Biggest Letdowns of the Last Decade

[Neil]

should get some interesting thoughts and ideas...

I'm still working on mine

Elizabethtown

Spiderman trilogy.

Hostel II

[picolas]

this is tough because you try to blot them out when they're truly, soul-shatteringly disappointing..

The Matrix sequels. i read an ending online that worked better than revolutions in so many ways. kills me to this day how wrong it went.

Episode II. i still held out a hope that Lucas had, as he said, made Episode I for kids simply because it starred a kid. even though it sounded like a shitty made-up excuse. i still had some hope.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. we'll always have the teaser.

Southland Tales. though i was prepared for extreme disappointment looong before actually seeing it.

Death To Smoochy. this was going to be the best movie ever. c'mon! Ed Norton as a kid's show host! Robin Williams looking up in the sky exclaming "WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN???" i was pumped.

Birth. from the maker of Sexy Beast comes one of the worst things i've ever, ever seen.

Avatar. that teaser may have been the single most disappointing minute of my movie-watching life. also disappointing: people not disappointed by it.

maybe more later.

[cine]

clearly "top 20" needs to be removed from the thread's title.

[Pas]

Lord of The Rings : Return of the King was a letdown to me. After the great, great Two Towers, this one felt overly long and I was bored. I fell asleep both times I've seen it, once in the theater once at home.

300, after so many people thinking it's the bestest thing ever, this was disapointing. Though I liked it.

Quantum of Solace : One of the worst ever Bond film after one of the best.

[pete]

I'm goddamned snippy this morning

adaptation
a shitty ending that's too clever but entirely half-assed and missed its own point.

lost in translation
privileged people doing pale imitations of wong kar-wai

matrix 2 and 3
nobody remembers what happened

american splendor
they need to watch curb

be kind rewind
I still cried at the end - but they could've done much better

ponyo
it's for babies

monster's ball
maybe if I watched it before the oscars I wouldn't've been letdown.  no halle berry would ever fuck billy bob, no matter how sad.

batman begins
same ol' shit but shaky camera

shaun of the dead
it was like that peter jackson one except this one argued way too much and had no good setpieces

smoking aces
that trailer was so cool...

old school/ wedding crashers/ the hangover
I hope judd apatow doesn't think they're funny either.

quantum of solace
even cooler trailer+even shittier editing

the president's last bang
korean drama/ satire/ recount that had a really boring ending

bubba ho-tep
a waste of a great cast and premise

[polkablues]

no halle berry would ever fuck billy bob, no matter how sad.

An Angelina Jolie did...

[brockly]

DEATH PROOF

every valid piece of criticism thrown at the kill bills was glorified tenfold in this poor excuse for entertainment. a lot of respectable people seem to loved it, but i think it's one of the worse movies of the decade. i probably would have liked inglourious basterds more if this didn't exist.

[B.C. Long]

Just about every single Marvel comic book movie sans Iron Man.

Public Enemies - How could you go wrong with Christian Bale and Johnny Depp as leads?

Inglourious Basterds - fuck you and your bullshit grindhouse influence quentin.

Indiana Jones 4 - CGI gophers.

Star Wars Prequels

Fantastic Mr. Fox - mark my words.

Sin City

[Alexandro]

No particular order:

L'Humanite: This was torture for me.
Pearl Harbor: I didn't imagine this would be too good, but even with that in mind it was beyond preposterous.
A Beautiful Mind: I reallu thought it was going to be less by the numbers than it was.
The Notebook: almost walked away after everyone told me it was great.
Innocent Voices (Voces Inocentes): actually walked out even thought people were telling me it was fantastic.
A Very Long Engagement: turned out a little boring.
Melinda & Melinda: neither too funny or too tragic, right?
The Brown Bunny: beyond words.
Cars: The one and only pixar misfire.
Superman Returns: I don't know what I was expecting, but not this.
300: Turned it off after the first 25 minutes that felt like an hour in slow mo.
Before the Devil Know You're Dead: Just too predictable.
indy 4
The Happening
Benjamin Button
Slumdog Millionaire
Lake Tahoe: After the firs film from this guy I expected a new direction.

[john]

The Darjeeling Limited

It's a shame that I can list Wes Anderson's films in order of preference just by listing the chronologically. I know I didn't appreciate Life Aquatic as much as his first three, but it still wasn't evident that Anderson's aesthetic was becoming derivative and formulaic yet. Even if his films were burdened by their own conventions and set designs, they were sill too much, too sweet, and too subtle for be to really notice. That changed with Darjeeling. It's almost like a Wes Anderson homage created by someone who misses the joys of Anderson's films entirely. It's cynical and has no subtlety. There are two terrific sequences in it, though, the opening bit with Murray and the train, and the NY flashback. Those are two great, isolated, short films that could stand with Hotel Chevalier. It's pieces like that, and every film before this one, that will keep me optimistic and excited in Anderson.

Palindromes

It's like second rate Ivan Brunetti, and I'm not even that big of a Brunetti fan to begin with. Just like, Darjeeling, it's weaknesses exposed a director unwilling to expand aesthetic or cultural view. It's petty and myopic, and doesn't do anything Citizen Ruth did way better a decade earlier. Solondz can seem so scathing and incisive, but here it's like he's screaming into the wind saying something we've already heard him say time and time again. Life During Wartime doesn't look like it's going to change that, but it looks like he's found a more authoritative voice to say it in.

[children with angels]

Every post- Sweet & Lowdown Woody Allen film, most of which have been hailed by one quarter or another as his "return to form". This has caused me to be let down again and again, except perhaps in the case of Vicky Christina Barcelona, by which point my expectations had become helpfully low anyway.

[Stefen]

That was 1999, yo. The best year in cinema ever.

[Neil]

Everything post 'Unbreakable' by M Night


Planet of the apes, fuck off mark wahlberg. and burton for that matter.

a beautiful mind, and everything else ron howard shit out after that.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

Fantastic Mr. Fox - mark my words.

No.

[pete]

no one's expecting it to be any good.