What was the last movie that surprised you positively?

[bartholen_v1legacy]

As per the title. I bring this up after watching Penguins of Madagascar just yesterday. I'd gotten a slight interest in the movie after seeing the reviews for it. They weren't screamingly great, but they seemed to indicate an unusual sort of film that would at least prove interestingly nuts if nothing else.

Turns out I got a lot more than that. The film was simply a riot, and I laughed consistently all the way through. It was absolutely nuts, and seemed to have been written from the madlibs of 60 people on crack. It reminded me of the Lego Movie with its anarchic, nonsensical humor and rapid-fire editing and zingers, except Penguins perhaps even exceeded that, which is saying something. The gags came so fast and the animation was so rapid that you could hardly catch a breath in between the completely insane scenes. The film boasts a healthy nose of self-awareness, but not to the point of burrowing into insufferable "wink wink" balderdash. I freaking loved it, and it was one of the biggest surprise pleasures I've had in a good while. And what a voice performance from John Malkovich, who seemed to be channeling Will Ferrell quite a lot, but he clearly had tons of fun doing the role.

Had any experiences like this recently?

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Probably Guardians of the Galaxy. I was all set to think it was too goofy and just down right silly. I mean GotG! Its's a 4th or 5th string comic! A talking fucking raccoon for fucks sake!

And damn if Rocket Raccoon wasn't the absolute show-stealer! He was a riot and they didn't go hard on the cheese at all! They took it completely seriously and after a few minutes I had completely forgotten Rocket wasn't real. I was ready to believe in a foul-mouthed talking raccoon.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Mad Max:Fury Road. Not that I wasn't expecting a full-blown festival of vehicular carnage, and it certainly delivered on that. But what I didn't see coming was the mind-boggling brilliance of it all.

I have never seen a movie so perfectly balance an abundance of action with a believable story. It is so well thought out, so well presented, so well executed, it just blew me away. It's been 3 years since I saw a film in theaters twice, but I can't wait to go see this one again.

And beyond being just a perfectly crafted film in every way, I have never seen a movie that left me in pain because of how awesome it was. Seriously, my neck and shoulders hurt from being so tense the whole time.

 

[Chemical Alia]

I knew Mad Max was going to be pretty great, and it was definitely better than I expected. But the last movie that truly surprised me was probably Troll Hunter. It was playing at a bar and I had no idea what I was watching, but found myself unable to NOT watch it. I went home and watched the whole thing on Netflix later, and it was awesome.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The Tale of Princess Kaguya

Ghibli's previous movie, The Wind Rises, left me totally cold, and Kaguya is directed by Isao Takahata who also directed Grave of the Fireflies, which I don't have many warm feelings for either. So I wasn't expecting too much of Kaguya. But that movie hit me pretty hard, and by the end I was left visibly shaking.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Mad Max: Fury Road. I was expecting a good movie, not the best movie of 2015.

 

[DementedSheep]

Mad Max: Fury Road being that I knew fuck all about it before hand and just had "hey, do you want go watch the new Mad Max movie? it's about him saving a warlords harem LOL" to go off I was expecting a serviceable action movie full of tacky fan-service. As it turns out it's an awesome action movie and is surprising subdued with the fan service.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Pacific Rim. I heard shit reviews about it so I skipped it in cinemas. Only to watch it later on TV because it was on. I really wish I'd watched it in 3D!

 

[Lufia Erim]

Well i just watched " the truman show" and it was really good. I usually don't like jim Carey but that movie was nothing short of amazing.

The last movie i saw at the cinema was the psy. I don't know what up with malissa McCarthy but she's on fire these days. Who thought that the no name woman from Gilmore girls would light the comedy movie world on fire.

 

[Evonisia]

The 2015 version of Far From the Madding Crowd. I went in thinking that it would be some relatively pleasant affair, which I needed after The Falling (vomits), and I'll be damned if I didn't leave the cinema with a smile on my face and a nice feeling inside. It'll easily compete with Furious 7 and Age of Ultron for my attention and favouritism by year's end. Shame the Sergeant was ugly as sin, but that's my only issue with the use of film in the story, the rest is the fault of the book.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

Well, I recently watched Silence of the Lambs for the first time. I never got around to see it, and when Netflix announced that they were removing it, I decided to finally watch it while it was still on there. I knew it was a highly acclaimed movie, but because of it's age and the number of serial killer movies we've had over the years, I didn't expect it to hold up very well, but still like it or at least appreciate it for what it did.

Needless to say, that movie holds up, like, amazingly well. It's a fantastic movie, and I'm kinda ashamed that it took me this long to get to it.

 

[Ronald Nand]

Captain America: The Winter Soldier for me. I was expecting something similar to the first movie or Thor 2: The Dark World and mainly went to see the movie so I got a chance to hang out with my friends and enjoy a decent movie, but the movie really blew me away with its clever commentary on government intelligence and the role of the state in our lives.

Granted if I bothered to watch any of the trailers I would've probably expected the commentary and the movie would've had less effect on me. It made me not want to watch trailers for movies, wanting to be blown away with a movie like I did with Winter Soldier.

I also really like Guardians of the Galaxy and Mad Max, but I kind of expected them to be fun lighthearted movies and they delivered on that.

 

[McElroy]

Non-Stop, you know the one with Liam Neeson in a plane. I excpected a dull Liam Neeson action film, but it was actually quite entertaining throughout.

 

[Shiftygiant]

Frank. I knew nothing abut it going in, and I only went because the local indie cinema was meant to be showing 'The Wind Rises' but the server melted.

It was a blast.

 

[HanFyren]

Looper: Expected dumb action. Got "smart" action.

 

[Selucia]

Unexpected hero (Uk release) Was better than expected since i purchased it for a pound. kinda funny that it was supposed to be and was marketed as a comedy but the only part of the movie which has any strength is the drama. Even the comedy bits when not viewed out of context such as in the trailer come off very serious.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

The Kingsmen. I really wasn't sure what to expect to be honest. It many good reviews, yes. But good reviews are white noise to me for "it's alright, probably." I guess I expected some typical posh-spy lighthearted British romp, not the game changer of action scene direction that it was. Colin Firth as an Action star? "Hah!" Said past me. "Ahaha! Who's laughing now?" Retorts present me. Oh wait...

 

[CrazyGirl17]

A week or so back, a friend and I went to see "When Marnie Was There", supposedly the last Studio Ghibli movie for a while. I have to admit, I was really impressed with the story, especially the relationship between the two lead characters. I won't spoil anything, but let's just say things take a bit of different direction later on...

 

[Ryallen]

I haven't seen many movies recently, so this one is slightly outdated, but Lego Movie was probably the last movie that I saw that pleasantly surprised me. It was the part at the end that got me the most. Most movies have some sort of sappy message at the end that doesn't really mean anything, and the delivery is usually what makes me forget it, but the way that it was brought about here made me stop thinking and just watch. I'm specifically talking about the part at the end where

Spoiler

When Emmett is trying to convince Lord Business to put down the Kraggle, and as he's standing there, stuck to the ground by the Kraggle, he says "You don't have to be the bad guy." The following speech was probably one of the best speeches in a "kid's movie" that I have ever seen, with a message that isn't done well enough often enough.

Basically, what's I'm trying to say is the Lego Movie was my favorite movie of 2014.