What keeps you watching a bad movie all the way through?

I think it’s the hope that the movie will finally get better because you have already invested so much time in it.

I have a hard time watching most movies all the way through especially at home. They have to be really good to hold my attention.
I always know if a movie is going to become a classic if I can remember it a few weeks later. Most movies just aren’t good enough to take up the file space in my brain and are purged quickly.

You’re using your cell phone in the theatre? That’s not cool.

@glacial What? Where did you get that anyone was using a cell phone in a theater in this question?

@chyna The movie opened two days ago. @Imadethisupwithnoforethought wrote this question while the movie was in progress.

It is over now. I went for candy

@glacial Oh, I don’t keep up with new movies.

@chyna Funny, I don’t either, but I just saw a trailer for this yesterday (I think on the Comedy Network website). And I remember thinking “That looks like a baaaaaaad movie.” I guess this question confirms it.

Any of the following factors, or any combination thereof, can persuade me to bail early from a movie, including amateurish acting, weak dialogue, excessive and especially gratuitous violence (which the older I get the more I hate), and perhaps most of all, a boring plot.

On the other hand, what other viewers and critics might consider a “bad” movie often holds for me a variety of positives that hold my attention, not least of these being a character or characters with whom I can identify. (One example of this is My Dinner with Andre, which most of my friends hated and I adored. I loved the two actors, the acting, the dialogue, and most of all, the characters.

@glacial The Rock, Bruce Willis, and that obnoxiously pretty girl who almost played Wonder Woman. Why are we acting like I made a bad decision?

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought The Rock, really? Hmm, maybe I’m just still bitter because he ruined The Mummy franchise.

I don’t.

@Pachyderm_In_The_Room Are you a fan of Community? :)

@glacial You mean the “The most incredible Entertainment ever produced by humans?”. That Community?

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought Yes, though I was specifically thinking of its brilliant tribute to My Dinner With Andre.

How weird. I just watched the GI Joe movie with Channing Tatum. Really mediocre acting. Except for Dennis Quaid, who must have been doing it for the money.

I kept watching it for the non-stop action.

Sexy, sexy main characters, and good music.
It’s why I’ve watched Hackers about 20 times.

Sometimes it’s horrified fascination. Sometimes it’s the spectacle of a train wreck. Sometimes it’s nothing better than inertia.

But I also ditch a lot of movies early if I know they’re just not for me: too corny, for example, or too juvenile, or too violent. Or too brainless.

Usually it’s the commentary I share with someone else.
I can never watch a bad movie alone though..

Generally the hope that it will improve, and validate the time I invested in watching it. However, if it’s a classic so-bad-it’s-good movie, say Troll 2 or Sleepaway Camp, well, those are downright entertaining. Even if it’s for all the wrong reasons.

For example—I just finished watching this movie. It’s not even a real movie; it was made for TV. I knew exactly what I was getting, and I didn’t care. It was mindless entertainment.

It was also over in only an hour and a half, thank goodness.

Last week I saw a movie that was all the way at the other end of the spectrum: the 1959 Floating Weeds, by Yasujirô Ozu—a real film buff’s movie that almost made me feel as if you had to be qualified to watch it, and I wasn’t.

Sometimes it’s one thing, and sometimes it’s another. It’s great to have a choice.

I’m with @bookish1 sometimes it’s just to oggle the talent other times it’s like watching a train wreck just can’t believe it’s happening but can’t tear myself away.

@glacial, I never watched it but have heard great things. I’ll check it out.

I think it has a lot to do with the sunk cost fallacy. The first GI Joe movie featured sinking icebergs…think about that for a minute. Whoever’s mind crapped out that mental turd ought to be chained to an anchor and send to the bottom.

I usually wake up as the credits roll.

I fell asleep 4 times during The Hobbit, I just couldn’t believe the same people who made The Lord of the Rings made that pile of shite!

@Pachyderm_In_The_Room They did an entire episode around that film. If you see nothing else, be sure to check that out. :)

@Arewethereyet : The only thing keeping me awake during that movie was Sour Patch Kids and nicotine cravings :-p

@bookish1 glad someone else felt that way, the producers are milking the franchise big time by coming up with an new form of anesthesia!