5 1990s Movies Every ’80s Kid Thought Were Masterpieces But Critics Hated

Let’s be real: when you’re a kid, it’s easy for most movies to impress you. And there was an added bonus: Kids who grew up in the ’80s got to watch their favorite toys become cartoons, their favorite cartoons become movies, and their favorite action heroes save the day on more than one occasion. Then these ’90s came along and gave kids a whole new batch of movies to get excited about. Many of them became instant favorites—even though critics didn’t usually agree.

In fact, some movies that ’80s kids absolutely loved were getting hammered in reviews. That didn’t matter much at the time. Kids had their favorites, and they weren’t about to let a few bad reviews change their minds. Looking back now, some of those movies are even more fun because of it. Here are five ’90s movies that audiences of a certain generation thought were masterpieces, even when critics had other ideas.

5) The Phantom

The Phantom arrived in 1996 with a purple-suited comic-book hero, a jungle adventure, pirates, and ancient treasures. Surprisingly, Billy Zane was cast in the lead role. Up until this movie, the actor wasn’t exactly an A-list celebrity. He was best known for playing supporting characters and villains. Back then, superhero movies still weren’t the hugest box office draw, and The Phantom felt like it had wandered in from another era. It completely flopped at the box-office but did marginally better internationally where the hero’s comic strip did have its share of fans. 

Overall, the movie received mixed reviews, with complaints about its story, dialogue, and its old-fashioned approach. But that old-fashioned quality is exactly why some fans still love it. The movie’s later home release on video helped reinvigorate the movie and grow its cult fanbase. And fans appreciated how it stayed mostly true to the classic superhero formula that it was based upon. The Phantom simply wanted to give audiences a masked hero, a ridiculous villain, a hidden kingdom, and a big adventure. For kids who saw it at the right age, that was more than enough. And interestingly, a few years ago, Billy Zane expressed he’d like to revisit the character.

4) The Mighty Ducks

This movie had kids rooting for a hockey team when they didn’t even play hockey themselves. It’s about a hotshot lawyer who gets stuck coaching a youth hockey team and, lo and behold, the team starts out terrible. But along the way, everyone learns a few important lessons as they build a friendship and mature. The Mighty Ducks wasn’t exactly trying to reinvent sports movies. It didn’t need to. For kids watching in 1992, seeing a bunch of underdogs come together and chase a championship was more than enough.

Unfortunately, critics were less enthusiastic and gave the movie mixed reviews. Many pointed out how familiar its story felt—in a negative way. But audiences didn’t care—they got hockey, jokes, rivalries, a memorable team, and a satisfying victory. Then Disney turned the movie into a franchise, proving that kids and families wanted more of the Ducks. The movie also became part of a generation’s childhood that still remembers the team’s signature Flying V formation. This proved that sometimes a sports movie doesn’t need to surprise you. Sometimes you just want to see the underdogs win.

3) Space Jam

It was 1996 and execs believed that Michael Jordan teaming up with Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes for a basketball movie was a great idea. That sentence alone probably explains why so many kids loved it. It had a basketball superstar, classic cartoon characters, outer space, and one enormous basketball game. For an entire generation, Space Jam wasn’t just another movie. It was an event to be remembered for decades.

The critics weren’t too kind to Space Jam. Reviews complained about the story, the humor, and the thin plot. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie currently holds a relatively low critics’ score. But the audience it was intended for was too busy enjoying the film to care. Space Jam became a major hit and eventually turned into one of those movies that people kept revisiting because of nostalgia. It also had an advantage that reviews couldn’t really measure. If you were a kid who loved Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny, seeing them share the screen was pretty close to perfection.

2) Batman Forever

Before the 1995 release of Batman Forever, Batman was already one of the biggest superheroes in the world, period. Tim Burton’s first two films had helped establish a darker version of the character that was played by Michael Keaton to everyone’s surprise. But Batman Forever went in a completely different direction. Val Kilmer became the new Bruce Wayne while Jim Carrey played the Riddler and Tommy Lee Jones played Two-Face—talk about radical casting. Aesthetically, the movie turned up the production and the colors, which not everyone appreciated or agreed with.

Some critics liked the cast and all of the spectacle, but others thought the movie had abandoned too much of what made the earlier films work. That still didn’t stop audiences from showing up. Batman Forever actually ended up being a major box-office success. And for kids who grew up watching it, the neon colors and oversized comic-book style were part of the appeal. The movie wasn’t trying to be the same Batman movie again. Instead of perpetuating the darker, brooding, and oddly eccentric Batman before it, this movie was louder, brighter, and much closer to the version of Batman that most kids already knew from the cartoons and toys. And besides, Batman didn’t always have to be stuck being so dark and edgy. There were also many incredible details fans missed throughout all of his movies.

1) Hook

Steven Spielberg’s Hook seemed almost impossible to dislike if you were a kid in the early ’90s. How could you reject Peter Pan being back with Robin Williams was playing the grown-up version? Neverland was still filled with plenty of pirates, fairies, sword fights, and flying. It had everything a kid could want from a movie. It also had Spielberg behind the camera, which made the whole thing feel like a major event. Families had no reason to hate it. Upon release, the movie did well at the box office but didn’t quite hit the blockbuster threshold the studios had hoped for. Regardless, there’s no denying how passionate its fans were—and that fanbase only grew over the years. 

Critics, however, weren’t nearly as enchanted. Hook received mixed-to-negative reviews. Plenty of criticism was aimed at its story, tone, and length. Audiences were much kinder, of course, and the movie stuck with the kids who watched it. That’s more important because Hook wasn’t really competing for the approval of adults exclusively. It was giving kids and families of a generation its own version of Neverland that did a little growing up. Decades later, plenty of those kids still remember it fondly. And while both kids and parents could connect to the grownup Peter’s story, there were plenty of Lost Boys fans cheering for Ru-fee-oh!

Maybe critics had their scores, but ’90s kids had something better: memories. These movies may not have won over the people writing the reviews, but they won over the kids watching them—and nostalgia is the critic that always gets the final word.