10 “Unnecessary” Movies That Turned Out To Be Indispensable

There are a handful of words that, in the context of discussing movies, or art and pop culture in general, tend to be exceptionally gear-grinding, for me at least. “Unfunny” is one word that comes to mind, a term that may indicate that the described item lacks humor, but certainly demonstrates that the subject doing the describing lacks it altogether. The word “Unnecessary” though is one that might be at the top of my list of words that have virtually no meaning when it comes to labelling movies. Evaluating the necessity of a medium that is essentially an industry of distraction is dubious indeed. For all its greatness and originality, how badly is a movie like Inception needed? After watching the excellent Cabin in the Woods for the gazillionth time, do any of us stop and appreciate it for being “necessary”? Entertainment and art function in similar ways: they both make life more interesting, enjoyable, and enriching. Life without them would be significantly crummier. Hyperbole aside, though, all movies are relatively inessential, a luxury, and as in the case of any other luxury, complaints about them are deeply boring. Whenever I hear someone disparage a new movie as “unnecessary,” my internal response always seems to be: Of course it is. And so what? Granted, the mere observation that there are exceptions to the perceived rule that “unnecessary” movies will turn out bad demonstrates nothing. What it does do, for me at least, is give a moment’s pause to the knee-jerk response that dismisses any film which sounds silly on paper. The outcome and quality of any movie, ultimately, comes down to the group of people making it far more than it does to its basic premise. For an idea of what I’m talking about, here are 10 movies, deemed unnecessary before their release, which were defiantly superb. 1) The Amazing Spider-Man It may be true that movies which get designated as “unnecessary” most often fulfill their low expectations. This is no reason, however, to write off a movie altogether before even seeing it. Indeed, it would be more fair to judge the merits of a movie in light of the difficulty imposed by the widespread hope for the film’s failure out of resentment for its existence. In the past few years, when talk of a movie’s necessity came standard in a pool of reviews for every big release, no movie seems to have suffered more from talk of its necessity than The Amazing Spider-Man. I will forever be a defender of this film; I maintain that it’s among the finest superhero movies to date, and an improvement on the previous—and good—Sam Raimi version of the character. And yet nearly every review I’ve read about Marc Webb's latest effort criticizes it for being made so soon after the previous trilogy. That’s a perfectly fine, if obvious, observation, but says nothing about the quality of the actual movie. In terms of its storytelling, its characterization and performances, its Spidey-sarcastic tone and its gorgeous visual sequences, The Amazing Spider-Man surpasses its predecessor all over the place. But the thing reviewers latched onto was that it “retold” a story they claimed to have already watched. I think it’s worth mentioning that making multiple versions of the same story is not new to Hollywood, though the objections to this practice seem to be. The Maltese Falcon was adapted by Warner Bros three separate times in ten years, and the 1941 version, the third attempt, is considered one of the greatest movies of all time. If only audiences were as open-minded now as they were in the 1940s. 2) The Social Network Before the overwhelmingly positive reception once people actually saw it (which it may have received precisely because of its low expectations), David Fincher’s The Social Network, deemed “The Facebook Movie” virtually everywhere, was written off. It’s actually a testament to how strong a movie it was and is (slightly better than The Amazing Spider-Man, I’ll admit) that it was able to win over an exceedingly skeptical public. Audiences quickly discovered that anyone who had been asking “Do we really need a movie about Facebook??” had no conception of the movie that Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin had set out to make. What became obvious once most people had actually seen the movie (maybe not until the second time for some of us—whoops!) was that it’s about much more than Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. It’s really not even about the specifics of those entities themselves, but more about the ideas of culture and class that the story of Facebook inspires. The true story doesn’t fit neatly into a narrative about a character who, in his quest for democratizing social clubs, ends up alienating everyone around him, and so Sorkin and Fincher made it fit. The end result plays with expectations of what a Facebook movie would be, even relies on them in order to subvert them. Despite those who wanted to write it off as unnecessary, The Social Network was one of the essential movies of 2010, in the figurative sense of the word. 3) True Grit As far as I’m concerned, the Coen brothers can do whatever the hell they want. They’ve earned it. Granted, I can understand why there would be some trepidation at the prospect of a new remake of True Grit when their previous attempt at a remake was The Ladykillers. It’s also somewhat understandable that there would be skepticism around the project given that the 1969 John Wayne version of the story was well regarded. What’s interesting about this example is that the film turned out to be a success in terms of its quality and critical reception, but also is the Coens’ biggest box office draw to date. This doesn’t seem like a coincidence. There’s something to be said for the attraction of a familiar story told in a contemporary way for a modern culture by skilled filmmakers, which is why I’ll reiterate my main point of this whole thing: any remake (or reboot or sequel) is far more dependent on the quality of its creators than the fact that its source has been previously visited. Familiar stories have always been a source of inspiration and further creation by storytellers—that’s one of the pleasures of hearing something told afresh, not unlike hearing a really good cover version of a song. Another example of less of a prestige picture but a well done remake nonetheless is Craig Brewer’s Footloose from 2011. The original is outstanding, and the remake is equally terrific, in different, more contemporary ways, but went under-appreciated for its lack of perceived “necessity.” 4) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street Adapting popular stage productions into cinematic offerings seems like difficult territory to tread. Translating any story from one medium to another comes with a host of challenges, but particularly when going between two mediums that rest on the strengths of acting, albeit two very different types of acting. Then there’s the pressure that comes with providing an acceptable treatment to material that countless fans take ownership of, a task that’s virtually impossible. Movies like Sweeney Todd tend to be met with reviews questioning why something that people can see on stage needs to be presented on screen. The obvious answer, to me, is that relatively few people are able to see the material performed live. There is value in the movie musical’s ability to democratize stage shows that are only seen by a select few. For as little as ten percent of the cost of a Broadway ticket, any Midwesterner can enjoy Chicago as if they were in the front row, or even in the middle of the stage themselves. When a musical adaptation is as outstanding as Sweeney Todd, which uses the tools of cinema and every ounce of Tim Burton’s aesthetic mastery as well as any other film, it’s an illustration of the powerful potential within any such adaptation, a best case scenario that ought not be dismissed on the basis of supposed unoriginality. The originality comes in the way the story is told, not the mere details of the story itself. 5) Toy Story 3 I’ve written a little bit in the past about why I don’t really buy the conventional wisdom that states sequels (or remakes or reboots) are inherently bad, and the Toy Story franchise, especially in the context of the greater Disney/Pixar machine, is one example of the franchise model done right. Its makers took their time with each segment of the story, with each focusing on the various stages of human development, and so it worked. That is, that’s how they made it work. There could be countless ways of making such a continuation of a singular story work, and that’s the successful way they happened to choose for theirs. Again, of course it’s not necessary for there to be a Toy Story 3, but despite that, it’s an absolutely wonderful film. There didn’t need to be two parts to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but allowing the book to be made into two movies, or, essentially, one long one split into two parts, resulted in a product with the amount of detail and richness that the filmmaking team desired. Popular entertainment is itself an indulgent medium. I’m curious why so many find certain aspects of its indulgence to be unbearable, while others go by without a glance. Where’s the line between acceptably indulgent and unnecessarily indulgent? 6) The Armstrong Lie The Lance Armstrong story is one that is known to nearly everyone by now, and one that seems destined to be repeated in almost every sport at some point. We can probably expect The A-Rod Lie to be made a few years down the road. So it’s understandable, to a degree, why people would complain about a documentary about Armstrong both before and after seeing it. The details of his story have been laid out in various media, books, TV and print stories, and so a feature film chronicling his rise and fall would seem superfluous were it left in the hands of someone less capable than Alex Gibney. The Armstrong Lie rests on many of the plot points within the Lance Armstrong saga, but it’s also diving into a much deeper and more nefarious problem, having to do with systematic corruption in a sport looking to rehabilitate its image. Even with documentaries, which thrive on factual revelation, perspective matters, and offering an interesting perspective on previously known information is justification enough for a movie to be made, as far as I’m concerned. The Armstrong Lie is a terrific exploration of Gibney’s filmmaking process as an analogy for the seduction of the Lance Armstrong narrative. His personal bias as a documentarian gets called into question as he ponders the story he’s actually telling, how it compares to the story he set out to tell, and the story as might exist from an objective observer. This tension, and the doc’s exposure of this, makes the facts that we already knew about Armstrong a mere backstory to the crux of The Armstrong Lie. What was deemed unnecessary is actually integral to a really great piece of filmmaking. 7) Vanilla Sky The foreign remake is similar to the franchise sequel: a much maligned cinematic practice that often falls into cynical hands, but in many instances illustrates the power of translation and reinterpretation for understanding a story. I’ve written about the subject in this space in the past, but a movie like Vanilla Sky exemplifies my point of an unnecessary movie that adds to the texture and discussion around a story. The same can be said for successful American remakes like Let Me In and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (not everyone agrees on the latter but multiple viewings indicate to me that the film totally works). A point that ought to be restated is that while a remake is unnecessary, so was the original, and the two unnecessary movies can coexist—one does not replace or supplant the other. A viewer can choose the version they prefer, and are better off because of it in either case. An inferior version of a story is usually better than not experiencing the story at all, and it seems like elitist nonsense to say otherwise. 8) The Great Gatsby Arguing the necessity of a new film version of The Great Gatsby baffles me, since the fact that there had not been a particularly satisfactory adaptation of the novel would seem to make it more necessary, for those to whom the term has such meaning. Between complaints that a specific adaptation is unnecessary and complaints that a work is unadaptable to film, it’s a wonder that any movies actually get made. Perhaps what gets people’s ire up over adaptations like Gatsby or Man of Steel is the fear that one particular work, one they don’t find compelling or authoritative, becomes the defining piece of work for a popular narrative. What’s good about modern culture (and annoying, but mostly good) is that singular works don’t have the kind of authority they once did, so there’s room for every version of Gatsby, especially the literary version, to be in the cultural consciousness as different takes on a common story. It’s the variety of perspectives, Fitzgerald’s, Coppola’s and Baz Luhrman’s, that make the story richer. A healthy exchanging of ideas over which perspective is the strongest, or rather the relative merits of each, is a good thing; arguing over whether one or another ought to exist is juvenile. 9) Every Woody Allen movie ever Do we really need a new Woody Allen movie every year? That’s a bit of an existential question. Each year, and each Allen movie that accompanies it, comes with its own ups and downs. There are some good years, and some bad years, some Purple Rose of Cairo’s and some Hollywood Ending’s. But as with life, sometimes it’s the valleys that make the peaks even more special. Even if they aren’t pleasant to get through, the most difficult of trials teach us something about ourselves, and we emerge stronger and smarter than we did before. The same goes for relationships. The sign of a good relationship doesn’t have to be its longevity, or any specific criterion, but can often be on the mere fact that we were able to take something from it, to learn something, and for the positivity of the experience to outweigh the downside. The fact that people keep going back to relationships, and for many of us, back to Woody’s films, is that they can’t help themselves—they come in all forms, and carry with them both good and bad, but at the end of the day, to quote a seminal line from Annie Hall, we need the eggs. 10) The Lego Movie Two more examples from the past year of remakes done well—both in the horror genre, oddly enough—were Evil Dead (which most seem to agree was very good) and Carrie (which was divisive, but I found the stronger arguments to be in favor). Both were probably completely unnecessary but both turned out to be perfectly fine and good. If the past few years were awash with 1980s remakes, then we are in the midst of a growing trend of movies based on household objects and toys, going from Transformers to Battleship, and this year, The Lego Movie. The difference is that where those movies tried to be macho action movies, this one looks like it embraces the absurdity of its premise and takes it to its logical comedic end (for evidence of this, see the trailer below). Judging a movie based on its premise is beyond cliché at this point. It’s an even more annoying version of judging a book by its cover, because it’s not even based on anything remotely concrete—at least you can look at a cover rather than just have a vague impression of what an upcoming remake might be like. Arguing for the necessity of any movie is an uphill battle, and it’s hard to make the case for a piece of entertainment changing the world. Some do this, but just because This Is The End does not doesn’t mean it should be dismissed as Hollywood rubbish. It can still be valuable as a work of art, as a bit of distracting entertainment, mindless or engaging fun, or anything else, even if people want to cast its existence as “unnecessary.” That’s a label that doesn’t mean anything. Just because something’s not necessary doesn’t mean it’s without value, any more than citing various films’ value doesn’t make them necessary.