Nathan Rabin’s legendary My Year of Flops feature on AV Club groups bad movies into three categories:
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Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003)
Spy Kids 1 delivered on multiple competing genre fronts: a family-bonding adventure, a kiddie spy-action thriller, a light satire, and a digital editing/CGI showcase. Overall, a precarious, well-executed balancing act.
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Spy Kids (2001)
Spy Kids is, if not quite a gold standard for family-focused action-comedies, certainly an excellent specimen.
Alexandre Koberidze’s Georgian slice-of-life, pseudo-silent film aesthetic meets magical realism and romantic comedy in What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?, and the result is magnificent.
Nouchka van Brakel’s films center around women asserting their identity via a sexuality outside of the mainstream. In The Cool Lakes of Death, protagonist Hetty’s “taboo” is simply being a woman of assertive sexuality in prudish 19th century bourgeoisie.
Fellini’s first solo directing effort is a light and uneven — but still ultimately satisfying — romantic comedy farce with undercurrents of satire.
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Nights of Cabiria (1957)
Nights of Cabiria traces the romantic misadventures of the title character, played to perfection by Giulietta Masina, owner of one of the great expressive faces in the history of cinema.
If narrative momentum is your thing, whatsoever, then Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a bit of a slog to get through.
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Hercules (1997)
Hercules has a bit of a reputation as a minor Disney Renaissance work, mostly because it has a light comic tone while still adhering to a fairy tale-esque hero’s journey story arc, perhaps lending it an air of excessive breeziness where dramatic punch is expected.
Where The Little Mermaid 2 is content to retread the original’s story, but in reverse and less coherently and uglier, Ariel’s Beginning at least tries something new. It doesn’t exactly stick the landing, but I’d still put it in the upper half of Disney’s direct-to-video sequels.