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The Fast and Furious movies literally started as an excuse for Paul Walker to drive his cool car collection, so I nominate those
and for some reason part of the plot of many of them is that a hot woman is the prize for winning the final race
I’d argue visuals are a pretty major part of a what makes a movie a movie, so you could argue this is a case where style is substance. You’re not watching Tron for the story.
That said, post-300 Snyder went up his own arse and the slow-mo action, music choices, composition from renaissance paintings - none of it informs characterisation, story beats, themes, or anything beyond “look how cool this is bruh”.
Avatar, all of them.
The first one existed purely to show off 3d film technology and push the limits of CGI.
The sequels false started under the premise that the first one had anything past colourful lights and sounds.
Also, Tron: Legacy, which I am very fond of because it’s essentially a Daft Punk music video.
I barely remember anything about Tron: Legacy besides short Daft Punk cameo that started Derezzed track.
Edit: also that they’ve used 3d model of CLU and that I have only noticed it was 3d model late in the movie.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Absolutely stunning visually with writing that, even if it had been good would never have succeeded because its stars had exactly zero chemistry.
Literally the first film that came to mind.
I haven’t even seen it and this was the movie I thought of when I saw the question.
I felt that Sucker Punch fits this. They had some cool dreamy sequences, which looked good in the trailer, but then you watched the movie and those were kinda it. I think they tried to get a little bit of depth in there by making a sad story to tie the dreams together, but to me at least it felt shallowly deep 😛
Speed Racer. It was a blast. Sometimes Style is all you need.
Speed racer has tons of substance and heart. Watched it for the first time last year in a theater. Awesome movie
I call it Cinematography: The Movie
And yet I didn’t remember the plot at all until reading that page. I just remembered the two main characters and the main setting.
I read the book ages ago … wasn’t it just a kid in a boat?
Yup. With an animal.
Hardcore Henry
But its style is so good, the lack of substance does not even matter.
The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy (7-9). There’s lots of cool-looking shit going on, but taken as a whole, it’s completely incoherent.
All of Star Wars imho, they have little to no story, especially the first three made, they added space decision to an average western, dulled down the story & characters/ships to make the merch available at the same time as the movie (which was like the main goal with the first movie).
They are a cool space opera, but they all have short/“small” stories bcs that is probably what focus groups predicted will be the most successful for the business.
The Last Jedi had some really powerful messages and was incredibly well made, but sadly it hurt some people’s feelings a bit so it’s seen as a bad movie despite commercial success and critical acclaim. And sadly that vocal minority made them backtrack a lot of the choices from that movie in episode 9, so yes, as a trilogy it became completely incoherent.
I liked The Last Jedi, but even on its own, it has problems. Coming to mind are the hyperspace ramming thing, the physics of the bomber run at the beginning, the nonsense of the mutiny storyline…
It’s a weird movie, the story around Rey, Luke, Kylo, and Snoke was excellent, but the story around Finn, Rose, and the general was awful writing and usually bland acting. There’s a really good movie in there, maybe one of the best Star Wars, if you cut out half of it.
There’s a really good movie in there, maybe one of the best Star Wars, if you cut out half of it.
And then, by those rules, now Episodes 1-3 have a heavily edited shot at being the best, as well. Haha.
As it so happens, I haven’t seen the original prequels in over a decade, and only watch the HAL 9000 edits, and I would say they are all substantial improvements.
It is kind of a bad movie though. Yeah, the switch away from some chosen one (s family) was cool, but the actual story of the movie is the most boring chase in the universe coupled with dicking around in some casino.
It’s about the same amount of plot advancement (maybe slightly more) than Empire Strikes Back, though.
Is it? I dont think i have watched the original trilogy in the last… two decades? Honestly after Ep 9 i felt totally done with star wars (will definitely agree that its worse than ep 8; i dont even remember the plot anymore besides palpy’s back!) and that feeling was cemented when i watched and absolutely enjoyed Andor for all the ways it wasnt star wars
When you break it down there’s a lot of parallels despite those elements being used in different ways: big battle on an ice/salt planet, chase through space, Jedi mentor on a distant planet, betrayal by a new character in/met in a glitzy planet, reveal/non-reveal of parentage, but on top of that you have Luke’s arc going from disillusioned mentor to learning from failure and facing your mistakes, and the ‘force is for everyone, not just a few genetic lineages’ with the casino planet epilogue.
One of the best “all style” movies has to be:
“The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.”
Speedracer
Avatar, most marvel and dc films, most nolan films
Michael Bay. Although The Rock is hilarious.
Tim Burton… most recently
Didn’t realize that Michael Bay is a movie
Well he did basically make the same film over and over again with no distinguishing characteristics other than “a film by Michael Bay”, so I guess it’s kinda true.
It’s a genre.
The Expendables franchise
The Tree of Life from 2011. I felt like half the movie was just shots of the universe with music. It was pretty nonsensical.
