What's the most disappointing movie you've seen?--Al

-- Al Schroeder (al.schroeder@nashville.com), March 03, 2001

Answers

Barbra Streisand's version of "A Star Is Born."

Badbadbadbadbadbadbadbadbadbadbadbadbadbadbad

-- Bev Sykes (basykes@dcn.davis.ca.us), March 04, 2001.

Although, anyone could have probably seen this coming.. Mr. Wrong. My god what a horrible movie.

-- Jen (Winter@nyc.com), March 04, 2001.

The biggest letdown was the second Indiana Jones movie. My (then) wife and I had loved the first one, and we stood in line for hours for the first (midnight) show of Temple of Doom. Boy was that disappointing. (the third one was good, though)

The only movie I ever walked out on was Pink Floyd's The Wall. Halfway through my (then) wife (the same one) and I turned to each other and said, "Let's get out of here"

-- John Bragazzi (utown@worldnet.att.net), March 05, 2001.

Well, there is a huge difference between a bad movie and a disappointing movie. Often disappointing movies are bad, but sometimes they are just disappointing.

For me a disappointing movie has a lot of potential. The right auspices. Maybe I've read the book. I dunno. Usually I am most disappointed with a movie when I am looking forward to it so much.

I think my biggest disappointment lately was "The Grinch" I wasn't expecting that much, but I couldn't believe what a piece of crap it was and was highly disappointed that this group of people couldn't make a better film.

I was disappointed in "Titanic" I was really looking forward to it, and I thought it was pretty bad.

I was very disappointed in "Jurassic Park," which I thought was such an interesting book. I thought it was a pretty bad movie.

There have been some highly disappointing sequels ("Two Jakes," "Texasville," "Alien 3," etc...)

I hope I am not disappointed in "Harry Potter."

Most disappointing movie? I am drawing a blank. I know there is one.

ally

-- ally (ally3223@aol.com), March 05, 2001.

I was very disappointed in "Elizabeth." Being an anglophile, I'd looked forward to that movie for a long time. The costumes were lush, the scenery lovely, the acting was thoughtful and well-done. But. I thought the history was shoddy and the assumptions about what Elizabeth I thought and what her motives might have been were facile and shallow. Give me Glenda Jackson any day! Catherine

-- Catherine (hinesc@mindspring.com), March 08, 2001.

I think "Hannibal". I'm usually able to submerge myself in a movie and not bother criticizing until later, when I think back, but it was just so incredibly bad, I couldn't get an inch into it.

That or "The Man Next Door", a video my sister picked up a month or so back. It looked like a promising independent horror flick, but turned out to be an art school project full of bad acting, worse writing...the only 'horror' to it was the production quality.

-- mokie (mokie@twoshades.com), March 09, 2001.

"Picasso," a Merchant/Ivory movie from a few years ago. I love M/I and Anthony Hopkins, but this was just SO BAD. Usually even mediocre films stick with me, but I can't recall one scene or line of dialogue or memorable set decoration or anything from this movie. When I saw it, I couldn't believe the filmmakers misfired so badly, especially after gems like The Remains of the Day and one of my all-time favorites, Room With a View.

-- Sarah (sarah@schismatic.com), March 15, 2001.

Defenitely Hannibal. That peice of shit was merely created for your boredom. So many irrelevent scenes that it's sick! To top it off, they ACTUALLY compared it to the magnificent Silence of the Lambs! Big NO NO!

-- (ptomlin@swbell.net), April 17, 2001.

8mm--- I looked forward to that movie coming out more than any other movie I can remember. Maybe I was expecting too much, but with Nicholas Cage in the flick I thought it would be great, he doesn't usually do bad movies. I was sorely disappointed... Nothing about that movie impressed me.

-- Tricia Bassett (tmb1022@juno.com), April 29, 2001.

Most Disappointing Movie: Bedazzled

I saw the original Bedazzled starring Dudley Moore and Peter Cook. It is much better than the forgettable remake. My male friends like the idea of Liz Hurley--in that dress held together with giant safety pins--but not in movies that destroy her sex appeal. Joe, my significant other, did admit to liking the outfit her devil character wore while teaching a class of boys. Anyway, in my unscientific poll, my male friends have a problem with a movie that can't decide if it wants to be a G-rated movie or an X-rated movie. It's like the XFL: the commercials promise that football players will be killed (or at least horribly maimed) and that cheerleaders will be naked. Needless to say, the XFL does not deliver.

People do not like bait and switch. People do not like to be promised one thing, only to get the opposite. That's why Americans hate politicians. They never deliver. Hollywood occasionally delivers on what the trailers for coming distractions promise. The Bedazzled remake does not deliver.

As a woman, I hate to admit it, but Liz Hurley is not a bad looking gal. So why didn't the Brendan Fraser character simply stop wasting his time chasing the other woman who wouldn't give him the time of day? Instead he should have asked the devil, as played by Liz Hurley, that he wanted to marry her, settle down, and raise a family. That would have been a more interesting movie. Doubtless in the sequel his son would have been the Antichrist (as played by Ronald Reagan) and his daughter the Whore of Babylon (as played by Madonna). So even the sequel would have been more interesting.

Why does Hollywood make disappointing movies? Answer: for the same reason that politicians disappoint voters. No, it's not compromise. It's pure unmitigated EVIL.

Politicians and studio executives have an unwritten code that forbids them to give people what they want or need. If a voter or moviegoer wants something, they are immorally obligated to deny them. Simple perversity. Sadism. Why should a politician or a studio executive give people something when they can sadistically deny it? The Bedazzled remake touches on this but never explores it. The original Bedazzled does explore it by an ending in which the devil is denied readmission to heaven because he (as played by Peter Cook) wanted to do something good for the Dudley Moore character because it felt good. God forbid--literally!

In the remake, the filmmakers deny the moviegoers any happiness because it felt good to them to be bad to us the moviegoers. Now I'm sure the filmmakers did not put this level of thought into their script, direction, or editing. This was, no doubt, unconscious on their part. Studio executives, on the other hand, have no such excuse. They routinely thumbs down a director's cut and instead impose a studio cut to release. How else do you explain that movie after movie has an unpleasant ending? How else do you explain the plethora of tacky movies? The Adam Sandler and Dumb and Dumber urination & defecation (U&D) school of filmmaking.

Not long ago, we had the kick-the-guy-in-the-crotch school of filmmaking in which every movie had to have the obligatory scene in which a guy got hit in the crotch. It still rears its head in many movies but this particular brand of tackiness has found a permanent home on TV in the form of America's Funniest Home Videos and on action series. We can expect U&D to invade television shortly and perhaps replace T&A. George Orwell was right: You can desensitize people to anything (unless a particular individual does not want to be desensitized into complete imbecility). There are actual college courses on stultification (how to make people more stupid and more docile).

By the way, the original Bedazzled had nothing to do with sex or lust. It was about the devil using a human as a means of getting back into heaven. It was hilariously funny and had great music. I can't even remember any music from the remake.

Second Most Disappointing Movie: The Fifth Element

I have to agree with Ally 3223's remarks that whether a movie is good or bad has little to do with whether or not it is disappointing. If you go in with great expectations, then expect to be disappointed. No movie can live up to Hollywood hype when you go expecting the greatest thing since sliced bread.

The first teaser posters for The Fifth Element with the five blue flames intrigued me. I have should have expected another Bruce Willis explosion fest when the Bruce Willis/Gary Oldman/Milla Jovovich poster came out but I was already hooked.

I have seen the movie over 50 times. I stopped counting after fifty viewings. At first I liked the movie, then I started hating it, then I reached a point where I am still not sure how I feel about it. Suffice to say, other people had a quite different reaction and there will be no sequel. As with Star Wars, the director made a derivative movie. That is, everything and I mean, EVERYTHING in the movie (both Star Wars and The Fifth Element) was borrowed, stolen, or "paid homage to" ideas in other movies. The Fifth Element pretty much confined its stealing to other science fiction while Star Wars took its Joseph Campbell mythology from Westerns, The Wizard of Oz, and anything else that is not nailed down.

The Fifth Element could have been a great movie if the Ruby Rhod character was edited out or not there in the first place. Director Luc Besson's approach to editing did not permit you to feel moved, inspired, happy, or sad before yanking you off into a new scene with a very different mood from the previous. Besson said he was trying to keep people glued to their seats instead of leaving during the movie to buy popcorn or use the restroom.

I also did not care for Leeloo's orange suspenders and striped pants but that's just me.

The Fifth Element is such a disappointment that I won't even make it make most disappointing but instead my second most disappointing movie.

That's my opinion.

--CHG

-- Charlene Hamilton Gardner (CharleneHamiltonGardner@femail.com.au), May 07, 2001.

"Moulin Rouge" I heavily anticipated this release for a couple of years. I think some aspects were wonderful, but a lot of it was just silly (in a bad way). Catherine, I am an anglophile as well and I adored "Elizabeth". Sorry you couldn't enjoy it as much. Cate Blanchett was robbed for the Oscar that year. Gwyneth is good but "Shakespeare in Love" was not her best work.

-- anderwillow (anderwillow@aol.com), May 04, 2002.