What have you watched that you expected to either be mediocre at best or complete dogshit at worst? My biggest surprise was Game Night from 2018 which I saw a year or two ago. My parents occasionally go up to our local grocery store and pick something out from the RedBox there that they think looks good and it tends to be hit or miss, a.) because it's RedBox and b.) because I'm not into most of the stuff they watch. However, I'm not going to complain about a free movie and I didn't have anything going on the night that they rented it so I decided to watch it with them. I expected it to be a dumb mainstream comedy with some half-baked crime elements thrown in based on the poster but I actually thought it was a lot of fun.
>pretty original story with lots of twists and was a good balance of comedy and suspense
>particularly enjoyed the gimmick of most of the characters being equally stupid and gullible and trying to figure out what the fuck's going on
>token black friend couple and women in the mix too but they're just as stupid as everyone else and aren't Mary Sues
>good acting overall and the majority of the jokes land
>avoids most tropes I figured would be in it
>well done cinematography with a lot of pretty interesting shots I wasn't expecting from a comedy, especially a tracking shot in a mansion during a chase and several times when they make everything/everyone look like they're all on a game board from afar
>cool electro-synth score
>only a couple woke moments and they're honestly not that bad (one cheap Ronald Blumpf joke and a reference to the Daily Stormer)
>Rachel McAdams
My only real criticisms are that the villain was pretty one-dimensional, was only in the movie for like 10 minutes in total and was a complete waste of Michael C. Hall; I thought Jason Bateman was basically playing the same character he usually does but I was kind of expecting that going into it; and the way the villain gets taken down toward the end is fairly predictable. All in all though, this was surprisingly good for a mainstream comedy. Wouldn't go so far as to call it great but it was still pretty good, comfy fun.
