Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Movies that disappointed you!

rickshaw wrote:
"heard rave reviews about it, and then, years later watched it only to go "hunh, that was the great "x"?""

OUT OF THE PAST. Hopelessly pessimistic, downbeat, nasty sick F*** of a movie. Once was enough for me.


"This is Spinal Tap- i had two genuine chuckles in this movie. No real laughs at all."

I saw both Spinal Tap and The Folksmen on SNL. (they actually did The Folksmen on SNL around 18 YEARS before doing the movie A MIGHTY WIND!) Tediously dull would be putting it kindly. My favorite bit in THIS IS SPINAL TAP was actually seeing Fran Drescher playing the SAME PART she later reprised in one episode of THE NANNY (is that one really strange crossover or what?). I really like Fran, she cracks me up.

If I want a bogus rock documentary, I'll take Eric Idle's ALL YOU NEED IS CASH.

"I wanna protect you... from people... like ME."
--John Belushi


He Who LSHes wrote:
""Animal House" . . . When I first saw it, I was 14 or 15, so most of the the college aspects were lost on me."

I saw it first-run. I thought it was okay. But the way i was at the time, I didn't "get" a lot of the humor, and the character stuff. Somehow, it took a while to sink in that the film portrayed the world completely upside-down from what you'd expect. The "slobs" were the good guys, the "clean-cut" types were VISCIOUS BADDIES. Over time, it became one of my all-time faves. (Ditto for THE BLUES BROTHERS, which didn't impress me in the theatre as much as ANIMAL HOUSE. Some things "grow" on you.)


Set wrote:
"E.T., Close Encounters and 2001: A Space Odyssey are examples of movies that I *wanted* to like, being a fan of sci-fi, but found terribly disappointing."

Saw 2001 first-run on a curved screen. It wasn't until recently that, reading up on it, I finally remembered and understood what my Dad meant when he said it "wasn't REAL Cinerama". It was projected with a SINGLE projector, not 3. The first time I saw it, the theatre was mostly-empty. And... 3/4th of the audience WALKED OUT halfway thru the "Star Gate" sequence. they couldn't take it!

However, shortly after, I read the novel, then went to see it again in a 2nd-run theatre. After that, I actually saw it on at least 3 different reissues, years between. It wasn't a "movie", it was a "visual experience". Sorta like FANTASIA.

Now, 2010-- that I LOVED!!!!!!!!! Still my favorite Roy Scheider movie.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS I almost walked out of (except I'd read the comic version, and so knew it had a decent ending-- which I suffered thru the rest of the picture just so I could see). E.T., once was enough. Bleh. I got a HUGE charge out of Drew Barrymore's SNL appearance, especially when they did the "E.T." sketch. She tells her brother (Tim Kazurinsky) she killed E.T., bashed his head in with a baseball bat and stuffed his body in a trash bag, he was so ugly! At that point, MISTER T arrives by kicking in their front door. "Mister T!" "That's right, and I'm lookin' for m'boy-- E"! "But-- E.T.'s an extra-terrestrial!" "Where the hell ya think I'M from, Harlem?"

Set wrote:
"I'll be watching the Lost in Space remake, because it at least had some funny moments."

As a longtime LIS fan, I was disappointedf with parts of it, but thrilled by others. I was stunned when I realized they actually paid tribute to at least 20 DIFFERENT episodes of the original show. Also, when I figured out-- after much thinking-- that the "time travel" aspects of the story MADE SENSE!!! That was something neither LIS or ST ever seemed to get right back then.

The biggest surprise was how Gary Oldman's Dr. Smith turned out to be the BEST part of the film, where I can only tolerate Jonathan Harris in small amounts. Oh yeah-- and I love that Dick Tufeld got to play the SAME part in the remake as in the original (the VOICE of the Robot). It was like when you heard Douglas Rain in 2010.


"I am such a masochist. I keep watching Tom Hanks movies, and I haven't been able to *stand* one of them since Splash (and, frankly, I think that the only reason I liked Splash is because Daryl Hannah had her clothes off a lot)."

I liked him in DRAGNET, but that have been mostly for Dan Aykroyd. I finally saw SPLASH a couple years ago, and didn't care for it much at all. I DID really like APOLLO 13, mostly because the space program always meant to much to me back in the 60's. Finally saw BACHELOR PARTY a few years ago... WHO KNEW it would become my favorite film of his? On the other hand, I saw YOU'VE GOT MAIL, and was so deeply offended by the story and his character in it that I've barley been able to tolerate Hanks in anything since then. (Ironically, I saw the original some months later-- THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER-- and it immeidatley became a new favorite of mine.)


Drake B3004 wrote:
"But one disappointment for me was "Citizen Kane"."

Same here. Which made me real glad the ONE time I ever saw it, it was on a THEATRICAL REISSUE! I love those. it's the way films were MEANT to be seen, and I've found even movies I SERIOUSLY DISLIKE can be better when seen that way. Like GONE WITH THE WIND, and THX-1138.


LancesRealm wrote:
"but I absolutely loved "The Third Man.""

Speaking of which... saw this on PBS, loved it so much, 6 months later, I took my Dad to Philly to see it again, in a THEATRE! (When you pay for something you've already seen for free, that says a lot.)


Cobalt Kid wrote:
"He made a strong arguement and I think 'Touch' is excellent"

And again... saw TOUCH OF EVIL in a theatre when it was restored. Somehow went without having the slightest idea what it was about!! The opening sequence is amazing (and notorious for how the studio screwed it over originally). the part that cracked me up was seeing Janet Leigh terrorized in a cheap desert motel by a halfwit manager. I suddenly realized, when she later was in PSYCHO, it was type-casting! (and I'm sure it made her murder in that all the more shocking, since many had already seen her escape a similar predicament once before...)


"Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - as a kid I imagined it was going to be so awesome. Then when I saw it, I thought it was crap. 15 years later I gave it a rewatch, thinking maybe I was too harsh. Nope. It is a damn awful. Unlike Raiders and Crusade (which was entertaining) Temple had no charm to it."

What he said. Coming on the heels of RETURN OF THE JEDI, and just before a planned vacation by Lucas (or Spielberg, or both), the entire film, start to finish, felt like "THE KITCHEN SINK!!!!" they tossed in EVERYTHING. they tossed in TOO-- DAMN-- MUCH. It defines the phrases "over the top"-- and "overkill". Even the obligatory Spielberg reference to an old Disney movie was BADLY done.