Okay the title is over simplifying it a lot. These are just films I didn’t like, some aren’t necessarily bad, but were more a victim of hype. There’s going to be a few (and I can guess which ones) which a lot of people will disagree with, but taste is subjective so here goes, if you disagree, let us know with which ones. Oh, and there’s plenty of spoilers so, be wary of that. In alphabetical order because, well how the darn else would I do it?
Disappointed with this as I think it’s a story that needs to be told, and the story itself is really compelling, it’s just the way it’s told which lets it down. Kind of boring and bland, and the biggest flaw is you don’t feel for the characters so you don’t really care either way what happens to them. I remember this event happening, people were hooked to the news eagerly awaiting each person as they came up, the euphoria felt around the globe is something I had never felt before, and I don’t think have since, this was a breaking news story with a happy ending. A film of that needs to capture the tone of the outside world, as horrible as that sounds it’s true, the reaction to the event turned it into something else, and that’s what’s lacking from this film, context in a wider world. You either do that or you go completely the other way and make the entire thing set in the mine, never showing outside so that we feel the claustrophobia, this film tries for a middle ground between the two and as such doesn’t achieve what it could.
This suffers from what I call “Extras Syndrome”. Anybody remember Extras? It was Ricky Gervais’s next show after The Office and its main “gimmick” was that it had a celebrity cameo in every episode. As such people weren’t talking about the episodes, they talked about the cameos, they overshadowed the actual stories. That’s my problem with this film, it has so many cameos that it overshadows the film, maybe I’d like the film more if I had ever watched the series, but a good film adaptation of a television series also needs to appeal to people who haven’t watched the show, and this doesn’t do that.
My main issue with this film was how uneven it was, subtle as a brick in parts, annoyingly vague in others. Scenes end when they should continue, and continue when they should end so overall the whole thing doesn’t seem to flow that well. Ewan McGregor does have moments of brilliance in his directing, but they’re let down by times where his inexperience shows, maybe this was too big a film for his first attempt. I think in a few years time he will direct a film which I will truly love, but this isn’t it. The scene which shows that is the scene where one of the main characters bombs a post office. That scene should be the highlight of the film, it should seem big, it should resonate with the audience, shock and wow them. It doesn’t do that, it just kind of happens and that’s that, you feel nothing in the immediate aftermath, you don’t feel the shock that the community does. On the plus side; Jennifer Connelly is amazing in this, as is Dakota Fanning.
It’s pretty much a step by step remake of the first one, only with more of a nodding wink to the audience and with a higher budget. It seems to overestimate how important the original one was. Yes, it was very important at the time, but that time was 17 years ago, they’ll be people seeing this who were still babies when the original came out, there’s a whole new generation of horror fans who have been raised on different films (albeit, films which have been heavily influenced by the original). If this film came out in the mid 2000s then it would have been a lot better as it would have seemed more natural, as it is it just seems a bit pointless. It doesn’t seem to add or explain anything about the mythos, it just makes a bigger mess of it. I understand wanting the audience to ask questions when they leave the cinema, but they should want to ask questions, they shouldn’t need to, it shouldn’t be essential to understand the film, the film should stand out on its own. Side note; the worst horror movie ending ever? The Devil Inside. A 2012 horror film which ends with a title card telling you to go on the website to find out more. F that.
Otherwise known as “Melissa McCarthy calls a woman a cunt then punches her daughter in the face”
An odd film, funny in parts but it seems strange in the way it handles the main character. All through the film he’s shown to be a delusional person who annoys everybody. Logically this film should end with him realising the error of his ways and changing accordingly, maybe stop being such a dick to everybody. But nope, this ends with everyone else changing for him, and saying “he’s not that bad really”, “I quite like him actually”, and he the character doesn’t do anything to deserve this, they all just suddenly decide they like him now it’s reached the end of the film. I actually feel a lot of sympathy for the supposed antagonist of the film, all through the film he’s shown as someone who’s just trying to get on with his job but the main character keeps getting in the way and making so much noise he can’t do it, and when the guy finally snaps and says “look, just shut the fuck up”, we’re supposed to be angry at him, instead of just “yeah, that makes sense, he should have done that earlier”.
I really wanted to like this film, I love seeing horror films at the cinema and this was the first one I’d seen this year, and the trailers made it look interesting. Here’s pretty much every single scare in the film: weird shit, a dead looking thing is far away, then appears close to camera. then the character wakes up. After the fourth or fifth time this happens you just start to think “this isn’t real so nothing about it matters”. Fake scare me once, shame on you, fake scare me twice, shame on me, fake scare me five times, you’ve just being silly no, go sit in the corner. It really sucks that I don’t like this film. I’m interested in the real life place as it seems kind of fascinating, and the idea of doing either a psychological horror or a thriller there is genuinely exciting, but as it is they tried to do both and ended up doing none of them effectively. Somewhere there is a really tense film about someone dealing with their own mortality whilst walking through the Aokigahara Forest, but this really isn’t it.
I just didn’t really care for the characters and found them too stereotypical to warrant an emotional reaction.
Spectacle cinema that forgot to put in any spectacle. It has no moments which visually impress you. Also, Hemsworth’s accent kept slipping and that distracted me.
The most telling thing about this films quality is this; it happened this year and yet nobody mentions it anymore. This film should be dumb fun, as it is it’s just dumb. Like a poor remake of the original, only with an obvious sequel hook at the end. It won’t impress people who liked the original, and will mean nothing to those who haven’t, so it’s hard to say exactly who it was aimed at.
Part sequel, part origin story, part retelling, and with the story basically “the only person who can save all these African people is a white guy”, all kinds of awkward. Christoph Waltz seems to be enjoying himself though.
I assume this film was bad anyway, I can’t remember anything from it, even after seeing the trailer, nothing.
Too many cameos, and the same problem as the David Brent film; the main character is an awful human being yet the film is about how everyone else learns to realise how great he is. Actually now that I think of it I should have called Extras Syndrome “Zoolander 2 Syndrome”. The cinema I was in had approximately five people in, as such you could hear the silence that met every joke, you could hear every “this is a bit shit isn’t it?”.
Troubled Productions 