance of it all. I smiled and nodded the whole time to make up for spoiling the ending like a jerk.

Taxi Driver (1976)
This is also listed on IMDB's Top 250 and a 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes so it must be good right?  Every person I have spoken to who has seen this film has loved it and I just don't get it. I don't hate it by any stretch, I just didn't particularly enjoy it.  I think there is a chance that I am missing something that everyone else is getting because I don't understand why everyone loves it.

I have gone into depth in a full review on the blog previously so I won't ramble on too much about the ins and outs of this one but I felt like it took a long time to get into the real heart of the story and honestly in the last few scenes I actually started to enjoy it.  It just took too long to get to that point.  Maybe i'll watch it again at some point and give it another chance, who knows!

Chappie (2015)

So I went digging through the Rotten Tomatoes website for this one. There are plenty of terrible movies that I kind of liked, but not enough to defend publicly. Once I started scrolling through the ‘rotten’ movies, I was heartbroken to spot Chappie on the list! 

The plot is a little crazy, sure, and I know a lot of people hated on Ninja and Yolandi (I still don’t know who they are) but Chappie alone made me love his movie. I always have a soft spot for the underdog, and so Chappie was loveable from the very start as the cursed robot forever coming back damaged from every mission. Then he was given artificial intelligence, he gets excited about rubber chickens, and going for rides in the car. I’d like my own Chappie please, with the orange antennae and reject sticker and everything.

It didn’t have the political agenda that District 9 had, but I thought the lessons about how impressionable Chappie was in his ‘infancy’ were well thought out, and I’ll carry on defending this movie for as long as I’m a blogger!

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
I was not on the bandwagon with this one, I wasn't thrilled when they announced Ben Affleck as Batman and so I gave up on being excited.  I put it to the back of my mind, hardly watched any of the trailers and managed to completely miss it in the cinemas.  Therefore, I missed a lot of the negativity surrounding the film, I refuse to read reviews before making my own choices so all the negative reviews just went over my head.  

A few weeks ago, I decided it was time to watch it, so armed with a glass of wine and an endless supply of junk food, I prepared myself to be disappointed....and then I wasn't.  Don't get me wrong, it wasn't the greatest film in the world but I thoroughly enjoyed watching it.  I like all the actors that were in it and it provided a fix for my latest Jesse Eisenberg obsession (thanks Now you see me 2!!).  I do have a full review to write up for this so I won't go into too much detail but I thought the story was clever pitching Batman against Superman (even if it was only for a short time) and the introduction of Wonder Woman. Considering I am more Marvel than DC, I really was surprised that I enjoyed it but I think my lack of expectations made it that much better.

Review: Chappie (2015)

Although Orange Wednesdays are over, the cinemas are still playing games with each other, and so thankfully (for me) my local is still allowing 2-4-1 tickets every Wednesday during March. I don’t even have to pester a friend for a code, huzzah! My excitement for Chappie stalled a fair amount after reading so many negative reviews, but I always like to save judgement until I’ve seen the film myself. We got to the cinema a little early, and if you follow us on Twitter you’ll have seen my fiance wasn’t great company while we waited.

Took the fiancé to the cinema. Great pre-film conversation right here...not! - A pic.twitter.com/cuIQIp2Lll
— Jenna and Allie (@FlickChicksBlog) March 11, 2015

I was gutted when I missed this as the cinema because I loved District 9 and the trailer really reminded me of it.  I ended up only seeing it last week in the end.

Despite what the trailers made me think, Chappie (Sharlto Copley) is a damaged police robot, created by Deon Wilson (Dev Patel) and stolen by gangsters Ninja and Yolandi (played by themselves - who even are these two?! Apparently a South African rap duo?!). Deon has cleverly created software giving Chappie his own consciousness, and once switched on, he’s comparable to a highly impressionable child.   What did the trailers make you think?  This was not at all what I expected but I can't put my finger on why, I don't know what I was expecting!!

Chappie is the life and soul of this film. It has a fairly slow start during the storytelling of Chappie’s origins, but his reveal is great. He’s likeable before he even comes to life, a Scout Robot who seems to be cursed, always coming back from the field damaged. His one orange ear (antennae) and ‘Reject’ sticker make him instantly recognisable. For a robot, he’s highly expressive, and so hats off to the robotics/animation team behind that.  Chappie was by far the highlight, he was so lovely and made me smile whenever he was on camera, Sharlto Copley was fantastic playing the defect robot with the perfect level of charm and innocence.

One thing I liked about the film, which I imagine is a criticism in others’ eyes, it that you’re never sure who the real bad guy is. At the outset, it’s the gangsters Ninja and Yolandi, living a life of crime and stealing Chappie to help them with a heist. Without spoiling the story for you, they don’t appear to be the bad guys towards the end. The real rotten character is Vincent, (Hugh Jackman), who will literally stop at nothing to see his own work get the credit he feels it deserves. I really don’t like Hugh Jackman as a baddie! He’s just too much of a nice guy usually… and that mullet!!

Fully agree with Allie, its so confusing, you never know whose side to be on.  Instinctively, you want to side with Deon but he just seems like a bit of a wet lettuce who just lets everyone walk all over him.  Then there is the rap duo who are astonishingly irritating, initially, they are a breath of fresh air after Deon's blandness but Yolandi's high pitched squeal and Ninja's shouted are just too much to bear, I nearly turned the whole thing off at one point. 

Granted, Chappie doesn’t have a huge social/political agenda like District 9 did, but I think it still spreads an important message about how impressionable children are. Chappie knows and understands that crime and murder are wrong, and yet he can still be taught to steal and kill, just by the way he’s told how.  I did enjoying seeing how they got round his promise to not hurt people, it was really clever - my favourite moment in the film was probably when he trashed 'daddy's stolen car' instead of getting the driver out!!

There’s plenty of humour in this film too, largely thanks to Chappie himself. His excitement over rubber chickens, riding in the car, or just the way he repeatedly tells the gangsters, ‘Chappie can’t do heist. Heist is a crimes’ just made me smile again and again. I love him!

I’m scared that this might be another Green Lantern situation here for me, judging by the reviews I’ve read so far, but I hand on heart loved Chappie, and despite its flaws, I want to see it again soon.

Honestly, I loved Chappie and the ending was pretty clever (although convenient) but the story didn't keep me entertained.  I fell asleep twice trying to watch it.  I am gutted it wasn't as good as District 9 but it just wasn't up to par.  It would have been a 5 but Chappie brought it back....