This is basically a response to Gabe's thread. I'm wondering what movies you guys went into with great expectations and then... left with them utterly crushed. I'll go first, in no particular order.
10) The Godfather: Part III. I have a feeling I'm not alone on this one. If you renamed the characters and divorced the story from the series it is jammed into, I think it would make a decent crime drama. However, any film that is openly inviting comparisons to the other Godfather films is setting up a monumental task for itself and this... doesn't rise to the occasion.
9) Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. This is one film I made the great mistake of letting the hype get to me. The promotional materials made this look fantastic, a lot of film sites were hailing this as a Second Coming type event--one reviewer used a phrase like "the filmmakers out-Lucas George Lucas"--and then there was the promise of a digitally resurrected Olivier. Then I bought my ticket, sat in my seat, and was bored to the point that I didn't have the will to walk out of the showing.
8) Intolerable Cruelty. I had grown up with the Coens--my parents introduced us to them by taking us to a drive-in showing of Raising Arizona--and they never disappointed me. Their track record with Clooney at this point was pretty good. The Hudsucker Proxy had shown they knew exactly how to handle screwball comedy. To this day, I consider The Big Lebowski to be one of the best American comedies made in the talkie era. What could go wrong? Apparently, a lot could go wrong and did. (The line that bugged me the most was Clooney's reading of "demonstrable infidelity." The way he stresses "demonstrable" always gave me the impression he didn't know the definition of the word.)
7) The Matrix Revolutions. To me, this film is disappointing in the exact same way Return of the Jedi is disappointing. There are just enough good things there to show you what could have been had more care been taken in crafting the story, which kind of multiplies the sense of disappointment. Not only does the film not live up to the expectations instilled by the previous installments but it doesn't live up to the expectations that the film itself sets up.
6) Hulk. The Hulk had always been one of my favorite Marvel characters and I had grown up a Marvel kid. I loved Ang Lee's other work and Greek tragedy and Ang Lee had stated he was aiming to make a Greek tragedy centered around the Hulk. And the setting was in the Bay Area! Up to this point, every single fucking Marvel movie had been based in New York and San Francisco only seemed to show up in movies starring Ashley Judd. And--of course--Bruce Banner was working at my school in the film. The film, for me, only works consistently through about the beginning of act II. And now, of course, the reboot is in New York.
5) War of the Worlds. Minority Report had led me to put a lot of stock into a Cruise/Spielberg team-up. The ads had Morgan Freeman delivering the opening paragraph of the book verbatim. The ending of MR and AI led me to believe that Spielberg had overcome his tendency to sugarcoat things. Then everything in act III happened. (Weirdly, everything I thought this should have been was pretty much what The Mist was... and it didn't do exceedingly great business.)
4) Return of the Jedi. Like the Matrix installment on this list, ROTJ disappoints me because it basically has the beginning and ending sequence of a great film. It just fucks everything in the middle up.
3) The Ladykillers. I didn't think the Coens could fuck up twice in a row and Miller's Crossing, O Brother, and The Big Lebowski showed they could take someone else's material and run with it long before NCFOM came out. It also had Hanks and JK Simmons in it. What I didn't pay attention to--and I really should have--is it also had Marlon Wayans in it. That should have been the herald of a bad comedy right there.
2) Fantasia 2000. In my mind, Fantasia is both the greatest educational film for children ever devised and the best unintentional drug film of all time. So, I had great hopes that Roy Disney--who personally oversaw this film and introduces the freaking thing--would do Walt proud and produce a worthy companion piece. Instead, we got the TRL version of Fantasia. Instead of an academic doing the interstitials, we got celebrities. While the orchestra itself is nothing to complain about, it, unlike its predecessor, is pretty much wholly divorced from the visual aspect of the experience. And fucking Steve Martin... that guy.
1) Robocop 2. I was hoping for something at least marginally similar to the first film. What I got was a movie with the violence and production values dialed way up and the wit dialed way down.
10) The Godfather: Part III. I have a feeling I'm not alone on this one. If you renamed the characters and divorced the story from the series it is jammed into, I think it would make a decent crime drama. However, any film that is openly inviting comparisons to the other Godfather films is setting up a monumental task for itself and this... doesn't rise to the occasion.
9) Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. This is one film I made the great mistake of letting the hype get to me. The promotional materials made this look fantastic, a lot of film sites were hailing this as a Second Coming type event--one reviewer used a phrase like "the filmmakers out-Lucas George Lucas"--and then there was the promise of a digitally resurrected Olivier. Then I bought my ticket, sat in my seat, and was bored to the point that I didn't have the will to walk out of the showing.
8) Intolerable Cruelty. I had grown up with the Coens--my parents introduced us to them by taking us to a drive-in showing of Raising Arizona--and they never disappointed me. Their track record with Clooney at this point was pretty good. The Hudsucker Proxy had shown they knew exactly how to handle screwball comedy. To this day, I consider The Big Lebowski to be one of the best American comedies made in the talkie era. What could go wrong? Apparently, a lot could go wrong and did. (The line that bugged me the most was Clooney's reading of "demonstrable infidelity." The way he stresses "demonstrable" always gave me the impression he didn't know the definition of the word.)
7) The Matrix Revolutions. To me, this film is disappointing in the exact same way Return of the Jedi is disappointing. There are just enough good things there to show you what could have been had more care been taken in crafting the story, which kind of multiplies the sense of disappointment. Not only does the film not live up to the expectations instilled by the previous installments but it doesn't live up to the expectations that the film itself sets up.
6) Hulk. The Hulk had always been one of my favorite Marvel characters and I had grown up a Marvel kid. I loved Ang Lee's other work and Greek tragedy and Ang Lee had stated he was aiming to make a Greek tragedy centered around the Hulk. And the setting was in the Bay Area! Up to this point, every single fucking Marvel movie had been based in New York and San Francisco only seemed to show up in movies starring Ashley Judd. And--of course--Bruce Banner was working at my school in the film. The film, for me, only works consistently through about the beginning of act II. And now, of course, the reboot is in New York.
5) War of the Worlds. Minority Report had led me to put a lot of stock into a Cruise/Spielberg team-up. The ads had Morgan Freeman delivering the opening paragraph of the book verbatim. The ending of MR and AI led me to believe that Spielberg had overcome his tendency to sugarcoat things. Then everything in act III happened. (Weirdly, everything I thought this should have been was pretty much what The Mist was... and it didn't do exceedingly great business.)
4) Return of the Jedi. Like the Matrix installment on this list, ROTJ disappoints me because it basically has the beginning and ending sequence of a great film. It just fucks everything in the middle up.
3) The Ladykillers. I didn't think the Coens could fuck up twice in a row and Miller's Crossing, O Brother, and The Big Lebowski showed they could take someone else's material and run with it long before NCFOM came out. It also had Hanks and JK Simmons in it. What I didn't pay attention to--and I really should have--is it also had Marlon Wayans in it. That should have been the herald of a bad comedy right there.
2) Fantasia 2000. In my mind, Fantasia is both the greatest educational film for children ever devised and the best unintentional drug film of all time. So, I had great hopes that Roy Disney--who personally oversaw this film and introduces the freaking thing--would do Walt proud and produce a worthy companion piece. Instead, we got the TRL version of Fantasia. Instead of an academic doing the interstitials, we got celebrities. While the orchestra itself is nothing to complain about, it, unlike its predecessor, is pretty much wholly divorced from the visual aspect of the experience. And fucking Steve Martin... that guy.
1) Robocop 2. I was hoping for something at least marginally similar to the first film. What I got was a movie with the violence and production values dialed way up and the wit dialed way down.
