Nice point. Hard to disagree with you.
Point Break was a weekly ritual for us in college.
Tango and Cash - I don’t remember being bored…but the only thing I do remember is it starred Stallone and Russell.
I had another one…but it was so unremarkable, I forget what it was. Maybe Harry and the Hendersons?
The Nicholas Cage movie that took place on a plane…late 80’s early 90’s?
I’d add The Man with One Red Shoe, but it had Carrie Fisher in her undies, or The Money Pit?
I think you mean Con Air.
Yeah, that was a dull movie made from a very-underrated book (the book is hilarious).
Anyway, Keanu Reeves comes to mind as another performer who’s made a lot of movies that sound as though they’d be intriguing, but that turn out to be quite dull. For example, 2000’s “The Watcher,” 2006’s “The Lake House,” and that pointless 2008 remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”
I don’t think the “unremarkability” of these movies can be blamed wholly on Reeves’ infamously impassive acting style…the writing is at fault, too.
Staying Together (1989)
Summer Rental (1985), starring John Candy. He plays a burned-out air traffic controller who is forced to take a vacation, so he rents a beachfront house in Florida, and takes his family along. The first half or so shows Candy bumbling through various comedic situations as only he can; until he somehow gets involved in a yacht race, where more comedic situations occur.
There’s no message or moral here, no standout performances, no special effects, no unusual plot. I’d suggest that it is just as unremarkable as Gung Ho (if we can use that as a benchmark), and is likely today only remembered by John Candy fans.
It’s hard to remember an unmemorable film, but the first one to come to mind is My Blue Heaven starring Steve Martin and Rick Moranis. I saw it in the theater, but I remember nothing about it. According to Wikipedia it as a 71% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so it couldn’t have been too bad.
That’s a great example, the kind of movie where when you hear the title, the whole issue of whether or not it is a real movie is still up in the air. Was that a movie? Did I see it? Maybe? Maybe not? If you had said “Summer Rental starring John Candy” and then gone on to describe Candy and his college roommates renting a house in the mountains where they discover a bunch of bank robbers living on the lam and they have a talking camel, in a comedic way, I still would have been thinking “oh yeah, maybe I saw that? or heard of that?”
Some of the Disney animated films are classics, some have memorable characters, some have more than decent music.
Then there are the four they made in the 1970s.
The Aristocats
Robin Hood
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (stitched together from three earlier shorts)
The Rescuers
None of them were what I’d call bad, but were any of them remarkable for any reason?
“Whistle Stop” is still my go-to whistling tune (followed closely by the overture to “The Barber of Seville”). Also, it was reused as the hamsterdance tune, for whatever that’s worth.
I just watched World’s End for the second, and likely last, time.
Starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost again, this is the third of writers Pegg and Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy.
I found the first two, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz hilarious, brilliant, and much-quotable. Couldn’t say the same about this final instalment. It wasn’t bad, and was actually imo kind of clever, but there just wasn’t anything remotely approaching the first two in quality or quotes.
I’ll always stop and watch if I’m channel-flipping and come across the first two, even though I own the DVDs. Wouldn’t bother for the third.
I saw someone describe World’s End as the Godfather 3 of the trilogy.
Yup that’s the one
Seeing Summer Rental mentioned, that reminded me of The Great Outdoors with John Candy and Dan Akroyd, and Funny Farm with Chevy Chase
I came across one in my own DVD collection today and thought WOW I have this? Michael J Fox as Teen Wolf
Stripes with Bill Murray maybe? Or Spies Like Us with Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd. Both aren’t their best, but have their moments.
Eddie Murphy’s Doctor Doolittle.
Most people probably think of Vibes (Cyndi Lauper, Jeff Goldblum, Peter Falk) as being not very good, but I think it’s underrated, though still not all that great.
I wouldn’t say it’s the Godfather 3 of the series, but it was an unremarkable end if that is all the films those guys make together. I’d rank them:
- Hot Fuzz - Hilarious and a rare genuinely funny comedy. 7.5/10
- Shaun of the Dead - Less funny, but very awesome. 7/10
- World’s End - OK. 5/10, square in the forgettable zone.
Didn’t watch Hot Fuzz, but both other movies are at least for me in topic title zone. As is another Pegg’s movie, where he contrabands some alien through the desert. What was the title? Frank? Bud? Clark? Jeff? Or something similar.
“Paul” (with Seth Rogan as the voice of Paul).
I remember it, but mostly because in the summer of 1985, my 12 year old self had quite the thing for Kerri Green, having spotted her in “The Goonies” earlier in the summer.
(looking back, I’m not quite sure what I was thinking, but then again, I was 12, so who knows?)
I think “The Great Outdoors” with Candy and Ackroyd is probably about as unremarkable as movies get; I remember thinking that it was mediocre WHILE watching it at the theater, and it hasn’t improved (or gotten worse) as it has aged.
Unmemorable recent sequels:
**Wrath of the Titans
Evan Almighty
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters
RED 2
**
Released just last year:
The Good Dinosaur
Insurgent (also an unmemorable sequel)
Tomorrowland
Just plain unmemorable:
**Snow White and the Huntsman
Gone in 60 Seconds **(I remember a review comment that turned out to be true: “Forgotten even faster”)
**The Judge
The Lake House
The Adjustment Bureau **
I taught summer school for about ten years (it’s good summer money for a teacher). I’d offer up the movie “Summer School” as reward if we got far enough ahead of schedule to kill a couple hours on a Friday. It could have been made on an assembly line; just entertaining enough to not fall intoLeonard Pinth-Garnellterritory.
I couldn’t remember which John Candy movie I was thinking of, and it turned out to be a strange memory-mix of Summer Rental and The Great Outdoors.
Actually, John Candy was in a whole bunch of really, really ‘meh’ movies. Especially if Dan Aykroyd was also in it. I know I’ve seen Nothing But Trouble, but I don’t think I could tell you anything about it even if I was being tortured.