7 terrific movies based on bad ideas
A board game. A theme-park ride. Fun things in and of themselves, but terrible fodder for narrative filmmaking. That is, unless you’re “Clue” or “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
The one thing these seven movies have in common is that they were all exceptionally bad ideas that nevertheless went on to become good movies.
7. ‘21 Jump Street’ (2012)
Adapting a late-’80s TV show into a 21stcentury film seemed like a recipe for failure. But this silly buddy-cop comedy was directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who know a little something about injecting heart into what could have been a soulless corporate venture. Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill star as a pair of cops forced to go undercover as high-school students to bring down a drug ring. Hill is the brains and Tatum, of course, is the brawn, but they’re both hilarious reliving high school.
6. ‘The Lego Movie’ (2014)
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller again, this time – somehow, some magic way – making a compelling film about those infernal little toy blocks you’re always stepping on. The animation is incredibly cool, with a hyper-kinetic style that puts those plastic building blocks to inventive use. But what really sells it is the story. A goofball construction worker (Chris Pratt) finds himself leading the resistance against the tyrannical Lord Business (Will Ferrell) in a “Toy Story”-like meditation on the power of imagination to breathe life into playtime.
5. ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl’ (2003)
Before the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series wore out its welcome with bloated sequels, nonsensical storylines and an overdose of Johnny Depp, it was a perfectly affable summer adventure blockbuster. Depp’s eccentric rum-chugging pirate Captain Jack Sparrow sparkles with cartoonish verve and makes this a far better movie than one based on an amusement park ride has any right to be. Plus there’s swashbuckling, zombie pirates and a scene-chewing Geoffrey Rush with a pet monkey.
4. ‘Clue’ (1985)
It’s amazing the miracles a great ensemble cast can work. Madeline Kahn, Michael McKean, Christopher Lloyd and the alwaysperfect Tim Curry (among others) manage what should be impossible: to make a movie based on a board game funny. Mrs. Peacock, Colonel Mustard and crew assemble at a mansion for a mysterious soiree that turns into a raucous evening of murder and mayhem. The cheap gags and slapstick guffaws land like a candlestick to the funny bone, and the multiple endings suggest a movie that knows exactly what it is, and is having fun with it.
3. ‘Batman Begins’ (2005)
It would have been perfectly justifiable if no studio exec had ever wanted to take a chance on a Batman movie again following the neon spectacle of 1997’s “Batman & Robin,” Joel Schumacher’sode to nipples on batsuits. Then Christopher Nolan came along and gave back dignity to the world’s greatest detective. If it has become de rigueur for superhero movies to take a dark and gritty approach, it’s only because Nolan did dark and gritty so well when he rebooted the Batman franchise, with Christian Bale as the perfect Dark Knight for taking the series in a serious direction.
2. ‘The Blair Witch Project’ (1999)
Here’s a pitch: A trio of amateur actors are given expensive camera equipment and the bare outlines of a plot, and then sent into the woods for eight days to improvise sleepdeprived dialogue. You’d have to be crazy to fund it. But thankfully somebody was, and that scrappy little found-footage indie horror film grossed $248.6 million on a budget of less than $1 million. And it’s not just the gimmick that raked in the dough: Nearly 20 years later, and long after found footage has lost its luster, seeing someone simply standing in the corner can still make your heart skip a beat.
1. ‘Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope’ (1977)
“Star Wars” should never have been made. When a young upstart with only one successful film to his name wants millions of dollars to make a sprawling space opera people with characters that have names like Darth Vader and Chewbacca, you run, not walk, from the pitch meeting. “Star Wars” was the mother of all gambles, one that went overlong and over budget and made all the suits nervous. But George Lucas’ vision won out to invent a new American mythology, and for a time it was the highest-grossing film of all time.