is a character or characters that the viewer cares about in some way and having something compelling for those characters to do. work towards, overcome, and/or struggle with (which can be anything from something on a relatively small scale to something on a huge universe saving scale. Some sort of interesting conflict, in other words, whether it's internal, external, both, etc). If a movie doesn't have either of those things (both of which are very broad), I think it's almost always in too deep a hole to get out of. I can't think of a single movie that I felt was successful that didn't have those things, and I can't really think of a movie that I thought was "good" that didn't have those things. I think there are some movies in the latter category that can be entertaining (so bad they're entertaining Syfy Original types), but I don't think anyone would be calling those good any time soon.