I've been thinking of films that have had good premises and have had a lot of potential, but for some reason or other failed in being great, or even good, in some cases. I decided to make a list with a few films I can think of right now. Feel free to add your own in the comments. Here's my list:
Donnie Darko: This film started out good, and got better as the film went on. I loved the idea of a troubled teen seeing a giant disturbing rabbit that tells him to do crazy shit. It had so much potential if it just followed this story line. But noooooo, it has to get all confused with itself by introducing time rifts and time travel that makes no fucking sense. It absolutely drove me nuts.
I am Legend/The Omega Man: I put both of these together because they were based on a great book, but both of them completely got away from what made the book great, and just dumbed it down into lame action flicks. Read the book, then you'll know what I'm talking about.
The Science of Sleep: Now, I have a hard time putting this movie on here, because I genuinely liked it. The idea of a guy who has a difficult time differentiating between what he dreams and reality is done beautifully, but I feel like it was holding back a bit. It is still a great movie, though.
Spider-Man 3: This could have been the best of the all the Spider-Man films. It's fucking Venom, dammit! But nooo, they had to go and throw in like 50 villains, too. This movie was almost unwatchable and made me so very angry.
Sunshine: Let me start this off by saying that I love Danny Boyle. He is a great director and I very much look forward to all of his work, but this film was pretty much a throw away. Now, I have to admit that this was a beautiful looking movie, but it was full of lame Hollywood cliches. My main problem is the near superhuman badguy popping up out of nowhere at inopportune times to artificially move the plot. This could have been a great movie without the villain. The suspense was there even before he was introduced, and was much more genuine.
7 comments:
I forgot to mention the Matrix movies. They all could have been made better by replacing Keanu with pretty much anyone. The second and third could have had a good rewrite, too. Especially the third...
Yes, to the Matrix sequels. The original is fantastic and holds up well. In the sequels they completely screwed up their whole idea.
They should have been completely done as superhero movies, with Neo as Superman, but with more godlike powers, since he can manipulate "reality". But they still can't win, cause, like, the machines make reality, man. Seriously, I dig action stuff, you know that, but there really didn't need to be that much frigging kung fu. Or if there is, instill a sense of danger to it. Rip some arms off, karate chop a head or two in half. It felt like they were just playing around for no good reason.
The third movie should have just been them realizing that the "real" world was a backup construct/firewall, and then they could address the fact that the human battery shit makes no sense. That was weakly implied, I know, but they should have made it more overt, and the last scene is what the "real" world is like. (Insert philosophical mumbo-jumbo). It needed way more imagination than it needed two crappy CGI trucks crashing head-on.
And hey, I liked Spider-Man 3. A lot. I agree, Venom could have been done better and have been a cool focus, but Raimi was supposedly forced to use it by the studio. The character stuff in that movie is fun.
Yeah, I never understood how Neo could go from a near God at the end of the first, but never uses the powers in the other two. I mean, he can stop bullets, fly and move crazy quick, but then he's fighting the agent guys moving at normal speed and strength during the second and third films. He should be completely invincible and unstoppable within the Matrix. There is just a continuity problem between the first films and the others. It suggests lazy writing to me...
And I really didn't like Spider-man 3. I thought it would have made 2 great movies, if they just split the Sandman and Venom story lines, they would have both benefited. Sandman got way too little play, and I think he would have made a great tragic character if they just had time to develop it. But they crammed in too many story lines and action sequences and the film suffered, in my opinion.
By the way, I didn't mention the Star Wars prequels yet. There is just so much that could be improved in those films, that it would take forever to write them all down.
I totally agree about the Star Wars prequels except for the fact that I've never seen any of them. But I did see Semi-Pro on Saturday. Man that Will Farrell is something else
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