Little things that would make a movie better

I think Godfather III would have been improved exponentially with original choice Winona Ryder as Corleone's daughter. Granted, my primary memory of GF3 is Sofia Coppola's lousy performance, so it would have probably made a debacle into something more forgettable.

Open Range

 

A perfect movie..that overstays it's welcome by a pointlessly strained, unausing, & unnecessary five minute epilogue. The film should've faded out on the image of Costner & Bening in the garden.

 

 

Blade Runner: The Final Cut

 

It's 99.99% perfect but Scott's switching the great, vitriolic, & thematically sound "Fucker" for the lame & obvious "Father" nearly kills the film for me.

Sunshine

 

My issues with the odd turn it takes in the third act keep it from being great. Those moments are no more than 5-10 minutes of the overall movie, but it takes me out of the film in a major way. 

My love of Sunshine notwithstanding, "the direction of the third act" is pretty much not a little thing.

I think it was small because ultimately, it served as a third act obstacle and brief fight scene that lasted only a couple of minutes. I felt the third act could have headed in pretty much the same direction it did, minus those moments.

 

EDIT: To clarify a bit, those moments feel less like a third act turn and more of a brief pit stop.

The epilogue in Matchstick Men needs to go, keeping the dark and downbeat ending of the book.
 

My main memory of Titanic is Gloria Stuart making that squeaky "Oo!" sound when she dropped the necklace into the ocean.

I always felt like the ferry resolution in The Dark Knight came off a tad arbitrary, and Batman's confidence in the outcome really unearned.  I think it would've underlined the themes better if there had been some gesture at making Harvey Dent's example the inspiration for the civilians not blowing up the other boat, rather than just the one guy chickening out.  Even something as simple as an "I Believe in Harvey Dent" poster over his should while he's deciding.  And have Bale's insistence that the Joker's wrong about people be a little more desperate, like he really needs to believe that it's true, but doesn't know.

The Avengers

 

A film that I was initially lukewarm on but have come to really love. The "little" thing that's consistantly difficult to deal with is Cap's poorly made, poorly designed costume. The material, the white shoulder things, the "helmet" with ear protectors. Just awful.

The ferry sequence always bothered me, and I think you nailed why. The only way we really know that Dent served as a symbol is because Batman told us at the end. I get that Batman is supposed to be a voice of the people, but it would be nice to have seen any of those people confirm his assumptions.

In Point Break, I think Lori Petty should've bleached her hair blonde.  It would look terrible on her, mind, but it wouldn't feel quite as much like Keanu was doing love scenes with his little brother.

Actually, I thought Trinity looked a bit too much like his sister in "The Matrix", too.

Monkeys.  There's not a movie ever made that wouldn't have been improved with more monkeys.

Well, we know that tiny monkeys didn't keep Community or Animal Hospital on the air.

The Game

 

Over time, this has become my second favorite Fincher film next to Zodiac. I think people are turned off a bit by the ending, but

 

 

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

Kiss of Death('95) would have never been a great, but man David Caruso sucks as a tough guy in it. It's got a fantastic cast, but he just sucks the life out of it. He probably could have pulled it off when he was older.

It also makes him look tiny. At least it seems that way, since he still looks huge in other scenes. My main issue is the exposed chin, it just looks silly.
I was also very lukewarm on the score but I like a lot more now.

I think Sunshine's third act issue could have been solved if it just had a scene where Gina Davis is tied to a water wheel.

The Captain America thing is tough because his outfit does need to be different from, and more artificial than, the rest of the team's. Everyone else wears stuff that's a functional extension of their skill-set or, in the case of Hulk and Thor, just their street-clothes. Cap's garb is explicitly a costume, in line with his duties as a symbol and a role model.

Return of the Jedi: Should've gone with Plan A (Less ewoks, more Wookiees)

 

OK, maybe that doesn't really qualify as a small thing, but still...

 

Centurion: Lose the tacked-on love story in the last twenty minutes or so of the film.

 

Batman Begins: If only Maggie Gyllenhaal had been cast as Rachel Dawes from the start. I'd still have issues with the way the character was written, but at least they would've been tempered by a better performance.

Edited by Workyticket - 11/7/12 at 5:07am

I'm a Krull fan (yes, I exist) but even I can acknowledge the movie has some flaws. I think my biggest problem with the movie involves the hero's main weapon. It's a great weapon. No, honestly, it's awesome. Look at it!

 

 

It bounces off walls and does cool things. Even Jesus uses one to smite his enemies!

 

And the hero does virtually nothing with it apart from at the end where it proves to be virtually ineffective against the main villain. In my opinion, this whole movie would be ten times better if Prince Colwyn had used the glaive a lot more throughout the movie and if it had been utilised a lot better in the conclusion (seriously; screw the whole love fire thing and just throw that pointy star around a lot more). Imagine going to see Star Wars and Luke only uses his lightsaber at the end of the movie, only for it to break?

BATMAN BEGINS: That DA character Rachel works for should have been Harvey Dent from the beginning. Maybe then we would have seen a little more Two-Face in TDK, as the character would already have been (partly) established. But then again, it was clear that Nolan was mre interested in Dent than the Face, anyway.

On a similar note, the prequels would be significantly stronger if Dooku were introduced in TPM.  Possibly he and Qui-Gonn should've been the same character, but at least have him in the council and funeral scenes.

 

Similarly, I don't know why Grevious wouldn't be Darth Maul.  You don't even lose out on a new toy, but it gives Obi-wan some history with the villain he's chasing around for half the movie

Yup. Agreed on both; and this is just further evidence that a trilogy needs some sort of rough throughline written out in advance.

Prometheus - Charlize Theron is great.  But why is she in this movie again?

 

Just have Weyland running the mission, since his appearance is the lamest attempt at a twist I've ever seen anyway.

 

Agreed on this. If Weyland had been a member of the expedition from the start, Prometheus would have been a vastly improved film, not one without flaws but one without the most idiotic and poorly telegraphed Lost-style "twist" I've seen in a feature length production in the last couple of years.

Plus it spares us the head-scratching manner in which the movie treats her as a hiss-worthy villain even though she acts the most reasonably of anyone in the film.

Alien: They keep the monster in the darkness, you get brief glimpses of its nightmare visage in between flashes of strobe light, and it is scary. And then it's blown out of the airlock and suddenly it's just a tall skinny dude in a rubber suit dangling around on a string. Kills it a little bit for me.

I like Speed Racer, but I agree that the kid and the monkey are horrid. I hate, hate, HAAAATE that final scene where they interrupt the victory kiss. Downright Jar-Jar-ian.

I've always thought Peter Jackson missed a great opportunity in the death of King Theoden in Return of the King.

He just shouldn't have projected the guy's death. I've always felt a bigger impact could have been achieved if Theoden was taken out in front of Eowyn's eyes in one sudden surprising swoop, almost like a jump scare and definitely no use of slow motion. It would have heightened the feeling that no character is safe in this final battle.

Well, there's that whole rape subtext. The female protagonist at her most vulnerable kinda plays into that.

 

On that same note, why cast Guy Pierce?  I mean, I like the guy as an actor but I was totally distracted by that horrible old man makeup the second he hit screen.

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Haha, I get ya. The analogy in action is hardly subtle. Still, it's a hot chick in ridiculous future panties. Enjoy the view:)

 

He was scripted to appear as a young man in a dream sequence or somesuch.  It probably wasn't needed, but without it the whole thing does look kind of dumbfounding.

I love me some Guy Pearce but "Old Man Weyland" is one of the worst onscreen performances of the past few years.

 

See also: Winona Ryder, exclusively in old-age makeup for Star Trek. The hell?

Battle Royale - What is a great, great movie has one annoying flaw. That the kids tend to shoot each other with about 10,000 bullets. The effect is abit too 'Jackie Chan' for such a sombre film.

 

Paranormal Activity - Cut the last two seconds...

STAR TREK 2009: What the fuck was up with that Tyler Perry cameo? I remember the whole theater gasping, "MADEA...!" Distracting as hell in what is otherwise a well-cast film.

I disagree. There is a ton of black humor and satire in in Battle Royale and I think the overload of bullets works for the film. The entire movie is all about being an adolescent and all the heighten emotions that come with high school and puberty. One day a high schooler may fervently wish that their former best friend would die in the most horrible way possible because of a careless comment that has cut them to the bone. The next day they are the "bestest of friends" again and all is forgiven.

Speaking of STAR TREK 2009, the casting of Harold as Sulu bugs me to death. Why? Because Sulu's Japanese & Harold is Korean.

 

Lazy casting by JJ "Hey, all Asians look alike, am I right?" Abrams.

Is there anything in Sulu's backstory that says "I MUST BE OF JAPANESE DESCENT!" though?

The of Japanese descent George Takei having played the fucker for 50 years is reason enough for a little skewed accuracy.

Did it bother you that Simon Pegg was not Scottish?

Ugh...well, this is going nowhere fast.

I'll take Sunshine over Prometheus any day of the week. I think Sunshine actually pulls off that ending, even if it's not what people were expecting.

 

 

I like Strawberry Fields, but I hate Gemma Arterton. She gave as mannered and artificial a perforamance as I've ever seen. Her character, a consulate worker who gets swept up against her better judgement in Bond's quest for vengeance- to fatal effect.

 

The problem is that while Craig and Mathis are taking part in the best scenes of the film, she's there looking barely human. Imagine how much better the film would have been with a more grounded Fields.

 

I do like her death though. Appropriately unpleasant, clever (to throw the UK and Americans off the trail of the secret water), and serves to set up Bond's awesome final 'fuck you' to Greene.

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It has more to do with how shoe-horned & unnecessary the whole Mark Strong/crazy man bit is. It's almost as if Garland & Boyle didn't have full confidence in what they actually did have, which was The Wages Of Fear...In Space where the Sun and the unpredictable nature of space travel itself are substitutes for dynamite.