What is a movie that "looks like" it would suck, but actually is well written and acted and a good time?

I may be biased, as an RPG nerd, but man, they hit all the notes so damn well. That was such a good movie.

One of the best movies of the year for me, and I was expecting hot garbage.

Good call! Wife and I watched that one on a whim, thinking it would be a good "bad" movie to watch while having a few drinks and were pleasantly surprised!

You probably need be at least familiar with RPG/fantasy tropes to fully enjoy it, but it definitely felt like it came from a place of love and self-awareness, rather than the cynical cash-grab I was expecting.

This movie took me completely by surprise by how good it was. I feel like you could tell everyone involved had experience playing TTRPGs, from the director, to the writer(s), all the way down to the catering crew!

I don't rewatch movies unless its been a few years and I really enjoyed.

Ive provably watched that movie 10x by now. Jarnathan would know what I'm saying if he were here.

Absolutely loved that movie. It's mixture of slapstick humor and melodrama are a perfect representation of actual D&D.

I just went and watched it for the first time because of this message. FANTASTIC movie! Excellent recommendation!

And the 80s Dungeons and Dragons movie is... well, it has Tim Curry.

This is top 3 of all time for me. There is so much happening in every scene you can watch it multiple times and still catch little jokes or sight gags each viewing.

It is then we're reminded of the ability of good writers and performers to take even a low-potential idea and fucking kill it. With a pen. In the study.

I also expected a disaster. I wasn't prepared for how entertaining it was!

Having John Landis write the story didn't hurt.

Absolutely one of my favorite movies

There's also Tremors 2: Aftershocks.

Plus there's Tremors 3: Back to Perfection.

Followed by Tremors 4: The Legend Begins.

Then Tremors 5: Bloodlines.

Don't forget Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell.

One might think Tremors: Shrieker Island, AKA Tremors 7: Island Furry (I spelled that wrong on purpose, it has nothing to do with furries) would be enough for Michael Gross to quit his acting career but how else was he going to pay for his ludicrous railroad memorabilia obsession and also the railroad he owns and the 'safety first when crossing railroad tracks' campaign?

So no, it didn't end there. They kept the franchise going, choo! choo! with the imaginatively titled television series, Tremors: The Series.

If you skip the credits, you can watch all of it in less than 24 hours.

The first sequel is so so, but the others that are all centered around Burt Gummer are plenty of silly fun too.

Came here to say exactly this. Only commented cause I can't upvote twice.

Omg, Tremors...I haven't watched it in years. That was such a good movie.

Such a great movie!

I got this at a DragonCon. They did a pre-release showing and gave these out to the audience.

One of my all time favorites, so quirky

Thank you. I still watch the end credits from time to time. Brings back these sweet eighties memories!

I like to think of it as a sci-fi movie sequel/equivalent to the short story (but not the movie) "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty."

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil! Amazing movie! I put it on one day just so I could check it off my list of new things out and, figured if I love the Evil Dead series (and also, as someone else mentioned in the thread, the Re-Animator) how awful could this be... it wasn't. It was fantastic.

Enjoyed Little Evil too. So, I'm putting Colossal on my list right now!

It Follows... Amazing

Colossal was weird, but i liked it. I could see where people would be thinking, what is this and why am I watching it, but it felt like real life to me. For a movie about monster avatars unwittingly being controlled from half a world away, anyway.

I think I wtched it follows, fully expecting to be awestruck and it just ended.

And Laurence Fishburne as Thrax. He was pretty horrifying when he would let loose and make people explode.

It was fantastic. The spin-off show was good too

I love this movie!

Around the time this came out, I, having had no idea about the movie or its premise, wrote a story that was along similar lines in creative writing. Specifically, it featured the immune system and other cells as characters and whatnot.

I was accused of ripping off the idea.

I'll give you the first one, way better than it had any right to be. 2nd was ok.

Renfield

I'm perpertually locked in Cage but both my s/o and myself passed out on two seperate watch attempts 🫠

This was a great one.

This is my favorite movie. It's the best that was ever written about mindfulness.

I've only ever watched it once, but this movie will haunt my mind until the day I die. Fucking amazing movie.

Absolute stealth hit. The last table tennis game... Man that hits hard.

It's such a good time, one of my favourite films that I actually rewatch! Bill freakin' Nighy let's go!!

I watched this movie when I was in middle school and thought it was badass. I completely forgot about it until your mention and now I gotta see if it holds up. All I remember is that it takes place in winter and Samuel L. says "Pussy is pussy " at some point.

Mr hawk I got your stamps!

Idk, I thought the idea of the game changing itself to appeal to more people as time went on was a really cool idea.

The second one is more generic, but I agree with the first one

That didn't bother me at all, I just assumed the video game was a more recent release of the original board game, with the same weird properties.

Yes! One of my most favorite Johnny Depp roles.

Where my fellow Spokane peeps?

The FPS sequence made me go

Oooohhhh, I watched that back then and totally forgot that that movie was even a thing. I think I need to rewatch it

37?! Like, in a row?

I'm not even supposed to be here today.

I assure you we're open.

A space-ship that’s 60% glass, 20% stiffener bars and 20% normal space-ship stuff,

Disney writer #1: Let's make a Tower of Babel parable, but set it space!

Disney writer #2: Are we going to end the movie with the antagonist being sent to actual-factual Hell?

Disney writer #1: You fucking know it!

They were trying for their Star Wars.

Oh yeah that thing is a classic.

I disagree. This both looked and was awesome.

I think people are missing that this movie is spelled differently than "Star Trek First Contact".

Star Trek First CONACT was a cheap, B-movie knock-off straight to DVD movie that should have sucked, but didnt.

Angela Lansbury was not nominated for an Oscar for her preformance as the Captain, but Brooke Shields notably was also in the movie as an alien.

/s

And then?

I used to love that movie, went to try and rewatch it recently and was hit with a blast of early 2000's casual transphobia. Couldn't keep watching after, it put a really sour taste in my mouth.

I watched it expecting the same campy tropes from other fantasy/sci-fi movies of the era and what I got was a movie deeper than it lets on. That score too, amazing.

Conan is a movie that teaches you what is truly best in life.

Good film that. I was 21ish when it came out and one of my friends at the time said “oh yeah, you still think you’re 18 don’t you…”, pissed me off a bit.

I was about to say the same, the purge was such a creative joy

Yes! Unexpectedly good movie!

Pandorum was fantastic. I need to watch it again.

I loved this movie when I was younger but it's been a while... I'm sorry, WHAT?! O'Brien?! oh I need to see this one again

Alien is pretty good but Event Horizon is the best space horror movie.

Solid film.

Yeah I just watched it and really enjoyed it.

The critics on this over were pretty funny to me.

"They made me watch another Hellboy film, and it's a Hellboy film, and I'm angry."

Some of those critics need to learn when to call in sick.

It's a great Hellboy film. Haha.

I watched a lengthy video essay about this movie that really made me want to watch it. Was definitely shocked by the level of thought put into the symbolism within the film.

This description reminded me of Club Dread, loved that movie as a preteen/teen

Combs just brings a captivating presence wherever he goes!

It was super attentive to d&d details such as almost all the classes of the party using intelligence as dump stats or the specifics of the spells mechanics while also not needing the audience to know any of that to have a good time and understand what was going on.

And the use of d&d lore and mechanics were woven into the characters and narrative, it wasn't just hey remember this thing from d&d. Way underrated, probably bad marketing.