Don’t expect many references to the Brains Trust here.

I spotted an article online listing so-called underrated classics a while back on metacritic.com. I’m always on the lookout for quality entertainment regardless of how old it is so I decided to track some films down and revisit others I’d already seen.

Here is the full list and my reactions to the films I decided to watch (and was able to track down):

Ace Ventura – Pet Detective – (Full Review) Not a bad vehicle to announce Jim Carrey.

But I’m a Cheerleader – Couldn’t find it.

Cabin Boy – (Full Review) Just… terrible.

Clue – Couldn’t find it. (Didn’t look very hard though.)

Final Destination 1 & 2 – Seen the first ages ago, wasn’t bad. Might get to them eventually.

Flashdance – Not a chance.

Freddy got Fingered – I’d rather watch Flashdance than Tom Green.

Happy Gilmore – (Full Review) Sandler’s best work. Should it be a worry that he’s made 20 odd films since then? I vote yes.

Hudson Hawk – (Full Review) Definitely underrated by critics. Ambitious but flawed effort from Bruce.

The Outsiders – Couldn’t find it. Remember it from my school days, it was OK.

Predator – (Full Review) Awesome “big guns carried by big guys” action flick.

Scrooged – (Full Review) Worthwhile flick carried by Bill Murray.

Speed Racer – Lucky I watched it before launching this site. It’s no Flashdance that’s for sure.

Summer School – (Full Review) Harmless formula wacky group of students with equally zany teacher flick.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with me – (Full Review) Awful piece of pretentious crap.

The Verdict?

Underrated Simpsons Character: Hank Scorpio

The list names 16 films if you include both Final Destinations, 17 if you include Ace 2. Of the 17 I’ve seen 14, all bar But I’m a Cheerleader, Clue and Freddy got Fingered.

The best is Predator (by far), with Hudson Hawk, Happy Gilmore, Scrooged and the Ace sequel being the only worthy films listed, but really only Predator and Happy Gilmore are truly underrated.

What do I glean from this knowledge? Simple: Shit list.

Now I am a cynic and a whinger, but I try to back things up rather than just complain and snipe (sometimes). So I have decided to come up with my own underrated films list to remedy the situation once and for all.

So without further ado the OGR Really Underrated films list, with all new totally made up scientific reasoning!

The Rules of the Game

First let me clarify: underrated = something that is rated or evaluated too low, something underestimated.

So when I see films like Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Narc, Session 9, Ghost Dog and Frailty appear and reappear on various underrated lists it puzzles me. Why? Let’s look at those five in isolation:

If you compare the Rotten Tomatoes rating which comprises an average of (in this case at least 60) respected critic’s review scores, with the imdb user rating average of at least 14,000 movie lovers votes per title you might see that they are pretty damn close. In most cases the OGR score is also not too far away as well, meaning I pretty much agree with the consensus of the average movie goer.

Now while I might strongly believe that every one of the movies listed deserves greater acknowledgement or awareness from the movie viewing public (Transformers has nearly 200,000 votes and scores a 7.3 on imdb!  Twilight over 110,000) it seems that the people that manage to track down the above titles are generally in agreeance for the most part. That’s hardly underrated, you might call it underappreciated, neglected, unnoticed, underexposed, poorly marketed, even overlooked, but not underrated.

Underrated Food: Lamb Chops

Some more examples that were on my short list when I started out but quickly proved to be rated more or less appropriately:

• Adventureland
• Below
• Exorcist 3
• The Matador
• Monster House
• Planet Terror
• The Ref
• Shaft
• Spartan
• Trick R Treat
• Unleashed

Underrated Condiment: (For the Lamb Chops.)

I still think not enough people have seen them so look them up people if you haven’t already.

Moving on to the next wrinkle in qualifying truly underrated films, the difference between critics and true punters.

Watching movies and getting paid for it sounds pretty awesome I’m the first to admit, but many critics are in often in the unenviable position of having to watch a large proportion of the films that come out each year, even if it is nowhere near their “cup of tea”. This means a bunch of 50 plus gents trooped in recently to watch the Twilight sequel to write down their views for millions of teenage girls to ignore as they were going to see it anyway. Would that 50 something guy rather watch Inception over the latest pasty faced merchandising tie in?? Yup.

So it’s fair to say that many professional critics would probably give a lower score to Vampire-Teens 17 than the target demographic would, which would probably be eleventy-seven million out of ten. Similarly I doubt many professional critics list horror films as high on their want list, they are viewed as inferior rubbish and often rated accordingly, even the good ones.

Now while I have no doubt there are millions of 50 somethings actively consulting and updating imdb they are more likely updating movies that they like. No-one pays money to go to the movies to watch something they know they will hate unless it’s a first date, where at least they have a reason (good luck boys!) for enduring the torture.

Therefore quite often when I am sifting for new movies to check out if RT has a bad score and it’s an action film, horror or silly comedy I will often head to imdb for the “people’s view”.

If a movie is trashed on imdb but seems interesting I will head to RT and skim the blurbs there instead of simply trusting daredevilfan72 who proclaims “Steve Buscemi sux man, he’s no Ben Affleck!”

Underrated AFL Player: Joel Patfull

With that in mind here are a few that I reckon the critics got wrong but the imdb users seem to have about right:

The People have spoken! Critics Wrong – IMDB Users Right

Both Taking Care of Business and Three Fugitives are 80s flicks, and while they are no worldbeaters (I rated them both on my own system as Worth watching, hardly a must-see recommendation but a lot better than 0% or 15% of critics saying the same) they are both entertaining flicks and better than a lot of more modern movies released lately.

Déjà vu and the animated flick 9 are sci-fi and also fall victim to the whims of critics who would prefer to watch the latest doco on the plight of poor rice growing Chinese peasants than something with computers or lasers. Both are actually very good challenging films and definitely worth a look.

Most imdb users (who you would suggest would know that sci-fi awaited them before going in and were probably more inclined to be happy about that fact) thought the films were good as 7 is quite a high score on imdb. The 250^th ranked film of All Time on the site only scores a 7.9.

(Severely) Underrated Hip-Hop: People Under the Stairs

Other times though, the critics get it right. To the people that point to the saying “50 million Elvis fans can’t all be wrong” I have coined my own: “But 50 million Mariah Carey fans can”.

There are simply too many people who allow the E channel or lazy mainstream media to tell them what is good, more still who fall for merchandising tie-ins and advertising:

• “J-Lo is in it, that must be awesome!”
• “Four 50 year old women who have lots of sex with young models and carry expensive handbags, terrific.”
• “Mindless explosions and giant onscreen Happy-Meal Toys. Brilliant!”

Conversely this means:

• “I’m confused, which one is the bad guy? I don’t like this film.”
• “You mean the good guy died at the end? What a terrible movie.”
• “Too much talking, nothing is happening!!”
• “What are the words on the screen and why are they talking that crazy way?”

Some Sheep should stick to chewing grass – Critics Right – IMDB Users Wrong

Underrated TV: Men Behaving Badly

Then finally we have the real reason for this list, the films that don’t deserve the critical and public flogging that they have received over the years… according only to me!

My criteria for the list was simple, each film had to:

–          Be deemed “rotten” on Rottentomatoes.com for consideration (60% or lower),

–          Have a lower than 7 score on imdb.com,

–          Be rated a 7.5 or greater on OGR.

(7.5 is  baseline score before I consider shelling out for the DVD or calling a film rewatchable. I normally don’t recommend anything less than a 7.5 to a friend.)

From there to work out if they were underrated against my ratings there had to be a difference in my rating and that of the RT average of greater than 3 full points (though I let Constantine in with a 2.9 difference), and imdb users average score and my rating of greater than 1 full point.

Underrated Critically & by Viewers (According to OGR)

In alphabetical order:

The Adventures of Ford Fairlane: (Full Review) Crude, crass and funny as hell. It does rely heavily on what you think of Andrew Dice Clay, it seems most people don’t think happy thoughts about him.

Alien 3: (Full Review) Less action than 2 and less focussed than the original. Nonetheless still a solid third entry that has developed a hard core following, deservedly so.

Black Rain: (Full Review) Very much an 80s child but a compelling action drama that zips along despite the dated soundtrack and Michael Douglas’ mullet.

Constantine: (Full Review) Could have been better but a surprisingly entertaining dark comic book adaptation that seems to have suffered due to preconceived opinions about Neo Reeves.

The First Power: (Full Review) 14%! Wow, admittedly a B movie but a damn good one with a couple of great stunts that still hold up and some conviction from Lou Diamond Phillips and Tracy Griffith.

Gladiator: (Full Review) Not the Rusty Crowe oily-muscled skirt-fest but the unfortunately titled bare knuckles boxing 90s flick. Formulaic but very entertaining with a young Cuba Gooding Jr and an old Brian Dennehy.

Knowing: (Full Review) A more recent film that wins its spot thanks to the first hour, the ending got a little muddled but there were genuine chills along the journey and the early twists were great.

The Last Boy Scout: (Full review) One of the last truly great action comedies before the world got too PC, Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans crack jokes and bones while avenging a young Halle Berry’s death.

Last Man Standing: (Full Review) Another Bruce Willis special. Ultra low key one man vs hundreds flick set in the prohibition era, Bruce shoots a lot more than he talks and if he cracks a smile it’s somewhere in the deleted scenes.

Men at Work: (Full Review) A comedy about garbagemen hardly raises expectations but this is very quotable stuff, often very funny and never less than entertaining, regardless of what Charlie Sheen has allowed himself to become.

The Punisher: (Full Review) Singing assassin aside this is a better comic book adaptation than dozens of other films, and is surprisingly (and welcomingly) gritty and violent in places.

Red Heat: (Full Review) I can’t believe this one. Really good action comedies are rare as hen’s teeth, this along with Boy Scout are two of the very best. Arnie at his mono-syllabic best and James Belushi in the brief period that he was interesting.

Reign of Fire: (Full Review) Yeah I know the dragon movie, hey it surprised me as well. McConaughey was buff, mildly insane and stupid (but for the part) and Christian Bale was gruff, angry and mistrusting (but for the part!)

Renegades: (Full Review) Little seen 80s action flick. Made simple the way that Hollywood just can’t understand anymore. Good guys see bad guys, point their guns and shoot. Keifer and Lou in a pre Young Guns workout.

See no Evil, Hear no Evil: (Full Review) Profane and hilarious. I forgot how quotable Richard Pryor was in this film (and white joan Severance’s nipples were).

The beauty of this list is that I have personally reviewed most of the films listed already, and as you can see every film on the truly underrated list, so I can back up my claims with words… many , many pointless and poorly structured words.

Statistically, the caning The First Power got from critics ended up handing it the prize, a whopping disparity between the RT score and my OGR rating (followed closely by See no Evil Hear no Evil), and having the second biggest gap between the imdb average and OGR, second only to Red Heat, another terrific and hugely underrated film.

Congrats DP, this must make up for the continued downward spiral of your career!

Disagree? Feel free to let me know where I am wrong and why, but remember this is only my opinion against hundreds of thousands of other movie watchers and hundreds of professional critics, who as it happens are all wrong. And I hope you’ve at least watched a few of the movies first, as everything listed is at least worth a look so you can form your own opinion!

Underrated Hottie: Janet Jackson (Circa 2000)

Until next rant…

So now it’s your turn. How many of the above films have you seen? Are there any I am missing? Which ones did I get wrong?

Don’t be shy!