Oh, two more came to mind, but they only get partial credit because I bailed on them after 20-30 minutes:
The Story of Us
The Savages
Yup. Surprised the hell out of me how bad a Clooney Movie was. Although the nude women were pretty nice, it wasn’t enough.
I was another that expected Black Swan to be fantastic, and although I didn’t think it sucked, I thought it wasn’t that big a deal either. Very disappointing, in fact.
One that I doubt many others will post: Wall-E. I went to see it in 3D at the Imax with my daughter and my then-GF, and we took it in turns to spend a long time in the loo rather than watch the film.
I’m not going to dissect why I hated the film, partly because I hate it so much that I don’t want to even think about it, and partly because so many people whose opinions I respect loved it. That’s fine, tastes differ, each to his own … You people caused us to pay for three Imax tickets to the public loos, you bastards! :mad:
This film was my cue to understanding that I really don’t like most ‘slow’ films. Just tell me a story, damn it!
However, for movies which are faster-paced, Mr and Mrs Smith was a letdown. From what friends had said, I was expecting a caper movie, shallow but fun, with good action set-pieces. Well, I got the shallow bit, but even then I wasn’t expecting something so shallow that an amoeba would complain about the lack of space.
Maybe I just have low expectations. I’m rarely surprised that a movie was worse than I imagined it would be. It’s a lot more common for me to be surprised when I find a movie is better than I expected. But a few that were worse than I expected:
On the Waterfront: Maybe I shouldn’t have expected so much from this. I’ve never liked the whole method-acting live-the-part idea. I generally found Brando to be an overrated ham. But this was supposed to be one of his great roles - but to me it was just another slice of ham. And the rest of the story was just melodrama.
Saving Private Ryan: Way overhyped. People were saying this was the greatest war movie ever made. Yes, the opening battle scene was amazing. But after that it was just another average war movie.
The Sting: A movie that I had somehow missed for decades after its release. I loved Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and I figured this would be its equal. Not even close. It was a good movie but very lightweight.
I wouldn’t say I hated the movie, but after hearing how good a movie it was supposed to be I was really surprised at how cheesy The Serpent and the Rainbow was and how cheap the special effects were.
Expecting that this trend of IMAX/3-D versions of movies is not going to die down soon, nor will tickets for these “special” editions get any cheaper, a good rule of thumb is probably to see a movie the “old fashioned” way before you splurge for the primo tickets, just in case you don’t like the movie. I know those IMAX tickets in particular are pretty steep.
[JEWISHMOTHER]Next time you’ll know shrug[/JEWISHMOTHER]
…oh, and WALL-E says 
Is this the martial arts flick with the black kid? How old was your friend when he saw it? I ADORED it as a 12-year-old, but saw it again last year, and my god, is it just awful!
Joe
The Happening. Oh, I’d heard it was bad, but my friends and I decided to rent it one night when there wasn’t much else at the video store.
For weeks afterward, I would turn to my friends at random moments and go, “Why? Why was it so bad? What is it I don’t even…Why?”
Buried. I think Ryan Reynolds is really a very good actor, and I’d heard some people recommending it, saying “it’s not what it looks like…” “it’s got more depth to it…” etc. I suppose it wasn’t what it looked like - it was worse. Sad part was that my friends had thrown it in their Netflix queue, and it arrived just as I started housesitting for them for a few days. I could have taken the bullet on that one and checked it out first, but I waited for them to get back.
Black Swan. It sounded good; I liked the premise. And then I saw it and was seriously disappointed. What a piece of crap.
Wag the Dog. It had a completely implausible plot (the President staging a fake war to help his approval ratings) and was just plain boring. When I had to use the bathroom in the middle of the movie, I made sure to take an extra long time and then hung out in the lobby for a few minutes.
A Fish Called Wanda. Goddamn what a waste of time that was. Most of the time I couldn’t tell when they were even trying to be funny.
Yes. With the villain Shonuff.
My friend was also a small child when he saw it, so I agree with what you’re implying. The difference is that unlike you, he still thinks it’s awesome.
The Forgotten. Watching it I thought it was OK, but driving home with my wife all of the plot-holes and “Hey, wait a minute.” moments flooded my head and I realized it was a lousy movie that made no sense.
I wasn’t expecting it to be amazing, but I felt totally let down by Inception. I’m active in fandom and a lot of my friends in fandom just fell in love with this movie and immediately started writing shitloads of slashfic upon watching it. So I expected it to be good and…well, have homoerotic undertones.
The actual movie was, imho, pretty mediocre, entirely silly, and I found myself scratching my head over why anyone would ship any of these characters, who were almost entirely free of any characterization at all.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
Somebody DO SOMETHING!!!
Way way too long, where nothing interesting happens for 90% of the film! And when teh sequence that we all know is going to happen (because it’s in the title) finally does, it’s a really dull event, and then the film ends.
I have a similar dislike of Atonement.
The Imax tickets are actually not that bad really - I was just taking the mick. Though the loo queues are horrendous.
I view ‘proper cinema’ as a once every couple of months’ extravangance. 3 tickets at the Imax, HUGE screen 3D, nice cinema, 20 mins from our house, = 10-12 quid each. But it’s a special thing, and for us to do the same at the local cinema would be 7 quid each at the times my partner could make after work. The Imax makes it worth not watching at home but the local cinema usually doesn’t, not for these big films.
I really was just disappointed about this film. Even the 3D was boring, considering that 3D is still relatively new. I was just bored. So bored I can’t even be bothered to explain why.
Let me guess. Was George Lucas involved in some capacity?
Let me guess. Was George Lucas involved in some capacity?