also by the sheer virtue of it's filmmaking it was fun for like 95% of it's runtime due to the way the action was on display.
You know, this brings up the a good point. What even is 'fun'?
Is it the characters' themselves having fun? By that defintion, Fury Road is a pretty fun movie. Look at the sheer joy Nux has when he thinks he's going to be killed that that tornado. Isn't he having fun? There aren't many out and out jokes, but there's plenty of scenes where the characters are enjoying themselves.
What about when Batman is sadistically beating down on Superman, humiliating and denegrading him. He's a fuckboy, but he's clearly enjoying himself. Isn't that fun?
Conversely, we have plenty of typically fun movies that the characters are utterly miserable throughout. I mean, consider the Big Lebowski. The Dude's entire story begins with him being beaten, having his rug urinated on, having his mission go awry because of Walter, holding the guilt of a potentially dead woman over his head, being used by Maud, getting his car totalled for reasons that are not his fault, having his friend die, and having to deal with Walter's obnoxiousness. He flat out breaks down in frustration and sadness at the end. But who the fuck would say that the Big Lebowski isn't a bunch of fun?
Yet if it's a matter of the audience having fun, then something like schindler's list should be considered fun. I know I have a great time watching it. Not a pleasant time, maybe, but a great time, it's one of my favorite movies of all time. Does that make it fun?
It feels like too subjective and vague a term to mean anything anymore.