I just got done watching THE ONE with Jet Li and I was thinking that the idea of the multiple universes with the same person in all of them, tied together some how was a pretty good one. But I think the movie would have succeeded had it not dumbed itself down to a Matrix-VanDamme flick. The effects were tight though.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the film was pretty entertaining, and if you haven’t seen the dvd you should. It has some of the few extras that are actually worth sitting thru. Fun to watch. I just think that the idea could have been developed better in a non action flick. Maybe something like Terminator style sci-fi.
Another one to put in this category is gonna be the upcoming Freddy vs. Jason movie. This movie is every 80’s kids dream matchup and you just know they are really gonna screw it up and try to make it all SCREAM’y.
Come on, Who here has never wondered who would win between the machete and the claws?
Let’s see if we can top James Cameron! poof. Alien 4.
I think bad ideas turned (through style, good acting, whatnot) into great movies is more interesting though.
The Trigger Effect was a good idea: massive power failure, no one can get news about what’s going on, society starts to deteriorate. But DAMN, did they screw up the execution of that idea. I cannot recommend the movie for any purpose, not even for shimming a shaky table.
Everyone, horror junkies and casual viewers alike, were most interested in the premise–a film found that depicted the last days of a group of campers investigating a local scare legend. The movie is regarded as one of the best all time by some, but it wound up to many missing an element or two–an unexpected shadow, a semblance of common sense among the panicked campers, expansion on verisimilitude–that prevents the vast majority who watch declare it the best of all time. So one can say it was a ‘just miss’.
Oh sleestak, the ending to the Stephen King book The Running Man may make people today very uncomfortable, even if it was much better overall than the movie. The only reason I would watch the movie again is for Jesse Ventura’s “Bare Hands” speech.
I agree on The One. Ever since I saw it I have been thinking about how great it could have been if it hadn’t been turned into pointless Matrix ripoff barely an hour long. Imagine seeing the story of Yulaw, once policing the multiverse, going through the trauma of having to kill one of his other selves, and then discovering he had acquired new power, and his decision to hunt himself to become a God. That’s a movie in itself.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (The TV series has more than proved how good it COULD have been.)
I disagree on Starship Troopers. I think Verhoeven recast Heinlein’s clumsiest writing effort into a tight little film. (god … I can’t believe I just complimented Verhoeven on anything) Granted, his spin was the complete opposite of Heinlein’s thinly veiled manifesto, but so what. An interesting retelling. And, as cool as the MI was in the book, it would only look derivative in this post-Robotech world.
Just like to step in and say thanks whenever anybody steps up to the plate and defends STARSHIP TROOPERS – an underated film that intentionally undermined the book, which was filled with rigged arguments and young characters too stupid to put up a decent argument against the propaganda put forth by their teachers.
The Myth of the Male Orgasm this movie had really interesting things to say in very many ways, but the execution was really sub par. A bigger budget and actors that didn’t sound so much like they were reading for a stage audition and it could have been a great film.
At the very least it could have been as provocative (in the thinky kind of way) and potentially contentious as Chasing Amy (though the plots are radically different).
It had an excellent foundation in script and concept (I know some guys who really love it for voicing some of their thoughts), but the overall quality of the film grated on my nerves.
I suppose it’s not fair to put an indie-type film in this thread though.
Anything by Stephen King - all his books are great.
The only exceptions to this (meaning good films) are:
Shawshank redemption.
The Shining.
Carrie.
All others (Stand by me (The body), Needful things, Christine, The Stand, Tommyknockers, The dark Half, It, The Green Mile, Misery, Salems Lot etc…) didn’t come close to the book.
Final Destination. This was the horror movie where a bunch of kids were going on a trip, and the plane they were taking crashed, and some of the kids didn’t go, but they were “fated” to die anyway. Very neat idea. But by the end of the movie, they were just running away from the bad guys, like every other crappy horror movie.
American Psycho. As with so many things, the film just didn’t do justice to the book, and reduced the whole premise to ‘maniac goes around killing people’. Very disappointing.