Biggest movie Disappointments

[CupofJoe]

Just about all Alfred Hitchcock films.
I don't get why he is rated so highly.
Psycho is a one trick pony [and Bernard Hermann's music is the best part].
The Birds isn't scary.
Vertigo has James Stewart acting like a loon.
North by North West is implausible to say the least [and has one of the best on screen goofs, when the kid covers his ears before he sees a gun let alone it being fired]
and other films like Rope and Lifeboat at technically impressive but no longer entertaining to me.
The Lady Vanishes is fun enough, but that mainly the ensemble cast playing [especially Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as Charters and Caldicott respectively, as cricket obsessed Englishmen]
The only Hitchcock film I like is Rear Window. That was because I luck enough to see it on a big screen [I mean huge] from a restored 70mm print. The restoration and clarity of the film was amazing. Each of the rear windows in to other people lives were as large as any screen you could have at home and full of detail.
I saw Lawrence of Arabia on the same screen and now that long distance shot makes sense.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I think it was the little things that made his films stand out. Obviously he had to direct within the confines of the story, with relatively tight budgets and without the special effects trickery.

It's some of the little touches in the background, or which might go unnoticed, but which helped to set the atmosphere or give a clue as to what was happening.

The 'vertigo' effect he produced in that movie with the camera zooming in and dollying out simultaneously was an example of a master at work.

I think the further away we get from the source material, the harder it can be to appreciate the innovations and techniques that would have been wholly unfamiliar to a cinema audience. Many of these movies are over half a century old and have been remade, copied and parodied to such an extent that the original gets lost amongst a detritus of later material.

We also have to remember that these were movies being made to appeal to cinema goers of the 1950s and 60s, not to a 21st century audience who in many ways live in entirely different times.

But I agree that he was a better technical director than he was a master storyteller.

 

[Toby Frost]

I think a lot of the Hitchcock films are very innovative and well-directed, but they've dated very badly.

 

[BAYLOR]

Godzilla (2014) - Horrid movie with a nauseous script. Godzilla was not even in the movie much. I was bored watching this flick. I disliked all the characters. I wanted everyone to be eaten. Or at least. stepped on.

Godzilla vs Kong (2021) - Another waste of time for this fan of the big mutant lizard. Too bad, because 2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters was pretty good. Even the campy 1963 King Kong vs Godzilla was far more fun watching than this 2021 junk.

I liked Godzilla , Godzilla King of Monster and Godzilla vs Kong.

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) - I agree with actor Chris Hemsworth, who played Thor. "I didn't like this film." Too bad, because this movie did have potential, but crapped out with a horrendous script.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) - I could have easily told the owners of Marvel to not create another story arc. Just make a good movie from any of the great comic books from the past. But unfortunately like so many other things Disney has grasped recently, it turns into unwanted sludge.

I didn't bother going to see either of these films.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Hah they call these ‘hot take threads’ on Twitter

Everything ain’t for everyone. I’m trying to think of a film that didn’t meet my expectations or hopes but at the mo my mind is blank. I suppose the recent Dune qualifies but then it was just an advert for Fry’s Turkish Delight so I’m not sure it counts

 

[Rodders]

I've struggled a lot with the Marvel universe after Endgame. They aren't good movies at all.

 

[CupofJoe]

There is definitely a case of diminishing returns.
And No!
Adding extra realities/dimensions/timelines doesn't make a weak story stronger.

 

[Swank]

Given it's pedigree, I was extremely disappointed in Portrait of a Lady.

 

[Baldanders]

Villeneuve's Dune: and my disappointment is caused not by simplified universe - for movies it's a common practice. But characters. Characters (not actors, but heroes they are playing) in the movie are not like they were in the book. And it's not clear why they were changed so much in the first place. Doesn't seem like reducing characters' nobility traits, strength and manipulation skills makes the story better. In the book all of it only adds more depth and contrast into the scenario.

 

[Dave]

I've often been disappointed by movies that were hyped up, so I now tend to go along with a very low expectation, and hope to get surprised if I'm lucky. The 3rd Matrix film is a good example of that, and so I wasn't disappointed by it being so pedestrian. I think that is the secret to avoid disappointment; just don't expect anything! I haven't yet seen Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and I'm expecting nothing from it apart from fan service.

It was much harder to do that when I was younger, because I couldn't read comments warning me about films before I went, in places like this, and also because of the very long time you had to wait before a film was released. Quite often, there was a delay of up to three to six months between a film released in the USA and before it was released in the UK. That's a long time to wait for something, and it is just asking for disappointment when it arrives. Return of the Jedi was already mentioned in this thread earlier, and there was a very long wait for that. I'd read the Alan Dean Foster novelisation before it was released, but you couldn't help but be disappointed by watching the actual film, and that was supposedly the end of the trilogy, and the final installment. Watch it back again now, and it isn't really so bad.

I've often been very disappointed by book to film adaptations. Something such as Dune is too complex to ever be adapted into a single film, however long it became, and some books will never work on the screen because of the nature of their story, just as some films could never work as a novel. However, a agree with @Baldanders that changing characters or scenes from a book for no valid or particular reason can ruin what the book was actually about. I haven't read the book, but I can see that the Where the Crawdads Sing would be very disappointing to anyone who had read it first, for that reason. On the other hand I just saw A Man Called Otto, and they changed much from the book to adapt it to the USA settings, but most of the scenes and character's personalities are still exactly as in the book even with different nationalities and names.

Sometimes the reviews and critics are wrong though, or the previews don't match the actual product (like when the only three good jokes are shown in the trailers already.) Everyone has different tastes. You can see that appear here in the Star Wars TV threads because people are looking to get entirely different things from their viewing experience, and what some like, other do not. In a way, I miss not knowing anything about a film before I watch it. There was once a time when I'd go to the cinema once a week and watch whatever was showing. It was very hit and miss. Sometimes it was awful, and then other times you'd get Alien. I no longer do that. Instead, I carefully decide what is worth seeing at the cinema and what I can stream. We still buy DVDs sometimes, which our children think is hilarious, but a good film is worth watching again.

 

[Adeptus]

Disney Star Wars, because I used to be big fan of SW (not only movies, but Expanded Universe too). VII Episode I accepted partially on the hype 'Sw are once again in the cinemas". In VII I actually liked Rey-Kylo plot, but Finn-Rose-Poe plot was very weak. In IX I disliked nearly everything.

 

[BAYLOR]

Disney Star Wars, because I used to be big fan of SW (not only movies, but Expanded Universe too). VII Episode I accepted partially on the hype 'Sw are once again in the cinemas". In VII I actually liked Rey-Kylo plot, but Finn-Rose-Poe plot was very weak. In IX I disliked nearly everything.

Still better then the Lucas's prequels.

 

[BAYLOR]

I agree. The Final Countdown was not worth my time or money. Not then and ironically, not now!

This film would be a good one to remake but , with a different ending .

Actually, Id like to see them do a movie series based on John Birmingham's Axis of time novels.

 

[Prieneus]

The Blair Witch Project and Inception first pops into my mind.

 

[BAYLOR]

The Blair Witch Project and Inception first pops into my mind.

The Blair Witch was un-scary and colossally overrated
Inception had an interesting concept and great visual visuals but was not a great film .

 

[paranoid marvin]

The original Blair Witch I thought was pretty scary, especially the ending. Then again, I have traipsed through woods alone with noone else around and in semi darkness, so I know how spooky an overactive imagination can make them. BW essentially confirmed that those fears were all too well-founded.

But it is a personal point of view, and horror - along with comedy - is the most subjective of genre. For instance blood spattered movies, clowns and spiders don't scare me, and gross-out comedy like Jackass, Dumb and Dumber and American Pie doesn't make me laugh. But for some this is exactly what they're looking for.

 

[Ian]

For me, "Return of the Jedi". I couldn't believe this when I saw it back in 1983. A vast, galactic empire beaten by a planet of teddy bears? Leia is Luke's sister? Maybe Chewbacca is Han Solo's granddad? No great surprise the new films were even worse when they eventually arrived.

 

[BAYLOR]

For me, "Return of the Jedi". I couldn't believe this when I saw it back in 1983. A vast, galactic empire beaten by a planet of teddy bears? Leia is Luke's sister? Maybe Chewbacca is Han Solo's granddad? No great surprise the new films were even worse when they eventually arrived.

The Lucas directed Prequels are utter crap . The Abramsfilms are decent but don't have the magic of the originals. Of the new films the best of them is Rogue One.

 

[Pyan]

The Lucas directed Prequels are utter crap

But the trilogy grossed over $4.4 billion at the box office worldwide, with each film surpassing $1 billion worldwide. Someone out there doesn't agree...

 

[BAYLOR]

But the trilogy grossed over $4.4 billion at the box office worldwide, with each film surpassing $1 billion worldwide. Someone out there doesn't agree...

Sometimes , there's no accounting for audiences tastes .