The part of The Manchurian Candidate that I managed to sit through was an insult to Sinatra, Lansbury, Frankenheimer and the rest of the original brainwashed mouseketeers.
Hulk = One hour of uninteresting character development followed by one hour of big green guy smash things. Some of the special effects were good, such as the bomb hitting the house then blowing him backwards and him fighting the tanks. The action quickly became monotonous though. Did they have to go to such lengths to show that Hulk didn’t kill anyone? Every time he smashed a military vehicle, someone got on the radio and shouted, “We’re ok!!”
Gothika, though to be fair, I wouldn’t have watched it had I realized what it was about (I was, for some reason, expecting a psychological thriller, and not a supernatural one.) Although, I doubt I have to warn anyone. I think it’s fairly widely accepted as bad.
So I’ll add “Unbreakable” as a serious nomination. I thought the idea had a lot of potential but the movie was excruciating to watch. I realize he was going for the whole comic book look, but the camerawork in the movie drove me absolutely bonkers - especially the scene with the camera panning back and forth between the seats on the train. By the time the scene was done, I was royally annoyed. And the entire movie was full of annoying camera stunts like that. Had he been able to deftly mimic comic book panels without the effect of “Hey check out THIS neat camera angle”, it might have worked. Instead, I spent a big portion of the movie saying “oh just shoot the damned movie for crying out loud.” That aside, the story felt largely unfinished - as if he suddenly ran out of budget and had to stop filiming. (We’ll just throw a made-for-tv-movie-style text epilogue on the end and no one will know the difference!) From what I understand there was originally an intent to make it a trilogy (or so) but its failure at the box office rendered that unlikely. Even so, most movies, whether they’re made with the intent of serialization or not, have a sense of completion to them, but I didn’t get that from this movie. THe pace was painfully slow, and felt aimless. Honestly, it shouldn’t have taken the entire two hours (or however long it was) to tell the story that was told. That could have been done in half an hour, easily.
Good potential, wasted. The most prevalent crime in movies, if you ask me.
re: the comic book look
Another thing Hulk did beautifully.
That is all.
I saw that years ago when it first came out. “Good” is not a word I would use in reference to it, but I’d gladly watch it again over Pieces of April or Lost in Translation. Four hours of mind-numbing tedium right there. Pretty settings and a “mood” instead of a plot are not my idea of a good movie.
I liked Shrek 2, although I thought the music sucked. The songs in the tavern were tolerable, but I really, really could have done without “Changes”, “Funkytown”, whatever that crap Counting Crows song was, and especially the Eddie Murphy/ Antonio Banderas version of “La Vida Loca”. (And the ending where they freeze-frame on them jumping in the air, with fists raised? WTF? If they were going for irony, they took a wrong turn and ended up at the intersection of Dorky and Cringeworthy.) The Fairy Godmother Song was amusing, but “Holding Out For A Hero”-- ugh. It’s kinda cool that Jennifer Saunders can sing (I never realized that before), but that song sucked when it came out in the '80s and time has done it no favors. The music for the original Shrek was good, except for the tiresome “All-Star”. (That song was okay the first million times I heard it, but the next five million? Not so much.) And using “Halleluia” for the “Sad Montage” was not the cliche then that it is now.
The Village-- boring.
The Bourne Supremacy-- unless you’ve got a cast-iron stomach and are impervious to motion sickness, avoid.
Maybe he was using his special 1000-star scale, just for this one. 
Bubba Ho-tep. What. The. Hell. Although I did like the mummy in cowboy boots. It would have been nice to see more mummy and less Elvis obsessing about the growth on his pecker.
I liked that movie a lot… and let’s face it, any guy is going to worry more about a growth on his penis than a mummy that’s killing nursing home residents.
Second “Starsky & Hutch”. VERY short on laughs. VERY long on cliches. Even “Hollywood Homicide” was better.
I’d like to UNVOTE
Hulk
It’s nice to see a little “HULK” love here. I liked it better than “Spiderman”.
Bubba Ho-Tep
definitely not for everyone, but if you’re game for picking up a movie about JFK and Elvis in nursing home, I can’t imagine why you’d be disappointed.
Hidalgo
drm – You rented a movie about people racing horses across the desert. What part of this movie DIDN’T live up to your expectations?
I thought it avoided a lot of the standard action stuff. It was primarily filmed in Morocco and had a great look to it. Viggo’s character was understated and interesting, and he killed a guy in cold blood, which the hero NEVER does anymore. Some very beautiful shots in this movie, some solid action sequences, good performances by Viggo, and Omar Sharif. Moved along at a good pace.
Hidalgo
The story is predictable and full of cliches (the daughter of a powerful man is going to be forced to marry someone she does not love), the characters are stereotypical, and I totally didn’t buy the storyline (specifically the ending). There was far too much plot, much of which was unnecessary. If they just made the movie about the race and left the rest of it alone, I would have enjoyed it much more. I didn’t find the Frank T Hopkins character the least bit interesting as I found him flat.
I will give you that the movie was aesthetically pleasing and had a good performance by Omar Sharif.
I liked collateral, The Bourne Supremacy and Spiderman 2 (if we are unvoting)
Agreeed. It was fun, exciting, and motion sickness inducing. DO NOT watch this movie from third row center. It is hazardous to your dinner. That nice, delicious steak that almost ended up on the theater floor.
While I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a very good movie it wasn’t a bad movie. I found it to be pretty enjoyable but for the most part easy to forget. Plus it had Sam Elliot.
I nominate Cabin Fever as one of the worse movies I’ve seen recently. It wasn’t scary, it wasn’t funny, the characters were completely unrealistic, and the plot just didn’t make any sense.
Marc
I have to second Gothika. I have no excuse for watching because I knew it was supposed to bad going in*. It turned out to be even worse than I expected (and I expected pretty damn bad). I asked myself (outloud, even) more than once, “Why am I watching this?”
However, I really liked Collateral and Spiderman 2 (thought it was better than the first one which I also liked). Was entertained by I, Robot and Bourne Supremacy (but then I wasn’t expecting anything more than mindless entertainment by them).
Sam Elliot’s in Hulk? Damn, now I’m going to have to watch it.
*Damn Netflix - it’s so easy to add movies I’d never consider watching if I had to pay outright for renting them individually.
School of Rock
Secret Window
The Big Bounce
De-Lovely. This movie just frustrated me. From what I’ve read they wanted to explore Porter’s personal life. Instead they just barely peeked at it. whenever the script started to get to some serious emotion and potential understanding, one or more of the characters would burst out into a ridiculously inappropriate song. If they wanted to showcase the music, they should have just made a straight-up, honest to Og musical.
And FTR, I loved Collateral.
Kill Bill Vol. II. What a letdown. After the over-the-top action of the first one, I wondered how Tarantino was going to top it in the second one. It never occurred to me that he wouldn’t even try. Vol. II was basically two hours of talking; I was very disappointed and annoyed. I bought Vol. I on DVD, but Vol. II will have no place in my collection.
Troy. I know, I know, most of you are smarter than that. The thing is, an old friend had just started staying with me because his marriage was ending, and I thought it’d cheer him up, since he’s a history buff. I was wrong. He was more wrong. Let’s just say the sun rose in the west three times, the siege of Troy took 3 weeks, and a girl fell in love with a man who she thought was going to rape her minutes before. A supposedly strong, noble, intelligent girl! I’ve seen unspeakably bad movies – I’ve seen both Ghost Dad and Magnolia – but this was the worst!
CJ
Excuse me – I feel the need to wash my brains out with soap now!
This thread is why I rarely go to the movie theater. So much crap out there, you really have to scrounge for a good movie. Pretty much all of these looked bad from the previews. I don’t like action movies, or stupid comedies, or anything that’s an odyssey.
Pretty much, I like movies where very little happens, and that’s why I loved Napoleon Dynamite. Just my kind of boring.
I really want to believe that