Ten Movies You Assumed Would Rock, But Didn't. - Page 2

I wasn't joking. Lots of Chewers were "looking forward" to Zombie's vision, despite all signs pointing to awful. Lots of folks were still huffing the cock fumes left over from Devil's Rejects.

I don't think Generations is as terrible as everyone says (although in the wake of Insurrection and Nemesis it doesn't get picked on as much anymore) but I've already conceded that I can't be picked to objectively criticize a Next Generation movie. I grew up with that bunch. I will say that the scenes with Kirk and Picard work unabashedly for me, I love their dialogue, even if fundamentally Kirk's stance doesn't make sense (He spends most of the original series movies trying to get himself back on the Enterprise and even tries to sit in the chair during the opening, but then decides to stay with the girl?). At the very least it's a beautifully shot movie and the score is also very good as well.

Let me be the first (and only?) to pat you on the back Ken, I loathe the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre as well. I don't know how much of that is due to age though, it may have just lost its impact after we've seen many more grotesque sights in many other movies.

The Reapleacement Killers
It has Chow Yun Fat and the word KILLER in the title of course its gona kick ass... I was so wrong.

In Star Trek: Generations, we see the whole Enterprise crew blow up.

Since Picard is on the planet, he survives, and enters the Nexus. Then while in the Nexus, he changes the course of events, and saves the crew.

The Nexus isn't a time machine, it's just a kind of purgatory. The crew is still dead in reality. It's the biggest plot hole I've ever seen in a film.

3000 MILES TO GRACELAND-Love the premise. (Good + Bad bastard Elvises) Seriously, how do you fuck that up! Costner (especially) & Russell deliver the cool, and are seemingly having a blast. Still, the action gets DTV dumb real quick. Overall, just a jumbled, boring mess.
NEIGHBORS-Belushi (not Jim) is a god, and old school Akyroyd was pretty great. THE BLUES BROTHERS is a top twenty all-timer for me. So the reteaming should've rocked. However the decision to switch roles at the beginning of the shoot-while daring-was a huge mistake. Caused both performers to play against their strengths. End result: An unfunny dark comedy that grates more than inspires.
RIO LOBO-Wayne + Hawks one more time. No way this could go wrong, huh? Ouch!

1. Godzilla(1999): I spent most of my childhood watching and rewatching 70s era Godzilla movies. Even at 12, I nearly walked out.
2. Matrix Reloaded: Bowling pin sound FX. Fuck you.
3. Episode II: Anakin's finally old enough to do something interesting! And it's called Attack of The Clones! And Yoda's going to fight!
4. Spider-Man 3: I hated most of the movie, but it actually gave me MORE faith in Sam Raimi. The studio made him shoehorn in Venom, so he made the PERFECT representation of early 90s superhero comics.
5. Batman & Robin: Being 8 when Batman Forever came out and being a fan of the Adam West TV show, I unabashedly loved it. Even though I knew Schwarzenegger was a terrible choice for Mr. Freeze(I wanted Patrick Stewart so bad), the Batman movies were 3-0 in my mind. I hated this so much and my child mind couldn't even quantify why. This movie ended my childhood.

Can only think of 5 right now. Will edit later when I think of more.

Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Matrix Revolutions
Spidey 3
Cloverfield

Just a few I could think of off the top.

Let me add:

Anything John Landis made after Blues Brothers.

Anything Kevin Smith made after Clerks.

Popeye.

Trading Places. Coming to America. An American Werewolf in London. To a lesser degree, Three Amigos and Spies Like Us.

You lose.

Indeed. American Werewolf is head and shoulders above The Blues Brothers.

Hell, I'll throw INTO THE NIGHT and INNOCENT BLOOD into the mix of Landis's post-BLUES BROTHERS winners.

Edited because reading is fundamental.

hmm
The Lost World
Batman & Robin
Speed 2 (hey same director, and William DeFoe)
Ninja Turtles III (funny thing is, now in retrospect 2 and 3 suck, but 3 was borderline comic book related)
Mario Brothers - I was expecting something epic
Rocky V - umm he loses it all?
Superman Returns - I mean Singer@
The Two Towers - Massive drop in quality (extended version is okay)
Masters of the Universe - Dolph! Courtney Cox?
Cars - the pixar dark spot to me

Even if you're talking about late-period Landis, Slasher is a pretty solid piece of work.

Into the Night is misunderstood, Three Amigos is underrated. Trading Places and Coming to America are fricking classics.

The Postman. I should have known better, but I was blinded because the book is in my top 10 favorite reads of all time and it really couldn't be screwed up that bad, could it?

Costner in a sports film = money.

Costner in a post-apocalyptic wasteland = shit

Costner in a Western = solid-to-very good

Costner in anything else = usually pretty good as long as he doesn't do an accent

I'm a period piece buff with an interest in American History, so I had so much faith in Pearl Harbor. The trailer was brilliant and its imagery was so striking.

Then, I sit down to watch the film in the theater and I literally thought WTF?

Instead of carrying the mantle of recent WWII films like Saving Private Ryan (my favorite movie of all time) and the Thin Red Line, Pearl Harbor cheesed up with the bloated love triangle between Affleck, Beckinsale, and Hartnett.

Pearl Harbor did have some really great moments like the central piece of the film (the attack in Hawaii) but the extra shit surrounding it made it a wannabe and failed Titanic.

*Oh, and also, I am a huge Generations apologist. I could care less how the story was but seeing Kirk and Picard in the same frame was like Geek Heaven for me. I'll never forget Kirk's comment to Picard. "Call me, Jim."

These aren't in any particular order, save for the higher positions which naturally take precedence over the others on the "how could it fail?" meter.

10) No Country For Old Men: Several awards and endless accolades later, I still simply don't see the brilliance. Maybe someday I'll get there.

09) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Burton and Depp's take on Wonka seemed to be a can't-miss proposition, and while it's not a bad film, it's nowhere near as unique or cool as it could've been.

08) Mission: Impossible 2: Cruise, Woo, M:I, and Metallica - At the time, it certainly seemed like it would rock. Not quite.

07) Lady in the Water: During the pre-release for Lady, I was enthusiastically drinking M. Night's "modern fairytale" koolaid - I was ready for the man to blow my mind. And as an cinematic monument to his own existence, LitW is indeed mindblowing.

06) Jurassic Park III: I'll have to qualify this entry by stating that I was still a naive mid-teenager when this was released, and I was stoked to have a leaner, more efficient, and action-packed JP flick arriving in theaters. While it succeeds to a certain extent, I was still incredibly let down by the heavy schmaltz factor radiating from the Tea Leoni/Bill Macy characters, the lazy plotting, and the abrupt and totally unsatisfying ending.

05) Die Another Day: Pierce Brosnan's last Bond film and 40th anniversary outing for the franchise should've been a celebration of all things Bondian - Instead, I sat in the theater on opening night horrified at how badly the filmmakers miscalculated and misunderstood Bond's universe.

04) Van Helsing: The concept was right up my alley, the early concept art looked spectacular, the early trailers looked very stylish and cool, and all the pieces were in place for a fun monster mash of a movie. VH turned out to be an endlessly loud, obnoxious, stupid, and exhausting experience.

03) Freddy Vs. Jason: To be fair, there's no way that FvsJ could've lived up to years and years of adolescent daydreams about the potentially epic confrontation of these two characters. That said, it could've been so much more.

02) Superbad: A CHUD fave that I simply don't enjoy. Jonah Hill is obnoxious, and Michael Cera is never particularly amusing here either. The Mclovin subplot has its moments, but whenever I find myself warming up to the film, it hops back to the painfully overwrought high school humor in the main plot.

01) Batman Forever: This is the first time I can recall feeling completely let down by a movie - I was 11, the Burton films were far and away my favorite films at the time, and I was all over the hype for Forever. Alas, even at that tender age, I sat in my seat longing for the experience to end so that I could return home and turn on Batman: TAS.

10 The Village - I liked Signs for better or worse, so I was hoping that the next Shyamalan (SP?) film would be a good creep out, but boy oh boy was I wrong

9) Star Trek Insurrection - After First Contact showed that Next Gen films might have legs, this comes along and returns me back to reality that First Contact was a fluke.

8) The Matrix Reloaded - Aka the pretension express; fuck awful and lets not go there with the Burly Brawl which looked like a cut scene from Half Life...

7) Land of the Dead - After Dawn of the Dead remake worked so well, I had hopes that it would cause Romero to up his game and show the pretenders how it was done. Alas wrong again!

6) Alien 3 - In hindsight, I can see that its not an utterly awful film its just a movie that falls short at every turn and clearly suffers a lot from studio interference; but after Aliens the disappointment was strong when I left the theatre. Newt & Hicks dead in the opening moments, a Facehugger inexplicably on the ship... And of course a bunch of jobbing British actors all sounding bored. This film drained my soul for every moment I sat in the cinema.

5) Ghostbusters 2 - The first one I loved, the second one was utter crap. From the showdown with a painting to the pink goo covered Statue of liberty to give people a symbol of hope... I'd rather pour liquid concrete in my eyes than watch that again.

4) Return of the Jedi - The clues on how future Lucas efforts were there for all to see... but now when I see this film on TV all I hear in my head is Dan Ackroyd in Dragnet shouting "Watch out... Muppets!"

3) Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull - It could have been good, it SHOULD have been good, or have been at the very worst, okay. What I watched numbed me with its embarrassing awfulness that seemed drizzled with Lucas' hand of bland. Now checking out the Darabont Script and what that was like the insult is complete.

2) Spider-Man 3 - After the first two worked so well, to suddenly get a film that clearly had a director taking back seat to a producer saying "I know you hate venom and he isn't needed in this story but put him in now!" was just so depressing.

1) Phantom Menace - That trailer, the hope, the chance that we get a great Star Wars movie after 20 years; And we all know how that turned out. I'm surprised that it hasn't appeared in more lists in this thread. It surely must define the word Disappointment.

Iron Man.

Go ahead. Hate.

Why? It's your opinion mate and this is a lists forum.

Unless you're saying it purely for a reaction?

I found myself wanting to turn off the DVD player about ten minutes into Superbad. But I pushed on. And I'm glad I did, if only for the McLovin stuff. The rest of it? Nah.

I did have to wonder at all the love it received here, though. Maybe I just don't tune into Jonah Hill's wavelength. I did, however, appreciate that you could hear Rogen's voice in the writing. That was about the coolest part of the whole thing.

The 2 hour long shitmare that was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

You expected it to rock?
1. Video game adaptation.
2. Written by a Japanese guy who writes video games...
3. Often non-traditional video games
4. And it was directed by that same guy.

What's to rock?

EDIT: Hook is worth a mention here. It seemed like the perfect concept from the perfect director with two perfect leads. When I drink too much I still catch myself thinking intermittently about calling Hook and asking it out for one more date.

Maybe "rock" is a strong word, but for the first feature length CG animated film with nearly photorealistic characters, I had high hopes. The trailer wasn't bad, either.

It's moved on, man. You should, too.

This thread makes me sad. Not because I disagree (with some of it, I do), but becuase it just reminds me of all times some of these flicks disappointed me. I don't even have the will to list my own.

Of course he is. Why else would he follow it up with the invitation?

oh jeebus, i thought i was the only one. it played to me as an overwrought slasher flick. my best friend is like "then i don't understand. you should be all over it." and i'm like "but i've never claimed slasher films as an oscar caliber concept." don't get me wrong, i thought it was okay but i don't feel the need to watch it again.

Glad you feel better, but you're both wrong. Your inability to see the brilliance doesn't mean it isn't there. I've never seen France, but it's definitely there.

Shoot 'Em Up-Not fun at all. Just stupid in every regard, and yeah, I "get it", I just didn't like it, which is a shame, since Giamatti was having fun (should've been more villains like him in this thing) and Owen was effortlessly bad ass.

Smokin' Aces- Fun concept, good set up, terrible, terrible pay off. A waste of Piven.

Hitman- Fuck you, I liked the games, and thought this would at least capture an eighth of the-who am I kidding, this was a mess from the start. The worst climax in movie history: seriously, "Grr argh guy in robe with bow staff ouch I'm dead now there's a helicopter" end.

Silent Hill- Hey, two video game movies! When the hell am I going to learn that these are doomed to suck from the very beginning? How do you introduce a character as terrifying as Pyramid Head (and the concept of this character was a lot cooler in the-shut up, me) then not have him show up in the climax? Hmm I'm sensing a pattern here, what with the bad climaxes and all...

Snakes on a Plane- .....

All I will say is this: it should've been a warning sign to me when this movie opened with five minutes of a guy doing motorcycle stunts in slow motion.

Tomb Raider 2-I just have horrible tastes, don't I?

King Kong- A shame. That's not to say there aren't a ton of things to like about this movie (spider pit sequence? Awesome), it's just horribly paced, and I'm sorry Jack, you just...didn't fit. Also, check out the hilarious sequence where Kong shakes Watts for what seems like five fucking minutes, and I swear they must have used the same footage seventeen times.


Spider Man 3- This just depresses me so much, because there's a good, fun movie somewhere in here, it's just weighed down with so much stupid fat. And no, it wasn't the dance sequence that ruined it for me, I actually LIKED that, it's just, having your character enter into a boogie nights routine right after he just exploded his best friend (I know, I know, he was the new goblin and whatnot) and extracted brutal revenge killing on someone, only to have striking your girlfriend be the thing to make you realize you went over the edge (no to diminish that or to say that that's not horrible) is just...poorly done. The pieces are there, just in the wrong order.

Pirates 3-I enjoyed the first and second, which may lead to some confusion as to why I didn't like the third. Lots and lots of bonehead ideas, a script that is far too muddled, complicated ideas and concepts introduced way too late in the THIRD PICTURE, just a mess from start to finish.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God- Ha ha, made you look!

I totally agree. My wife and I saw this on opening night. There was a huge wait at the theater, the show started late because of all the older veterans in the audience, the VFW actually had a flag ceremony before the movie started, and then...it started. We both walked out more upset that the vets would be ashamed at the movie...

I'll chime in with JP2: Lost World as well. Read the book, sat down for the movie, and it just seemed lost in tone. To this day, I don't really think Spielberg directed it - I feel like that was one film he either totally phoned in or wasn't mentally there for.

I also bought all the Knowles' hype for "Sky Captain" and felt the same thing as the boards here. Bored. Jolie's character was the best thing.

However, I did like X3. Watched it again last week. I know, I know. I'll go back to my chair in the corner now.