What do You Consider a 'Popcorn' movie?

[bluearth]

I was at another forum and a guy said any movie where you have to wear 3D glasses is a popcorn movie.

For me its not that simple.

In short, for me a popcorn movie is a film that is extremely formulaic, that never tries to excel past basic tropes, a film with poorly fleshed out characters, motives, and mythology if its part of the movie. Doesnt necessarily make it a bad film, but it does reduce it to 'popcorn' movie status in my view.

A good example of a popcorn movie for me is Independence Day. What makes it a popcorn movie to me? For starters the enemies are just bad guys with a simple motive, they arent fleshed out at all. There is minimal investment into the mythology of the Independence Day aliens. Theres throwaway 'emotional' moments like the sacrifice at the end, but you dont really care that much because of how formulaic everything was. Still a good movie, but its a 'popcorn' movie to me.