Video Blog: Response To G.I. Joe Director’s Stupid Claim That Critics Hate All Popular And Successful Movies

John Campea 97 Comments

G.I. Joe director just did one of the most moronic interviews I’ve read in a long time. In it he cries and whines about people who don’t like his movie and makes the claim that movie critics hate all films that are popular and successful and ONLY like dark and depressing movies. I use this installment of my video blog to respond to that claim and make some observations of my own.

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  • http://n/a Andy99206

    This is FABULOUS. So much potential, so little delivery. The action sequences are ok. The writing is aimed at 12 year olds. The acting? Lot’s of talent that was voided with the word ACTION!

  • Dragonslayer

    My favorite part: “a studio I’m not stupid enough to name, but I do anyway so I edit this…” LOL

  • Sahil

    Great response John.
    Does anyone know if Michale Bay did the same thing when Transformers 2 came out? For some reason I remember it that way but I could be completely wrong.

  • Cliff Stephenson

    Sommers’s complaint completely falls apart right at the very beginning. Saying that critics love to hate films like his is moronic. Why would a critic, ANY CRITIC, go into a film WANTING to hate it? I know for me, I always go into a film wanting to like it, or (gasp) even love it. Why would a critic actually enjoy wasting 2 hours of his life sitting through a mediocre effort like GI Joe? That seems like the worst way to make a living.

    I think what Sommers meant (but couldn’t possibly admit or say aloud) is that critics generally don’t like shitty movies and love to give shitty movies bad reviews. Guess what Stephen, nobody likes shitty movies. I haven’t been able to make it more than 30 minutes into Van Helsing (I’ve tried a few times) and I think the Mummy movies are vastly overrated. I wouldn’t say either one is horrible, but when you’re spending $80-$100 million to make them, I think it’s reasonable to except more than that they’re simply “not horrible.” It’s Sommers’s responsibility to make sure the films are better than “not horrible” and it’s a task he’s repeatedly failed at.

    Now Sommers could make the argument that GI Joe is aimed at kids and therefore carries a slightly different, more immature tone than something geared towards teens or adults. I would counter that with two points:
    A) GI Joe carries a PG-13 rating, meaning it was made and marketed towards an older audience. You can’t make a movie aimed at children and fill it with content that creates a rating that shoots over them. That would be… I don’t know… bad directing/writing/producing/marketing.

    and

    B) the movies I grew up on that were the things that thrilled and excited me as a child (movies like the Star Wars films, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, Poltergeist, Star Trek II, ET, Back to the Future, Superman, Gremlins…) were movies that didn’t have to be stupid to appeal to a child/teen. These are films that adults loved as much as kids. Justifying that something can be stupid and poorly made simply because it’s aimed at kids is retarded and lazy and, again, it’s bad directing/writing/producing. If the only way you can say you made an entertaining film is to make it appeal exclusively to people with an IQ under 70, then you’re probably not very good at what you do. Targeting a younger demographic is not an excuse to make a bad film. Sommers needs to differentiate between a fun summer popcorn movie and a poorly made film with questionable/bad directorial decisions. They don’t have to be the same thing.

    Finally, I want to point out (as John did) that Sommers didn’t direct GI Joe to a $50 million opening. Paramount marketed the film to that opening. What Sommers has made will be revealed in weekend #2. If this thing drops hard (which I predict it will) that’s the true indicator of what Sommers has created.

    • Shane Hero

      So, your argument is that GI Joe is a “shitty movie” and that “nobody likes shitty movies”. Well, plenty of people DO like GI Joe, hence why it’s doing well at the box office. All those people going to see it, and buying the merchandise, and who will buy it on DVD… they like it. The poor critical response does not reflect the large amount of people who are happy with the film.

      Why would critics go to a movie wanting to hate it? You answered your own question; it’s their job. They go to see what they are paid to see, regardless of how much they may not be anticipating it. But the same does not apply to someone going to see a movie for entertainment. You would have to ask why the general public would be going to see “shitty movies”.

      And this claim that Sommers is not responsible for the strong opening also applies to any movie, not just those you deem “shitty”. People go to see movies based on the trailers and the promotion… but those trailers include footage directed by Sommers, so I fail to see how he is not responsible in some way. Obviously since critics opinions have absolutely no reflection on a films opening weekend, they are the most irrelevant in determining a films success.

    • SlashBeast

      “Obviously since critics opinions have absolutely no reflection on a films opening weekend, they are the most irrelevant in determining a films success.”

      I thought we were over this. John himself stated that critics have have a 12% up or down swing for a movie’s success.

      Besides, if critics didn’t have any power over a movie’s success, why would Paramount bother to hide G.I. Joe from critics?

    • Cliff Stephenson

      Shane, obviously you LOVE GI Joe and I can’t fault you for that. Even the worst movie in the world is someones favorite film. But you didn’t really defend or back your opinion as much as you tried (and, I feel, failed) to discredit mine.

      “Well, plenty of people DO like GI Joe, hence why it’s doing well at the box office. All those people going to see it, and buying the merchandise, and who will buy it on DVD… they like it.”
      WRONG!! It’s doing well because Paramount created a strong marketing campaign that brought people in opening weekend. If you look at user ratings on Box Office Mojo (you know, for those non-critic types who actually saw it), it has more “F” grades than “A” grades. It’s ranking other places seems to have it about 60% (which is a “D” if you’re still in school). History has shown that that percentage will only go down as the film loses its ‘new car smell’ and people get less and less caught up in the hype. Trust me when I say history will not be kind to this version of GI Joe.

      “And this claim that Sommers is not responsible for the strong opening also applies to any movie, not just those you deem “shitty”. People go to see movies based on the trailers and the promotion… but those trailers include footage directed by Sommers, so I fail to see how he is not responsible in some way.”

      I never said GI Joe was alone in that its marketing was responsible for its opening weekend. All films pretty much have that in common. But I’ve seen great trailers for bad films and bad trailers for great films. Having a great trailer doesn’t guarantee a great film, but it’s the trailer’s job to make people think that. And just because Sommers shot the footage that was used in a good trailer doesn’t mean that it’s representative of his work on the film as a whole. Did you ever see that great video of The Shining re-cut to seem like a romantic comedy? It works amazingly well and it’s a great trailer, but that obviously isn’t what the actual film is. Again, I will point to weekend #2 and beyond as the real tell-tales of what people REALLY think about Sommers’s work.

      “Why would critics go to a movie wanting to hate it? You answered your own question; it’s their job. They go to see what they are paid to see, regardless of how much they may not be anticipating it. But the same does not apply to someone going to see a movie for entertainment. You would have to ask why the general public would be going to see “shitty movies”.”

      I’ve saved this one for last because I find it absolutely baffling. A critic’s job is not to hate anything. The role of a critic is to experience something (whether a film or food or art or a hotel) and relay their opinion of that experience. How you can justify to yourself that a critic is excited by the prospect of having a bad time is beyond me. Do you really believe in your heart that a critic walks into a screening of GI Joe or Land of the Lost or Imagine That and HOPES it’s bad? As I said, that’s a hard way to make a living… hoping that things you are forced to see are bad and difficult to sit through.

      …and by the way, one of the worst films I have ever seen, Norbit, made almost $100 million dollars, was #1 its opening weekend (during which I paid to see it- although by your logic, the fact that I paid to see it means I must have liked it), and has a 3.7/10 user rating on IMDB. So sometimes box office success in not a clear indicator of a film’s popularity.

      But none of that has anything to do with the ridiculous notion that critics enjoy hating films.

    • Shane Hero

      Cliff,

      I don’t think GI Joe is a fantastic film. I don’t think it’s terrible either. I think it did exactly what it intended to do as a film, and I enjoyed it for what it was.

      Regarding the critic comment, I do not think a critic goes to a film wanting or expecting to hate it. However a professional film critic sees the majority of films that get released. So obviously they will like some and hate some. The average film going public will only go to see what they expect to like. A critic will go regardless of that fact. So hence the likelihood that a film critic would go see a film they are less likely to enjoy than anyone else.

      And you cannot use ANY sort of rating system to gauge popularity. Because by participating in any sort of rating system, a person falls into the category of “critic”, and someone who gives more after-thought to films. The majority of people who see movies do not spend their time rating them.

      Your example of Norbit does not prove your argument at all. It simply shows how much of a gap there is in general opinion between those who spend time reviewing movies, and those who do not. How on earth would a movie make $100 million if nobody liked it? The IMDB rating is obviously not a reflection on the films popularity if it managed to make that much money.

      Have a look at DVD sales statistics, compared to Rotten Tomatoes ratings. Now surely nobody buys a DVD of a film they hated. So how do films like Paul Blart: Mall Cop (34% on RT) sell around $45 million worth of DVDs? How about Beverly Hills Chihuahua, (40% on RT) making around $56 million in DVD sales? You can’t put all those DVD sales down to just clever marketing campaigns. The vast majority of sales would be to people who genuinely like the films.

      So clearly critics general opinions have no baring on what the majority of the public think, nor do they reflect what the general public think. I don’t see how anyone could argue that critics have any sort of relevance to the majority of film goers, since there are absolutely no statistics that argue in favor of that.

    • Cliff Stephenson

      “And you cannot use ANY sort of rating system to gauge popularity. Because by participating in any sort of rating system, a person falls into the category of “critic”, and someone who gives more after-thought to films. The majority of people who see movies do not spend their time rating them.”

      Of course you can use a rating system to gauge popularity… That’s what the rating system is for! It’s certainly a better gauge to determine how people feel about a film rather than whether or not they simply paid to see it. That was your point wasn’t it?- “All those people going to see it… …they like it.” But even people who HATED the film had to pay to see it. So if someone walks up to me and says, “I paid to see GI Joe and I thought it was a bad movie,” should I not believe that they didn’t like the movie simply because they paid to see it, or do I trust that them giving me their opinion of the movie is truly their opinion of the movie?

      “I don’t think GI Joe is a fantastic film. I don’t think it’s terrible either.”

      When someone is spending $175 million to make a film, shouldn’t their responsibility be to make a film better than “I don’t think it’s terrible?” Don’t you want to see films that are actually better than the bare minimum? That’s what this whole thing has been about. It really isn’t about GI Joe at all. It’s about a director making a movie that falls short of its potential (or several of those movies) and then lashing out at the people who were observant enough to notice and call him out on it.

      Now it’s entirely possible (probable) that most/all of the problems with GI Joe are a result of meddling and bad decisions made by the studio or producer or other outside forces. Sometimes a film falls victim to too many outside forces (Die Hard 4?)
      BUT… at the end of the day Sommers is still the director and it’s his name that all responsibility has to fall on. If you’ve seen the making of for Batman & Robin, Joel Schumacher admits the film was basically overtaken by the marketing and toy divisions, but he also admits that it was his fault that he allowed that to happen. I don’t see Sommers taking that kind of responsibility and humility.

      And BTW, Batman & Robin is another wonderful example of a film that made a pretty good chunk of money ($42 million opening weekend and $107 million domestically - It actually had a higher per-screen average than GI Joe and that was back in 1997) but is pretty much almost universally reviled. I’m sure back around June 23rd of 1997, someone somewhere was defending Batman & Robin against people who said it sucked by going on and on about how much money it made and therefore people obviously liked it.

      If GI Joe make it much past $125 million, I’ll be very surprised.

    • Shane Hero

      No Cliff, the topic of discussion here is NOT whether a director should be making a better film for this budget; it’s his comments about critics responses to popular and successful films. I enjoyed GI Joe, but it certainly doesn’t rank as one of my all time favorite films.

      I think you need to look at exactly what Sommers was saying. He was talking about critics not liking “popular” and “successful” films. These things can be measured by statistics. Ticket sales, merchandise sales, dvd sales all prove popularity. Success is measured by the money a film makes.

      You can measure a films success and popularity, you can also measure overall critical responses to films on sites like Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB etc. This gives you a way of comparing the two, and for the most part Sommers is correct. A few exceptions to the rule does not make his general statement completely wrong.

      The only reason people seem to be criticizing what Sommers said is because:
      A) They don’t like Sommers or his movies,
      B) The don’t want to accept the reality that critics are irrelevant and have no impact on audiences.

    • http://www.thestub.ca Rodney

      Shane. Its pretty ignorant to say that critics have no impact on audiences.

      There is clearly SOME influence, even if its not on you.

    • Cliff Stephenson

      Shane,
      I can’t keep dancing around the same points with you. I know exactly what Sommers said… I read it first hand in Variety. What I was trying to illustrate was (and this is what John was saying as well) that Sommers’s comments are delusional and defensive. Critics don’t want to hate films and saying that critics hate films which are popular and successful has been proven false repeatedly.
      Now, (and this ties directly into my comments about Sommers’s films and budgets) I could certainly understand situations where films with bigger budgets have higher expectations, and are therefore held to a somewhat higher standard… but they should be. I just got back from seeing District 9. It’s a film with a $30 million dollar budget that contains wonderful acting, an excellent story, great action… AND some of the best visual effects I’ve seen in a film this year. Why is District 9 a better made film with pretty much all of the same ingredients, but for 1/6 the money? If you’re spending 6 times the money on your film, can’t I expect it to be as good or better?

      Sommers made a dumb (inaccurate) comment in order to distract people from the fact that his movie was getting bad buzz and some people were just observant enough to see that. That’s all this really is about.

      But I would ask… Do you think that Transformers 2 is the best film of the year? It’s made more money than any other film in 2009. By your judging standards, does that make it the best film of 2009?

    • Cliff Stephenson

      Shane,
      You’ve encouraged me to do a bit more research to make the claims by Sommers all the more baseless. The following are the number one films at the box office for the past ten years (the decade Sommers says has gotten particularly bad) and their critic rating from Rotten Tomatoes.

      2008: The Dark Knight 94%
      2007: Spider Man 3 62%
      2006: Pirates: Dead Man’s Chest 53%
      2005: Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith 79%
      2004: Shrek 2 89%
      2003: Lord of the Ring: Return of the King 94%
      2002: Spider Man 90%
      2001: Harry Potter Sorcerer’s Stone 78%
      2000: The Grinch 53%
      1999: Star Wars: Phantom Menace 63%

      And then…

      GI JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA 38%

      With the exceptions of Pirates and Grinch, all of the top money makers for the past decade have all been certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes (and even Pirates and Grinch received more than 50% positive reviews). Sommers’s film isn’t even in the same league. Clearly the critics didn’t get the memo that they’re supposed to love to hate popular and successful films, just as they did with GI Joe.
      But here are the numbers and it proves pretty much the opposite of what Sommers claimed.

      • Shane Hero

        Sorry Rodney, it’s not ignorant to say that critics have no impact on audiences it’s the absolute truth.

        I’m not denying they have impact on SOME people, however they certainly do not have influence over the vast majority. Otherwise, as I’ve said before, there would be a direct correspondence between overall critical response and the box office success of films that would be evident in EVERY case, not just some. The fact that some successful films rate highly with critics does not mean a thing. That means that sometimes the two match up. But the fact that critical response is never an indicator of a film’s wider popularity or financial success means that critics are irrelevant to the MAJORITY of people.

        If critics are not irrelevant to most people, then explain to me why is GI Joe is making millions of dollars? Why isn’t everyone listening to the warnings of critics? There, I proved you wrong with that one example.

        Cliff, those are the number 1 at the box office for the last decade, and even of those not all of them rated highly with critics. That doesn’t prove the opposite of what Sommers claimed at all. He clearly has a valid point, where some of the most successful films of the last decade can rate so poorly with critics. If you want to ignore that because you want to believe that he meant his statement in absolute terms, then you’re missing the point entirely. I’m sure Somemrs isn’t in denial about those films that were successful AND rated well with critics. I’m sure he doesn’t think all critics are the same. Arguing about how some films are an exception, or saying that not every critic shares the same opinion is missing the fact that he’s talking in general, not absolutes.

      • Cliff Stephenson

        Shane,
        This will be the last time I respond to this because you seem to be the only person in this thread anymore that didn’t get it and I can’t keep going around in circles. Sommers made a dumb comment to assign blame and to help deflect away from his role in the bad reviews his films get. There has been ample evidence in this thread alone that, not only to critics not hold a grudge against popular and successful movies, but (as evidenced by the very numbers I provided) they have been very favorable to the MOST successful movies of the past decade. Sommers makes mediocre movies and gets mediocre reviews in return. If he makes a great movie, I guarantee you he’ll get great reviews. Remember Sofia Coppola? She went from getting some of the most brutal reviews and personal attacks for her role in Godfather Part III to some of the most glowing reviews of 2003 for her film Lost in Translation. Oh yeah… and she got an Oscar for that film as well. Sommers has already given up on the idea of making a great film because he lacks to confidence to know he could make one in the future.

        Sommers needs to spend a little less time on the cross.

  • Jenny

    Wow, I just saw GI Joe, and boy was it bad. I had no expectations of a quality movie by any standards, but I really could not believe how much I hated it. All I wanted was to be amused. That was it. No art, no meaning, all I was looking for was mind numbing amusement, and it didn’t even deliver that.

    If I hadn’t ridden with other people, I would have walked out and asked for my money back.

  • http://thesilverscreenpost.com JAlexM

    I saw GI Joe this weekend guys and let me tell you that its much better than Benjamin Button, a real piece of shit film that got 13 nominations(which belonged to TDK)and which critics unanimously loved.

    I thinks critics are biased most of the time.

  • http://thesilverscreenpost.com JAlexM

    I saw GI Joe this weked guys and let me tell you that its much better than Benjamin Button, a real piece of shit film that got 13 nominations(which belonged to TDK)an which critics unanimously loved.

    I thinks critics are biased most of the time.

    • SlashBeast

      Critics didn’t unanimously love Benjamin Button, it has a rating in the low 70’s on Rotten Tomatoes.

      Besides, EVERYTHING is biased.

  • darkknight100

    hey slashbeast…

    are you talking about mine or john’s list when you say “there’s not enough Pixar in your list?”

    • SlashBeast

      Your list. And it was a joke by the way, apparently not a very good one.

  • darkknight100

    in addition to the movies you mentioned in your response to Sommers saying critics don’t like popular movies, let’s look at the Pixar movies

    Toy Story: 100%

    Toy Story 2: 100%

    A Bug’s Life: 91%

    Monsters,Inc: 95%

    Finding Nemo: 98%

    The Incredibles: 97%

    Cars: 76%

    Ratatouille: 96%

    Wall-E: 96%

    and of course as you mentioned…

    Up: 97%

    • SlashBeast

      There’s not enough Pixar in your list.

    • Shane Hero

      Look, obviously Sommers was making a generalization, and just because John and yourself can find some exceptions to the rule doesn’t mean that what Sommers said was in any way moronic.

      He’s quite right, that often successful and popular movies get bad reviews. For the most part, film critics look for different criteria when judging a film, than what most of the general public do when deciding to see a movie. You can’t deny that. If that statement was wrong, then you would never see films getting poor reviews and still raking in money.

    • SlashBeast

      You know why they’re exceptions? Because they’re GOOD movies. Critics don’t hate commercial or popular films, they hate BAD movies, which is what G.I. Joe is.

    • Shane Hero

      No Slashbeast, there’s no such thing as a “bad” movie, because that’s subjective. However, what can be measured is success and popularity based on how many people go to see a movie and buy the DVD.

      The majority of critics agreeing a movie is “bad” does not make it so. Especially when the film is getting a lot of viewers and making a lot of money.

      If nobody was seeing GI Joe, nobody was buying the merchandise, and nobody bought the DVD, then you could measurably argue that it was unsuccessful and unpopular. As it stands, people are seeing it, people are buying the merchandise. So by “bad” you can only mean that critics are not rating it highly.

      Critics are displaying hatred towards a popular and successful film. And it’s not the first time. So how does this make Sommers statement “moronic”. Your statement only proves Sommers is right.

      In general, more films make a lot of money and rate poorly with critics than vice versa. Since it has to be accepted that any discussion about “critics” is speaking in general terms anyway, since every critic is an individual, obviously every aspect of his statement is meant to be taken as an average based on overall critical response, and looking overall at most film releases.

      Pointing out a few exceptions to the general rule does not prove him wrong.

    • SlashBeast

      It’s consensus reality. There’s a certain standard most people/critics have for the facets which go into making a movie. If 90+ percent of people tend to agree that a movie was “bad”, then in most people’s eyes that movie was “bad” and it will be considered so despite that a minority of people may think otherwise. If 90+ percent of people agree that a movie was “good”, then I think that gives weight. Most people/critics consider G.I. Joe a “bad” movie. According to their standards for what a basic “good” film is, it has failed in terms of all the things which make a movie, e.g. acting, special effects, editing, dialogue, direction. They don’t hate it because it’s popular or commercial as you keep claiming. They hate it because, according to their, and most people’s, standards, it’s a “bad” movie.

    • SlashBeast

      Also, I never called Sommers “moronic”.

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