The 10 Most Underappreciated Films

Good afternoon fellow filmtwats, I’ve compiled my list of 10 underappreciated films; these are all films I think should have performed better with critics, marketing and box office. Give them a read let me know your thoughts and whether you agree or disagree with my choices.  

 

10. Broken Arrow 1996: A great little action film written by Graham Yost (Speed) and directed by the dual pistol legendary Mr John Woo. Mr Woo’s second directorial effort after ‘Hard Target’ was a far more confident offering, including a criminally underused Christian Slater and John Travolta at his venom spitting, scene chewing best as ‘Vic Deakins’. Tight action scenes, good dialog and a great score by Hans Zimmer which has since been ripped off and used in the scream films, and one of the coolest explosions I’ve seen in a film, (I’m referring to the underground nuclear explosion that leaves a crater) I remember at the time being shocked at how great and unexpected that scene was! It’s a shame Broken Arrow didn’t do better as the great Mr Slater seems to have faded away shortly after that.

 

9. The Island 2005: Michael Bays most intelligent offering yet – but ignored by the masses, maybe we ourselves are to blame for Michaels constant attack on our senses for ignoring this film. Mind you – there is still a healthy dose of carnage, shoot outs and car chases and there’s even a really cool sky bike sequence thrown in for good measure. Overlooked in the same summer that gave us ‘Batman Begins’ and ‘War of the Worlds’.

 

 

 

8. Chronicles of Riddick 2004: You knew this was coming; look I’m under no illusion that this is a great film, it is however a sci-fi fans wet dream. From the opening shots of Riddick running over those craters on that inhospitable icy planet to the necromongers invading Helion Prime. Yes there were some shitty effects… especially them weird alien dog things.. And there was some utter shit direction and pointless ‘trying to be cool’ camera shots that just came off lame, but I had fun with it.  Riddick just didn’t pull in those important numbers, it’s a shame because I feel the sci-fi genre has been on its arse for the last decade.

 

 

7. Tomb Raider 2001: Easily the best video game to film adaptation in my book, Tomb Raider actually met with some success and even spawned an utterly terrible clusterfuck sequel!! Directed by Simon West the man behind the awesome Con-Air, Tomb Raider boasts some great competent action scenes and has a booming soundtrack which includes the always great Chemical Brothers and Flukes awesome track absurd.

 

 

6. Batman Returns 1992: I was eleven when this film came out and being a Batman fan I fucking loved it, while I do appreciate Batman’s no kill policy being adhered to in his most recent flicks, I do miss the stone cold killer Batman from the old days, I was excited when penguins gang of clowns were running rampage at the beginning, you may remember one guy in particular dressed as a devil burning teddies in a shop committing an act of arson, probably looking at 2 – 4 years tops, what does Batman do? why pull up in the Batmobile drop a six ton turn table from the bottom of his car enabling himself to pull a disco spin of 180 in his car thus setting his thrusters to burn this poor fucker alive! and don’t forget the poor sack of shit that he straps dynamite to, then shatters his jaw forcing him down a manhole to explode! Apparently it was to dark and moody for some whiney American kids and some left the cinema in tears which led to the utterly horrible shit fest that was Batman Forever I’m not mentioning the utter shite that followed.

 

5. Solaris: Excellent remake of Andrei Tarkovskys original, just a shame no fucker went to go and see it! Well crafted sci-fi piece from Ocean 11’s Steven Soderbergh. Excellent haunting score that’s been ripped and used in tons of Volkswagen adverts and film trailers since.

 

 

 

 

4. Blade Trinity: I’m a big fan of the Blade films I remember the trailer for the very first film back in 1998 and thinking it looked fucking awful, I arrived at the cinema expecting another ‘Spawn’ film and remember being absolutely blown away in the first 10 minutes! I loved Blade 2 equally; now Trinity isn’t as good I’m aware of that… but no way did it deserve to be shit on by nearly every critic out there!? I was half expecting a complete shitfest at the cinema, there was plenty of action, Wesley Snipes was still awesome as Blade and Ryan Reynolds as Hannibal King was fucking genius, add to that a pumping soundtrack I think its a worthy enough sequel.

 

3. Sunshine: What happens when you bring the zombie genre back from the dead with the critically acclaimed and box office hit 28 Days later? Only open Danny Boyle’s next film in ten, yes that’s 10 FUCKING THEARTRES!!! Whoever is in charge of marketing at Fox Searchlight should have been fucking shot for this! Sunshine is an excellent sci-fi offering from the always excellent Danny Boyle and I urge anyone out there to just go out and buy it.  

 

 

 

2. Serenity: like with the above if you don’t already own this go out and buy it! If you’re like me and thought there was something deeply missing from the Star Wars prequels then this is for you, forget the pristine clean cgi ships from Lucas’s offering and say hello to the rusty, falling apart spaceships we fell in love with in the 80’s. Mal Reynolds is easily the coolest guy to surf the galaxy since Han Solo, Serenity written and directed by the great Joss Whedon is witty, charming, scary and one of the most complete sci-fi films in a long time. Backed up by one of the best written villains I’ve seen in years played by Brit Chiwetel Ejiofor. It’s a shame Serenity didn’t do the numbers – as I would have loved to see the sequel.

 

1. Alien 3: I love this film, back when there was talk of doing a sequel to ‘Aliens’ I was thinking… great more aliens, more marines and more pulse rifles! Boy was I wrong, instead of heading back to LV-426 with an extermination squad – David Fincher took it in another direction completely. I know there was a lot of hate directed towards the film – was I upset not to see Hicks, Newt and the marines kicking arse again? – of course I was… Dwayne Hicks was a hero of mine! But in a world where sequels usually just try and bigger and better than their predecessors, I could appreciate the direction this was going. Alien 3 is stripped to the core – no pulse rifles, no motion tracking devices, no kick arse APC’s and only one Alien. I urge anyone who might have hated Alien 3 to go back and give it another shot, take note of the massive sets but still you feel claustrophobic, the low camera angles the film employs adding to the sense of hopelessness and dread, one of the best haunting scores ever done by Elliot Goldenthal, in my opinion its a horror classic that was shot well before its time.