Very good, but boring

Rating: Null/10 (5 December 2000)

I went to see both Charlie's Angels and Unbreakable within the same week. Watching the two movies so close together proves something I've believed for a long time. There is a big difference between a good movie and an entertaining movie. Charlie's Angels was a very bad movie, but it was entertaining. Unbreakable was an excellent movie in many ways. But it totally failed to be entertaining.
Take the fight scenes. In Charlie's Angels there were many fight scenes all featuring sword canes, slow motion flying kicks, explosions, machine gun fire, etc. In short all of the fun stuff. Unbreakable has a fight scene too, it was very realistic, and very boring.
Unbreakable has actual character development. Charlie's Angels decided to pass off a couple of scenes with Cameron Diaz dancing and Lucy Liu cooking as character development. Believe me, watching Cameron Diaz dance was far more entertaining than anything in Unbreakable.
Because the requirements of making a good movie and an entertaining one are so different it's no surprise that few films manage to succeed.
On the other hand I've already forgotten what Charlie's Angels is about. I think I'll remember Unbreakable for a long time. I just noticed that Gattaca was listed by IMDB with the `If you like this title, we also recommend...' Gattaca was also a movie I felt this way about, good but boring.