20 movies that earned their love/hate reception

There’s no question that the Disney Renaissance was one of the high points for the studio. However, all good things must come to an end, and the film Tarzan spelled the end of the giant's dominance. To be sure, it lacks the beauty and sophistication of its predecessors, but it also has its compensating qualities. Aside from everything else, it’s just a fascinating movie, one that demonstrates the extent to which even major studios go through periods where the magic starts to wear off and a sense of redundancy sets in.

Robert Eggers burst onto the filmmaking scene with his debut, The Witch, and he earned more accolades with The Lighthouse. However, The Northman fell a bit flat with critics, despite its gritty aura and a terrific performance from Alexander Skarsgård. Most folks either love it or hate it, and it’s easy to see why. It sometimes takes itself just a bit too seriously and, as a result, it very often veers into camp, thus robbing it of the sense of dramatic importance it so desperately wants to project. 

It was inevitable that The Greatest Showman  would end up engendering a love/hate relationship in terms of its reception. After all, its entire premise and purpose is the whitewashing of P.T. Barnum, a man noted for being both a showman and a ruthless exploiter of other people. Hugh Jackman, however, turns him into a bit of a lovable rogue, and the fact that the film is a musical aids in the sanitizing mission. There’s no question that it’s a very fun musical, though, and it remains a key part of Barnum’s pop-culture legacy.

There’s rarely been a movie quite like Mommie Dearest. Based on Christine Crawford’s book of the same name, it focuses on her destructive, toxic relationship with her mother, famed actress Joan Crawford. Faye Dunaway might have approached the role as a serious one, but the end result is the very definition of high camp. Some scenes in the movie make for rather slow viewing, but as a whole Mommie Dearest remains a fascinating portrait of how a film can go so far off the rails it ends up becoming a true cult classic.

Joel Schumacher was one of those directors who loved to court controversy, and he brought a camp sensibility to many of his works, including and especially Batman & Robin. The film was derided at the time, and many continue to regard it as both one of the worst superhero films and one of the worst films in general. However, for those who are more attuned to a camp sensibility, there’s something endearing about Schumacher’s approach to one of the most beloved superheroes, and the movie will surely receive some reconsideration at some point in the future.

Few major franchise films have been quite as controversial as The Phantom Menace. While it featured some state-of-the-art visual effects, its reception was decidedly mixed. In hindsight, the mixture of love and hate is definitely deserved, as some elements of the story, as well as some of the performances, fall flat. At the same time, it manages to be remarkably powerful in its depiction of a government sliding into fascism. Flawed as it is, it remains a powerful piece of Hollywood filmmaking, and it is a microcosm of the complications inherent in the Star Wars franchise.

Paul Verhoeven was certainly no stranger to controversy in the 1990s, and he seemed to really enjoy pushing the buttons of propriety. He certainly did so with his notorious movie Showgirls which, among other things, has the distinction of being the rare film with an NC-17 rating. It’s one of those movies that has also earned its divisive reputation, for while there’s no doubt it’s a cult film that can be seen as a satire, it’s also very often the victim of its own excesses.

The Black Cauldron is an outlier in the Disney animated features canon. Based on the beloved books by Lloyd Alexander, it’s much darker than anything the studio had produced up until then, and it remains a fascinating oddity. It has its share of rough moments — with a narrative that is a bit all over the place — but it’s easy to see why some people continue to love and defend it. The animation is powerful, and it has some remarkably dark scenes and sequences that continue to cast their own unique spell. 

The original Star Wars trilogy remains one of the most successful trio of films in Hollywood history, and their influence continues to be felt in Hollywood. Though it’s now regarded as a classic, Return of the Jedi is a bit divisive even among Star Wars fans. It has some undeniably powerful moments — particularly the scene in which Darth Vader at last throws off the influence of Emperor Palpatine and saves Luke — but it also has some things that haven’t aged particularly well, including the Ewoks.   

The Hobbit trilogy definitely labors in the shadow of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. The first film is arguably the most entertaining of the three, for all that it takes nearly an hour for Bilbo and the Dwarves to get out of the Shire. It’s also the one that comes closest to capturing the whimsy and humor of Tolkien’s original novel. While it might never be quite as good as The Fellowship of the Ring and the other entries of the previous trilogy, it still has enough to delight.

While no one would ever make the claim that the first Twilight  was in any way a great movie, taken for what it is it manages to be quite good. It certainly helps that both Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are perfectly cast in their roles. It manages to stay true to the novel while also giving the story more time to breathe. Furthermore, it also served as a strong foundation for the franchise as a whole, setting the stage for the box office success of the subsequent movies.

Few directors have proven as versatile as Ridley Scott, who has time and again shown he has a remarkable ability to excel in almost any genre. Prometheus is one of his most ambitious films, combining the body horror thrills of the Alien franchise with deeper musings about human nature. While the film definitely has moments of brilliance, it often struggles to meet its own ambitions, which helps to explain why some people love and admire it, while others view it as one of the weaker entries in the franchise.

Darren Aronovsky definitely swung for the fences with The Whale,  which focuses on a morbidly obese gay man and his vexed relationship with his daughter and his own body. The film certainly features a wrenching and deeply poignant performance from lead actor Brendan Fraser. However, it’s hard to escape the extent to which it also plays into the worst stereotypes associated with weight and fatness in popular culture, so it’s easy to see why it continues to be a very divisive entry in Aronovsky’s filmography.

Steven Spielberg attempted to replicate his success with Jurassic Park with its sequel, The Lost World. In some ways he succeeded, since the movie does have some pretty great action sequences. However, in some other ways it tends to follow the same narrative pattern as its predecessor, and there are some sublimely ridiculous moments. It ends up being a bit of a mixed bag, which goes a long way toward explaining why it continues to engender a love/hate reception from fans of the franchise. 

J.J. Abrams certainly took more than a few risks when it came to The Rise of Skywalker, which brought the Star Wars sequel trilogy to a conclusion. While the film doesn’t hit all of its notes very well — and while there are some truly eyebrow-raising moments — it actually ends up being a lot of fun, so long as one isn’t expecting a truly great film. When it comes down to it, it’s also just fun to see Emperor Palpatine return for one last attempt to bring the Galaxy under his heel.

Jurassic Park 3 has received more than its fair share of hate over the years, and there’s no question that it’s nowhere near as good as the first installment in the franchise. However, it has more than enough to satisfy fans of dino-cinema, including the introduction of the Spinosaurus, a dinosaur that even manages to bring down a T. rex. Despite the initial lackluster reception, it still remains a fun piece of action cinema, and it’s arguably better than any of the entries in the reboot sequence.

David Lynch might be one of the most idiosyncratic filmmakers to have emerged from Hollywood, and he certainly raised a few eyebrows with his take on Frank Herbert’s beloved sci-fi epic novel, Dune. The movie has more than its fair share of supporters and detractors, and it is certainly a campy delight filled with performances that are sometimes brilliant and sometimes bonkers. Whether one loves it or hates it, there’s no doubt it’s one of the director’s most fascinating and frustrating films.

Christopher Nolan is known for both the narrative sophistication and the visual grandeur of his filmmaking. Interstellar is certainly a visually ambitious film, but its critics have rightly observed that it’s a little lacking when it comes to its story, which sometimes verges on the frustratingly sentimental. It might not be the most groundbreaking film Nolan has ever made, but it is still a feast for the eyes and thus a testament to what the moving image can achieve in the right hands. 

Snow White  might just be the movie that ends Disney’s addiction to live-action remakes. Despite its dubious reputation, however, it’s actually an entertaining enough movie, if a bit overstuffed with plot lines and handicapped by its fidelity to the original animated version. If nothing else, though, one has to give this particular movie credit for being willing to take some creative risks, and Gal Gadot’s performance, if often very campy and sometimes a little ridiculous, makes for worthwhile viewing on its own.

Eternals is one of those rare things: a Marvel film that did not do particularly well at the box office. There are many reasons why the movie didn’t succeed, including the franchise fatigue that had already begun to afflict the MCU and the fact that it was a much slower, more pessimistic film than others in the franchise. While there’s validity to some of the criticisms, the truth is that it’s also a brave and adventurous film and, in addition to being beautifully shot, it also asks some pressing philosophical questions that evade easy answers.