Recommend dumb fun movies?

[Jeivar]

I'm having some friends over in about eight hours to celebrate my birthday. I want to have some beers and watch something silly and fun. Something in the vein of Friday the 13th, Batman vs TMNT, the Italian horrorgore Demons, the original Fright Night, The Expendables, The Lost Boys...

Something like that. Got any recommendations for me?

[Knaight]

I'm getting a dumb action horror vibe, but not an excessively dumb action horror vibe. Something at least a little bit smarter than Sharknado.

So, in the just slightly smarter than Sharknado category, and in the technically not a movie (2 hours in 4 episodes as a miniseries, structured in a very movie like way) category is a little gem by the name of Cyborg 009 vs. Devilman.

I found it by searching netflix for "vs." in the hopes of finding deeply trashy movies, and I was not disappointed. This was probably the least trashy of them, with the notable exception of Chuck Norris vs. Communism.

[factotum]

Big Trouble in Little China. Doesn't get much better when it comes to dumb, silly action.

[Palanan]

On a slightly different note, I recommend The Road to El Dorado.

Completely silly, hilarious and fun, with great music and visuals.

[Lemmy]

The Last Action Hero is great!

[Manga Shoggoth]

Big Trouble in Little China. Doesn't get much better when it comes to dumb, silly action.

I would second this, and raise by one "The Princess Bride" (although admittedly that fails on the "dumb" bit").

Also, Kung Fu Hustle and the Cutie Honey live-action movie certianly play the fun and dumb cards.

[farothel]

If you're a fan of SciFi, then Traumshiff Surprise is a dumb and silly parody on just about any SciFi movie. It's in german, but there are versions with subtitles out there.
Another one are the Kevin Smith movies. Things like Dogma or Jay and Silent Bob strike back.

[Jay R]

It's not "dumb", but for sheer exuberant fun, I strongly recommend The Great Race.

Perfect gallant good guy dressed all in white (Tony Curtis as Leslie Gallant III) vs. nasty melodramatic bad guy with mustache dressed all in black (Jack Lemmon as Professor Fate).

It has the greatest pie fight ever filmed -- a giant melee with romantic implications, political implications, royal implications, racing implications, Jack Lemmon falling into a giant cake (twice), and kings real and fake.

Lots of movies have great fencing. Even more movies have great tavern brawls. A very few movies have great pie fights.

But only The Great Race has it all.

[Peelee]

The Last Action Hero is great!

Dammit, Lemmy, I saw the title and jumped in here to recommend Last Action Hero!

For one nobody's suggested yet, Shaolin Soccer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FAaOwNnHTA). The movie fully embraces how ridiculous it is and is all the better for it.

Also, Dale and Tucker vs Evil (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1t8OZn_uhE). For a "drink beer and watch something dumb and fun with friends" night, not much is going to top that.

[Saintheart]

Pacific Rim. So awesome, so dumb, with a soundtrack by the guy who did Iron Man and Game of Thrones.

[ben-zayb]

Most Jackie Chan movies, the Austin Powers series, The Hangover series

And since I already included lowbrow juvenile humour with Austin Powers, might as well recommend Eurotrip, and the 2 Deadpool movies

[Peelee]

Most Jackie Chan movies

Ehhhh, not really, and I say this as a huge Jackie Chan fan. He's made way more movies than most people would really believe, and a good bit of them wouldn't really fit here, despite most of them still being comedies. Virtually all of the old ones, for example, (like Half a Loaf of Kung Fu or Spiritual Kung Fu) are simply not very good unless you just really want to see everything he's made, and a lot of the biggest, most famous ones (like Rush Hour or Shanghai Noon) were made in Hollywood where Jackie doesn't have the sheer amount of creative control that he enjoyed with Golden Harvest productions, and that's apparent when you compare them.

Most of the quasi-well-known Golden Harvest movies would fit, like Project A or the Police Story series, but they can be confusing since the names got really weird and confusingly changed when they came to America - for example, Police Story 4 got renamed Jackie Chan's First Strike, and Police Story 3 got renamed as Supercop, which means it's needlessly overcomplicated to tell whether a movie is in the Police Story series or whether it's a standalone movie where Jackie Chan happens to also play a policeman (such as Rumble in the Bronx). Or how America decided, and I'm completely serious about this, to rename his movies such that there exists Armor of God 2: Operation Condor as well as Operation Condor 2: The Armor of God. That's legit, I'm telling you. And even when the naming isn't all sorts of ridiculous, you can come across movies like Heart of Dragon, which is very much a drama.

For Jackie Chan movies, the one I'd recommend most for this thread is Robin B. Hood (https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51pwKLRmy3L._SY445_.jpg), and I am 100% completely serious about that. Click that link. Look at it. Look at how obviously terrible that movie has to be. At how there is no way in hell that can be anywhere close to good, let alone watchable. And yet it's not only actually a really good watch and way better than that DVD cover art has any business being, it also is the basis of one of the best stories I have with my best friend and his wife (she is also a massive Jackie Chan fan, so we regularly nerd out when we find really obscure movies locally on DVD).

So we pop the disc in and we're all prepared for the worst Jackie Chan movie in recent memory. Like, we've actually pumped ourselves up for how bad it was going to be and were completely prepared for it, because take another moment and look at that DVD cover art again. LOOK AT IT. THAT HAD TO BE A TERRIBLE MOVIE. In what ****ed up world would a good movie have that as the cover art? In our world, that's where. We were all totally suckered in and were blown away by it being actually kinda good. It was a fantastic experience; if you watch a jmovie you're excited to be good and its bad then you're disappointed, but if you're watching a movie expecting it to be bad and it's good? That's just too cool.

Anyway, my friend and his wife, let's call them Al and Amy, are enjoying it just as much as I am, but Al had to go to work soon. We thought we'd all have time before he had to leave, but the movie is cutting it super close. He's getting dressed and laying out everything he needs to take while watching the movie, he doesn't want to stop but he doesn't want to be late. Anyway, Jackie Chan and his friend surrender the baby and the jig is up, their crimes are out and they're captured by the police. Al is so anxious because of how soon he needs to leave, and we're obviously so tantalizingly close to the end, he's gotta see how it ends! Next scene, we see Jackie Chan tied to a stake, blindfold on, to the sounds of a firing squad gearing up. Camera pans out, you see the firing squad. Al looks like he's been holding in his bladder for 2 days, he's almost dancing with anticipation at having to leave right now but trying to watch the final scene. And it's dark, they're about to kill the guy, which they were teasing through the whole movie! And then they do it! They shoot, he slumps over limp, and Al books it.

And, as the door closes behind him, the camera continues to pan out as we hear a docent explaining how that was what criminal justice used to look like in China not too long ago, as the realization dawns on the viewer that Jackie Chan's punishment was community service and he was acting in a historical re-enactment for schoolchildren.

AND AL DID NOT KNOW THIS.

Al 100% completely thought the movie ended on a real downer, that the guy we've been rooting for the whole time actually died. And because of how they did tease that throughout the movie, and because of how it had already bucked our expectations, he totally bought into it! So Amy and I do the only reasonable thing we can think of for Al, who we both love dearly; namely, we absolutely refuse to tell him the real ending and let him believe that Jackie Chan just got executed and the credits rolled and that was it. For years we would occasionally bring up that one really good movie with the super depressing ending, any time it could be brought up organically it was. More years pass. Eventually, nearly a decade later, Al has a birthday party at a Texas de Brazil, we've got a table for 16, it's chock full of friends and we're having an absolute blast. And I can't remember how it came up, but somehow the topic got to in-jokes, and I commented that Amy and I had the best in-joke on Al for just the longest time, and I explained the whole thing just like here, and I turn to Al at the end and say, "how long was it before we told you?" And Al, who had been laughing along to the story the whole time, just looked me straight in the eyes and with this playful rage in his eyes blurted out,"RIGHT NOW!" It had been going so long we both forgot to actually tell him, and for the better part of 9 years he believed that Jackie Chan made a movie where they just dusted him in the end.

I think he laughed harder than all of us when he said, "right now." And that was no small feat.

I, uh... I can talk a lot about Jackie Chan movies.

[Callos_DeTerran]

For dumb fun? With a seeming horror bent?

Got to recommend the Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight movie.

[BWR]

Dead Snow and Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead
Horror comedies about Nazi zombies and Nazi zombies vs Red Army zombies, respectively.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Iron Sky. The Wandering Earth. Train to Busan. I'm not sure if these have dubbed versions. They're all foreign movies, though.

Speaking of Jackie Chan, Wheels on Meals is a good one.

I'm not sure I can think of many others people haven't already mentioned somewhere, but Tucker and Dale vs Evil deserves a seconding, if you haven't seen it already.

Edit: Shoot 'Em Up

[Cen]

So far in n the thread and noone mentions Kung-Pow: Enter the fist?

It has action, it's really dumb and really really funny

[Eldan]

So far in n the thread and noone mentions Kung-Pow: Enter the fist?

It has action, it's really dumb and really really funny

And in a similar fashion, Kung Fury which is a different kind of silly martial arts movie.

[Jay R]

I know it’s too late, so this is just commentary.

Fun and dumb, and in the vein of some non-serious horror movies, and nobody suggested The Rocky Horror Picture Show?

I’m ... the only Boomer here, aren’t I?

[Peelee]

Edit: Shoot 'Em Up

Oh man, Shoot 'Em Up is pretty much over-the-top cheesy action incarnate. Great recommendation for this thread.

[DeTess]

@Peelee, that story was absolutely fantastic, thanks for sharing! XD

[JoshL]

Kung Pow is my go-to for stupid fun movies. I'll also second Kung Fury, and on that budget level, The FP 2 is on Amazon and I can't recommend it enough for fans of weird (it's a post-apocalyptic DDR movie, but stranger than that makes it sound).

I'll also mention the Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, a loving tribute to terrible 50s sci-fi. There's a sequel that's pretty good too, but the original is just magic!

[jasonlsimmons]

Your Highness is definitely worth a watch! :smallcool:

[dancrilis]

I would say 'Santa's Slay' would likely fit your requirements.

[Knaight]

I know it’s too late, so this is just commentary.

Fun and dumb, and in the vein of some non-serious horror movies, and nobody suggested The Rocky Horror Picture Show?

I’m ... the only Boomer here, aren’t I?

There are aspects in which it really hasn't aged well.

Also maybe, though this forum skews pretty old.

[Eldan]

I'm over thirty and I know a decent population on here older than me. Though I guess I'm technically still a millennial.

[comicshorse]

Nobody mentioned Split Second' yet ?

[Lord Torath]

Strange Brew. Warning: This movie is most funny after 2 am.

Ladykillers. The 1955 version.

5th Element. Fun and dumb. Does suffer from "Born Sexy Yesterday", but still pretty fun. Joan Rivers kills it as Corbin's mom.

[Willie the Duck]

Is Monty Python off the table? What about Muppet movies?

[ben-zayb]

Joan Rivers kills it as Corbin's mom.Wait, Joan Rivers was in it?! I guess there's just too much hammy characters that I missed her of all people.

[Lord Torath]

Wait, Joan Rivers was in it?! I guess there's just too much hammy characters that I missed her of all people.We never see her, just hear her voice over the phone.

[Bohandas]

*The Jackass movies
*Big Trouble in Littke China
*Kung-Pow: Enter the Fist
*Monty Python and the Holy Grail
*Superhero Movie
*Paranormal Movie
*Death At A Funeral
*It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
*Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Oh do I have the movie for you. "Tucker and Dale Versus Evil".

You know how in horror movies the characters are always oblivious to all the signs that, well, they're in a horror movie? Turns out that the opposite can be just as bad: a bunch of stupid college teens mistake a pair of friends (Tucker and Dale) for killer hillbillies out for their blood, and their increasingly desperate attempts to save themselves from the horror story they think they're in (and some truly bad luck as far as miscommunications) end up killing them off one by one, as Tucker and Dale try to figure out what the hell is happening.


EDIT: Or for something cornier, check out "Knights of Badassdom". A group of LARPers manage to summon an actual succubus from Hell. Oops.

And I'm sure somebody's already mentioned Sharknado, but if not.... Note that you have to make it to the end, because the ending really does save the rest of the movie, changing it from "so bad it's bad" to "so bad it's awesome".

[Son of A Lich!]

I absolutely adore Sucker Punch, despite my family and friends and significant others trying to institutionalize me for my obsession with it. It's a bit more surreal and hard to follow the first dozen times you watch it, but it tries to turn your brain off due to the subject matter of the story.

Trick r' Treat is a great anthology film, you can really tell the film makers just really love their old school slasher movies. I've stolen more then a few elements from that movie for horror pretenses in TTRPGs before too.

Cabin in the Woods is probably something everyone has thought of and just forgot to bring up.

If you are looking for so bad it's hilarious, in the Navy my friends and I had a tradition of watching I Know Who Killed Me, staring Lindsey Lohan playing twins separated at birth. One is a coked out stripper/hooker and the other is a perfectly innocent high schooler, and it's up to the Stripper to solve her sisters murder in progress before it kills her due to sympathetic twin syndrome while no one believes she is NOT the perfect High schooler.

If that doesn't sell you for how bizarrely abstract it's relationship with internal logic is, I don't know what you are looking for. Did I mention the stripper is Cyborg before the end of the first reel?

[Bohandas]

The Evil Dead films. ESPECIALLY Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness and the obscure Evil Dead: The Musical

EDIT:
also Dudes and Dragons and Curse of the Dragonslayer

EDIT:
Also pretty much any movie by Mel Brooks, any movie with Leslie Nielson, and especially Dracula: Dead and Loving It, which has both of them

[BeerMug Paladin]

I don't know how I forgot to mention it before, but Dead Alive / Brain Dead. The best Peter Jackson film.

Maximum Overdrive is of the so bad it's good territory. It's just so, so stupid it's kind of admirable.

[GoblinArchmage]

300 is my guilty pleasure.

[Excession]

Zombieland.
Hot Fuzz.
Pacific Rim.

[snowblizz]

Hot Fuzz.

Do the whole "Cornetto Trilogy".

Shawn of the Dead.
Hot Fuzz.
World's End.

[Rodin]

While stuck in a hotel last week, I found myself desperately needing something to watch and landed on Death Race.

It's a remake of a Roger Corman movie that is itself a Roger Corman movie. It has Jason Statham playing Jason Statham. And it has cars armed with various ridiculous heavy weaponry.

It is both AWFUL and AWESOME. Perfect MST3K material where the setting doesn't make sense, the plot doesn't make sense, and both the heroes and the villains are idiots. There's just fast cars and lots of explosions.

[KillianHawkeye]

Scott Pilgrim vs The World

[Knaight]

Equilibrium is a masterpiece of dumb cinema. It's staggeringly well made for all the core concept is kind of dumb, the action scenes especially are incredible, and while it does try to get philosophical it doesn't do so annoyingly. Hilariously, but not annoyingly.

Basically, picture The Matrix meets Fahrenheit 451.

[Peelee]

Equilibrium is a masterpiece of dumb cinema. It's staggeringly well made for all the core concept is kind of dumb, the action scenes especially are incredible, and while it does try to get philosophical it doesn't do so annoyingly. Hilariously, but not annoyingly.

Basically, picture The Matrix meets Fahrenheit 451.

Equilibrium is fantastic, but they kept describing gun kata as "fluid," when that's not the word I'd have used. Geometric, maybe angular, but not fluid.

[Knaight]

Equilibrium is fantastic, but they kept describing gun kata as "fluid," when that's not the word I'd have used. Geometric, maybe angular, but not fluid.

I'd straight up use the phrase "staccato". On the other hand, Matrix meets Fahrenheit 451.

Plus, the decision to go staccato instead of angular makes the strobelight firefight scene just fantastic.

[JeromeKCog]

I don't know how I forgot to mention it before, but Dead Alive / Brain Dead. The best Peter Jackson film.


Seconding Brain Dead/Dead Alive. Some scenes may ruin your appetite however. Peter Jackson's early works have a fairly different style to the Lord of The Rings.

[Excession]

I don't know how I forgot to mention it before, but Dead Alive / Brain Dead. The best Peter Jackson film.

Best? When Meet the Feebles exists, that is a big call.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

The first Mythica movie. So stupid, such low production value, it's hilarious. One of the major villains is CGI and thus can't actually be shown on screen at the same time as any of the live-acted characters. Which wouldn't be such a problem if he wasn't a troll that spends almost his entire screen time smacking them around. Ironically, the later movies actually improved enough to push themselves out of 'so bad it's good' territory, making them not nearly as fun.

[rcom12]

Three idiots in bollywood --- An old fun movies.

[TaRix]

Mystery Science Theater 3000, but not necessarily the film version. It gives movie badness the fun it deserves.

[Ravens_cry]

Street Fighter. Raul Julia as M. Bison, Jean Claude Van Damme as Guile, it's absolute high cheese in the most delightful way.

[Bohandas]

for the holidays:

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians- After being abducted by aliens because the martian children don't have any toys, Santa Claus becomes involved in a power struggle between two factions vying for control of mars

Bam Margera: Presents Where the #$&% Is Santa- Pro skateboarder and daredevil Bam Margera searches the arctic for Santa Claus with the help of a collection of rock stars.

[Peelee]

Well, the movie recommendations were due by 2:30PM CST on November 9, so any further recommendations are just for fun. However...


for the holidays:

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians- After being abducted by aliens because the martian children don't have any toys, Santa Claus becomes involved in a power struggle between two factions vying for control of mars

Bam Margera: Presents Where the #$&% Is Santa- Pro skateboarder and daredevil Bam Margera searches the arctic for Santa Claus with the help of a collection of rock stars.

You're going to pull out Christmas movies and not go with Santa with Muscles?

Hulk Hogan is an evil millionaire who contracts amnesia while playing personal combat wargames with his household staff and accidentally attacks the police. Upon waking, an unscrupulous mall elf convinces Hogan that he is Santa, in order to try to make a petty theft from the most secure ATM in the country using Hogan's bank card. Absolutely nobody else recognizes him, and he stops thieves from making out with maybe eight dollars in change for the local orphanage, which has three orphans. He personally delivers the money, and on a tour of the orphanage is introduced to a locked vault door, behind which are the the catacombs that the orphanage sits on top of. The famed catacombs of Southern California.

There is another evil millionaire (hereafter referred to as the evil millionaire) who has bought up all the property surrounding the orphanage and is trying to buy the orphanage, which refuses to sell. The millionaire (who, I should note, is germaphobic. There is no particular reason to note this, but the movie does anyway, so I will too) wants access to the catacombs, because they contain highly unstable yet very pretty and colorful crystals. In order to force the orphanage to sell, the evil millionaire sends three evil scientists (my favorite being the evil geologist) to attack the orphanage. They are fought off by Hulk Hogan, who then regains his memory, and then separately remembers he himself was an orphan in this very orphanage, and he knows the code to the vault and can access the catacombs. The evil millionaire then goes into the catacombs as well, demonstrates how unstable the crystals are by dropping one to the floor where it explodes, and the two millionaires immediately proceed to sword fight with the crystals. The crystals that violently explode on the impact of being dropped four feet.

Hogan defeats the evil millionaire, who then remembers that he also was an orphan who grew up in that very orphanage, and both millionaires remember they were actually best friends in the orphanage. Evil millionaire is arrested along with the evil scientists, but the orphanage is destroyed by the crystals all exploding. Hogan opens his mansion to the orphans - which is to say, he does not adopt them, he just lets them stay there since the magic crystals in the catacombs blew their orphanage up.

[Vinyadan]

Swiss army man.

Drunken Master.

[Rodin]

Well, the movie recommendations were due by 2:30PM CST on November 9, so any further recommendations are just for fun. However...



You're going to pull out Christmas movies and not go with Santa with Muscles?

Hulk Hogan is an evil millionaire who contracts amnesia while playing personal combat wargames with his household staff and accidentally attacks the police. Upon waking, an unscrupulous mall elf convinces Hogan that he is Santa, in order to try to make a petty theft from the most secure ATM in the country using Hogan's bank card. Absolutely nobody else recognizes him, and he stops thieves from making out with maybe eight dollars in change for the local orphanage, which has three orphans. He personally delivers the money, and on a tour of the orphanage is introduced to a locked vault door, behind which are the the catacombs that the orphanage sits on top of. The famed catacombs of Southern California.

There is another evil millionaire (hereafter referred to as the evil millionaire) who has bought up all the property surrounding the orphanage and is trying to buy the orphanage, which refuses to sell. The millionaire (who, I should note, is germaphobic. There is no particular reason to note this, but the movie does anyway, so I will too) wants access to the catacombs, because they contain highly unstable yet very pretty and colorful crystals. In order to force the orphanage to sell, the evil millionaire sends three evil scientists (my favorite being the evil geologist) to attack the orphanage. They are fought off by Hulk Hogan, who then regains his memory, and then separately remembers he himself was an orphan in this very orphanage, and he knows the code to the vault and can access the catacombs. The evil millionaire then goes into the catacombs as well, demonstrates how unstable the crystals are by dropping one to the floor where it explodes, and the two millionaires immediately proceed to sword fight with the crystals. The crystals that violently explode on the impact of being dropped four feet.

Hogan defeats the evil millionaire, who then remembers that he also was an orphan who grew up in that very orphanage, and both millionaires remember they were actually best friends in the orphanage. Evil millionaire is arrested along with the evil scientists, but the orphanage is destroyed by the crystals all exploding. Hogan opens his mansion to the orphans - which is to say, he does not adopt them, he just lets them stay there since the magic crystals in the catacombs blew their orphanage up.

I think reading that synopsis just gave me a stroke. :smalleek:

Another fun (and terrible) Hulk hogan movie is Three Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain, with added Jim Varney wackiness. Idiotic criminals attack an amusement park and get their butts kicked by pre-teen martial artists (and Hulk Hogan). So bad it's good at its finest.

[Peelee]

I think reading that synopsis just gave me a stroke. :smalleek:

I wish I could say I was joking about this: there's a fair bit that I skipped over, which is equally ridiculous. For example, when we first see the evil scientists they are intimidating a man being held upside down, and the geologist - who is just the best, because really, how can you be an evil geologist? Like, there's a physicist (I imagine, they don't really go into detail) who creates electro-gauntlets and shocks people. That I get. But the geologist? He goes up to the hanging guy and takes a brush, brushes the guy's face, and says "you would make an interesting fossil." Like, what the hell kind of intimidation is that?!? What, are you going to look at rocks maliciously? Evil geologist is a teddy bear trying to be a bad guy, and it's hilarious.

Or Hulk Hogan, who is billed as the richest man in three states, made his fortune on products that have his face plastered all over them, but absolutely nobody except the elf recognizes him, and that's counting a news crew who interviews him as well as everyone who watched the news cast!

And there's more. There's so much more. This movie is not just bad, it transcends terribleness. It is a masterpiece of crap.