In Defense of the “Bad” Movie

The peanut gallery always has something to say!

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I have said on multiple occasions that I love a good “bad” movie. Absolutely love them. Bratz: The Movie? Excellent. Christmas Cupid? Amazing. The Meg? Stunning. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief? 10/10. Why would I outwardly admit that movies I genuinely like are bad? I guess I like to acknowledge the general feeling about such movies before I’m bombarded with the “really? that movie sucks” I’m sure is coming down the pipe. But also, objectively, I know these movies aren’t exactly the epitome of cinema. They are silly, fun, feel-good movies that are meant purely to entertain. And though the point of a movie or any other form of entertainment is literally to entertain, we tend to lose sight of that in the battle for “who has the best taste in X?”

Letterboxd review of ‘The Hating Game.’

There are plenty of movies I love and rewatch often that are considered by the average critic, reviewer, or viewer, to be bad movies: any romcom ever for the most part, all Christmas movies, Lifetime movies, a good amount of action movies, Disney Channel movies, movies for kids, musicals, the list goes on. The easy targets for haters are common fodder for me. Love ‘em. I love prestige cinema, too, don’t get me wrong. I love a puzzle movie à la Christopher Nolan. I love the Oscar bait war movies and the challenging, emotional movies that make everyone stop and think. But what I don’t think is acknowledged often enough in the world of movies is that there’s a time and place for everything.

There is a time for the challenging watch that is meant to stir something deep within and leave you pensive and in awe. There is also time for the fun movie that you know is a guaranteed happy ending, full of laughs and predictable characters. Both of these sorts of movies serve a purpose. And this extends to other art and entertainment too. There’s a place for To Kill A Mockingbird in the same way that there’s a place for Anna and the French Kiss.

With any art form, there’s frequently a battle between those who consider themselves above certain iterations of it and those who can find enjoyment and value in anything. In order to make oneself feel better about their own sensibilities or taste, the former put down the sensibilities and taste of the latter. This really only succeeds in making you look rude and judgmental, but it happens nonetheless. It also creates “guilty pleasures” out of genuinely fun entertainment.

Letterboxd review of ‘Meg 2: The Trench.’

Hugh Grant in his Variety Actors on Actors interview from 2017 put this sentiment, from the actors’ perspective, quite nicely in his conversation with Colin Farrell:

“I sometimes think we are in slight danger of disappearing up our own arses––actors––and that really we should be there to entertain people and we shouldn’t forget that. It’s an entertainment business. And if you’re not entertaining people, and you’re only really pleasing your peers so that you get recognition and awards and things, then I think it can become a fraction masturbatory.”

The point of movies and TV and books and music is to entertain people and add color to what can otherwise be a very mundane life. What use is it to only consider those things that win awards or are created to win awards valid?

I’m the type of person that will give any movie 3 stars if I can get through it without wanting to quit. I’ve given 5 movies 2 stars and 7 movies 2.5 stars out of the 274 films I’ve logged on letterboxd (and some of them I still added a like to!). This is usually in extreme cases of I don’t think I can make it through this or this might actually just be a terrible movie. Sometimes I just don’t get a movie, which is fine, but I’m rarely going to be the person to yuck another’s yum simply because I didn’t enjoy it. A semi-scathing letterboxd review aside, I let you live! Because we all have different tastes, and for the most part, any movie to me is fun. There’s a letterboxd review (or a tweet?) that I once saw and cannot place that went along the lines of “I may be a poor reviewer because any movie I see is automatically 3 stars or more. Anytime I sit in a theater and watch a movie I’m having a good time,” and I couldn’t agree more.

So, if these movies aren’t actually bad, what makes a truly bad movie bad? Well, in my humble opinion, if a movie doesn’t meet its stated purpose, which is, at the very least, to entertain then I think it’s bad. There are prestige movies that are bad, there are “trash” movies that are bad. A movie can fail to entertain for several reasons: 

It can be so convoluted in its story that it’s impossible to follow, taking away any enjoyment you could have possibly drained from it like The Devil All The Time (if confusing was a movie, this would be it). It could fail in one of the only areas it was meant to succeed like Step Up All In (you watch Step Up movies for the dancing and the music. Yet this one had absolutely terrible music?) or The Wedding Planner (I may be alone in this but it took me two attempts to even get through this movie, and when I finally did, it was quite painful). It could have no continuity or the most cookie cutter villains you’ve ever seen like Meg 2: The Trench, which you may not believe, but I had high hopes for (it was full of entirely too much on-the-nose writing like “who cares if we destroy all the ocean life, we’ll make billions of dollars!” –– this is practically a direct quote). Or just disappointing for a reason I can’t put my finger on like This Means War (just… disappointing).

Letterboxd review of ‘Meg 2: The Trench.’

Despite my incredibly strong feelings about the above (actually) bad movies, I will never be one of those people who goes out of my way to tell you your taste in movies sucks, or is childish, or is beneath me. Literally what is the point? There’s another quote I came across once in college that I, again, cannot place, that went something like “making a movie is such hard work that even creating a bad movie is a feat.” I have a lot of respect for people who spend their lives creating art that they know is going to be judged harshly by people who could never do what they do. After all, being a backseat driver is the easiest job in the world, so I try my best not to add to the pile on.

What’s your favorite “bad” movie?