Top five movie let downs
You know how it is, you enter the cinema, settle down in your chair and silently pray to the great pumpkin of the universe: “please let this film be good, please!”
And it isn’t.
Sometimes it surprises you, you’re shocked that a film you thought was an easy home run turns out to be a dog. Here are my top five let downs:
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - I was so excited to see this, it was going to be awesome. How could it not be brilliant with such wonderfully rich source material? Well Sean Connery (who is brilliant don’t get me wrong) was completely miscast as the opium addicted Alan Quatermaine. He should have been some gaunt weathered guy that has had the weight of the world burn him out. Sean just wasn’t the guy to be the League’s Quatermaine, but it isn’t just on him though, the film lacked any great suspense and joy. It wasn’t clever like the comic book and the threat never seemed to be any great menace.
- The Matrix Revolutions - I’m one of the few who really liked the second Matrix film despite the ‘rave scene’ and I was desperate for Revolutions to make up for any shortcomings and bring the trilogy home with a winner! Angry film gods punished me for some unknown reason and gave me the mess that was Revolutions. There was a lot of pointless in that film and the ending was just such a let down!
- Tenacious D The Pick of Destiny - OMFG what happened here? I can pretty much watch anything done by the D but this movie had two jokes and they were buried pretty deep. The HBO series of shorts are so much funnier.
- Judge Dredd - gritty, violent, hilarious are words often used to describe the 2000AD series Judge Dredd they are not words that are associated with the movie Judge Dredd. It is a perfect example of a film that doesn’t understand its source material. Looks fantastic and Stallone was perfectly cast as Dredd, except he thought that comic book meant funny or silly and couldn’t understand why the director kept trying to make a serious dark film. Rob Schneider was in it. He shouldn’t have been.
- Van Helsing - a movie with a bunch of Universal monsters getting hunted down by post-Wolverine Hugh Jackman and made by the guy who did The Mummy. Ummm yes please. How did this go so wrong? It all feels wrong, the dialogue, the effects, the acting and above all the monsters!!! I just really dislike this film and that may be just a personal thing. But my advice if you haven’t seen it is to avoid it at all costs and go get The Monster Squad instead!
You know that this list could have been so much longer, more so if I was a little more honest with some films. Other worthy nominations would be Star Wars prequels, Robocop 3, Trancers 5 onwards, The Punisher (first one without the skull), Ghostbusters 2, Batman and Robin, Superman 4 (mind you I knew some of these were going to suck beforehand). So go on, let rip, what are your big let downs?
Next week the Top five ways to get your superpowers!
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You know what… I’m ok with Robocop 3.
I was frankly disappointed in Planet Terror. It had so many potentially awesome qualities and I feel that Rodriguez really squandered the opportunities he had to explore them.
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gonna have to come back on this when I’m sober again
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The Leaque of extraordinary gentlemen would definately be top of my list too. What the hell happens in that film?
I would also like to nominate Iron Man (only kidding, dont get angry)
In keeping with MC, I was really disappointed with Deathproof. Though I quite like Planet Terror.
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Both Death Proof and Planet terror were big let downs for me. I’d almost cut Van Helsing some slack due solely to Kate Beckinsale.
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I’m with you on the rest, and I couldn’t agree more about the league (complete let down that one!) but I don’t mind Van Helsing. It’s not great, but I don’t mind it.
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Oh holy cow… how can I possibly narrow it down when so many movies suck?! Are we talking movies in any genre, or keeping it to sci-fi/fantasy?
The League is definitely in the group, but I gotta give Starship Troopers the #1 spot. Nice visuals, but the movie SUCKED, with a capital SUCK. And I was really looking forward to it going in.
I didn’t mind Van Helsing. It was certainly better than Fantastic Four, Electra, Daredevil, Catwoman (though technically I probably shouldn’t include that since I haven’t gotten up the courage to see it), Batman and Robin… that list could go on forever, so I’d have to remove Van Helsing from the list.
Now if we’re moving beyond Sci-Fi, Caddyshack 2 is a definite top spot contender. That and Starship Troopers were the only two movies for which I’ve ever considered walking out of the theater.
Vanity Fair, with Reese Witherspoon — the most boring, pointless movie in existence. And the only movie I’ve ever been happy to fall asleep during: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
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@Jeff
Starship Troopers? That movie was great. I’m somewhat looking forward to number 3, hopeing it is closer to number 1 than the sequel.
MC - Planet Terror, I’ve hear that a lot actually. I guess with Robocop 3 I was hoping for a lot more and was let down, the movie doesn’t have to completely suck for me to be disappointed. Escape from LA is a good example, I love the film but was still let down when I saw it. Other films don’t get mentioned because I already knew they were going to be bad - thus no actual let down.
Sam - that’s interesting as people like MC have said the opposite that Deathproof is brilliant yet Planet Terror was not so good.
The League looks really awesome but just seems to go nowhere, don’t get me wrong I think I even own the film, it just let me down when I saw it because I expected so much more.
Swollenpickles - I still haven’t seen either of the Grindhouse films! And no Van Helsing does not get a pass LOL.
Bettina - it’s not so much that Van Helsing is a bad film but I was hoping for so much more from it, I mean I do tink it’s a bad film personally but that’s not why I’ve included it - I just wanted it to be a really cool film and it burnt me!!
Jeff - any film no matter genre as long as it let you down. So the film doesn’t even have to be that bad, just not as good as you hoped or expected. Batman and Robin probably didn’t make the list because I already had low expectations, it gets mentioned because it stooped even lower than those!!!
I actually dissagree with you on Troopers as I really love that film and was surprised by it - but that’s my opinion on that and you are certainly welcome to yours
Actually Electra is another good example as I was expecting a movie that made my eyeballs melt out of my head because it was so bad and yet when I watched it, whilst it wasn’t good, it wasn’t as bad as I had expected so my expectations were at the very least met.
I’m constantly amazed that I’m of the minority opinion on Starship Troopers. My friend and I went into that theater with high hopes for a great movie, and came out going “What the heck did we just watch?” The ONLY thing worthwhile about that movie was the effects. The acting sucked, the writing sucked, there were scenes of completely unnecessary and just plain stupid violence, I didn’t care about a single character, and not one of them changed over the course of the film. By the end I just couldn’t believe the movie had even been released. I vividly remember walking across the parking lot with my friend coming out of that in almost stunned silence. All indications going in were that it would be the exact kind of movie we would love, and “That sucked” was the only thing we managed to say about it. It even took us a while to fully articulate how mind-numbing of an experience it was.
And yet most other people I know loved it. I don’t get it (obviously). Whatever, though… like Lee said, you’re all entitled to your opinion - even if you’re all wrong.
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Garth - I hope that number 3 doesn’t become a candidate for this list
Jeff - I feel the very same way about Transformers! So many people love that film but I can’t stand it and really thought it was rubbish, but I seem to be in the minority!
Actually I didn’t see Death Proof either, so I can’t condemn it or laud it.
Though you did remind me of another movie that was a letdown… Jackie Brown.
I mean, I loved Pulp Fiction, and I loved Kill Bill, and I loved both Out of Sight and Get Shorty(in the Elmore Leonard world), but Jackie Brown just pisses me off. I’ve had arguments about it, and I just can’t like it… especially when I look at Out of Sight and compare it to that, because to me, that’s how you do Elmore Leonard.
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Ahhhhh yeah Jackie Brown is a good one - I too had high hopes for that and I just didn’t care for it when I saw it.
Out of Sight is brilliant, I really liked that and I’ve begun warming to Get Shorty and Be Cool.
soo..now for the constructive comment..
Can agree with the list.
Films in my list (which is long) would be: Cloverfield, Pirates of the caribbean 2, 21 grams.
@ starship troopers: I loved the film..not that the acting is great etc etc..just loved the thing put together. But maybe I’m a sucker for hordes of beasties and enormous slaughter..and funny commercials ‘do you wanna know more!’.
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..won’t post my entire list of let down films of course
Arjans last blog post..Not an OST not a review
I’d agree with all of those, though I hated Matrix 2 as well. Top of my list would be The Phantom Menace and the other two awful Star Wars destroyers though. I’m really hoping the new Indy flick doesn’t follow suit…
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Honestly speaking, I like none of the five movies.
Mmmmm. My first big theatrical disappointment as a teen was definitely “Logan’s Run”. It got rave reviews on TV (including Jeanne Little on “The Mike Walsh Show”, so maybe that was my warning!), but I came out wondering how I’d managed to waste my hard-earned pocketmoney on that!
This would be followed by “Superman III”, “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace”, “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier”, the three “Star Wars” prequels, and Mike Meyers in “The Cat in the Hat”. And I’ll add “Star Trek Nemesis”, but my main disappointment in that was the fact that the cinema was almost empty… on opening night!
I’m sure there are others, but they are films I thought might be excellent, despite the pre-release jittery rumours.
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Oh! I just remembered another one that let me down… King Kong (the Jackson remake). By the time I saw it I didn’t have high expectations, but it really wasn’t worth the effort. And it was long, too. It’s a rare movie that I sit there thinking, “Enough fighting… just get to the plot already.”
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Hey… here’s a suggestion for a top 5 list - the opposite of this one: which movies suprised you the most by being better than expected? Not what were the best movies, but those that greatly exceeded your expectations.
Btw, your Contact Me form is broken…
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I thought I was the only one who saw the Trancers series…
The first two were excellent with a simple premise, good story and characters. And the dialogue -
Lena: “So what happened to Phil?”
Jack: “His brain’s on hold.”
It was original enough for 1985 and obviously did well enough to merit a sequel, which was almost (but not quite) as good.
And, as with everything else, the law of diminishing returns set in, so they really needn’t have bothered after Trancers III.
But hey - if I learned nothing else, I found out that ‘dry hair’s for squids’…
And LXG? - Hah! We shall speak of it no more!
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Arjan - nice to see you pulled up ok! I don’t even remember Pirates 2 to be honest, I think I did like it though. I still haven’t seen either of the other films mentioned. I can’t actually believe that I’m yet to see Cloverfield.
Weird.
Rol - the Star Wars films really stuck out in my mind and came very, very close to being members of that list, I guess I’m not a big enough Star Wars fan to be THAT offended by those films (actually I was still pretty disappointed come to think of it).
Man I’m hoping too about Indy!! There’s that animated Star Wars flick coming out too.
Therin - old school disappointment there! Logans Run. I saw that when I was quite young so I obviously had no real expectation but upon reflection I can see why one would be let down by it.
I too was a bit disappointed about the turn out for Nemesis. That film had other problems too though.
Jeff - King Kong another film I’ve had sitting there to watch and can’t bring myself to do so. It looks so… I dunno… underwhelming.
Oh your suggested list is now in the rotation, probably for the next week (after this week) so watch out for that and have your ideas ready!
Oh and form is now fixed.
Bloody form.
Cap - You’re not alone! Actually in Australia the film is actually called Future Cop which I kind of prefer. I went through a stage where I was really into all of Full Moon’s films but Trancers was my favourite!
Wet hair, I’d forgotten about that, it’s been years, I don’t recall all of number three but for some reason I think that I accepted it as OK and the following ones were rubbish.
LXG we spit on it and will speak of it no more.
Ugh! I think Van Helsing was the biggest let down from this list for me. It was just so bad. And now it’s actually a watermark I use in conversations to describe how bad something is. Like…it was bad but it wasn’t Van Helsing bad…
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You know, though it actually wouldn’t make my list, I’m surprised that no one has mentioned Waterworld. That was pointed to by many people at the time as the worst let down ever. Guess we put out some real bad apples after that one.
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Becca - I was pretty sure you didn’t like Van Helsing either, you’ve either written about it or we’ve talked about I can’t remember. The movie we pick on at home is one called the Plague - it was remarkably boring and we use it as the lowest point (it probably doesn’t deserve it!)
Jeff - that is surprising actually because Waterworld does seem to cop it a lot. I actually don’t hate it that much at all, in fact if it’s on TV I’ll sit in front of it quite happily (not too often mind you!) and I expected nothing from it considering the reviews when I first saw it.
I think the people who thought it was the biggest let down would have been the studio execs! LOL