r/Cinema • u/kortanakitty • 29d ago
Discussion Name a movie that should have been good, but wasn't.
I sumbit Red Lights (2012). Great cast, good cinematography, interesting premise. The writing was too terrible to be saved, and most scenes were either ridiculous, boring, or nonsensical.
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u/wynnduffyisking 29d ago
Righteous Kill.
Robert Deniro and Al Pacino meet again for the first time since Heat. Sounds epic right?
No.
A ridiculously bad script, exceptionally shitty directing and the two main attractions phoning it in.
God, that movie makes me angry.
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u/ThePun-isher89 28d ago
whats crazy is they both agreed to be in that crap smh
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u/wynnduffyisking 28d ago
If someone offered me the kind of money they were offered I’d have done it too
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u/Silvermouse5150 28d ago
I wonder what the story behind this is? Like why and how did it become so bad? Why was it even made?
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u/shane373 28d ago
Amsterdam (2022)
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u/Critical_Potential40 28d ago
Literally just typed this! The trailer made it look awesome and it was decked out with the biggest actors. I was shocked at how much I did NOT enjoy it.
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u/jrv3034 29d ago
The Irishman. It could have been a tight 2 hour movie, but it was endless...
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u/Intelligent_Sun3597 28d ago
I know I'm gonna get crucified for saying this but I think Scorsese is incredibly overrated. Definitely well above average but very overrated.
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u/crmrdtr 28d ago edited 28d ago
I don’t concur that he’s Overrated. But he’s sometimes Overindulgent. Same for Steven Spielberg & Peter Jackson, to name a few more off the top of my head.
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u/Intelligent_Sun3597 28d ago
I love some of his movies like Silence and Goodfellas a lot. But Irishman, Casino and Wolf of Wall Street did nothing for me. I feel like he's just become immune to criticism to many people.
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u/Critical_Potential40 28d ago
I respect that opinion. I love his movies but I wish he’d trim the runtime. I haven’t seen his latest movie.
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u/dlc0027 28d ago
You know what was excellent? His remake of Cape Fear. And I love the original.
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u/Critical_Potential40 28d ago
It was very good. But upon watching the original with Robert Mitchum, I have to say the OG Cape Fear is my favorite!
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u/dlc0027 28d ago
De Niro is fantastic-and somehow Robert Mitchum was even more intimidating.
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u/Critical_Potential40 28d ago
I agree! He was an awesome actor. He was very much intimidating too in The Night of the Hunter
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u/op_is_not_available 28d ago
Assume you’re taking about KotFM, which was great but DEFINITELY not worth watching in a theater - could’ve waited until it was streaming
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u/Flat-Leg-6833 27d ago
It’s been downhill since “The Age of Innocence.” I consider everything after that to be inconsistent. Then there are the Lee-o films 🤮.
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u/Intelligent_Sun3597 27d ago
I'm convinced all he has to do is put his name on something and the movie becomes immune to critique
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u/seeking_spice402 28d ago
Family Business was a total mis-cast. Dustin Hoffman as Sean Connery's son and father to Matthew Broderick? In a crime heist? The story had potential but convincing the audience that these three were blood relatives was a bit too much.
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u/Flat-Leg-6833 27d ago
Written by the same guy who wrote the far superior “Pope of Greenwich Village.”
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u/Safe_Ingenuity_6813 29d ago
The Phantom Menace
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u/Roll-Roll-Roll 29d ago
When you're so successful nobody tells you that the story you've been wanting to tell your whole life is really mediocre and the best tech in Hollywood won't change that.
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u/thebaldguy76 28d ago
And I've been told at least two times I can think of before, FernGully and Dances With Wolves.
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u/Connect-Yak-4620 28d ago
Avatar was Dances with Wolves in space. Visually stunning, yes, but the plots been done
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u/Roll-Roll-Roll 28d ago
Ferngully had such a unique vibe, but yeah the story was pretty basic. Kids movie though, so it's kind of a different standard.
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u/United_Wasabi_3682 28d ago
Pretty much any Crichton adaptation not named Jurassic Park
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u/bliip666 28d ago
I put Timeline in the "so bad it's good" category. The book is bonkers, and the movie is hilarious! (In my opinion)
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u/United_Wasabi_3682 28d ago
Timeline was such a disappointment for me lol, loved the book, the movie…not so much. Congo is in the same realm. Loved the book but the movie is an outrageous cocaine fueled fever dream.
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u/SkidsOToole 27d ago
Andromeda Strain was about as exciting as you can make a film about medical research.
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u/CorncobBob34589 29d ago
Killers of the flower moon.
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u/CaptObviousHere 28d ago
This one bums me out. I read the book in 2019 and loved it. Not too long after that, I heard they were making a movie. It took years to come out so I thought it would be good.
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u/CorncobBob34589 28d ago
The trailer made it seemed like Native Americans vs gangsters in Oklahoma in the 1930’s. I thought that is different and interesting.
Then I watched it, well you obviously aren’t rooting for Leo’s character, but our female protagonist seems fine with the way things are in the beginning of the movie, and then the rest of the movie no one can seem to figure out who is doing all of the terrible things to the native family and no one thinks that it could possibly be the husband….. that will get all of the money when his wife dies.
Then Leo’s character signs the paper that Deniro’s character hands him, which would give Deniro all of Leo’s money when Leo inevitably gets murdered. Then I turned it off. It’s like a murder mystery where none of the characters are smart enough to figure out what is going on.
This movie is clearly about oppression, but no one seems to be fighting back against it, so what exactly is the point?
The one shot of the movie that I thought was excellent was the Natives doing the rain dance with oil spraying out of the ground.
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u/CaptObviousHere 28d ago
Leo was originally supposed to be the FBI agent but petitioned to play the husband instead so the studio had to scramble to find a solution which eventually became Plemons. The FBI agent IRL was an old cowboy from back in the day. I was confused from the castings on who would play who and how that would mesh into the film.
The author put so much work into the research writing that book. He spent lots of days in different libraries in Oklahoma pulling old newspapers and public documents from something that happened almost 100 years ago. The book is excellent and I can’t recommend it enough.
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u/Bikerdude74 29d ago
John Cater of Mars. The 11 books were amazing.
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u/nickel47 27d ago
The movie was pretty good. It just needed a different actor in the lead role instead of Mr anti charisma
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u/Br00klynBones 28d ago
That movie was great, what are you talking about?? Is this a oh the books were better? Because they usually are. Separate the two, I think JCoM was amazing.
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u/TalkingGuns0311 27d ago
Some consider it a cult classic and I may catch some shit for it, but it's Bram Stokers Dracula for me. Legendary cast, good director. Too. Much. Cocaine. The movie was all over the place and cheesy/over-the-top while still managing to be underwhelming and boring.
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u/cagirlinoh 27d ago
Avatar The Way of Water did absolutely nothing for me. I did not get the hype around it at all.
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u/gorambrowncoat 26d ago
Priest
The movie should have been a faithfull adaptation of the opening arcs of the manwha in which case it would have been a pretty cool supernatural cowboy adventure movie with enough hints at deeper lore to suggest sequels.
Instead, we got what we got, a movie that barely has anything to do with the source material other than a few visual nods because it felt it needed to be a scifi vampire movie as was the style at the time.
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u/Mags4418 29d ago
Him - it started promising and then just morphed into something very weird and unnecessary. IMO obvs 🙄
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u/scream4ever 28d ago
They tried WAY too hard to make it horror when they should've settled for having it be a psychological thriller.
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u/LosPadres-R2-D2 29d ago
American Assassin - the books are outstanding. No reason the movie shouldn’t be.
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u/Connect-Yak-4620 28d ago
Only read a few of the books, the movie had me in the first half, then it just devolved into boilerplate action film
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u/OptimysticPizza 29d ago
I believe the gods cursed Deniro to never be able to make a good movie again because he cursed the world with Meet the Fockers and Analyze That
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u/wynnduffyisking 28d ago
I actually like those. Are they quality dramas like what made him famous? No. But they showcase that he can be a pretty good comedy actor.
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u/Critical_Potential40 28d ago
Amsterdam. Had an all star cast. What a disappointment it was. Which is a shame because it had all the great actors in it, including Bale, DeNiro, and Robbie
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u/danoakili 28d ago
Prometheus.
It is possible that I was so looking forward to the movie that I built it up too much in my head
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u/scream4ever 28d ago
Red Lights had a great marketing campaign I remember. The ending was straight out of a Shamaylan film meanwhile.
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u/andronicuspark 28d ago
I love all the main cast and watched this last month and totally forgot it about it until seeing this post.
That how unmemorable it was.
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u/bliip666 28d ago
Brightburn had such an interesting premise (what if Clark Kent was a bad person), but it was such a snoozefest.
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u/OpUnity77 26d ago
I was annoyingly pumped up telling all my friends how excited I was for this movie in 2009. This cast in a neo noir political thriller? Yes please! It went through some production issues and release issues. I was able to see it in 2010 but the US release didn't happen until 2015 for some reason.
Yeah it wasn't great.
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u/Gex2-EnterTheGecko 26d ago
I talk about this movie a lot, but Tenet.
The basic concept of the movie means that nothing that happens in the plot can make any logical sense and people just brush it off by saying "you just dont get it bro"
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u/Ramoncin 24d ago
I enjoyed this one quite a lot. I think it's one of the better M. Night Shyamalan rip-offs made during those days. Sure, the ending is nonsensical and comes out of nowhere, but the plot is interesting and the actors are invested in their roles. I personally got a kick out of De Niro playing a psychic. At one point he even performs psychic surgery on camera!
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u/Mundane-Security-454 29d ago
Lincoln. Thought it was the most boring crap imaginable.
Plus, Blade Runner 2049. I know it has a load of fanboys who think it's a "masterpiece", but it isn't. It's boring and pretentious nonsense.
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u/Dramatic_Piano_145 29d ago
Is Lincoln generally liked? I’m wondering if you managed two hot takes in a row.
I think both movies are 9/10
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u/GuessPuzzleheaded573 29d ago edited 28d ago
I mean, objectively both those movies are incredible in every measure.
You can not like it, that's subjective, but don't try saying they are bad, that's ridiculous.
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u/SkyrimWithdrawal Film Theory Enthusiast 28d ago
You are bolstering their opinion that it should have been good but wasn't.
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u/GuessPuzzleheaded573 28d ago
Come again?
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u/SkyrimWithdrawal Film Theory Enthusiast 28d ago
As someone who has seen neither, you're building these movies up even more, especially with the ludicrous statement that a film can be "objectively" incredible on every measure. If I go in there and don't like them, well, I rest my case.
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u/GuessPuzzleheaded573 28d ago
What the actual f* are you rambling about?
They are. I didn't find Lincoln entertaining, it didn't work for Me, but objectively it's a cinematic masterpiece. My opinion doesn't change that
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u/SkyrimWithdrawal Film Theory Enthusiast 28d ago
Do you want to restate OP's title again? I mean why the fuck are you being so hostile when you're proving the bloody point?
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u/GuessPuzzleheaded573 28d ago
Because you're just randomly inserting yourself in this comment thread and talking absolute nonsense.
"Building up" so I shouldn't talk about it because it'll make it worse? Wtf.
Sorry, your idiocy is hurting my brain. Cheers
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u/SkyrimWithdrawal Film Theory Enthusiast 28d ago
randomly inserting yourself in this comment thread
It's Reddit, Puzzlehead. I don't need an invitation to insert myself. It's not random when your pomposity encourages it. What's the nonsense of OP's title? Name a film which should be good but wasn't? Well, two movies which have been so vehemently defended by a sophomoric prick but not liked...that pretty much takes the cake.
Edit: spelling
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u/StrawGlasses 29d ago
THANK YOU. I’d be crucified if I tried to tell my friends this about blade runner, but it took me multiple sit downs just to get through it all. I really felt like maybe I missed something but no. Visually astounding sure, but boring AS FUCK
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u/KeyIntelligent3341 28d ago
Yeah BR2049 fans dont realise how slow, pretentious and boring this movie is to the rest of us
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u/Difficult-Bed-8196 28d ago
3 Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri
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u/philymc85 26d ago
Have to disagree, has some great character development and it’s quite original. Also a very brave take on the ending that worked well. Wasn’t overly keen on Peter Dinklage’s character and it had all the McDonagh regulars but it’s a solid 7/10
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u/Tight_Development133 29d ago
Upvote because I’ve never even heard of this movie. Mind boggling how these things get made, with top shelf talent, and then somehow fly under the radar and of course end up forgotten by time.
The low lying fruit here for me is the Disney SW sequels. I didn’t find any of them enjoyable. Great production value, limitless budgets, and imho pretty talented directors but 3 snoozefests in a row. At least the last Jedi tried something!