Bad movies that should be given another try

[The Jack]

Carnage'd be a snuff film.


Man of Steel.

As a film on it's own, man of steel is mostly OK. It's a bit pretentious with it's plato and its tornado'd Kevin Cosner, but it's otherwise quite serviceable and the action is mostly pretty good. That shot where superman flies around the truck or something wowed me.

As a Superman film, it's an abomination.
The Kents are wrong
Louis is wrong
Clark is wrong
Superman is wrong
Zod is clearly not a general and where's that phantom zone?

Man of steel's plot is some non-fan getting a cursory glance of Superman and going 'Ha that's dumb I'm not interested in following this dumbness I will deconstruct it and do What would really happen if there were a superman"

which is kinda like when someone does a historical setting and they decide that to make it realistic they've got to cake everyone and everything in mud and make everyone either a wretch or a monster or a naive, too-good-for-this-world victim. (New additions to this thread: basically every movie that does this)

The Kents are utterly unreasonable and instill in him the precise opposite values he's supposed to have. They're not smart about it, and they're not portrayed as good people that he should listen too, so he wouldn't.
Louis lane is a prize winning reporter, yes, but superman is a superhuman master of disguise so no, she shouldn't work it out... Jesus half the fun is the CK>LL>S relationship and the absurd lengths the secret identity goes for.
We have CGI tech out the wazoo, we could ****ing sell the Idea that Superman and Clark Kent look different to people through muscle control and such.

Zod's terraforming plan was terrible. Could've lived like a god, wanted to twirl his mustache instead... what villain does that? It shouldn't be easy to deconstruct a deconstructionist work.

[LibraryOgre]

I disagree with The Jack about Lois (she's that good; ferociously competent investigative reporter is her character since its inception), but, fundamentally, yeah. Man of Steel was a deeply flawed film by people who didn't understand Superman.

When I think of Superman, I think of asking a lot of my friends what they would do if they won the lottery. Most of them start with "Well, I'd pay off debt, and make myself financially stable..." but then go into a large list of ways they'd use that money to help people. They'd fund soup kitchens or low-cost housing or start companies that manufacture low-cost insulin.

Zach Snyder's Superman is someone who won the lottery then immediately goes into hiding, occasionally leaving large tips with his waitress but otherwise doing little to nothing until forced to. It's someone for whom power is a burden that he wants to be shed of, not someone for whom power is a gift he wants to share.

[Lemmy]

Star Wars 7, 8 and 9 - Well... 9 is speculation of course, but it's like speculating Suicide Squad was going to suck before the movie was out: Technically, it's speculation, but it's so obviously it's going to happen that it might as well be prophecy.

Anything from DC - I guess they can keep WW... "Mediocre" technically isn't "bad".

Wolverine: Origins - I'd love to see a movie that followed either Origins or Weapon X comics without crapping all over the story and characters.

Most movies based on games - If they were actually treated seriously and respectfully. And I don't mean make all of them dark-and-edgy. I'm perfectly fine with silly-popcorn-fun movies. I just want the producers to respect the intelligence of the audience, instead of assuming it's made exclusively of kids and morons.

Imagine how fun "Doom" could've been if it was just The Rock punching, wrestling and shooting demons for 90 min! It'd be awesome!

[The Glyphstone]

Doom, but take the Hardcore Henry route and make the entire dang thing 1st-person POV instead of just one tiny segment of fanservice.

[Rodin]

Wolverine: Origins - I'd love to see a movie that followed either Origins or Weapon X comics without crapping all over the story and characters.

One review of Origins points out that there's a few minutes that show Wolverine and Sabertooth fighting in wars through the ages. Give me that movie - two immortals experiencing decades of war, and the effect it has on them.

[CWater]

I surprised how Avatar: The Last Airbender has not been mentioned yet. The story deserved so much and got... everything done wrong. Everything. (Well, Dev Patel wasn't wholly bad as Zuko, though I'm not sure it was really a role for him. Still, in comparison...)

[factotum]

I surprised how Avatar: The Last Airbender has not been mentioned yet. The story deserved so much and got... everything done wrong. Everything. (Well, Dev Patel wasn't wholly bad as Zuko, though I'm not sure it was really a role for him. Still, in comparison...)

Thing is--do we actually need a live action Avatar movie, even a good one? The animated version isn't going anywhere and is all sorts of awesome.

[Peelee]

Thing is--do we actually need a live action Avatar movie, even a good one? The animated version isn't going anywhere and is all sorts of awesome.

Imean, there's tons we don't need but are still awesome to have. Hell, we didn't need In Bruges, but it sure as hell was great to have.

[Lethologica]

We're getting one, regardless, so ATLA has already graduated from "should be given another try" to "is being given another try."

Slightly off-topic: Bridge to Terabithia. Don't remake the movie, no, that part's basically fine. Just release the same movie, and don't colossally screw up the marketing this time.

[The Jack]

I disagree with The Jack about Lois (she's that good; ferociously competent investigative reporter is her character since its inception), but, fundamentally, yeah. Man of Steel was a deeply flawed film by people who didn't understand Superman.
.

You get me wrong
I want Lois to be good, real good. A spectacular, metaphorically trouser-wearing woman that'll probe right up luthor's shady stuff.
But superman aught to be better.

MoS thinks it's doing the right thing; "if she's that good, surely she can work out CK is SM in absolutely no time, silly comics". I mean if you look at it the other way, not working out who superman is would undermine her character's competency, given that Henry Cavil looks like Henry Cavil and sweet Christmas is that a distinctive look.

But it isn't how it should work. Clark Kent should not look like Henry Cavil, Superman should look like Henry Cavil, but certainly not Clark Kent. They've failed to make Clark Kent look like Clark Kent, so they've failed to understand why Lois wouldn't immediately know the two are one. The same is true for Luthor.

Also, I don't like the casting of LL (either of them). I don't think Amy Adams suits the roll, and she's got nearly ten years on cavil, and I think superman should be younger (although Henry Cavil is obviously Immortal and his aging won't be apparent for another hundred years)

[LibraryOgre]

Also, I don't like the casting of LL (either of them). I don't think Amy Adams suits the roll, and she's got nearly ten years on cavil, and I think superman should be younger (although Henry Cavil is obviously Immortal and his aging won't be apparent for another hundred years)

I don't think Superman should necessarily be better at hiding than Lois is at finding... nor that she should necessarily be younger than him. She's not a new reporter... she's an experienced reporter, enough to be feared by others who hide secrets. I mean, the canonical Lois is better at finding secrets than Lex Luthor is at hiding them.

Why should Superman be better at hiding than she is at finding? Why shouldn't Lois be nearly 40, especially when is pushing 30? What can't Lois be someone a young Clark Kent, the reporter, looked up to?

[The Jack]

Superman's super, he's got super powers, he's a genius, and in the comics he builds superman bots to fill in when he's Kenting sometimes. Lois lane has seen Clark Kent and "Superman" in the same room.
Lex Luthor does bad stuff for ****'s and giggles, plays with giant robots, and cuts corners. Most of what lois has on him is big stuff that you couldn't really hide, but of the legal and immoral kind, rather than the illegal kind. Lois Lane can be rather arrogant, so is Lex, neither would dare to imagine that CK would be Superman.


As for the 'ten years older woman'
Well, mass market appeal. She's his eternal non-platonic love interest, and cougars are a niche most people don't want to touch. You might be into it, that's fine, but I can go into a long list of reasons why most people aren't into it. If he was 20 and she were a good 30, they could maybe get away with it, but at 40 she shows her age, and she's 45 now. If you want to do a cinematic universe with half a dozen films with superman, you best be planning for the future.

[Legato Endless]

Lois not knowing about Clark's identity just seems extremely dated to me. What does it add? The two person love triangle? That's been done better elsewhere.

I can accept that intelligent characters aren't omniscient. I don't think Buffy's mother is unrealistically ignorant for not knowing her daughter's the slayer. Teens keep secrets from erudite parents all the time. The issue is, the Lois doesn't know angle isn't exactly played for high drama. It's a farce. It bears much more in common with identity confusion in old fashioned melodramas and musicals. Lois comes across bumbling because I can't name an instance in live action or animated media where it wasn't played for, at best, perfunctory comedy. It's not some gripping drama about someone managing to fool their close friend Sherlock Holmes, or the loved one who actually knew but was secretly in denial. Those would be satisfying. Lois just comes across as situationally lacking in basic analytical reasoning.

Like, even if Superman isn't believed to have a secret identity, and is backed by an army of robots, that doesn't explain why Lois actively ignores all the strange activities she sees Clark get up to. Reasonably, she should think something bizarre is happening. Clark's some other super or something. Between the incongruities in his behavior with his facade and considering all the times his reporting doesn't seem to logistically add up. Like, if you want to play that card you can, but it tonally clashes when later we see Lois connect a bunch of dots no one else did when she's solving anything the plot hasn't mandated she can't.

It also lends itself to characterization oddities, as Clark has a habit of making jokes to himself and the viewer about his secret identity around Lois and others whenever the subject is broached. A smarmily condescending trait that feels out of a place for a guy usually depicted as a moral paragon.

[Lethologica]

Superman is a superhuman master of disguise? That's not some Silver Age hand-wave "powers as the plot demands" one-off, but some kind of actual trait? Huh.

[The Jack]

It also lends itself to characterization oddities, as Clark has a habit of making jokes to himself and the viewer about his secret identity around Lois and others whenever the subject is broached. A smarmily condescending trait that feels out of a place for a guy usually depicted as a moral paragon.

Not really, Lois isn't a flawless character, and moral paragons aren't divorced from the ability to criticise or lampoon, and many friendships practically revolve around humour that would seem mean to an outsider.
(plus, of course, the Clark Kent character superman plays isn't meant to be a paragon, and is deliberately imperfect)

Superman is a superhuman master of disguise? That's not some Silver Age hand-wave "powers as the plot demands" one-off, but some kind of actual trait? Huh.

And this was a toned down version of the guy.

Nah but seriously, on one end of the scale, you've got Christopher Reeve, who's superman looks different enough from his Clark that he could fool his colleagues so long as they didn't get too close, to this wonder;

You could do that with CGI, It'd be a believable lie.

[Fairy]

I agree with Man of Steel above - although for different reasons. I don't particularly mind the Lois Lane discovering Superman thing... Discovering secrets is Lois' whole thing, and in a stand-alone 2 hour film having her not discover the one obvious secret that's available just undermines her. I really think to get a good superman movie you'd have to focus a lot less on superman. Certainly worked for Dark Knight... Joker's a far more interesting character than Batman. Lex is more interesting than Superman, and I think some versions of Lois (when she's not X love interest) are more interesting too. Superman himself is rarely interesting, and I think having him be literally better than everyone else in more ways than just being super would just be boring.
Okay the Lois Clark Superman weird love triangle thing I admit is kind of fun but I think it's 100% justifiable to throw that away in the contained plot of a single movie. If you really want to keep it you could even show Lois figure it out but never say it or something? Point is not to waste Lois as a character here. Just do something interesting with her (frankly MoS doesn't really do anything with her anyway). Again, Dark Knight, having Rachel choose whats-his-(2)face over Bruce and the dramatic letter thing... It's just a good arc. There's something interesting happening with the character, Rachel's made an interesting decision and she's not just wasted.
MoS. most of the film's just silly... The villains feel like Power Rangers, and the scene of Superman destroying the terraformer is just ridiculous. 'Oh no, it's a machine that means he can't do the thing!.. Oh hooray, he did the thing!'
Only reason I think it 'could' be good is because I think it did do a good job of showing the scale of a superhero movie. A lot of people would have died in that film, and that makes sense. I think the movie does do a good job of getting the feeling of desperation across. Maybe this is a statement of ignorance, but I don't know of any other superhero movies that I think do this well.

For the sake of the discussion I'll add a controversial film to this list... Scarface. Kind-of-spoilers below.
I think of it as the ultimate 'could be better' film. I think its reputation comes from the fact that so much of it seems like it could or should be good. It has so many mini-arcs and ideas, a lot of which sounds good on paper... At the end I love the fact that he's this embittered drug-lord, my favourite part of the movie is him drunkenly crashing around a dinner party insulting the rich for being rich. The whole ending sequence is famous for obvious reasons.
I think the marketing or 'image' of the movie today says more about how the movie itself is bad rather than anything else. There are all these gritty images of 'Scarface', the ultimate mobster, the ultimate monster, pictures of the final scene of his rampage, everything's in black and white... Whereas honestly the movie barely takes itself seriously. It intentionally ruins dramatic scenes for cheap 80's laughs (end of the Frank scene), and a lot of Tony's successes (particularly in romance) come down to 'because he's Al Pacino - wow, big actor, so cool'.

[CWater]

We're getting one, regardless, so ATLA has already graduated from "should be given another try" to "is being given another try".

Oh! Well that's good news! It's extremely unlikely that it can be worse than the first abomination, so even if it's not stellar, it'll still be an improvement.

[Kato]

Thing is--do we actually need a live action Avatar movie, even a good one? The animated version isn't going anywhere and is all sorts of awesome.

I'm with factotum here.. I mean, I guess there is no harm in it but I'm very skeptical that anyone can turn a season long story into a decent movie. If any studio wants to spend a bunch of money trying to find out, go ahead. And if it works, awesome. But if it turns out to be only a little less disappointing than the last movie I won't be surprised.

Star Wars 7, 8 and 9 - Well... 9 is speculation of course, but it's like speculating Suicide Squad was going to suck before the movie was out: Technically, it's speculation, but it's so obviously it's going to happen that it might as well be prophecy.

And now to contradict what I just said. Being that negative about a movie that you know hardly anything about... Is there even the slightest chance for the movie not to disappoint you if two years in advance you're already : "yeah, this will suck, no matter what"?

[factotum]

Imean, there's tons we don't need but are still awesome to have. Hell, we didn't need In Bruges, but it sure as hell was great to have.

I guess I'm just thinking that the effort should go first into remaking bad movies into good ones, then maybe bad series into good movies, before we start thinking about turning awesome series into any kind of movie.

[Tyndmyr]

I agree with Man of Steel above - although for different reasons. I don't particularly mind the Lois Lane discovering Superman thing... Discovering secrets is Lois' whole thing, and in a stand-alone 2 hour film having her not discover the one obvious secret that's available just undermines her.

I can live with Lois discovering Superman.

I have trouble buying that framing Superman for murder by...using bullets....is a thing that makes sense to anyone. Superman isn't a gunman, and if he wanted to kill people, he would never need a gun.

I'd also prefer my Luthor to be actually Luthor, and not a discount Joker.

And now to contradict what I just said. Being that negative about a movie that you know hardly anything about... Is there even the slightest chance for the movie not to disappoint you if two years in advance you're already : "yeah, this will suck, no matter what"?

Of course not. That's the point of the prediction. He's not going to suddenly like the film if he just says nothing but happy things about it.

And a lot of films are predictable long, long before they come out. The idea of a Battleship movie, for instance. I made fun of that immediately. I still went and saw it, and it was dumber than I imagined it could be.

Look, let's peruse films coming out in 2019.

Captain Marvel/Avengers 4/Spidey Homecoming. Probably great, unless you hate the MCU. But I like the MCU films, so I have little reason to suspect anything bad from these.
Toy Story 4. One sequel too many. Probably fine for the kiddos and what not, but unlikely to be as iconic as the earlier takes.
Dark Phoenix. Like Apocalpyse, it will be awful. X-men films have a pretty straightforward way in which they work. Good movie. Good movie. Crap movies until they reboot it. We're past the good point on this iteration. It'll suck.
Star Wars 9. Part of a trilogy, with some of the same people behind it. You will almost certainly like or hate it as much as you liked or hated the other two.
Frozen 2. It's a cash grab. The story doesn't need a sequel. It probably will be fine enough to show the kids, but again, it's not going to be as good as the original story. This always happens when you push a story past the conclusion.
Shazam. DC film. Sorry if you like the character, but it's gonna suck.
How to Train Your Dragon 3. See previous statements about sequels going on too long.
The Secret Life of Pets 2. There's kind of a pattern here.
Happy Death Day 2U.
Yet Another Terminator Sequel.
Suicide Squad 2.

Look, I don't have to even comment at this point. You can already visualize the results.

[DigoDragon]

Tron 2.0 is my response. Take away the visual effects and there's no substance left. We hardly get to see the titular character and the plot doesn't really go anywhere or do anything. Isomorphs? What?

Instead, why not focus on Clu already in the starting phases of waging a cyberwar against the "users" through the internet? To the real world there's a huge virus that's infecting every computer and attempts to stop it are difficult at best. Sam can still be the delinquent hacker and he grabs some friends to go into the Tron world to fight back.

Bright
Needed better writing so the racial allegory wasn't jammed in your face and the tonal shifts didn't induce whiplash. I liked the setting and applaud the attempt. Decent enough if you only look at it as a buddy cop action flick with a twist, but it wanted to be more and fell short

Spoiler: actual spoiler

Show

also, Will Smith learns a kill spell in seconds just by being told the words for it and defeats a wizard who had been studying magic longer than humans live. What?

My opinion is to skip this movie and just do a Shadowrun buddy cop movie around two Lonestar officers on a night beat in Seattle.

[LibraryOgre]

I'd also prefer my Luthor to be actually Luthor, and not a discount Joker.

BvS makes more sense if you assume "Lex Luthor" is a pseudonym that Edward Nigma has chosen.

[oudeis]

Krull:

I like this movie more than I should, even allowing for the 'guilty pleasure' factor. I love the almost classical feel of the mythology. The characters could have stepped out of some long-lost folklore: The Widow of the Web; The Girl with Ancient Name; The Blind Seer. The Beast. Prince Colwyn is kind of a stiff, but the rest of the characters are a lot of fun, especially Torquil the bandit chief, Ergo the Magnificent, and Freddy Jones as Ynyr. Even the kidnapped princess has some depth to her. Though she has been captured, she doesn't fall into a swoon and wait for the hero to rescue her. She never stops trying to outwit the Beast and in fact figures out how to finally defeat it. It has many forgettable scenes, true, but the battle in the swamp and the Widow's Web were awesome, not least because of James Horner's score (Krull is one of his earliest soundtracks and you can hear a lot of motifs that he reused in later works). If they had handled it properly they could have created something cool. Also, if they hadn't blown so much of their budget on the massive soundstage sets they might actually have been able to afford some special effects that weren't embarrassing.

The first thing you'd have to do is eliminate the moronic prologue. It just spoils the story and ruins what could be a great discovery scene. Move the revelation to when the heroes first enter the fortress of The Beast. Next, make the Slayers more intimidating. Copy freely from the Alien and Predator designs. Make them fast and inhuman- either sinuous and agile like cats or with darting movements like arthropods. Get rid of the stupid FX bolt they shoot and give them a mean-looking barbed javelin. When they are killed, the horrible tentacled slug that controls them tries to leap onto another host (that, or the Slayers are actually mech suits a la the Daleks, which would tie into the revelation of the Beast's extraterrestrial origins). Get better effects for the Beast. Turn the Glaive into a real weapon of power instead of an oversized self-propelled shuriken and show Colwyn kicking ass with it. Move the setting from a pseudo-medieval to pseudo-dark ages era. Hire a real fight choreographer and give the actors some weapons training. Come up with something better than 'fire mares'. Write an ending that allows for a sequel continuation of the story.

What's that? Why, yes, I have devoted a great deal of thought to this. What makes you ask?

[Lemmy]

And now to contradict what I just said. Being that negative about a movie that you know hardly anything about... Is there even the slightest chance for the movie not to disappoint you if two years in advance you're already : "yeah, this will suck, no matter what"?

Of course. It happened quite a few times in the past.

I'm definitely not paying to watch SW9, in the same way that I didn't pay to see SW8 (my plan is to wait for it to come out in Netflix/Amazon Prime or for someone to bring it to movie night)... But I'll eventually watch it.

Hell! I might even give it a try in theaters if enough friends and critics whose opinion I trust speak well of it.

There are films that turn out to be much better (or worse) than expected, but most don't. It isn't difficult to have a reasonable idea of how good a film will be based on its trailler, production details ans predecessors. I see no reason to expect any one movie to be one of the relatively few exceptions... If SW9 turns out to be one, it'll be a nice surprise, but I highly doubt that will be the case.

[Tvtyrant]

Of course. It happened quite a few times in the past.

I'm definitely not paying to watch SW9, in the same way that I didn't pay to see SW8 (my plan is to wait for it to come out in Netflix/Amazon Prime or for someone to bring it to movie night)... But I'll eventually watch it.

Hell! I might even give it a try in theaters if enough friends and critics whose opinion I trust speak well of it.

There are films that turn out to be much better (or worse) than expected, but most don't. It isn't difficult to have a reasonable idea of how good a film will be based on its trailler, production details ans predecessors. I see no reason to expect any one movie to be one of the relatively few exceptions... If SW9 turns out to be one, it'll be a nice surprise, but I highly doubt that will be the case.

I thought the new Blade Runner was going to be trash and loved it, same with Fury Road and a lot of other sequels.

I also thought Magic Beasts was going to be great and it was mediocre at best.

[LibraryOgre]

Krull:

So, did you see it in Rifftrax live, like I did?

I agree with you... there's the core of a good movie in there, but it had some HORRIBLE direction and cinematography. Long sequences of just... dudes riding. No dialogue advancing the plot. No particular characterization. Just. Dudes riding.* Other scenes that are composed horribly... I'm thinking of the end of the movie where they have a very nice long shot of the destroyed castle and the triumphant party... but what is in focus is the thistle two feet from the camera.

Oh, and the Glaive? Why isn't he trying to use that the entire time? Why aren't we seeing him master it against the Slayers? It's a thingy that he gets... then forgets about... then uses... then turns out to not be the necessary weapon, because he has magic fire powers.

*And, in the opening scenes, you can see that one guy is REALLY pissing off his horse. He's in the lead and it keeps tossing its head and is so mad at him.

[No brains]

I also thought Magic Beasts was going to be great and it was mediocre at best.

I remember seeing that and thinking, "Dang, that was a long episode of Dr. Who."

Similarly, Thor: The Dark World was my favorite Star Trek movie in recent years. It's evil cloaked elves (Romulans) getting beaten by technobabble.

Also Ghost in the Shell was a better Robocop remake than the Robocop remake.

[Legato Endless]

BvS makes more sense if you assume "Lex Luthor" is a pseudonym that Edward Nigma has chosen.

It even explains his issues with his father.

Yet Another Terminator Sequel.

Wait, this was un-cancelled? Yuck.

Not really, Lois isn't a flawless character, and moral paragons aren't divorced from the ability to criticise or lampoon, and many friendships practically revolve around humour that would seem mean to an outsider.
(plus, of course, the Clark Kent character superman plays isn't meant to be a paragon, and is deliberately imperfect)

I don't really know what Lois having flaws has to do with anything. As for humor, the viewer isn't an outsider to the relationship. And those relationships that seem cruel to an outsider ride on the distinction the two people are mutually consenting to the exchange. That's not the dynamic since Lois doesn't get what's happening. That's the joke. This isn't some facade, which would be really strange for the Clark persona, it's just Supes secretly gloating. The viewer just doesn't notice because they're in on it.

[Tvtyrant]

I remember seeing that and thinking, "Dang, that was a long episode of Dr. Who."

Similarly, Thor: The Dark World was my favorite Star Trek movie in recent years. It's evil cloaked elves (Romulans) getting beaten by technobabble.

Also Ghost in the Shell was a better Robocop remake than the Robocop remake.

I feel like any Stat Trek where you have to see to know what is going on has stepped wrong. The entire story should be perfectly comprehensible from dialogue alone.

[Lemmy]

I thought the new Blade Runner was going to be trash and loved it, same with Fury Road and a lot of other sequels.

I also thought Magic Beasts was going to be great and it was mediocre at best.

- I thought Edge of Tomorrow was going to suck, but really enjoyed it.
- I thought Mad Max Fury Road was going to be mediocre-to-okayish and it's now one of my favorite movies ever.
- I thought the first Thor movie was going to be dumb, but fun... And it ended up being completely forgettable.
- Pretty much everyone expected Avengers 2 to be super great and left theaters rather disappointed to varying degrees.

Mistakes happen, of course. Sometimes the traillers don't do a good job of selling the film... Other times they do it too well... But most often, it isn't difficult to have a pretty good idea of how good/bad a movie is going to be. Was anyone surprised at Suicide Squad being complete garbage?