I don't think it's possible to cite a single movie as "the last classic Hollywood type movie" where its focus was entertainment and had movie magic feel to it, but I do think you could make a general list.
Some I'd throw out there for me are Mask of Zorro (1998), the Transporter (2002), the first two Harry Potter films.
What about you guy's. What's your personal list of movies that were sort of the last of that era where movies felt like movies and had something special to them?
I can narrow it to an era rather than any specific movie, because half of everything that released in 1999 was great.
Then 2000 had even better films, some of the best ever made. Gladiator, Patriot, The Boondock Saints, some really enjoyable ones like Pitch Black and Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, but much of the rest were forgettable.
The peak film for me was the LoTR movies. As easily as I can critique every last detail that was off from the books, they are still epic and as close to the book in tone, style and content as any book conversion ever has been. And pedowood has produced nothing of equivalence since, and there is still absolutely nothing else like marathoning them on a big screen
After that, there were still good movies, but there was a steady decrease in both peak quality and overall quantity of "good" films each year.
While I did like the early superhero resurgence, purely for entertainment value, they certainly weren't on the same par as "good movies" and the best of them were actually released quite far apart. GOTG still sits in my personal top ten list, but purely because it's fun and visually entertaining, not because it's any Shakespearian contender.
I've tried many times to get into the LOTR movies. I go "surely THIS time I'll see what everyone else sees in them".
I just don't get it.
I like Fantasy movies, same as any genre if it's good, but LOTR's appeal alludes me.
Not trying to twist your arm to get you to like LotR, but I'm curious what fantasy movies do you like if not LotR? The genre was practically dead for years until LotR came along and jolted it awake. You like darker stuff like Excalibur? Or Jim Hensoney stuff like Labyrinth/Dark Crystal?
Neverending Story, Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Conan the Barbarian, Baron Munchausen, Time Bandits, Krull, some of the Harry Potter movies.
LotR, the dialogue and acting just is so off for me. It almost feels like the Star Wars prequels to me. Overly melodramatic, overly serious yet somehow corny performances with dialogue and writing that doesn't grab me.
It just isn't my thing.
While I am biased in terms of preferring weird fantasy over high fantasy, there are high fantasy (orcs, elves, wizards) that I enjoy such as Harry Potter (first two in particular) and others that I've forgotten about. I kind of put Conan the Barbarian in the high fantasy category as it's much more dungeons and dragon-y and more traditional in terms of fantasy and it's one of my favorite movies.
But there's something about LotR where I can't connect with it. There's a stuffiness to it and it presents itself as incredibly epic, but I don't resonate with the "epic grand scale" of it as much as I can tell the movie wants me to.
It's hard to explain. It's like trying to explain an intangible. I like all sorts of movies. I'm pretty wide in terms of my tastes and all that, but as much as I dislike all the Marvel MCU crap, I at least get it and see what the audience sees more than the LotR trilogy.
Sort of like the millennials love for the Star wars prequels. I'll never understand why those movies are still talked about and most video games Star wars mods for games anymore are of the prequel movies and not the originals for some reason.
It's a fundamental difference in taste.
LotR in general suffers a bit from having defined a genre, if you've spent your whole life taking in what's been built upon it from every conceivable angle, when you finally get to what set the standard all the elements and plot points feel cliche and simplistic.