Films that miss an easy win

[Z]

So I'm just after watching Game Night. The opening quarter hour implied it was going to be a really over the top sibling rivalry film based entirely around, like, board games and shit. With the cast involved (Jason Bateman, Kyle Chandler, Rachel McAdams, Jesse Plemons, Sharon Horgan, Lamone Morris...) I was really excited about just seeing them be silly and petty.

The actual direction it went was far less funny and just felt like bland quiet season comedy film mehness. Barely managing to get by on the cast's pretty high levels of charm.



Are there any films you can think of that the very early stages seemed to point towards something that would obviously work only for it to quickly descend into something much more boring that required a lot more work?

[Shit Good Nose]

Well, I've always thought Audition would have been a lot better if it stayed with being an off-kilter subtle comedy about relationships rather than taking the silly turn it did.  I was enjoying it right up until that moment, and then it just lost me completely.  But I know most people disagree.

Almost contradicting the above, I think mother! would've been immeasurably improved if it had gone right down the very blackly comic route, and it wouldn't have taken that many tweaks to do so.  As it is, its more...extreme moments (one can't help but think of Anchorman's "boy, that escalated quickly!") seem completely ridiculous with the morose high-foreheaded posturing it otherwise concentrates on.

[amputeeporn]

I watched Videodrome today and did enjoy it, but was quite excited to see it be a crime story about someone accidentally broadcasting snuff tapes/James Woods infiltrating or being slowly drawn into their web, sans the horror element.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I watched Videodrome today and did enjoy it, but was quite excited to see it be a crime story about someone accidentally broadcasting snuff tapes/James Woods infiltrating or being slowly drawn into their web, sans the horror element.

Maybe you'd have preferred Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future.

[magval]

First half of Dusk til Dawn suggests the film will end up less shit than it does.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I watched a bit of Inbetweeners 2 last night. It's weird how the twatty posh kids don't really get their expected comeuppance. Will tells them to fuck off - which can be viewed as a small victory/personal growth for him - but it doesn't really affect either of them. Maybe the writers were trying to buck the formula for this type of film, which is admirable, but it's not as though the film doesn't go for low hanging fruit at every other opportunity.

[Kane Jones]

First half of Dusk til Dawn suggests the film will end up less shit than it does.

The first half is a by-numbers Tarantino road movie. When it goes mental is when it bursts into life for me.

[Wet Blanket]

I always thought The World's End would have been a much better film if it just concentrated on a group of old friends whose lives have headed in different directions returning home for a pub crawl and foregone all the aliens and shit

[Blumf]

I always thought The World's End would have been a much better film if it just concentrated on a group of old friends whose lives have headed in different directions returning home for a pub crawl and foregone all the aliens and shit

Concept closely related to Arthur's Dyke (2001), and Peter's Friends (1992).

Going on the evidence, I think it'd be a terrible film.

[greenman]

I always thought The World's End would have been a much better film if it just concentrated on a group of old friends whose lives have headed in different directions returning home for a pub crawl and foregone all the aliens and shit

You could perhaps argue that Wright himself picked up on this aspect being the stronger element though as the genre film stuff is given less focus than the previous two cornetto films, the alien stuff is only hinted at slightly until what halfway though? longer?

[Small Man Big Horse]

The first half is a by-numbers Tarantino road movie. When it goes mental is when it bursts into life for me.

That's how I feel too, though I remember seeing it the cinema and only my friend and I finding it funny once the mayhem kicks off, whereas the rest of the cinema was deathly quiet.

[Kane Jones]

That's how I feel too, though I remember seeing it the cinema and only my friend and I finding it funny once the mayhem kicks off, whereas the rest of the cinema was deathly quiet.

Yeah, I think we're in the minority. The transition from being a decent thriller to a garish, funny, 80s style horror is why it works. I'm probably more of a fan of the latter, but I enjoy both aspects.

[Dex Sawash]

The Longest Yard [/tag]

[Wet Blanket]

Concept closely related to Arthur's Dyke (2001), and Peter's Friends (1992).

Going on the evidence, I think it'd be a terrible film.

It's already a terrible film, but the first half is better than the aliens half

[popcorn]

I love the idea of Dusk Til Dawn turning into an 80s horror movie, but it's done as tacky 90s shit rather than campy retro fun. All that Buffy/Bablyon 5-like makeup. Gross.

[Gregory Torso]

mother!

Absolutely. If it was a David Lynch style nightmare vision of an writer becoming ridiculously popular, I would have loved it.

[greenman]

I love the idea of Dusk Til Dawn turning into an 80s horror movie, but it's done as tacky 90s shit rather than campy retro fun. All that Buffy/Bablyon 5-like makeup. Gross.

The initial bar scenes  decent but I'd agree Rodriguez is no Carpenter or anything close to it and the two halves of the film don't feel like they work together at all for me.

I seem to be alone in preferring The Worlds End to Shaun of the Dead, I wouldn't call either a classic but the drama in the former was reasonably effective and Frost was IMHO much better than Peg is the more dramatic role.

[New Jack]

I always thought The World's End would have been a much better film if it just concentrated on a group of old friends whose lives have headed in different directions returning home for a pub crawl and foregone all the aliens and shit

Yeah I posted this opinion recently, as soon as they have the fight in the bogs and its OMG ROBOTS I lost interest

Even pretending there's some... Political allegory, like, I dunno, they bleed blue, yeah, it's TORY BRITAIN, and it's all a metaphor for how they want to control the working class, keep the youth hypnotised with technology, question nothing.... Nah, doesn't fly, they sabotaged a genuinely interesting, relatable and amusing Legend Gary Never Grew Up plot for SPECIAL EFFECTS

[popcorn]

What I think World's End doesn't get enough credit for is its setup-and-callback structure. It was something Wright was good at before that point, but World's End really nails the details in that area... every idea is carefully introduced and capitalised on. It's a brick shithouse structurally, even if you don't like the stuff that... the shithouse... contains.

[New Jack]

The shit...!

Think it was very well made, competent as fuck and all that but yknow. No thanks

[mothman]

Peter's Friends suddenly becoming an alien invasion drama would be BRILLIANT. It does get a bit mawkish towards the end, and not even Tony Slattery's character leaving improves matters.

[Clownbaby]

From the way Boiler Room was described on the back of the DVD  I was expecting something more intense. I don't know what exactly. It just kind of fizzled out.

Also I really didn't like how Mindhorn panned out.

Also, first time watching Rango, I thought it seemed pretty interesting and the idea of a lil chameleon with a Hawaiian shirt wandering through the desert trying to understand who he is while an owl mariachi band ominously sing about his impending death was quite interesting for a kids film, then it just turns into your average cartoon homage of a western.

[Clownbaby]

Almost contradicting the above, I think mother! would've been immeasurably improved if it had gone right down the very blackly comic route, and it wouldn't have taken that many tweaks to do so.  As it is, its more...extreme moments (one can't help but think of Anchorman's "boy, that escalated quickly!") seem completely ridiculous with the morose high-foreheaded posturing it otherwise concentrates on.

Yeah I agree. I was cackling and pulling baffled faces the whole time thinking "this is fuckin mad I love it, what the fuck, I haven't seen something this bizarre in ages" and then when I Googled reviews of it out of curiosity afterwards, finding out it was a big religious metaphor made it much less interesting

[Clownbaby]

First half of Dusk til Dawn suggests the film will end up less shit than it does.

Oh yeah that was a disappointing one.

[EOLAN]

As a 13 year old who missed all the furore over the Crying Game, who was interested in Irish history, saw Michael Collins as my first cinema experience, I was very excited with the opening to the Crying Game when I found a VHS copy recorded off TV.

Started promisingly as the IRA kidnap and prepare to execute a British soldier but then seem to go all astray until the final ten minutes; when Blackadder's Queen Elizabeth tracks down Gerry Adams' vocal guy to kill a British judge. All those things in the middle did seem rather lacklustre from what I was hoping for - at the time.

My opinion may have matured a bit on this viewpoint these days.