The only movie I’ve ever left the theater for because of the movie itself was Repulsion. The main character’s mental illness is deepening, and she hallucinates hands emerging from the walls. This was so disturbing to me at the time that I had to leave.
The latest one I wanted to walk out of was probably Les Miserables. I went in to see what all the fuss is about. Yeah, I knew it was a musical. The religious theme was torture. I stuck it out, but it was a slog. Saves me from ever having to see it or read it or anything again.
English as a First Language?
And why would you assign a film you had never seen?
Personally, I consider something on cable or TV or even a rented video different than the theater. Stuff at home you can just turn off, or go do other things. A rental feels a little bit like a waste of money, but otherwise it’s just the time hit. But a movie ticket is money vs the time spent, and you can’t pause and take a breather and come back later, or rewind to make sure you understood what they said. Or fastforward to look for the fights, explosions, or naked bits. And often you’re with someone else, and it’s awkward to have a conversation about whether it’s worth staying or if they’re wanting to leave as much as you do.
A recent movie I bet a lot of people walked out of is “Out of the Furnace”. I didn’t hate it, but I caught it at a discount cinema and there was only me and one other couple there. This is the movie with Christian Bale and Woody Harrelson. This is NOT a typical revenge plot thriller, and definitely not an action flick. This is a character study story along the lines of the original Rocky. It’s a story about who these people are, primarily Christian Bale’s character. The pacing is really slow in setting up the situation where Casey Affleck’s character gets into trouble. There is a lot of superfluous material if you were looking for an action flick - the whole subplot with the girlfriend, the time in jail.
I don’t know how I forgot it, but there was a third movie I walked out of: Showgirls.
EFL = English as a Foreign Language.
I had to look it up; most places I know call it ESL, English as a second language. I think Second is more PC than Foreign.
I don’t remember the name of it, just that it was a James Bond flick, and he had jumped onto the back of a fire engine, and was riding on the ladder being thrown around while turning corners or something. It was pathetic whatever the heck it was. Definitely much too sloppy for the Mr. Bond I was familiar with.
I love going to movies in the theater, and I go to quite a few of them, but I walk out of one whenever the hell I want to. The only thing that at all redeems a really crappy moviegoing experience for me is the satisfaction of having taken the initiative to end it.
I’ve never asked for my money back, though. Seems to me it’s not the theater’s fault that the moviemakers let me down. And it’s not as though they can sell my ticket to somebody else who might like it better, the way a bookstore can re-sell a returned book.
Anyway, a few movies that I can recall walking out of, in a theater, after having bought a full-price ticket, include:
Man of Steel. I made it as far as what was probably the antepenultimate massive battle scene before the cognitive dissonance between the scenes of overwhelming disaster and tragedy and my own personal feelings of boredom just became too great. The destruction-to-achievement ratio was simply too high to keep my interest.
Snow White and the Huntsman. (I’m with you peptastic, that was just not worth the trouble.)
2012. Oh, please.
Good Will Hunting. Hollywood’s travesty of actual math research. The scene with the completely bullshit discussion of Ramanujan is when I got up and left.
Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson in a Bond spoof). I lasted 20 minutes.
I go to a movie theater once a year, first show on a Wednesday in the middle of the summer.
So much for 2003.