I would have walked out of The Golden Compass but the people I was with wanted to stay, and I was their ride home. Whoever was responsible for that movie forgot there was a story to tell and concentrated solely on the high points of the book, maybe to show off the makeup and special effects. Huge disappointment.
I see over 100 movies in the theater every year, including some truly awful ones. But I can only remember two that I’ve walked out on.
The first was Pootie Tang, an incompetent parody of blaxpoitation films, which was so violently stupid it made me want to punch a nun after 20 minutes.
The other one was Raindrops, an independent film that miraculously scored a limited release, despite a cast with all the acting talent of a box of doorknobs and a story so insipid it made Pootie look like Chaucer.
I considered walking out of Rocky Road (or as I like to call it, Schlocky Load), a particularly bad drama about a white doofus with a racist father who falls in love with a black girl. I wonder if at some point in the movie there will be a conversation about the Larry Bird poster that’s in every shot?
There is.
Only reason I didn’t leave that one was because I was with somebody who was a FOAF of the writer/director.
I couldn’t quite get to the end. It was a struggle to stay as long as I did. Since there were to be no medals awarded in recognition of my sufferings, I left.
I walked out of the X-Files Movie; my impression was that it was just going for horror-shock value and had no redeeming qualities.
I’ve since heard from other people that it was actually OK, but it was awful enough at the start that I didn’t want to hang around on the off-chance it improved.
Saturday Night Fever. I can’t remember how old I was, very early teen, maybe? ::checks IMDB:: I was twelve, and went to the movie with my mother. There was swearing and sex, and it wasn’t quite what she was expecting! I didn’t like it, either, so we left. That’s the only one; I don’t see many movies in the theatre any more. I’m more likely to rent or buy a DVD nowadays.
I walked out about 30 minutes before the end of Hancock. Once I had the “explanation” about where his powers came from I wasn’t interested in sticking around for the obvious finale, and I really didn’t care about the outcome.
The previous movie that I walked out on was The Siege (Denzel, Willis et al). Oh, the cliches, they burned! I didn’t last 30 minutes on that one.
Roddy
The Flintstones “Viva Rock Vegas” film. Mum had some comp tickets and sent me and little bro off to see it during school hols. It was that bad we walked out less than halfway through.
I walked out of whichever Indiana Jones film had Sean Connery in it. It was halfway into the film and he hadn’t appeared on screen yet, but we were being endlessly subjected to some blond bimbo with a horrible German accent and wooden faced acting.
I snapped. I got up and left. To this day I haven’t seen ithe movie through to the end.
I should have walked out on the remake of Planet of the Apes, but I didn’t think it could stay that relentlessly bad. But it did.
I’ve never actually walked out on a movie, but I seriously considered walking out on Flower and Snake, a Japanese movie that was on the film festival circuit a few years ago. It may have been based on a “classic” novel, but the movie was pretty much just softcore porn. And I’m not talking about good softcore porn, I’m talking bad softcore porn from Japan. Well over half of the audience walked out.
I walked out of the third Austin Power movie and sat in with a movie I’d already seen and liked.
I walked out of Shrek 2, but that was because I was testing to see if my three year old nephew was ready for the movies. He wasn’t. Otherwise, I liked it.
those are the only movies I think I’ve walked out of.
In Species 2, about 20 minutes in some characters walk into a gore-filled room. One of them says “This is just awful”. My wife and I looked at each other, got up, and left. We fully agreed with that summation of the movie.
More recently, I walked out of The Other Boleyn Girl, which was pretty, but vacuous – more detail of that one here.
The only one I ever walked out of was Mel Brooks’ History of the World Part One.
I wish I could have walked out of The English Patient. I was so confused and really didn’t figure out what was going on until the last 5 minutes. I wanted to leave so bad, but my girlfriend was rapturously watching the screen, with tears running down her face. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her how stupid this movie really was.
Natural Born Killers (I like violent movies, and stylish movies, and Woody Harrelson, Rodney Dangerfield, Juliette Lewis, et. al. but this movie was so bad that 2 hits from Owsley himself could help it)
I know I walked out of something last year, too, but (thankfully) I can’t remember what it was.
Only one I’ve ever walked out on was Howard the Duck, when it was at a second-run theater. I was a budding comic book fan at the time, so I wanted to see it, but my mom and I sat there for half an hour, we realized both of us were bored, so we left.
A few I wish I could have walked out on, but couldn’t for various reasons:
John Carpenter’s Vampires. My then-wife and I were both rather disturbed by the blatant misogyny, but had gone with a group of friends, and we needed to stick around.
Interstate 69 (or something similar). A locally-produced comedy, ostensibly named for one of the Interstates that runs through here, but more obviously for the sexual connotation. It was meant to be a raunchy slapstick thing, but was poorly-acted and dull. It premiered at a dance club owned by a friend, and there was going to be dancing afterwards, so I stayed; also, the director, producer, main actors, and their families were all there, so it felt rude to contemplate getting up and leaving. (One odd highlight for a friend was that a waitress he had a crush on was a bit actress in the movie, so he was able to chat her up with that knowledge.)
Luminous Motion. Did the festival circuit. Not a bad film, really, but I was just boredboredbored throughout. A friend had joined me and another friend to see what this “indie theater” thing was that we were supporting, so once again, we were stuck.
My main movie-going friend to this day wishes he could have walked out of Andy Warhol’s Trash and Female Trouble, but since I’d driven, he had to stay.
I walk out of movies at home all the time, which drives my husband batty. He’s a completest: if he starts a movie, book or television show, he must see it through to the end, even if he hates it. Me, I think there’s not enough time to waste sitting through a movie I hate when there’s the internet to be surfed and books to be read.
But I’m also terribly polite, so I almost never leave a movie in the theater midway through because I don’t want to ruin other people’s experience by having me stand up in front of them and make noise walking out.
However, I did walk out once: The Ghost and the Darkness. This looked like a great movie. Remember it? Man Eating Lions of Tsavo? They’ve got the actual lions at the Field Museum here in Chicago, and I’ve visited them as long as I can remember, so I even had a personal connection to this movie.
For those of you who have mercifully forgotten it, let me summarize: Africa, trains, natives building train tracks. Lions eat them (the natives, not the train tracks). Call the Great White Hunters! They hunt the lions, they miss the lions, they hunt the lions, they miss the lions, they hunt the lions, they miss the lions, they hunt the lions, they miss the lions, they hunt the lions, they miss the lions, they hunt the lions, they miss the lions, they hunt the lions, they miss the lions and we walked out.
Since I’ve seen the lions at the museum since I was a kid, I guess they eventually didn’t miss. Don’t care anymore.
I walked out of Sweeney Todd because I was bored out of my skull, I didn’t get to the gratuitous gore so no idea if it really was that bad or not. I didn’t realise before I went to see it that it was an opera style musical, with people just singing the dialogue, had I known I wouldn’t have bothered.
I also walked out of Red Dragon but that was because the friend I went to see it with was properly starting to freak out, I wasn’t that bothered by it.