Films that look like they'll be great but aren't.

[wuher da brewer]

Last night I watched Battle Los Angeles and it was really, really bad. It looked decent in the trailers, even for an alien invasion movie, but it was even worse than Independence Day. I even skimmed the end.

Very disappointed.

You mean you didn't like the military recruitment, er uh - I mean, alien invasion movie? I felt like they were going to start beating their chests and chanting, "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!", by the end. Or maybe they did that, I don't recall. I guess I clearly wasn't the target audience.

There have been any number of films that I wanted to like upon seeing the trailer, Phantom Menace, Transformers, X Files 2, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Terminator Salvation, Zombieland, Iron Man 2, The Matrix 2 & 3, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Really Dull, Every Harry Potter film following after The Prisoner of Azkaban has been an utter snooze fest, The Expendables, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The A-Team, A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), Clash of the Titans (2010)... Unfortunately, upon viewing them, I was left disappointed.

There have occasionally been movies that surpassed all expectation... District 9 instantly comes to mind. Such a great, believable character arc for what amounts to a very realistic, thoroughly disgusting middle manager and the aliens and their story and the way it's handled is just awesome. Thor seemed like a really, truly silly tertiary super hero, unfit for a movie, next in lameness perhaps to Aquaman and I expected something really stupid and terrible along the lines of Ghostrider or Jonah Hex when I went to see it, but I must admit I really enjoyed myself.

 

[Apollo]

Any of the SW prequel trailers

 

[Kennyd]

Inception.

 

[wuher da brewer]

Oh, I forgot about Inception. The ending of that movie felt like the director flicked off each and every one of the audience and told them to suck it. I HATED THAT MOVIE!

 

[jackkillian]

Skyline takes the cake it was utter garbage. Was amazed by the trailer but the movie had no point and when people started to bit it I said thank god instead of dang. I refuse to walk out of a movie but that was the closest I have come to in awhile. I kept thinking it has to some how get better.

 

[msmuse101]

300...nuff said!

 

[Davlin]

Transformers 2. Scott Pilgrim ( über disapointment ). Number 9. Skyline. Despicable Me. Surrogates. Speed Racer.

Most probably Transformers 3. Clips of it are impressive; but so were those from TF2...

Spider-man 2 IS a GOOD movie !!! 3 is crap.

 

[Daddy Solo]

:thumbsdownThe Phantom Menace (AOTC & ROTS too now that I think about it), The Punisher.:angry

 

[iycis]

300...nuff said!

Agreed. I fell asleep during it and have had no desire to try rewatching it.

 

[Birdie]

Spiderman 2 is probably top of my list of most overrated movies of all time. Mopey overlong soap opera with ridiculous plotting, but I guess that's Marvel all over.

At least you can entertain yourself with how ludicrous 3 is. The dance scene was hilarious.

 

[Jet Beetle]

Yeah - well, I saw a rough cut version of The Thing tonight - good God. Your lists will be gaining an addition very soon.

 

[mandoman]

Good God, Transformers 2 was the definition of suck. I'd rather watch Phantom Menace.

On the other hand, I'll second what a few others have said, and say that I very much enjoyed Thor. Best Marvel movie so far, yep, liked it better than Iron Man.

 

[SSgt Burton]

Yeah - well, I saw a rough cut version of The Thing tonight - good God.

Sorry to hear this... and at the same time I'm not the least bit surprised.


Kevin

 

[GeneralFROSTY]

Hallpass was pretty terrible. Glad we went to a matinee showing so we payed less for it. That's the most recent one I saw in theaters that I thought sucked. I try not to see comedies in theaters since they are usually hit or miss with me.

 

[PantheraGem]

The trailer for "Superbad" made it look supergood, but it truly lived-up to it's name.

 

[shapeworks]

To me, the worst was the percy jackson movie!!! They just destroyed the book by not following the plot AT ALL and the casting was HORRIBLE!!! They were supposed to be 12, not 22 years old!!!
In my opinoin, this is who the cast should have been (for the 3 main charicters

Percy:
Josh Hutcherson

-He would have been perfect!! He looks like percy, and is the right age too!!

Annabeth
AnnaSophia Robb

She would have been perfect for annabeth too!! Her name even starts with anna!!


Grover:
??????????????????
I can't think of anyone for grover... Tell me what you think?

 

[CB2001]

J.J. Abram's Star Trek (aka J.J. Abrams Infatuation with Lens Flare on a poorly designed and executed Apple Enterprise with an iBridge).

 

[blip]

J.J. Abram's Star Trek (aka J.J. Abrams Infatuation with Lens Flare on a poorly designed and executed Apple Enterprise with an iBridge).

Lol, will you ever let that go?
It started pretty good, then faded off.
Bout this lens flare thing, when I was a kid (under 10) and picked up my first camera, I was told the first and most inportant lesson. Get the light behind you and never shoot into the sun. Soooooo, I have to admire somone who turns to face the light.

 

[Andy]

Yeah - well, I saw a rough cut version of The Thing tonight - good God. Your lists will be gaining an addition very soon.

Good grief, it's that bad?

The Carpenter version was a seminal film during my adolescence and always fell into the category of movies with that right convergence of talent, story and timing. It's incredibly perplexing why we need a re-imagining to rehash the fate of the Norwegians which was essentially spelled out in the first forty minutes of the original film.

 

[CB2001]

Lol, will you ever let that go?
It started pretty good, then faded off.
Bout this lens flare thing, when I was a kid (under 10) and picked up my first camera, I was told the first and most inportant lesson. Get the light behind you and never shoot into the sun. Soooooo, I have to admire somone who turns to face the light.

There's a difference between having lens flare in one or two shots and in every shot in one location. Like any cocktail, lens flare should be used in moderation (and should only be used for symbolism or to point out something important). I swear, with the amount of lens flare he used, it was like he told post production to throw in lens flare everywhere in the bridge scenes in order to hide the terrible iBridge design he approved.

And, not to mention, the question was "films that look like they'll be great, but aren't." Star Trek falls into it. It's like he couldn't decide in either being true to the original ST or doing a complete re-imagining, so he decided to come up with a terrible plot in hopes that no one could see that he couldn't make a decision. Hell, Star Trek: The Motion Picture was better than J.J. Abrams Star Trek.

I've said my piece and I'm done.